[ph03n!x]

There is No Motivation like Negative Motivation.

What does a Torque Head with a spanking new car do when the roads open up?

Drive, but of course.

The Torque Head am talking about is one who took delivery of his car in March '20, barely couple of weeks before the mother of all lock downs kicked in. His pent up urge resulted in a conversation that went something like this -

Him: Dude, up for a long drive?
Me: No man, I can't get out now. What is the plan?
Him: Am planning to do a Hyderabad - Vizag drive...
Me: Huh? Are you crazy? How will you even do that?
Him: Thence lies the adventure right?!! A no agenda, for-the-heck-of-it drive...

Hyd - Vizag is ~700 KM one-way, and the Torque Head am talking about would have done this trip a jillion times. So why is it a crazy idea now? Because, this is the car we are talking about -

And this is the Torque Head we are talking about.

Meet my friend, Uday Kiran. We're buddies from college, and this is the story of how Uday did a 1400 KM roundtrip in a EV, and how it was.

But before that, a prelude on the car itself. I had posted about it in the Nexon EV thread earlier - he took delivery of his Nexon EV XZ+ on the 7th of March, 2020 - one of the first Nexon to be delivered to its owner - Tata was planning for group deliveries at that time around the 14th/ 15th March, but we got it delivered earlier - didn't want a new car lying around in the yard. Plans of exploring the roads in the EV went into the back burner soon after, and the car had clocked about just about 6000 KM in one year of owning it.

Fast forward to Sunday, the 7th of March, 2021 -

Him: Dude, up for a long drive?

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...

And this conversation was followed by a bunch of research, charging stations, cost, time, etc. A sample conversation -

This banter went on for a while, with me telling him not to get adventurous, stick to using the EV for what it is - an excellent city car.

But then, there is no motivation like negative motivation now, is there?

So our man went full swing, checked in to his dealership to ensure the car is in ship shape for the drive as well as inquire about the charging points enroute. The tentative date for this drive is set as Thursday, the 11th of March.

When you are starting a seemingly impossible journey, and are motivated enough to do it, things start falling into place - doesn't it? I mean, the longest Nexon EV road trip I heard about was a 1300 KM trip from Jaipur to the Indo-Pak border, and the vlogger has traveled a bit on the Nexon EV before venturing into a long journey. My friend, on the other hand, has been using the Nexon EV strictly as a city car. He wants to get to the roads, and do the trip for the heck of it. Bad idea, I kept telling him.

But things started falling into place when his Tata dealer called him the next day. Sir, Tata is interested in accompanying you - shoot a video of the journey, experiences with the car, etc. Would you be interested? Well, they are not sponsoring him, they will probably be from the marketing team - so if something goes wrong, they may not be able to give him immediate technical help. But why not? He was about to drive alone (I couldn't join him), and he will at least have company!

With things falling in place, he started off on Friday, the 12th of March - 5:30 AM.

The folks from Tata Motors accompanied him from Hyderabad to Vijayawada, and another team from Vijayawada to Rajahmundry, where he halted for the night.

The Wh/ KM is cumulative

The trip took him 14 hours of driving time - this is about 5 to 6 hours more than it would have in a ICE car. As it was getting late, he halted overnight in Rajahmundry, met a few friends and chilled out. It was a no-agenda/ no-time-constraint drive, he was doing it at a leisurely pace - he maintained 80 KMPH for most part, and there were some bad roads after Vijayawada, slowing his progress a bit more.


Starting off with 100% charge from home, he paid about Rs. 785 for the fast chargers on the way - the estimate is about Rs. 1.20 to Rs. 1.30 per KM for his usual usage.

Tata Motors made the onward journey as a short video, and released it yesterday -

https://youtu.be/v2o3JmoGjP4

His return journey was a solo drive for 14 hours straight, tracing back the same route.

With an average speed of ~50 KMPH, driving long distances with an EV, while possible, will definitely need planning - and patience. The average KMPH will be 50% to 60% slower than an ICE car, due to the longer time to "top-up" the battery - and because you better drive at 80 KMPH or less if you want to extend the DTE by that much.

Will I do it? Some of my road trips are point A to point B - but others are about the journey itself, not the destination - and if I am in an exploratory mode for a road trip, why not? EVs have an eerily unsettling refinement, mad torque from get go, and zero tailpipe emission! The economical running is the icing on the cake.

The range anxiety, while his journey would have allayed his, I would still say that it is one big negative for EV. Hey, there is no motivation like negative motivation! So watch this space for road trips like this - ones where I won't let Uday have all the fun

So that is what I want to say with this mini-travelogue - that EVs are arrived, and will only get better from now on. Buy your last ICE cars, and keep 'em running until there is dino-oil in the world - for they are gonna be dinosaurs soon themself, and BEV/ HEV will replace them sooner than you think! For a normal road trip, I take a 45 min halt every 3 hours roughly - if an EV gives me 250 KM to 300 KM of real-life running, without castrating to 80 KMPH or No-AC ridiculousness, and can top-up within 45 minutes (that is my average break time) to 100%, I will comfortably take an EV next!

