Christmas day was EV day for me. A day I took my first highway journey in an electrical automobile to place the concern of vary nervousness to the take a look at. There have been no worries once I set off from Mumbai at 5.30am within the plush Mercedes EQC for the 280km drive to Mahabaleshwar. After an in a single day cost topped up the 80kWh battery to 100%, the vary confirmed 350km – sufficient of a margin. That took away the stress of driving as did the tremendous silent and comfortable EQC, which is the epitome of low pulse fee journey. I felt good and smug about not having to queue up for gasoline, however midway by means of the drive, I needed I might have fueled up someplace.
Site visitors jam in Katraj tunnel lowered clean progress to a crawl.
Vary nervousness hit me like a sledgehammer when the vary dropped in a single fats chunk crawling up the Lonavla Ghat. This a part of the expressway is at all times jammed with sluggish transferring vehicles however site visitors was notably unhealthy on Christmas day, and at that finish of the expressway, vary was all the way down to 180km and I nonetheless had 140km to Mahabaleshwar. 40km of vary was nonetheless a good cushion till Murphy raised his ugly head once more.
An accident within the Katraj tunnel created an enormous tail again, so as a substitute of cruising by means of the tunnel utilizing as a lot regen as attainable to place some juice again into the battery, it was again all the way down to a bumper to bumper crawl. Vary all the way down to 136km and 104km to go. Would I make it?
Terrain has enormous affect on effectivity.
Some severe ‘hypermiling’ with no aircon, ‘one-pedal’ driving with max regeneration acquired me to Wai, with 50km of vary left for the 32km drive up the ghat to Mahabaleshwar. Up to now so good. Then all that arduous work went out of the window on the steep climb to Panchgani, which did the EQC’s battery in, gobbling 30km of vary in simply 11km. I crawled as much as Panchgani with 20km vary left for the final 21km. That’s contact and go, or moderately go and cease. And cease useless as a result of there’s no means you possibly can transfer an EV with a useless battery.
A makeshift 15A socket and extension wire saved the day.
Plan B? There wasn’t one. What to do? Cellphone a buddy. And that buddy is Shahram Javanmardi, the proprietor of Prospect Lodge, who saved the day by providing me a 15A plug simply outdoors one of many cottages of this beautiful boutique resort. It’s no quick charger and actually an excruciatingly sluggish method to cost the battery, however no less than it charged. I used to be so relieved simply seeing the ring across the EQC’s charging port pulse a brilliant inexperienced to point {that electrical} juice is certainly flowing into the battery. The on-board comp mentioned it could take round two hours to present me an additional 14km (sure, it’s that sluggish!), which I figured can be sufficient to get me to Mahabaleshwar. I had no selection however to hold round for 2 hours. But it surely was two hours effectively spent, having fun with Shahram’s hospitality. I couldn’t flip down his supply for Christmas lunch (Prospect Lodge has the very best meals in Panchgani) and wolfed down scrumptious salli mutton, fish cutlets, and strawberries and cream, a tad quicker than the EQC was sipping volts.
Having fun with a mega lunch at Prospect Lodge whereas EQC will get charged.
With 34km of vary left, the final 21km had been fairly uneventful. On downhill sections, I eked out a number of km and at last reached house in Mahabaleshwar with 16km to spare. So, technically, I might have made it even with out a pit cease in Panchgani however I wasn’t going to take that probability in a Rs 1 crore plus automobile. This was my longest drive to Mahabaleshwar – 9 and a half hours, together with the two-hour cease at Prospect. Well worth the effort? Completely.
Charging an nearly depleted battery.
I now have the bragging rights of being the primary to drive an EV from Mumbai to Mahabaleshwar and convey the primary EQC to this eco-sensitive hill station. Moreover, there’s a particular, no-guilt feeling of driving one thing clear and inexperienced. The Mercedes EQC, with its battery absolutely recharged (which took a day and half!), felt proper at house on this inexperienced zone. A giant bonus was not having to queue up on the solitary petrol pump in Mahabaleshwar, which is at all times overcrowded.
The return journey was much less eventful and I made it again to Mumbai on one cost. And fairly simply too.
Peace of thoughts comes with a full cost.
I left Mahabaleshwar with the Mercedes EQC charged to a full 100%, however the vary confirmed solely 289km for the 277km run house. Was I anxious? Not a bit. I knew that the Wai ghat, which was my foe on the way in which up, can be my buddy on the way in which down. Terrain has a large affect on an EV’s vary. The uphill drive to Mahabaleshwar was a battery killer, however driving downhill offers you further momentum to recoup misplaced power by means of regenerative braking. On the lengthy downhill stretches, fixed regenerative braking gained me again 20km of vary. So, once I reached the primary Bengaluru- Mumbai freeway 40km later, the all-important vary indicator learn 269km and for the remaining 237km of the journey. The cushion acquired wider as I descended down the Khambatki Ghat or Lonavla tunnel. Gravity saved the day!
289km vary sufficient for return journey.
With out the stress of vary nervousness, I might benefit from the shockingly quiet EQC, which stoically glided down the expressway with zero fuss. Averaged 64kph and three.8km / kWh to achieve house in a cushty 4 hours and 20 minutes, with 23km of vary to spare. I don’t suppose I’ve felt so refreshed and relaxed after a protracted drive.
