[mohanphadnis]

Just completed my first 900 km+ journey in an EV, from Pune-Bhilai over "3 days"

The plan was to start from Pune on Day 1 and doing overnight stop at Aurangabad.
Next the plan was to leave from Aurangabad early the next day, do two charges in Amravati(lunch) and Nagpur(Teatime) and then reach Bhilai by night.
Was planning to do all the charges at tata power charging stations.

So it would be :-

Pune - Aurangabad - 224kms
Aurangabad - Amravati - 320 kms
Amravati - Nagpur - 155 kms
Nagpur-Bhilai - 255 kms

Started from home with 100% charge at 4:00pm and reached Aurangabad by 8:00pm. The tata power charger at Dhoot motors was showing as green and hence decided to charge right there (was 1km from my hotel)
The charger here was surprisingly slow and was going at only 11kW, but as this was a night halt it did not matter, left the car parked for 2 hours to get fully charged while I checked in the hotel and had dinner.
Post dinner when I reached Dhoot motors, a security guard says, we don't allow non MG vehicles after sun down by the order of management. Not certain if Tata power knows such a diktat being passed by the dealerships, but this will make life hell for everyone. If tata motors starts doing the same to MG customers, what is going to be their reaction?

Anyway, my car was charged, so I left for the hotel, got late getting out of hotel in the morning(price we pay for travelling with two kids) and could only leave by 7:30am. The Aurangabad-Jalna-mehkar-Karanja-Amravati has good surface but is dotted with umpteen number of speed breakers. I was able to reach Amravati Rangoli Pearl charging station at 12:30pm with just 3% of charge left .

This is a perfectly placed charger, it is set on the wall of the hotel, you can go and park here, and while the car sipped electrons to reach 60%, we went in and had our lunch for an hour. Got 18kW max from this charger.

Left from hotel at around 1:45pm and as I was going through Amravati's main street, TPMS gives pressure warning. A huge chunk of metal had lodged into my rear left, so had to get it fixed and then by the time we left Amravati, it was 3:00pm.

The 155kms from Amravati to Nagpur was uneventful and reached nagpur with 5% SOC left and I had some work in Nagpur, so decided to charge at the Jaika Nagpur charger. Reached here at 5:00pm.
Of all the chargers I have seen, this is the worst placed of all. The charger is in their delivery area, so of course you cannot park next to it. On the other side there is a fence, next to which people park their 2 wheelers, so if you want to charge during day time, you are parked almost on the road. "Silver lining": the charger did give 30kW, so I was able to get to 90% in 1:30. I could have left for Bhilai by 6:30pm. But because of the way Jaika charger is setup, you need to sit in the car while it charges, this meant I could not go into city and get work done and that was delayed after 6:30. This meant, my departure had to be delayed to next day. Honestly if I knew, that I would need to stay at the charging station while the car charged, I would have charged at Nangia motor's 50kW charger or EESL's 60kW charger at airport.
The folks in Jaika were very helpful, but whoever installed this charger, never really thought about how people will use it.

Anyway, that gave me some rest for night, got up early in the morning and reached Bhilai in 4 hours flat with 15% SOC still left.

Some learnings from this trip:-
1. Speed breakers on high speed roads are efficiency killers.
2. Even keeping cruise at 85kmph, on Jalna-Amravati 2 lane road I was able to manage an average speed of 60kmph+, the acceleration of kona really helps in propelling the car back to it's cruising speed. I was never able to achieve such high average speeds even in my XUV, when there was lesser traffic on this road.
3. Nothing beats Kona when it comes to overtaking traffic, by the time ICE are shifting down and building up thrust, you are already crossing the third truck.
4. Do not assume that you will be able to leave your car at a charging station. There are always some, where they will make you sit in the car. UGHHHH.....
5. The car itself is extremely good highway runner. at 85 on a good road, the lack of sound means you almost feel like the car is doing closer to 30. Braking performance was spectacular.
6. TPMS is godsend, if I had figured out the puncture after leaving Amravati, finding a puncture repair place would have been a nightmare.

I will request everyone to please update your check-ins on plugshare(with photos if possible) as we can use it as a yelp for chargers. It will also help people to chose better placed chargers.
Traffic police stopped me twice, complaining that I have irregular number plate!!! I have a Green HSRP provided by RTO, just because they have never seen a green plate, they think that it must be illegal .