Before signing-off, let me explicitly call out - Uday did not receive any sort of compensation or benefit from Tata Motors for doing this trip. They shot the video with his views and opinions on the car - that's about it.

Uday is not on Team BHP, but if there any questions someone has, I can always ask him and post it back here - do let me know!

[ampere]

More than the reason, this is a perfect conversation starter about have EVs arrived! It seems nearly there. Especially on the main tollways.

Definitely would like to read more on battery stats, time/charge, charging times and experiences etc.

[ph03n!x]

Originally Posted by ampere

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Definitely would like to read more on battery stats, time/charge, charging times and experiences etc.

Let me explain how he went about the whole charging planning...

Tata Power has a EZ Charge app that helps locate charging stations. Tata also assigns a relationship manager for Nexon EV customers.

Uday planned the charging stops using the app, contacted his relationship manager to check if the charging stations are working - they have a way to check the status of each charging station, incl. stats like what car is connected, charging status, etc. - and the relationship confirmed that all the charging stops selected by Uday works. There is also a WhatsApp group that Uday is a part of, which has quite a few Nexon EV owners - this is from the rides/ engagement forums for Nexon EV that Tata has been conducting - and they have discussions around the charging infra.

I had given the data with the battery % after each stop. Here are some charging times, and observations from each of them -

First stop - Suryapet: The charge from 44% to 100% took less than 30 minutes, was seamless.

Second stop - Vijayawada: Charging abruptly stopped a few times, and he did not notice this the first time. When it happened again, he took help from his relationship manager, and hit the red reset button on the charger. This one caused a delay, and 25% to 100% took about an hour because he did not notice that charging had stopped the first time, until later.

Third stop - Rajahmundry: This one had issues in starting charging. Again, relationship manager helped - Uday tried unplugging and replugging the charger - didn't help. He then turned on the car, turned it off, locked it and tried again - worked seamlessly after.

All the chargers are unmanned chargers, and relationship managers can monitor them remotely.

Hope this helps!

[speedmiester]

Originally Posted by ph03n!x

There is No Motivation like Negative Motivation.

What does a Torque Head with a spanking new car do when the roads open up?

Thanks for sharing and kudos to your friend to attempt this long drive in Nexon EV. I am sure he will have more confidence in his next drives.
With more fast chargers opening up. Longer drives on EVs is a definite possibility.
I am so badly itching to get an EV, but the pandemic and associated lockdowns and lack of commuting is keeping me from getting my second EV.

I was mapping out fast chargers in South India, looks like we are well covered with chargers available at a distance of 200-300Kms.

The below map is taken from Plugshare which shows the availability of EV chargers in SouthIndia. The orange ones are fast chargers and the green ones are AC chargers.

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by ph03n!x

Fast forward to Sunday, the 7th of March, 2021 -

While it is interesting to read about the journey and its hiccups, I find it absolutely shocking that two Tata marketing teams had the gall to film your friend in his personal space inside his car, at a time when COVID-19 is raging across the country - that too, without offering him any kind of remuneration / freebies / incentive - just to score some brownie points with their bosses.

[ph03n!x]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

While it is interesting to read about the journey and its hiccups, I find it absolutely shocking that two Tata marketing teams had the gall to film your friend in his personal space inside his car, at a time when COVID-19 is raging across the country - that too, without offering him any kind of remuneration / freebies / incentive - just to score some brownie points with their bosses.

Lol, not at all! This happened before the pandemic started raging again, and even then all precautions were taken.

They asked him permission to do this shoot, and he agreed, didn't expect or accept any incentive.. it's all good

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by ph03n!x

Lol, not at all! This happened before the pandemic started raging again, and even then all precautions were taken.

In the second week of March this year, COVID-19 was very much thriving in India, but the risk perception was low amongst a lot of folks. Glad nothing untoward happened.

They asked him permission to do this shoot, and he agreed, didn't expect or accept any incentive.. it's all good

It isn't about his expecting or asking for any incentive, and my post wasn't to berate him in any manner. It is simply good social behaviour by a very large company like Tata, to offer a gift of some kind for his troubles. Or have such small niceties stopped mattering for TML?

[Diesel_Drives]

Enthu-cutlet

Just this word took me back to the carefree college days, where you needed slightest of reasons/motivation/provocation (lol) to jump into tasks, which now take weeks/months/sometimes even more, just to plan!

Kudos to your friend for carrying out a 1400 km trip on EV. Looks he was well prepared in theory, as well as mentally, to make this happen. Well done It will take few years before we see many such EV travelogues.

