Other than a visit to Pune with Nikhil, the Audi e-tron has been Hormazd’s every day driver. However residing simply 7 kilometres away from the workplace and with a charger at each ends, serving because the boss’ every day driver is solely not a problem.
Thus, I deliberate to search out out if somebody like me, with a 37km journey a technique and no charger at house, might dwell the EV life. And to make issues fascinating, I might take it house over a weekend that we deliberate to move again into city to go to buddies.
This could imply a 75km office-home-office spherical journey, in addition to working round on the weekend with the household and the 80-odd kilometre journey visiting buddies. In our checks, the 95kWh battery of the e-tron would return a mean of 350-380km on a full cost, and so some fast psychological maths confirmed me that I might certainly survive the weekend with no sweat, however vary nervousness could be actual and I used to be decided to not use a public charger to easily high off. Apart from, as we realized from Nikhil’s journey to Pune (earlier report Might 2022) to participate within the EV rally, not all chargers truly work on a regular basis. So a full cost on the workplace was all I used to be planning on utilizing over the course of the weekend.
I topped the battery on Friday and left that evening for house with a 99 % cost. The journey house was fairly uneventful, and whereas I assumed I’d use 10 % of the battery, I consumed about 8 %. Not dangerous in any respect, what helped save a % or so was the site visitors, which ensured I had numerous lift-off regen each time it slowed.
Although it wants a big spot, parking is sort of simple because of the 360-degree digicam and lightweight steering.
The subsequent day was a visit to the dentist to get my daughter’s braces fitted and my pockets flattened. Sure, dentistry is pricey; thank God I had the e-tron, which prices – on our workplace charger – about Rs 750 to completely cost. Hmm, now that I consider it, it didn’t vastly affect the dentist’s invoice, however it’s nonetheless good to know. Parking along with the highway was one other side of our every day life the e-tron must dwell as much as. Whereas it’s a massive automotive, manoeuvring it right into a spot meant for a mid to giant sedan isn’t too difficult, because the all-round cameras make mild work of this; the power-assisted steering isn’t unwieldy both.
SAFE AND SECURE: Cargo web is sort of useful in securing unfastened cargo.
Braces performed, we determine to move to a e-book sale we noticed on the best way, you understand, the ‘by the kilo’ sort. As we’re a household of avid readers, we purchased fairly a number of books, and with our fastidious makes an attempt at not utilizing plastic luggage, we carried all of them unfastened. That’s the place the boot web got here in useful, securing what would in any other case have been unfastened cargo sliding round, and canine ears is one thing I merely hate on my books. This whole outing was 17km and took 6 % of the battery.
NO CREEP: Creep operate absent. Makes shifting in gradual site visitors tough.
The Sunday drive to fulfill our buddies would, nevertheless, take much more. We dwell in Dahisar they usually at Colaba – principally two ends of Mumbai – which is round 45km a technique, and including to that might be any driving we’d do on the town. Additionally, being a Sunday, we’d use much more of the battery, as there wouldn’t be a lot site visitors, and thus, the chance to profit from numerous regen.
Our buddies Rohan and Smriti have a beautiful Collection-1 Land Rover, however the Audi being an electrical piqued their curiosity, and I obliged – or is it indulged – with some electrifying launches, a lot to the delight of their children too. It all the time surprises folks how fast electrical vehicles get off the road, and the Audi is not any totally different. The launches would imply a much bigger chew into the battery, however we had left house within the morning with 85 %, so it was all good.
HOT SEAT: With cooled seats now fairly widespread you miss them right here.
Again house at evening, we’d coated 110km, which value us 29 % of the battery. This meant the e-tron had 55 % of the battery remaining, over half its capability, not dangerous in any respect. All that was left was the run again to the workplace, which I knew would solely take about 10 %. And are available Tuesday (I didn’t go in on Monday, although drove a bit round the home), I used to be left with 45 % of the full cost after reaching workplace.
POINT OF VIEW: Good to see rendered lights mimicking the precise ones.
So, the entire weekend journey noticed me cowl precisely 200km and use 55 % of the battery; mathematically, that might equate to a few 363km vary. So yeah, residing the EV life with a charger on just one finish may be very doable, at the very least with the e-tron. Subsequent up could be to attempt the identical with a smaller battery.
Tata Motors?
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