[docelectric2020]

Originally Posted by denny_ace

SOC - 9% when you reached Salem? Perhaps the only occasion during your entire trip when the SOC dropped to a single digit figure. I would have had butterflies in my stomach in such a situation. But of course, with your careful planning you had an amazing EV trip I guess. Both the travellers and the car refuelling at the same time is pretty cool. Once there are more EV users on highways in the predictable future, let's hope that the number of charging stations/points too increase considerably.

ha yes, 9% may sound kinda low, but it does mean about 25kms with sedate driving and 35 - 40 kms with hypermiling. That would be enough for me to reach the next charging station.
But I was quite confident about charging at Zeon's.

[docelectric2020]

Originally Posted by ike

Does the range suffer if your headlights are kept on continuously? If it isn't a material factor I think driving at night will help to extract more range since the traffic is less. Or is it a no go since range is reduced considerably?

No, the range doesn't suffer much of a loss. The headlights are 65w bulbs which run on the 12V battery and this 12V battery gets charged when the car has its AC on. I guess that would roughly take about 1-2% max from the cars High-Voltage Battery pack.

[Mafia]

Originally Posted by mohanphadnis

Just completed my first 900 km+ journey in an EV, from Pune-Bhilai over "3 days"
.

Thank you for sharing.

You have covered all possible points in a good way. I must admit that I admire your courage to undertake the journey and drive to a single-digit charge before reaching a charging station.

One important point you make is about the puncher. Unplanned detours are high risk while travelling in an EV without charging infra.

[docelectric2020]

Originally Posted by sandeepmohan

Very nice.

If I am reading your stats right, you took your first break around the 110km mark, you were left with 62% charge and you topped up. However, for the second break, you were down to 9%, having traveled 177km. That a sharp drop from 87%. Is it due to elevation? That's 67km more distance covered compared to your first pit stop.

Hi. The first stint of 110kms took 87 mins with 38% battery being used.
The second stint of 177kms took 128 mins with 79% battery being used.

1. The second stint used up a lot of battery due to the higher average speed and I had to make a couple of stops for my kid's break.

2. Yes the elevation change does make a difference, however I am not sure how much of an elevation change this route has.

3. One reason maybe due to traffic, which is more during the first stint which means more braking and more regen. The second stint from Tindivanam to Attur is traffic free which means lesser need to slow down with regen, hence more battery usage.

Originally Posted by carthick1000

There could be multiple reasons. The 3 most important influencers I can think of are :
1. Increase in average speed (which inherently means stronger accelerations consuming more power too) : Leg2 is 7kmph faster than Leg1. This is easier to understand if efficiency figures are compared. Here a comparison. I have used usable capacity of 40kWh for MG ZS EV

2.Increase in net elevation difference between Leg1 and Leg2:

3. Time of day. Leg1 is done at slightly cooler weather than Leg2 and Airconditioning has to work a bit harder during Leg2, if cabin temperature is set the same. Minor but still has some influence.

Wow. This is spot on.
May I know how did u get the elevation data between two regions ?

Originally Posted by Kannan

I can think of two reasons for the consumption.

1. The section between Chennai to Ulundurpet is a 4 lane, but the traffic in this route is quite high and with trucks in this lane, more frequent braking and overtaking are required.
2. The section between Ulundurpet and Attur is a section where the road keeps switching between 4 lanes and 2 lanes and the elevation also slight keep changing. When travelling in 2 lanes, most of the time braking and overtaking is required due to a lot of peekaboo manoeuvre which almost all the cars do.

On the contrary, Chennai to Tindivanam traffic was quite dense that day.
EVs tend to give better range with traffic like this as we slow down regularly to match out speed with the traffic's flow. Slowing down means more regen with my Kers at level 3 which in turn leads to lesser battery usage.

The Tindivanam to Attur traffic wasn't as dense as the first stint, hence lesser need to use regen. Adding this to the higher average speed of my second stint, battery usage went up by 78% compared to the 38% of the first stint.

[carthick1000]

Originally Posted by docelectric2020

May I know how did u get the elevation data between two regions ?

I used this link which can calculate elevation upto 3 locations and you can use the chart or map to visualise them. There are several other tools to do this as well.

OT: For my Model 3, I use a self hosted datalogger called Teslamate which can show quite a lot of information polled via Tesla’s API. An example of a drive including Drive power, range, SoC, elevation of route and the various temperatures:



Hope other OEMS follow suite of providing such info to users.

[rkph96]

Traffic police stopped me twice, complaining that I have irregular number plate!!! I have a Green HSRP provided by RTO, just because they have never seen a green plate, they think that it must be illegal .[/quote]

This happened to me once on my Revolt( RV400 ). The traffic police are so ignorant in Hyderabad that they wouldn't even know that green HSRP is meant for EVs , they even tried to slap a traffic challan thinking that it is illegal.

