My wife and I had planned to go to Harrah's Southern CA for a nice 10th anniversary weekend without the kids. But, as most parents know, it's never that easy. So, on the Saturday of our getaway, my 6 year old had a birthday party at Jumping Jacks in San Dimas. The night before, I didn't have a chance to fully charge the 40kw battery on my 2021 Nissan Leaf. As it is, this particular version only gets an EPA estimated 150 miles on a single charge. While that is more than enough to get to Harrah's from our house, it wasn't enough to get there after picking up my kids from my mother-in-laws, then to San Dimas, then back to my mother-in-laws, then to Harrah's.
So, we decided to divide and conquer. I dropped off my two older boys with my wife at the party and I took the baby with me to the charging station for what I thought would be a quick 10-15 minute charge just to get to 80%. There was no wait at one of the three chargers in the large parking lot near Wells Fargo. I saw a Tesla and a Hyunda IONIQ charging. I plugged in and got 50kw of charge right away.
I set the AC on, put the window sunshade up and my 3 year old watched Coco Melon on his phone and I watched a Harry Potter movie on mine while we charged. It was supposed to be only 10-15 minutes.
When my son asked for a juice, I got up and walked around the car to stretch my legs and help him with his juice box. I walked by the charger and was amazed that 45 minutes had gone by and that I was at 96% state of charge. We quickly drove the 0.4 miles back to Jumping Jacks, where my son had a great time with his big brothers.
We dropped the kids off at my in-law's with over 70% charge and my wife an I were on our way to Harrah's.
There's not much to say about charging stations. This one was clean, easy to access, and conveniently located to where I wanted to go. Or should is say where I wanted to EVgo... read more