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Bangalore to Noida, Agra & back in my EQS: A 6,300 km EV road trip

30th May 2025, 15:30 by Ananth Iyer

For doing long distance trips, you need a car that can practically delivery a range of 400 kilometers.

BHPian indianytheroad recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

Last week of April, 2025, we decided to embark upon a long road trip predominantly dedicated to some pilgrimage type of activity across India. We started from Bengaluru and following was the route plan that we followed.

- Bengaluru -> Hyderabad -> Bhopal -> Noida ->Haridwar -> Rishikesh -> Vrindavan -> Agra -> Ayodhya -> Bhopal -> Hyderabad -> Bengaluru

Total statistics for the trip are as follows.

Car - Mercedes Benz, EQS SUV
Charging Amount Rs. 26,000 plus some charging using domestic 15A chargers
Average efficiency 189 Wh/km

Leg 1

Over the years Big Bay India | Highway Pitstop on Hyderabad Road has become a breakfast place for my road trips towards north. This time there was an additional reason, this place has a JIO-BP Pulse DC charger with two cabinets and four guns. Each gun delivers 60KW and it is generally not very occupied.

We started from home around 10:00 AM and arrived at Big Bay at 12:30 PM. We had our lunch and during that time the car was charged to 95 percent during that time. We were working with a practical range of around five hundred kilometers so this charge was sufficient for us to reach Hyderabad.

We drove for another two and half hours and stopped at Blue Moon Hampi Delight Motel & Resort near Midthuru. This place has a Hyundai charger run by ChargeZone. This is a pretty good place for stopping because charger is manned and there is alway somebody to fix issue if there are any. Also this has two chargers with two guns each of 150KW and 30KW. Since I did not really need charging, I connected the car anyway, had my bio break and tea and then left 20 minutes later.

After this we drove continuously for around five and half hours and reached Hyderabad. I generally stay around Gachibowli area because it is easy to get in and out through Nehru ORR and I found multiple hotels in that area which have good charging infrastructure. Couple of them that I have stayed in past are Oakwood Residences by Kapil and Sheraton. This time I stayed at Sheraton. It has a ChargeZone charger. When I reached it was occupied since the hotel has a large fleet of EV cars for their own use.

Connected the car in the morning, and it was charged to 100% in two hours.

Leg 2

I got ready and checked out of the hotel at around 8:15 AM. Drove for three hours till JIO-BP station in Armoor. Arrived at this station at 11:15 am. Charged the car there for around 45 minutes. They have a Wildbeans cafe in the petrol station so you can have team and some snacks while waiting for car to be charged.

We took off from this place and arrived outskirts of Nagpur at 3:35 PM. There is a Vithal Kamats in Hinghanghat and it has a ChargeZone charger. I had my late lunch and tea at this place and charged the vehicle during that time.

Next we crossed Nagpur and drove towards Betul. Looking at the google maps prediction, I was going to reach Bhopal around midnight so decided to have dinner on the way.

Very close to Betul town, we have VillageVatika Restaurant and Hotel in Danora. This place has ChargeZone charger. Even though we did not need a charger to reach Bhopal, we still plugged in our car while we had our dinner and a tea.

We started from here and arrived in Bhopal just around midnight.

Leg 3
We had some things to take care of in Bhopal so we spent a day there and also charged our car to 100% using a domestic 15A plug. It took more than 30 hours to go from 60% to 100%

We started for our onward journey on Day 4 at 10 AM. We were going to take the road to Biora where we were going to join Mumbai Agra Highway.

It took us two hours and fifteen minutes to reach Biora and as soon as you meet the Mumbai Agra Highway, within the next Kilometer you find Hotel Shivani Restaurant, Khanpura This is a decent place with a ChargeZone charger. It is a 60KW charger shared across two guns. So if you are alone, you can charge at 60 KW. We just topped up the car while we had Tea and something to eat.

We drove for another two and half hours and as we were near Guna, we stopped at K2 Square Highway Treat. This used to be my favorite place to stop even during earlier road trips. Again this time there was a additional benefit. They have a ChargeZone charger. While we had our lunch, our car was topped up to 100%

With lunch done, we drove to Gwalior. We had decided to stay at Gwalior rather than continuing to Delhi. In Gwalior I booked myself in Taj Ushakiran. One thing that I discovered during this trip, that among Luxury properties, Taj group and Marriot group have done most work in installing destination chargers, so if you want a hotel where you can charge your vehicle at night, look for Taj or Marriot properties. Alway call them up and confirm if the listed charger is functioning. It is easy with Taj since all their chargers are Tata Power chargers and you can check them out the app. But with Marriot, many of their chargers are ChargeZone and that app tells you status but they do use some other chargers. For example, they list Le Meredien Nagpur to have a EV charger but it is not from any known company also when I called them, reception had no idea. So I don't stop at Nagpur any longer.

Leg 4

With a good night sleep, and car topped up at Taj charger, we continued towards Delhi. This drive was short and sweet. We just had to reach Delhi which was not very long.

Since some of our fellow travellers were going to join us in Delhi and were coming by flight, we decided to stay in Hotel Aloft in Aerocity. This place has a ChargeZone charger and we also topped up our vehicle here.

Leg 5

We stayed in AeroCity for the night and next day morning with car topped up, we started for the Haridwar. The plan was to stop over in Haridwar and continue to Rishikesh and stay for the night in Rishikesh. We had booked Hotel Westin in Rishikesh that is some 20 odd kilometres after Rishikesh primary because we wanted to get away from crowds and the hotel had a 60KW charger from ChargeZone.

