[atin001]

Travelled to Ooty from Bangalore last week.

Bangalore -> Mysore
- Started from Bangalore early morning at 6 with 100% SOC and kept cruise control on 80 all the way to Mysore.
- Reached Nexus Center Mall around 8:45 with 39% left. Though the mall was not open yet, the guard let us in for EV charging.
- 39 to 99% took 1 Hr 15 mins and cost 554 Rs. Had breakfast at nearby Udupi during that time.

Mysore to Ooty
- Started for Ooty around 10. Had planned to do a short topup at Bandipur but there was a power outage in the area and chargers were not working.
- Reached Ooty with around 25% left. This was with very conscious driving on my part to maximize range (slow acceleration, using regen as much as possible)
- Went to Taj Savoy for charging but both guns were occupied and other vehicles were also waiting. Saw a BE6 waiting too.
- Decided to go to the hotel and call it a day. Reached hotel with 19% SOC.

Ooty Sightseeing
- Next day again went to Savoy and luckily got a vacant slot. Faced some issues with getting the charging started. Asked the person charging his Tiago in the other slot and he said with Tata power you have to turn on the infotainment to get the charging started.
- Charged from 14 to 100% (697 Rs) and did some sightseeing in my friends car and also had lunch. With both the stalls occupied at all times and this being a slower charger it took nearly 2 hours.
- roamed around Ooty next few days. Thunderworld is a must visit if you have kids. Had around 69% left on the day before we had to start for Wayanad.
- Went to Gempark which has a single zeon charger. Luckily it was just vacated as the other car (also an XUV) couldn't initiate charging.
- Charged from 69 to 95% (276 Rs) in 35 mins. Had a drink at the restaurant.

Ooty -> Wayanad
- Started from Ooty at around 91%. Stopped at Pykara falls for an hour. 81% SOC at this point.
- XUV 400 does not have selectable Regen and L mode is the best you can do. Thus when coming down regen did not charge the battery as much as I had hoped. It went from 81 to 86% and thats it.
- Reached Wayanad at around 50% SOC. Did not have to worry about range this time so drove it a bit fast. Wife kept me in check from having too much fun

Wayanad Sightseeing
- Did not plan to go to many places in Wayanad as most places need a bit of hiking (difficult with young kids).
- Went to an amusement park with a glass bridge and a honey museum. There was a goEC charger where we planned to have lunch so just plugged in there. A BYD emax had just vacated the spot.
- Charged from 41 to 100% in 1 Hr (447 Rs). Reached hotel with around 91% left.

Wayanad-> Mysore
- Started towards Mysore around 9:45 AM with 91% charge.
- Drove in my normal way which is a bit heavy footed and reached Mysore with 35% SOC at 12:45 PM. Plugged into statiq charger at Nexus center.
- By the time we finished lunch (Around 1.5 Hrs), car was fully charged. Cost came to 584 Rs.

Mysore -> Bangalore
- Started toward home around 2:30 and handed the car to my wife to drive on the xpressway.
- Reached home around 5 PM with 35% left in the tank.

The only day I was conscious of the range was the 1st day when climbing to Ooty. Lesson learnt to book hotels with EV charging as much as possible.

I definitely love this car and this trip has made me confident that nearby sightseeing places are easily accessible by EV and we don't need to keep our older ecosport around. We never do very long distance drives or non-stop driving for more than 3 Hrs anyway.

Total Charging Cost: 2.5K, Covered around 800 Kms.

Cheers!

[shyampsunder]

Originally Posted by atin001

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The only day I was conscious of the range was the 1st day when climbing to Ooty. Lesson learnt to book hotels with EV charging as much as possible.

Yes it gives a lot of peace of mind when you can charge at destination and start at 100% next day.

Recently drove to Dholera, Gujarat in a Baleno from Surat when I woke up next day, it was actually an inconvenience to fuel up because the nearest petrol pump was more than 20 KMs away. Round trip of 40 KMs just to fuel up!

Did your hotel in Ooty not help with a 15A plug point for charging? In my experience all hotels are accomoditive once they see that all you need is a regular 15A plug point. Also good to refer interested hotels to a CPO so that L2 AC charger can be installed.

Only if EV owners request hotels for charging will they be able to gauge demand and decide to install chargers. So always make it a point to request for it ahead of arrival ideally while you are booking.

[atin001]

Originally Posted by shyampsunder

Did your hotel in Ooty not help with a 15A plug point for charging?

Unfortunately the parking was away from any structure and they didn't have any sockets nearby.

Lesson learnt for future travels!

[atin001]

Today for the first time experienced limp mode. Had to travel in the infamous Bangalore traffic for nearly 4 hours.

Though the distance covered was like 50 kms only, I used up nearly 40% charge (46% -> 7%). I guess the start-stop traffic really uses up the battery in this car. AC was set to 25c auto.

Wasn't really worried as I was in the city. Was also slightly curious to see the car's behaviour at low battery myself. Reading about Tata EV users did make me wonder whether XUV will have any of those issues. I guess one of the advantages of NMC?

Also wanted to share an interesting app called "Spin by exicom". It connects to the car charger by bluetooth and can display all these stats and maybe provide some additional functionality (still exploring). Attached some screenshots that people may find interesting.

[atin001]

So... exploring this app further, I only found 2 good uses.
1. Start charging without having to get the NFC tag
2. Scheduled charging to charge till 80% as there is no option in the car or charger to end charging when the car reaches 80%.