Road trips in Electric Car experience

[Gowtham]

Sharing my electric car driving experience from the past two months. 

 

Vehicle: 
Tesla model X, Long range

Real world range :

500 Kilometers 

Useable range:

400 Kilometers (We usually charge before last 100 kilometers distance to empty)

 

Battery capacity:

100 KWH

 

Charge stations:

Different types of charging stations:

• Tesla super chargers
• Home chargers
• Destination chargers
• Office commute chargers 
• Government chargers 

 

1. Tesla super chargers:

10% to 90% charge is usually completed under 40 minutes.
Tesla recently introduced V3 charging stations with 200 KWH capacity.

 

Charging is free for cars like Model S and X
Cars like Model 3 an Y has nominal fee.

 

Inside city limits, some stations are available near malls, so plug-in and by the time you are done  with your grocery shopping,
Car is ready with 90% charge.

 

Highways, Super chargers are very helpful on highways. 
They are located near restaurants/malls/food outlets/supermarkets.
99% times one wont realise that it is a charging break. 
By the time we fresh-up, eat food and take loo break car is ready. 

 

2. Home Chargers:

Usually they take around 9 hours to charge, key word "Over nigh charging"

 

Full charge @ Home costs around 700/- (roughly comes around 1.5~2 rupee per kilometer)

 

Most of the old infra(housing) apartments sill lack charging facilities, some users completely depend on SuperChargers around their home.
No such issues for people living in independent housing facilities. 
 

3. Destination Chargers:

Destination chargers are redefining road trips in Tesla(EVs), few hotels started implementing over night charging stations. 

They are very helpful and reduce the overall charging time and range anxiety.

 

4. Office commute chargers :

These are located at office premises, they usually have ~ 2 hours limit. They are free of cost.
They are slow but they add around 80 kilometers range, these are built to cover your office commute.

5. Government chargers:

Government chargers are rapidly increasing in states like California. There is huge investment pumping into the charging infra.

These are generic, can be used by any car. 

 

Range/Mileage:
Traditional cars perform better on highways compared to city limits. EV's are opposite to traditional cars.
EVs don't loose much range inside limits, in-fact they are more efficient inside city limits.
Ev's will loose range rapidly when driven at high speeds, above 120 kmph.

Under 120 kmph be it city limits or highways, range stays flat.

 

Performance 

There is on competition here, electric cars wins hands down.
Cars like model X and S can shame some likes of Ferrari/Lambo etc

They are super quick from 0-100

They win most of the signal drags
They are unreliable quick

 

0-100(S) : 3 seconds

 

Long drive planner:

Tesla inbuilt road trip planner is fantastic. Those red markers are super chargers. 

900 kilometers trip plan : 15 minutes(Planned for road trip)+ 45 minutes (Lunch break) + 35 minutes (Tea break/Shopping)
In reality it took us 10 hours to cover the distance including charging. 

 

Driving experience:
Instant torque pushes the passengers into their seats. I have never experienced anything like this before. 
0-100 is scary, adrenaline keeps pumping up. 

It handles better than some sedans, sits low on 22inch low profile wheels (Air suspension)

Body roll is almost zero due to skate board architecture, can carry insane speeds through corners. 

It feels like driving a new car each and every day, zero vibrations inside cabin(less moving parts)

Enthusiasts will miss the engine growl but the performance will make you forget about it. 

Have to extra careful with pedestrians due to lack of engine noise.

 

Drawbacks:
Range anxiety, every trip has to be planned well

Charging time
Can't perform well on off-road terrains. 
Not an ideal adventures vehicle, even though it is has 4WD. Taking it on trails can be disastrous. 

 

Autopilot:

It performs flawlessly on open highways. 
It relieves lot of stress on highways.
Autonomous braking is fantastic, it literally predicts everything on its surroundings. 

 

Defensive driving? Nah Tesla will take care. It is better than human.

Chances of getting into a crash are pretty low

 

Best part? Car accelerates, switches lanes to avoid collision. 

During our recent drive, car accelerated(we have a car in our by lane) itself and switched lanes to avoid a construction cone on the middle of fast lane. 

 

[Gowtham]

Sharing few random pictures for viewing pleasure 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[shiva]

Thank you sharing your experience. Electric vehicles are future. Test drove Nexon EV. It is fantastic car to drive. If we get 500 kilometers range. It will be a perfect city car. 

[SK01]

Beautiful pictures and in detailed review as usual. 

 

[Gowtham]

21 hours ago, shiva said:

Test drove Nexon EV

A bump in range can do wonders to Nexon. It is a great opportunity to TATA.

 

10 hours ago, SK01 said:

detailed review as usual.

 

Thank you

[sagar]

Beautifully drafted post @Gowtham. Thanks a lot for sharing your experience. I’m really hoping to see the EVs evolve well into the Indian market. It sure was a good launch by TATA with Nexon but we’re also hoping to see that same amount of enthusiasm and effort from the Government by encouraging the EV market.

[uday]

4 hours ago, sagar said:

Government by encouraging the EV market.

 

TATA can install their own charging stations. Like how Tesla did in US. Govt. should slash the tax on EVs completely. Then manufactures will start pushing EV products.