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BHPian siddharthgarg recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
So I took a long road trip using my ZS EV. I would like to tell this especially to those of you who would be driving an EV for the first time.
The range changes drastically based on your driving style.
In the first leg of my journey, I drove for 203 km with 64% battery, which extrapolates to 317 km of range. During this trip, there was heavy traffic ok the highway and I could hardly go above 90 kmph. Mostly the car drove between 60-80 kmph.
In the second leg, I drove 210 km with 82% battery, which extrapolates to 256 km of range. This time the road was fairly empty and the car drove consistently in 80-100 kmph range, touching 120 kmph at times. The temperatures also increased, so I think the AC also sucked up more energy.
I was driving in Normal mode and KERS 3 in both scenarios.
So I would recommend you to plan your trips with stoppages no later than ~200 km if you want peace of mind. And don't worry about wasting a lot of time. The charging is very quick till 80% SOC. You can easily charge 0-80% in 35-40 mins on 50 kW charger. The last 20% takes a lot of time, which you can avoid, if you plan stops properly.
And if you really have to plan long legs in the journey, be really soft on pedal, avoid aggresive overtakes, stick to 60-80 kmph, and switch to Eco mode if weather permits. The only reason I could not stick to Eco was that the AC practically becomes useless in the current weather of North India.
Here's what BHPian venom_op had to say on the matter:
Charging infrastructure seems to be a lot better in the North! I've seen that there are more 50kW chargers up there. It really does make a huge difference. If only we could get 150kW chargers in India. Any road trip with that would be easy. A bio break and tea should give us enough time for an 80% charge easily. Of course, right now, I'd be happy just to get 50 kW chargers at regular intervals.
I'd used a 350 kW Electrify America charger at one of the malls in the US and it was blazing fast!
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