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Overnight Charging Locations in Vancouver, BC?

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Will be taking delivery of my 60 kWh Model S next month and one of my very first road trips will be the 150-mile journey from Seattle to Vancouver for the weekend. I'm having trouble determining where best I can park and charge my car. Since I didn't get the dual charger option, I expect to need at least 5-6 hours just to be able to get home, more if I can't find a charger supplying a full 240V/40A. Realistically, I think this means overnight.

I'll be staying within walking distance to BC Place Stadium, and already quite nervous about leaving my car unattended somewhere. Can anyone advise my best options? So far I have the following;

  • Sun Country Highway lists a CS90 (90A?) charger right at BC Place Stadium. Perfect location, plenty of amps, but it's listed as "Pending Installation"
  • Recargo lists a Blink charger a few blocks away at the Vancouver Post Office (333 Dunsmuir). But it's not clear whether overnight parking/charging is allowed. I'm also not sure it's even advisable to leave my car at a post office overnight.
  • PlugShare lists several chargers in the waterfront area which would probably work well if I was staying closer to the water. But most seem to be either unsuitable for overnight charging (lots close at midnight) or prohibitively expensive ($7.50/hr at EasyPark lots).

Could really use some input from anyone familiar with the area. Thanks for any help!
 
Hi Brad,

Congrats on the purchase. Your life, as you know it, will never be the same. It will be better. I'm from the suburbs of Vancouver (Langley) and live right close to the border -- one of my ideas is for a roadtrip to Seattle in the summer.

I've posted your request over to the Vancouver Electric Vehicle Association email list and invited them to add their thoughts to this thread -- and if I hear anything I'll let you know. You're welcome to charge at my place but I'm a bit in the middle of nowhere - close to the border though. But you never know there could be a supercharger by then..just 40 minutes or so until Elon tells all.

Dale
 
Thanks ElectricFarmBoy! I appreciate you reaching out to others who might have additional information. With so many owners in the Seattle area, I expect that this type of trip will be fairly common, so any information about suitable charging spots we can collect here would be useful.

Definitely appreciate the offer to charge; if I have reason to stop in Langley I will look you up! I just installed a 14-50 outlet in my garage if you find yourself needing a charge on Seattle's Eastside anytime.

From the announcement this morning, there will be a Supercharger on I-5 between Seattle and Vancouver by this Fall. Might just convince me to pony up and add Supercharging to my car.
 
From VEVA I've learned this:

Stay at the wonderful hotel on Granville Island (Granville Island Hotel - Vancouvers Island Oasis ) , and leave your vehicle at the Powertech/Edibles Canada location just a short walk away. This is one of the best places to park and stay near the downtown core. Clean Energy Consulting |Engineering Consulting | Knowledge Centre

There is also a good spot in the Waterfront parkade directly adjacent to the sea-bus/skytrain station.

The Nissan dealer also chimed in to offer a spot at their shop too -- I'll Private Message you all the details.

Lots of Friendlies in YVR it seems!

And Granville Island is a seriously nice play to stay too.
 
Thanks again ElectricFarmBoy for collecting that info and also to those that PM'd me. For this particular trip I already have arrangements to stay at a hotel very near BC Place Stadium. We'll be in town for a sporting event and staying with a group so the location is fixed.

Even with that constraint, I've learned of several possibilities and am humbled at the generosity of the EV community. Both the Granville Island location and the Nissan dealer are very close options. I do wonder if a picture of a Tesla charging at a Nissan dealership would speed along Elon's Supercharger plans for the Vancouver area!

Thanks again to everyone, I am much more confident I'll have a safe place to charge up and I owe it all to the great community here.
 
I ventured up for my trip to Vancouver this week and experienced some teething pains learning to locate stations. I was in a bit of a tough spot because I arrived at my hotel nearly empty and couldn't afford a lot of roaming around.

570 Dunsmuir does exist, but I couldn't find any chargers at that location. It's just an office building. I even scouted around back, and eventually concluded that this is just the registered address of some organization that has actual chargers elsewhere. Here's Google Street View: http://goo.gl/maps/dvKjq

There is free charging (must still pay to park) at 200 Granville - 2 spots. It's a large public garage with a bunch of rates for partial hours/full days/nights/weekdays/weekends, but basically if you arrive after 6PM or on a weekend, you can expect to pay under $10 to park long enough to charge up. Garage is accessible 24/7 so suitable for charging anytime. A few other garages I found either closed at midnight or prohibited overnight parking. More info: http://www.recargo.com/sites/6124

As a last resort, the Fairmont Vancouver has valet parking available for $40 overnight.

If you can, bring a bike. It makes it much easier to a) scout out potential charging sites and b) get back to wherever you're staying after you drop off the car to charge. Vancouver is very bike-friendly.
 
thx for the update. Did you drive from Seattle area to Vancouver without any charging in between??

Almost. I have a 60 kWh MS and left the Eastside with a rated range of 210 miles. I calculated it would be a 145 mile trip and figured I would have plenty of range to spare. Unfortunately, I did not realize that high speeds cut down on range so drastically. I stayed at or above 70 MPH on most of the highways, and averaged roughly 375 Wh/mi energy usage for the overall trip. Well, some simple math will show that a 60 kWh battery using 375 Wh/mi will only net 160 miles of travel.

In Blaine I ended up charging for ~30 mins at the Tesla HPC on Peace Portal Drive because I realized it was starting to get iffy. This increased my rated range by 15 miles, and we arrived at the hotel in downtown Vancouver with just 23 miles of rated range remaining. So I technically would have made it with ~8 miles of rated range left, but that was cutting it way too close for me.

On the way back I charged up in Blaine again and drove a tad less aggressively for a greater safety net. It is definitely possible to do the trip on one range charge, but it doesn't leave you with very much wiggle room. I will be very glad when the SuperChargers are ready in Burlington.
 
I like using Easy Park lots (Parking Vancouver, Parking Downtown Vancouver, Public Monthly Parking, EasyPark
). Not for profit, green, social responsibility component, profits go back to city, blah, blah. I think all day/overnight parking at Pacific Centre downtown for $6 on weekends is a steal. Lots of time to charge up your 85KW paks, Forget your 4* hotel parking for an arm and a leg. Chargepoint says there are 3 chargers but I haven't parked there to confirm.
 
hummm thx but they don't seem to accept registration using US address. I've sent a mail about that...

Oops, Sorry about that. I went throught the registration process and they do have WA as a valid province (?) but do not accept US zip code.

Also oin their terms, they mention that they accept Credit card issued in Canada for payment.
You get the card for free and then add funds to your card, so I would have offered to register for you and ship the card, but that wouldn't have worked anyway...

Good luck
 
Oops, Sorry about that. I went throught the registration process and they do have WA as a valid province (?) but do not accept US zip code.

Also oin their terms, they mention that they accept Credit card issued in Canada for payment.
You get the card for free and then add funds to your card, so I would have offered to register for you and ship the card, but that wouldn't have worked anyway...

Good luck

I was able to open an account ok, after emailing the issue to them. You do need some human intervention to complete the process. I'm now waiting for a card in mail.


As for Vancouver trip... I'll probably use the super chargers that are yet to open, since I wont be gong there until August. Prior post tells me that I should...