This ladies and gentlemen, is a cautionary tale – don’t drive an electric car to the country – unless you’re into planning and logistics.
And, this one is for the haters and the lovers of EVs – sadly, the facts can’t hide behind the joys of Electric Driving. But – this article and opinion is related to long distance regional driving, not city ownership at all!
Look, I’ve done many thousands of kilometers driving Australia’s country roads and highways in Electric Cars – all makes, models and ranges. I’ve driven a Porsche from Melbourne to Sydney, A Tesla from Brisbane to Adelaide, my own and many other regular EV’s from Sydney to Tamworth and Sydney to Young and back.
Heck, I’ve even driven an Electric Ford Transit Van almost 1,000km.
This weekend just gone, I took a road trip to my home-town of Griffith for my Nephew’s 21st birthday out at Lake Wyangan. I chose to drive my full-electric Cupra Born, It’s done some road trips before. No Drama.
I left Friday, hoping to return on Sunday.
I left with 80% charge, knowing full well there were chargers at Pheasants Nest, Marulan, Goulburn and Yass before the turn-off to Young, and one at Young.
I Also knew there was a Charger in Griffith and a Tesla Supercharger too which was open to all.
Feeling pretty good, I began the drive.
I stopped at the Ampol Pheasants Nest for a cheeky snack and drink – shoutout to the lovely ladies there who recognised me and said hi! I actually couldn’t get the charge started in the Ampol App – something that happened to me once before here, but I didn’t care, I was only going to be 10 minutes and I was distracted by the all-electric Windrose Prime Mover there (more on That in Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars soon)
Onwards, I was too busy singing to see the BP Marulan turn off so headed straight for the Tesla Supercharger in Yass. Sydney to Young is a drive I could do with just a “splash and dash”, but knowing how fast the Superchargers are – and knowing the NRMA charger in Young is 50kW, I opted to get a decent charge and took it to 80-90%.
Arriving in Young, I plugged in, charged, went to the shops and got the things I needed, came back, fully charged headed to mums for the night.
Setting off to Griffith, I knew because we were coming back via a stop in Leeton, I should be at 100% when I left, and definitely wanted to fully charge in Griffith too.
So we had a great drive, a great day, and with time to pass in the afternoon, chilled out at the Tesla Supercharger in Griffith to get back to 100%. We drove to Leeton, lovely dinner with great people, then home to Young.
The next morning, the plan was to charge and head home.
I had I think 20% battery or a bit more, and an estimated range of something like 107km.
Now, to be clear, the Yass Tesla Supercharger is a 99km drive from Young, but I have always said I’m not going to “drive for range” I’m going to drive like I like to, and that’s at the speed limit or there abouts:)
So I wanted to have more than that.
Opened the NRMA App – Young Charger OFFLINE.
PANIC SET IN.
Idiot Trevor didn’t bring his Granny (Trickle) Charger – having cleared the car out to cart magazines around last week – so I had no backup plan. None.
Enter the PLUGSHARE app and I checked the NRMA Young Charger. A recent checkin said “Still works even though App offline”. I RUSHED there, parked, and plugged in – ripper!
Went and got some Cherries with Mum, washed her car at the Autowash, and went back to the car.
With 40% battery I was a shoe-in to get to Yass.
And that I did.
In my mind, I was going to do “quick charges” all day, to prove that you could jump out for a toilet break, coffee, drink or whatever – and that would be fine.
Fortunately, the public toilets in Yass were a few blocks away, so I was gone for exactly 20 minutes and went from 44% to 79% battery. Home was now 292km away and I had some 300+km of range.
Yes, I could likely make it home, but – what if I didn’t have enough, what if I lived on the central coast.
So to continue my curiosity on the drive, I decided to stop at Marulan, Goulburn, Suttons Forr