[Kernelmann]

Originally Posted by Manas

Additionally, as all the EV charging sessions are chargeable (money wise) - there's a lot of depedency on connectivity of the charger with the CMS servers to start and maintain sessions (usually over OCPP protocol). Over and above the integration of the charger and the battery - there are other moving pieces as well some or all of which will be improved over time.
Even a small matter like SIM cards inside the chargers facing intermittency in connectivity can cause issues in user experience.

That's a great point. This is similar to prepaid phones where you need to have wallet balance for the call to proceed. However, given the critical nature of charging, maybe providers can plan for offline usage, deferred billing etc. based on credit worthiness of the user. Repeat defaulters can be blacklisted. I'm sure this aspect will evolve as TVs become more mainstream, but I just feel that of all the things that can go wrong, connectivity should not be a reason to deny charging.

Originally Posted by MarutiGuy1977

Noob question - are chargers standard across models - both in India as well as other countries? Nexon EV charger can be used for a MG ZS EV? Tesla charger for a Nissan LEAF?

There are two kinds of charging - AC Home charging (also known as slow charging) using the charging adapter provided by the car manufacturer, and DC Fast charging using public charging infrastructure. In most cases, the chargers provided by the manufacturer may not be cross-compatible between cars for various reasons. In the context of this conversation, we are talking about DC Fast Charging only.

There are primarily two charging standards - CCS-2 and CHAdeMO. In India, Tata & MG us CCS2 while Hyundai Kona uses the latter. In the US, Tesla uses Type 2 but provides a CCS adapter too. Globally CCS seems to have more traction but there may never be a true universal standard like USB-C.

[Kernelmann]

An update on my return journey. After being in Odisha for 2 months, my car was finally driven back to Chennai. A solo driver with about 70kgs of luggage, I was able to drive from Bhubaneswar to Chennai in under 35 hours. Here are the highlights:

1. Bhubaneswar to Berhampur: 28th Dec, 0621 to 0929, 179 Kms using 68% charge
2. First FC at Berhampur: 32% to 100% in 1hr 20 mins, Rs. 355++
3. Berhampur to Vizag: 1051 to 1652, 277kms using 83% charge
4. FC at Vizag: 17% to 100% in 1hr 40 mins, Rs. 452++
5. Vizag to Rajahmundry: 1900 to 0000, 212 kms using 73% charge
6. FC at Rajahmundry: 27% to 100%, Rs. 366++
7. Rajahmundry to Vijaywada: 29th Dec, 0100 to 04:30, 150 kms using 64% charge
8. FC at Vijaywada: 36% to 95%, Rs. 325++
9. Vijaywada to Velampalli (Ongole): 0540 to 0810, 151 kms using 68% charge
10. FC at Velampalli: 32% to 100%, Rs. 355++
11. Velampalli to Chennai(Koyambedu): 0945 to 1715, 340 kms using 94% charge

The last leg was especially challenging as I had to resort to extreme hypermiling to overcome the absence of a fast charger in between. It was an eye-opener that the Nexon EV can achieve well over the ARAI figure of 312 kms on a single charge in real-word conditions, while maintaining a decent 45 mph average speed.

Here's a little video documenting the last leg:

https://youtu.be/YOGN-hG1DPw