As we drive through NCR, we realize how polluted the air around us is.

We arrived at Har Ki Pauri around 5pm. We went around the ghats and then waited for Ganga Aarti. This places is super crowded.

We left Har Ki Pauri at 7:30 PM and drove towards Rishikesh. We arrived in our Hotel at around 9:00pm.

We pluggged in our car and went for dinner. This hotel staff was little obtuse. They wanted to have the car keys which I don't give to them, so I had to promise then to move the car as soon as charging was finished. The charging was done at 11:30pm. I came down from the room and moved the car to the parking lot.

Leg 6
We checked out after breakfast. The place for the day was to stop over at Triveni Ghat in Rishikesh and then continue to Agra with a stop over in Vrindavan.

The access to Ghat was very narrow in Rishikesh. So we parked on the highway and then took a e-rickshaw to visit the ghat and then we continued towards Vrindavan. We drove to Noida and then took YEW and arrive in Vrindavan late at night. This place was extremely crowded and we really could not even get in.

After a while, we gave up and continued to Agra. This was our place of stay for the night. We stayed in Taj Hotel and Convention Center in Agra. Again primary reason being they have multiple Tata chargers on premises.

Since all the chargers were vacant, we reached and plugged in our car and went to room. We told the security to call us if somebody shows up and needs to move our car. They were happy to do that.

The car got topped up sometime during the night at around 4 AM.

Leg 7

Next day morning we had our breakfast and checkout from the hotel. The plan was to go to Ayodhya and then come back to Lucknow and stay there.

As I started my journey, I had enough range to reach Ayodhya but was doubtful of reaching back Lucknow. I took Agra Lucknow expressway there are chargers at both the rest areas. Adani has chargers on both the rest areas and till now my experience with Adani chargers has been 0%. They almost never work. I went to all of them and they just don't work.

The second rest area, nearer to Lucknow, also has a JIO-BP charger which was working but the area had no electricity. So in the end, could not charge in expressway anywhere.

On reaching Lucknow took the ring road to byepass the city. Then I rememberd that Mercedes showroom was also on Faizabad road. So I decided to top up in Mercedes showroom. This place is called SRMStar - Showroom in Tewari Ganj.

Also had our lunch there and then continued to Ayodhya.

We reached Ayodhya at 6:30 PM. Parked the car in MLCP. If you are looking to find it, just put Shabri Rasoi in google maps. This restaurant is in same complex.

You can go to all the temples etc using Golf carts at Rs. 10 per person.

After visiting temple and Ghat, we left Ayodhya at 8:30 PM after having our dinner. We arrived in Taj Place Lucknow at 11:45 PM and checked in. This place also has few Tata chargers so we plugged in our car and went to sleep.

Leg 8

We had our breakfast and left for Bhopal. We had planned on taking Lucknow-Agra expressway and then take Bundelkhand expressway to Jhansi.

This time around, we again stopped at the rest area and the Adani chargers were not working but JIO-BP charger was working. I just charged for 10 minutes to check it out and then continued.
Once you exit Bundelkhand expressway, there is a hotel called Shyama Sarovar Portico. It is about 10 kilometer drive towards Kanpur, so in opposite direction, but it has a Statiq charger. I would suggest to check its status on the app and then you can drive to it if you need a charge. It is a good hotel, and food is great and toilets etc are clean.

With lunch done and car topped up, we left this place towards Jhansi. Originally we had planned on going to Shivpuri and take Mumbai-Agra Highway, but at the last moment we went towards Malthone. In hindsight, it was mistake. Once you get out of NH, the roads are narrow and bad and traffic is unruly. I would have preferred to take little longer and gone towards Shivpuri.

We arrived in Bhopal at midnight.

We stayed in Bhopal for next few days. The car was topped up using domestic 15A socket. Took three and half days for full top-ip.

Leg 9

Our return journey started, the first day the plan was to reach Hyderabad. We left Bhopal early, at 6 AM and drove till Village Vatika Restaurant. We stopped here for small breakfast, tea and topup of the car. This is the same place that I mentioned in Leg 2 of journey with a ChargeZone charger.

Continuously drove for next 6 hours and arrive at Armoor JIO-BP station. Unfortunately there was a E-Bus that was charging itself for last 2-3 hours and I did not find it prudent to wait there. Decided to drive ahead and charge in either Nizamabad or somewhere nearabouts.

Found this restaurant called Sri Sai Family Restaurant in Sudapally that has both Tata Chargers and ChargeZone chargers. I topped up the car here. This was a long stopped of almost one and half hours. I also had lunch here.

From there I countined to Hyderabad and reached Gachibowli at 8:30pm. I checked into Oakwood Residences by Kapil. They have Joulepoint chargers where I topped up the car in night.

Leg 9

This was the last leg of trip. I got up lazily and since I just have to drive to Bengaluru, I left the hotel only at 11:30 AM. Drop for almost five hours and then stopped at McDonald after Ananthpur.

Drove for another couple of hours and reached Samara's Veg in Bagepalli. There was some rally going on on the road, so decided to let them go. Also Samara's Veg has one of the fastest chargers that I have seen in India. It is 240KW and for my car it delivered almost 120 KW while charging. So had some snacks and coffee and let the car charge before leaving for home.

Arrive in home at 10:30 PM.

Final Thoughts

EV trips can be done but require little bit of planning. It is best if you can find restaurants that have chargers and hotels that have chargers. In my view, for doing long distance trips, you need a car that can practically delivery a range of 400 kilometers.