Testing B.C.’s Charging Network with a Gorgeous Road Trip in a Genesis GV60 Magma

This all started with a proposal to test British Columbia’s electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure. How? By driving an EV through 2,600 km, following the tour my boys’ choir took when I was 11. Never one to leave any cliché unmolested, yes, the choirmaster did have us sing “Climb Every Mountain” and “The Hills Are Alive.” Summarized thoughts on that nostalgic story angle? B.C. has changed since 1977. Fortunately, there’s still plenty to relate.

It all starts with the yank of a dense black car cover.

Ta-da! Genesis literally unveils its new vehicles when a “guest” (as Genesis prefers over “customer”) drives it off the lot.

This Korean luxury brand has granted 11 days in its newest “electrified” (as Genesis prefers over “electric”) vehicle. It’s also the first high-performance vehicle featuring the moniker Magma.

The GV60 Magma is electrified muscle. With a peak output of 641 horsepower, 790 Newton-metres (according to a press release), and a top speed of 264 km/h, it’s the fastest EV Genesis has ever made.

Magma is essentially proto lava. And one brazen dresser, this EV exudes a blinding orange. It may as well be a four-wheeled, two-engined, oversexed rolling police target. I quietly vow to resist enthusiasts’ temptation. But sometimes, well, you know the cliché: in for a penny, in for a Newton-metre. Exciting blasts of torque follow, detailed below.

As part of your vehicle’s unveiling, a “Genesis Experience Manager” (not sales staff) guides you through its operation and custom programming. Having read my bio, she has already programmed some satellite radio stations I might like. I soon dub the Genesis as Magma Maggie Mae, after the constantly repeating Rod Stewart classic that haunts these oldie programs. Let’s drive!

Finding charging stations in central Vancouver is easier than finding pot shops. This experiment unrolls on B.C.’s more remote highways.

Maggie rumbles north. Yes, it’s electric, but it drives and sounds like it harbours a tank engine. I prefer this noise to the Star Trek hum of most EVs. At Horseshoe Bay, we board the evening ferry to Nanaimo. While shooting photos, I quickly learn how easy it is to play Spot the Magma. Even on a ferry that accommodates more than 300 vehicles, it’s uniquely evident, like magma shooting through a coal seam. I double-vow not to speed. Much.

The next morning, the trip truly begins with a leisurely four- to five-hour drive across Vancouver Island to Tofino. Long travels like this are always fun; there’s 1) what you plan versus 2) what happens. When those two Venn diagrams don’t overlap, your most memorable stories (if not always most fun) emerge.

Example? We can’t stop at Cathedral Grove, a pair of roadside walks through centuries-old forest, featuring trees even OG eco-fantasy fabulist Tolkien wouldn’t believe. Even though it's October, the Grove’s parking lots and nearby road verges on either side are utterly crammed. Today’s other unwelcome memory? The ChargePoint app’s distressing lack of facility onsite at Tofino’s Hotel Zed.

Taking their guests’ comfort seriously, if not themselves, Hotel Zed is a hilariously campy inn whose decorating evokes 1970s discos. Maggie fits in; oranges, browns, and retro phones abound, all very cheeky. But wait, what does an app have to do with it?

Unlike any old gas pump, you can’t refuel your EV in public without yet another app cluttering your beleaguered phone, vampiring your personal info. There are two low-speed ChargePoint stations at the Hotel Zed. Looking forward to milking what’s left of a disappearing afternoon, I’ll just download the app and charge Maggie first.

The app won’t accept my “zip code.”

If you have a pulse, you’ve heard 1) Canada doesn’t have zip codes and 2) B.C. is in Canada.

Sadly, swearing doesn’t help fix ChargePoint app. I check more than once. Clearly, when travelling with an EV, you’ll need more than one electricity supplier. Being the first out of the gas station, Tesla has learned much. This American company’s app requires your name, credit card number, and little else for its fast sweet juice. I employ it at Tesla’s Supercharger (TS, the name says it all) lineup in downtown Tofino, 4 km from Hotel Zed. It works, but there goes the afternoon.

Over the next nine days, I’ll search out TSs, often settling for BC Hydro EV stations, whose app grumpily functions. ChargePoint is dead to me, and FLO Network is on the hospice waiting list. Inhale slowly.

Tofino has surged but has not yet been spoiled by tourism. If lodging prices break your budget, Ucluelet makes a scenic nearby substitute. Important: The Pacific Rim National Park offers its own pair of ancient forest walks to sub for Cathedral Grove. Fallen wooden Methuselahs span ravines, then get shaved and staved into railing supports that become bridges. And viewing sunset from Tinwis Bay will bring tears to your eyes. Or is that the ocean air? Either way, rest up; there’s loads of driving and charging to come.

During the six-hour route to Port Hardy, where you get an 18-hour ferry north, I stop twice for TS charges. And being a Monday, found parking, then marvelled at Cathedral Grove’s walks.

At 1:30 a.m., one and a half days later at Canada’s deepest natural harbour, Maggie is charging.

Why so late? BC Ferries kick you off if you arrive in the middle of the night. You’ll need a hotel reservation or amphetamines. At a TS station 2 km from disembarkation, in the time it takes to walk 800 m in Prince Rupert’s perennial gentle rain to check in at my hotel and return, the charge has exceeded 80 per cent. Thereon, charging slows, protecting your battery from harm. But apps charge you extra for remaining parked when you’ve attained 100 per cent, so, 80 per cent is great.

We’re 750 km north of Vancouver; twice that distance by highway. The temperature is colder, the air fresher. Over the next two days, for quarter-hours on end, I share the tarmac with just thoughts, satellite radio, and the odd roadside bear.