[Tokengrip]

I was able to reach Amravati Rangoli Pearl charging station at 12:30pm with just 3% of charge left .

A bit touch and go for my taste. No moments of panic..hyper miling during this leg..? At any point where u concerned about not making it.?

[Rossiter]

Back in August, did a ~1800 km drive in my Kona. Was a seamless drive experience thanks to the good network of DC fast chargers across the main highways in S.India now. Attached is the route map&the drive stats, followed by some brief trip notes as below.

Route planned:
Day 1: Bangalore - Chennai.
Day 2: Chennai.
Day 3: Chennai - Coimbatore-Alathur.
Day 4: Alathur-Surrounding areas-Alathur.
Day 5: Alathur-Coimbatore-Coorg (Siddapur).
Day 6: Coorg.
Day 7: Coorg-Bangalore.



Started Bangalore to Chennai with 58% SoC with the usual plan to have 20min charge stops at Krishnagiri & Vellore each. Just as we were nearing Shoolagiri, had a bad tyre failure/cut, writing off the tyre&had to opt for a Bridgestone replacement (stock is Nexen) from a shop nearby.



One hour later was back on the road, charged up at Zeoncharging Krishnagiri, and later at MG Vellore before we reached Chennai.
Total journey time including the unplanned stops+charge- 6.5 hrs. ITC Grand Chola were happy enough to provide a 16A socket to charge up overnight.



Had about 100-150km of driving around in Chennai to do, so started with 70% SoC. Got the stock low resistance Nexen tyre in Chennai, so had it fixed because I didn't want the range to drop because of one mismatched tyre. Finished my work&got back to ITC around 11pm and plugged in.

Was at full 100% 8 hours later, and was good to go by 7 am. This was going to be the longest I'd driven the Kona in a single day ~600km. We had a relaxed start, left for Coimbatore by around 1pm. Reached Zeon Charging, Tindivanam by 2.45 & left by 3.30 after a lunch+charging stop.



Next stop was Zeon at Attur. This stretch (Tinidivanam-Attur) was empty and made for some really fast progress. Did 180km in 1.75 hours and as a result, reached A2B/Zeon at Attur with 10% left, around 5.15pm. Plugged in and left the car to have a coffee&snack.



Within a few minutes, there was a crowd around the Kona made up of people who were really interested in the cost/range etc. Interest in EVs are real&looks promising! Left here at 6pm, would've left ~15 min sooner (the car was done charging), but spent that time talking to people.
Next stop was Zeon Avinashi. We didn't have to stop there (had enough range to reach Zeon Navakkarai) but it was a new location and wanted to check it out for future travel plans. Reached the location (Hotel Tiruppur Sree Annapoorna) around 8.45pm.

There was a brand new Nexon charging up there, and he was already at around 85% SoC, and the charging speed had already dropped to ~15kW. He wanted another 10 min so decided to let him finish. But that 10 min turned into 45 mins because he was insistent that he get the full 100%. The Tata salesman who sold him the car had fed him some BS about the battery getting damaged if he didn't charge to 100% every time+an even bigger "golden" tip to not touch the car when charging. The owner wouldn't listen to me no matter what, so gave up&waited for him to hit 100%. I could've had my dinner in this time, but another Nexon showed up and I didn't want to lose my spot having waited this long. Finally the Nexon hit 100% and I plugged in and went to have my dinner. Stopped the charge at 50% and left around 10pm.



Dropped the wife off at Coimbatore by 10.45,carried on towards my place in Alathur,KL. At the Walayar TN-KL border,was stopped by the KL cops for entry checks,but they were more interested in the Kona!15 min later,they let me go.Reached my place around 12AM. Plugged in to my 7.2kW portable charger, at the 20A setting. Normally I charge as slow as possible, since I spend at least a full day here without driving anywhere. But I had to run around the next day, and I wanted a quick charge up. By 7AM it was at 80%.

Drove into the new Kuthiran tunnel (finally!) towards Thrissur, was done running errands and back home by 6pm with 9% left. Plugged in again for a 100% charge at 20A, since I had to leave for Coorg at 7 am the next day, with a distance of 390km to be covered.

Left by 7 am, reached Coimbatore by 8, picked up the wife and attended a function near Brookefields Mall. Since the mall had a Zeon 25kW DC charger, charged up from 70 to 90% while we were away at the function (convenient!). Finally we left Coimbatore around 12.30 .



