400 km monsoon road trip in MG ZS EV: Only 25 mins of total charging

Driving the electric vehicle in a silent, deep forest gave me a great feeling. My wife and I heard only insects, birds and the beautiful sound of rain for a few hours.

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Monsoon drive in an EV

Even after driving more than 1,20,000 km in my MG ZS EV, I still had a little range anxiety when it came to a much-awaited monsoon road trip (Tirupur-Valparai-Athirappilly Waterfalls-Tirupur). Once I had seen Zeon’s type 2 charger live in Valparai, I decided to undertake this drive. It was my dream to drive this route in an EV while it was raining in the monsoon.

I started with the battery at 100% from Tirupur. Reached Aliyar Dam with 72% left. I had driven 93 km with the A/C. Altitude was almost plain.

From here to Valparai Wild County Inn Cottage (around 36 km uphill), it consumed 23%. The SoC was 49%. The drive was amazing. The initial plan was to charge the EV at IBEX Zeon charger during the lunch break, but it had enough charge. So, I skipped charging and had lunch at Wild County Inn Cottage, which was on the way to Athirappilly.

After the Kerala checkpost, the road was not good for 8-10 km. Apart from this, the entire route was perfect. Driving the EV in a silent, deep forest gave me a great feeling. My wife and I heard only insects, birds and the beautiful sound of rain for a few hours. My wife opened the sunroof and watched a solo elephant around 30 meters from the road. This was a thrilling moment. Lush greenery and small waterfalls were so beautiful.

When we reached Ahtirappilly the SoC was 37%. I usually ask hotels for overnight charging, but this time the manager refused to allow charging and I did not have the energy to convince him. Anyway, I had plenty of backup options in Kerala.

There was no rain for a few minutes in the morning and we had a great time at Athirappilly waterfalls.

On the return journey, I had to do top-up charging for 10 minutes at the Zeon CAB Trissur 24 kW charger and again for 15 minutes at the Zeon Walayar 60 kW charger.

The total journey was around 410 km. The charging time was around 25 minutes (including food break).

Once EV, always EV.

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