The verb “lumber” exists for a reason. When lumbering timber-laden 40-foot trailers appear ahead, passing opportunities aren’t uncommon on plateaus, plains, and straightaways between mountains. When it’s time to pass, I signal, hit the Boost button on the steering wheel, hit the accelerator, and feel Maggie heave forward.

Warning: Maggie goes from zero to 200 km faster than the speed of speech.

Take it to the track or lose your civic privileges as a driver. Imagine being transported four seconds into the future. The word “accelerate” lacks testosterone for describing this orange space capsule. Fortunately, Northern B.C.’s walls of bright yellow aspens are not caching speed traps. And before you know it, we’re back in our own lane, cruise-controlling the speed limit.

I stop for the night in Smithers (insert Simpsons joke here), a pretty ski town with little use for sidewalks. “Everyone here has a vehicle,” explains Dustin Ruth, media liaison for the Northern BC Tourism Association, the next night. Stretching from the province's width to Alberta, then north from Prince Rupert and George to Alaska and the Yukon, Dustin’s patch is larger than any other in B.C. And at 6’4”, so is he.

“Mmm!” I agree. We’re gobbling dude food, a vegan’s nightmare of smoked meats and local sausage at Trench, a lively micro-brewery in Prince George. This funky blue-collar town exudes gritty charm, like Quebec’s Trois-Rivières or Ontario’s Sudbury or Kingston (without all those Tragically Hip signs). His knowledge and love of Northern B.C. show in tips for short, vigorous roadside hikes like Butze Rapids in Prince Rupert and Chun T’oh Whudujut/Ancient (rain)Forest Provincial Park, 800 km inland.

More local knowledge: 100 Mile House, logically, was about 100 miles from Lillooet, en route to the Cariboo Gold Rush of the 1860s. At various miles, prospectors could get a hot meal and a bed, switch out tired horses, and maybe do something illicit. I learned this from the Ghost Tour at the Haunted 108 marker.

We requested interviews, but the ghosts have yet to return AutoTrader’s astral calls.

I don’t believe in ghosts, but who doesn’t love a spooky story? Moreover, the proceeds these volunteer docent-ghostbusters raise from your goosebumps go to preserving 108’s aging but charming Victorian buildings. That’s something all Canadians should believe in.

TS stations are less common this far north and central. At 8 a.m. next morning, 70 Mile House, bizarrely, is not 30 miles from 100 Mile House. And for some reason, its high-speed BC Hydro EV charging station won’t launch.

Though mistier than a teenage memory, it thankfully isn’t raining this morning. From outside the soundproofed cabin, you can hear a muffled Maggie announcing the connection failed; robot for “I have a headache.” Revenge of the ghosts? Or maybe because there’s too little money in my account.

Rather than milking my credit card like Tesla’s app, BC Hydro EV and FLO demand that users upload funds before charging. If you’re trying to charge but your account’s dropped below $10, the high-speed 50-kW chargers won’t even get out of bed.

Or maybe the station’s broken; even after loading more money, it still won’t work. However, after several attempts, its lower-speed twin does. My breathing slows. About 90 minutes later, Maggie’s got plenty of juice to get us to Cache Creek’s TS, a 20-km detour on today’s 280-km trip to Pemberton.

First, though, this woolly fog: For about 20 minutes, we slow far below the speed limit, Maggie’s hazards flashing. Is that paranoid behaviour? Tell that to the ugly collision I pass near Chasm (so named for its 300-metre cleft in the landscape, but I don’t stop, sadly; it would be just like the road I’m not seeing now). Ambulance and police emergency light bars emerge first through the haze, blocking the entire opposing lane. Given this collision was head-on, we can assume the error was made by the driver coming from my lane. Maggie gingerly proceeds to the right verge.

Then it’s over. Minutes later, we descend from the clouds into the most dramatic drive yet.

“Here Comes the Sun” should be playing on the Beatles Channel; instead, it’s some Ringo excrescence from 2024.

Still, sun! Maggie soon accepts a full meal from the TS in Cache Creek, a delay of over 40 minutes. Then, we drive to Pemberton, stopping first for a break in Lillooet’s stunning arid canyon. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful.

Visit Lillooet’s brewery and sit outside with their fragrant West Coast IPA. But first, apply sunscreen. You’re on one of Canada’s driest, hottest patios. The temperature belies the October date.

Now, prepare yourself for the drive of a lifetime. This is where the Sea-to-Sky Highway launches, and this introductory leg is its sexiest. Yes, even after over 2,000 km of dramatic cordillera.

Sartre once said, “Hell is other people.” Hell is really other drivers, and this is Heaven. The GV60 Magma — no longer Maggie but some hulking, dancing decathlete — hugs, swivels, and mocks turns so sharp you could cut yourself. The views beggar description, so let’s leave it at SCENERY = GOOD.

Later: The Pemberton Valley Lodge includes charging stations in its visitors’ fees. And privately owned, they don’t need apps. And ah, Pemberton! As a 20-something, I passed time here soaking in local hot springs. Like the boys’ choir tour, it’s changed since.

As Ucluelet is to Tofino, Pemberton is to Whistler.

These more affordable and lovely alternatives are just short commutes down scenic (and in this case thrilling-to-drive) tarmac. Art nerds should spend an hour in Whistler’s Audain Art Museum for its many Emily Carrs and some mind-blowing miniature murals.

Or just get home. Noon, 11 days after departing Kitsilano, Vancouver, Maggie arrives where we started, unscratched, half-charged, and perhaps redolent of curious traveler.

The following is true. Not once throughout 2,670 km did I ever step all the way down on the accelerator. May Genesis take me trackside next Magma it releases.