Although on paper,the Kona can do Alathur to Mysore without charging, the climb up Dhimbam ghats on the way would kill the range,and there's no major downhill section on the other side so wouldn't gain much by regen. After a scenic, rainy drive, reached Mysore by 4.30 with 22% SoC.

We had added exactly 20% at Coimbatore, so if we hadn't charged there, would've reached Mysore with just 2% left (range anxiety kicks in below 5% for me!).
Zeon at Mall of Mysore is a great location, with good food options in and around the mall.Spent exactly 30 min here and left. Left Mall of Mysore by 5.15 and we reached Evolve Back in Siddapur around 7pm and 105km later, the last 30km of which was beautiful, winding forest roads. Had around 28% but didn't plan on going anywhere the next day so I didn't plug in when we reached. Plugged in around 12.30 PM the next day, the resort very kindly ran an extension box for me from a socket near their front office. Allowed it to charge really slowly at 10A/2.2kW overnight, since we were going to have a late mid morning start around noon.



Left for Bangalore by 12pm & a 100% charge. The plan was to beat potential traffic buildup on the infamous Bangalore-Mysore highway by getting through during off-peak hours. Drove through non-stop and luckily had very light traffic.
Reached Bangalore around 4pm with 28% left!



Was a fantastic drive, and the detailed charge stops with cost is up in the 1st tweet of this very long (apologies!) thread.
This is an effort to prove that multi-day drive itineraries are easily done in an EV without range anxiety, at a fraction of ICE cost!

[mohanphadnis]

Originally Posted by Tokengrip

A bit touch and go for my taste. No moments of panic..hyper miling during this leg..? At any point where u concerned about not making it.?

I was actually keeping a cruise at 85 kmph and covered 320 kms, with repeated slowdowns and speedups on so many speed breakers, in 5 hours on 2 lane roads, so I was not hypermiling at all.

As long as the difference between predicted range and remaining distance does not fall below 10km I dont start worrying. I knew there were no uphills in the end, and the last section was slow and in city, If you know the roads you will be going on, you can be pretty confident of making it. Plus I have relatives/friends in Amravati, so worst case scenario, I would charge in their place.

[MADMAX111]

Reading the experiences above, realised no EV for me till Battery swap facility available widely or Tesla type superchargers available in India. As of now EV appear good only for city use.
My 2 cents

[mohan41]

Originally Posted by Rossiter

Back in August, did a ~1800 km drive in my Kona. ....
This is an effort to prove that multi-day drive itineraries are easily done in an EV without range anxiety, at a fraction of ICE cost!

Thanks for the detailed write-up. I am still a bit skeptical because there is a good chance of getting stuck in a massive traffic jam when returning to Bangalore almost on any highway, due to multitude of reasons like heavy rain or accident blocking some lanes etc. Last Monday I was returning to Bangalore from Shimoga and it took 2.5 hours to reach home after crossing Tumkur with very slow traffic all the way till NICE road entry. In such scenarios, with the need to keep running AC in the car, it can get tough.

[mohanphadnis]

Originally Posted by mohan41

Thanks for the detailed write-up. I am still a bit skeptical because there is a good chance of getting stuck in a massive traffic jam when returning to Bangalore almost on any highway, due to multitude of reasons like heavy rain or accident blocking some lanes etc. Last Monday I was returning to Bangalore from Shimoga and it took 2.5 hours to reach home after crossing Tumkur with very slow traffic all the way till NICE road entry. In such scenarios, with the need to keep running AC in the car, it can get tough.

I would not worry about the traffic jams in an EV. In the kona, climate generally takes 0.5kW, that means you lose about 8.5 kms of range if the AC is running for 2 hours. So unless you are a bit too close to comfort to empty, this wont be a problem.

[mac187]

Things are looking up for EV users in India. For drives within the city, second car or beater car, EV's make a compelling case. When we 24hr power in major cities in India, What is the point of building a charging infrastructure in highways or tier 2/3 towns? There is larger problem we need to solve before we can expect taking EV's for long drives.

Personally I will not be able to enjoy my drive due to the range anxiety. My OCD will kick into over drive.

[sirjokhi]

Thank you for the post. It shows that you need to have a lot of planning beforehand to enjoy the EV vehicle properly. The charging time is another issue incase we want to reach somewhere. As you mentioned, the Nexon guy wasn't ready to compromise. I believe this will lead to arguments in the future if the number of EV vehicles rises. We might be looking at hours of wait before charge? Who knows. The infrastructure will have to be updated with time and for now, I don't personally feel EV is the right choice for long highway trips. It adds more time, anxiety & hassle just for a simple journey.