As already pointed, even though your friend wasn't expecting anybit from Tata Motors, but they ended up using your friends personal experiences, his space, his journey for making a full blown promotion for their own product! He even thanks Tata Motors at the end of the video for making this journey possible (whether out of his own wish or a scripted dialogue)

Heck, they might use this testimonial in their court case for supporting EVs kms range. Who knows!
(https://auto.hindustantimes.com/auto...430687427.html)

[sri_tesla]

This is a great read. Thanks for sharing.

Indian EV market will blossom once the vehicle with Hyundai Kona range (300 to 350 km real world) at the price of Nexon EV (~15 lakhs). Hyundai Kona can cover this distance with a single stop for charging in Vijayawada with proper planning.

Right now no company is interested in bringing such models to India as they have too much demand in other markets (Europe, US, etc...) and limited battery production. Even MG is pricing ZS EV at much higher than their home market just because they can.

Even on the 2 wheeler side despite very good tax incentives and subsidies companies are not interested in bringing mass-market EVs. High battery price complaints are just hogwash because they are interested only in milking the ICE business.

[jithin23]

This is something I can relate to. I love such drives. Kudos to you and your friend for sharing this experience with the community. For a EV, the charge times are reasonable and this thread prices that with a little bit of planning, EV's can be used for road trips.

Only thing to test is the efficiency of EV in hills /mountains.

[AjayJoshuaN]

Instead of maintaining the speed of 80 KM/h, is it better to reach 100 KM/h and then switch from D to N and coast till the car reaches 80 km/h, and then switch back from N to D and again accelerate to 100 KM/h, and repeat this process?
That way, the momentum is being used efficiently and the destination will also be reached faster?

[thechinmay]

Its great to see charging infrastructure coming up. That coupled with increasing range on the newer generation of EV's will make long journeys pretty comfortable.
However, mass adoption will need a LOT more chargers along with more charging bays per station as well. I think it'll take the better part of a decade for the infrastructure to catch up to a point where it can support a few crore EVs on Indian roads.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by ph03n!x

The Torque Head am talking about is one who took delivery of his car in March '20, barely couple of weeks before the mother of all lock downs kicked in.

Please ask your friend to register on the forum & PM me his username. Will have it activated ASAP .

The trip took him 14 hours of driving time - this is about 5 to 6 hours more than it would have in a ICE car.

That's a lot man! It's almost 50% more driving time. Forget India, even in the USA, long road-trips in EVs aren't as fuss-free as in ICE cars. The Electrify America network is patchy; while Tesla's charging network is the best, it is far from flawless.

If the only car in my house was an EV, I would certainly borrow or rent an ICE car for road-trips.

[carthick1000]

Interesting to see plugshare has a trip planner beta function. This looks like a very nice tool. You can add your vehicle, plugshare estimates the range of the vehicle and it shows the working radius based on range. You can also adjust the estimated range if you know how your speed, weather and terrain is. This can be used to determine the farthest possible charging station. Then each station enroute can be added to trip.

I use abetterrouteplanner for my trips here in Europe. Based on the car and input settings, ABRP (A Better Route Planner) does add the chargers enroute automatically, but this not yet available in India it seems. Still plugshare's tool seems to be a good option for planning EV trips.









For eg. a plan from Amsterdam, Netherlands to Stuttgart, Germany using ABRP. I used a Tesla model 3 and filtered only superchargers.Therefore only the superchargers are shown. It takes about 6h47m with an EV to drive about 600kms in Europe. With a normal car, the same distance takes about 5h10m (Note google takes real time traffic, whereas ABRP not (yet))

[armumbai]

Originally Posted by GTO

If the only car in my house was an EV, I would certainly borrow or rent an ICE car for road-trips.

This is the only sense that matters in the current EV universe in India. I got involved in a bit of an exploratory exchange over a tweet that Hormazd Sorabjee put up and tagged TML over. It concerned the use of the Nexon EV in the Saputara natural reserve. My question was, how does one reach Saputara from Mumbai given the charging infrastructure currently in place.

I was scheduled for a drive to Bandhavgarh in April ‘20 and the lockdown settled that plan for good. I since sold off my Ecosport and am in the market for a replacement. One of the contenders being the Nexon EV

After reading of PlugShare site mentioned by an earlier poster, I checked on how I would drive from Mumbai to B’garh in terms of charging stops available. I was dismayed to find that Bhopal-Bandhavgarh is ~489km one way with 0 charging points available at all. That’s far beyond the range of the Kona or the MG too. Indore-Bhopal is ~280km one way with no intermediate charging stations enroute either. How can anyone think of an EV for any other reason than city commute is outside my thinking/knowledge ability/base.

I had received a Sales response to my tweet from TML but I guess I’ll allow some other brave pioneers to push the boundaries of EV penetration for now

I must mention I loved the enthusiasm of the OP and the recounting of such experiences will help all of us in Team-BHP immensely in making this EV movement grow. Thanks so much