After 3 years with an EV, owner shares his highway driving tips

There is no point taking cars like The Tiago EV and Nexon EV Prime to 50 kW or 120 kW chargers

BHPian siva61 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

In the last 3+ years of driving EVs on highways and done 100+ DC charging sessions, met a lot of fellow EV owners who are doing long-distance travels effortlessly. 1000s of people are taking long drives every day in south India nowadays. Seen people travelling from Kerala to Hyderabad, Vizag to Kerala, Maharashtra to Ooty, etc etc. Sharing some of the learnings:

• Make sure to fully charge at home before you start long trips
• Don’t forget to take a portable charger.
• Make use of the plug-share app to plan where to charge. There is a trip planner on the plug-share website. Try to select reliable chargers with amenities. Check the last 10 check-ins.
• Download and top up the wallet before you start
• Plan your food breaks while the car is charging. (Most of the time in my case the car will charge quickly and there is no time wasted for charging)
• If you want to charge twice try to plan for 3 charges with quick top-ups in a long journey. Don’t waste time charging up to 100% in fast chargers. Generally charging speed will drop after 80%. If somebody is in que pls move to the next station after 80%.
• Know your car’s maximum charging speed and try to select chargers if there are multiple chargers in the same location. Charging curve data is available in Zeon social media, For example, if you have a Tiago EV, Tigor EV or Nexon EV prime the maximum charging speed is below 20kw so selecting a 24kw or 30Kw charger is ideal no need to charge in 50kw or 120kw chargers.
• Don’t go with too low soc, rarely there might be power cuts or queues on holidays and weekends. There should be enough backup to reach the next chargers. Plans A, B and C are recommended.
• Sometimes if you plug in and get delayed in initiating charging then there will be time-out issues. Generally depending on the car the time out will be 60 seconds after that the communication/handshake between the car and charger will be disconnected. So need to remove the plug and try again. It's better to scan/initiate the charge first and then plug the gun into the car.
• Rarely there might be communication issues due to various reasons between the car and the chargers, Chargers will not start on 1st attempt, need to try 2 or 3 attempts. Sometimes particularly in Tata cars, you have to close the doors properly, hand brake has to be applied, and sometimes need to move the car a little to reset. Call the charge point operator’s customer support number if the issues persist.
• Do not press the emergency button in the charger to stop charging. This is not the proper way to stop charging and it might create new errors in the car and there might be issues. If you are pressing the emergency button for some other reason then make sure to rotate and release the button to make the charger back online again.
• If charging is completed it will take 30 seconds for the car to release/unlock the gun from the car. Don’t be in a hurry to unplug, sometimes the gun will get locked. If the gun is locked don’t panic, generally, it will release in a few seconds
• You can use air conditioning while fast charging your car.
• Elevation also matters, hills you might need 1% for 1km and downhill you will get regen. Always try to have a 20% buffer to avoid range anxiety.
• Initiate conversations with fellow EV owners who come to charge and help them in sharing knowledge.
• Try to give ratings for charging stations in Google and plugshare so that it will be helpful for others.
• Make use of destination charging. For example, if you are staying in a hotel, try to talk to the manager or electrician in advance and ask for 16amp sockets to charge overnight. Try to share an image/video of a car charging using a 16amp socket.
• Getting RFID or auto charge features will also help in saving time to initiate charging in fast chargers.

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.