Bangalore - Sringeri - Bangalore in ZS EV

    For a new EV owner, or even for someone considering to buy an EV, long or highway drives are the main fear drivers. I wanted to face this fear and test my trust in the EV infrastructure. Because, darr kea age jeet hai. So I took my less than a week old EV into the wooded & serene parts of Karanataka, to a place I always enjoy visiting – Sringeri. This post is to help build confidence for those with similar jitters. With a little planning you can comfortably win over the fear and enjoy a worryfree & enjoyable drive in your EV. 

Route:

Consumption details

    The first stretch until Hotel sky bird was pure fun drive. Without much EV highway driving experience, I was weaving through vehicles with regen at 3, constantly braking & enjoying the adrenaline rush from instant pickup. I think that was a little reckless driving which was just draining the battery at 5 or 5.5 km/kWh. Then while waiting at the FC, I received a lot of feedback and tips from the MG EV owners WhatsApp group (an awesome EV support system which deserves separate post). Based on the feedback I made a couple of minor modifications to my driving style:

·        Keeping regen at 1 on long, straight Highway stretches. Because the loss from acceleration is higher on such stretches than the gain from regen.

·        Speeds above 80 is okay but did it with a gradual pickup keeping the % power under 50

Though it initially felt like uncle style driving, it paid off well. I got 6.5 to 7 km/kWh through the ghat sections and that can be seen in the efficiency column as well. I did a 244 km stretch comfortably with 24% soc still remaining.

The last stretch from Paakashala to home was back to reckless driving. It was late in the night, I was super tired and slipped into the mode of enjoying reckless driving at the cost of efficiency. Afterall I was driving to the comfort of home.

 

Planning

As I said earlier, with a little planning you can overcome the range fear and have a worry-free drive. Here is how I planned, which may not be a big deal for an experienced EV owner, but is a good starting point for a newbie.

Starting from any part of Bangalore, there is abundance of chargers until Hassan. But beyond Hassan when heading towards Sringeri, the Tata FC at Gateway hotel Chickamagalur is a critical dependency. Gateway hotel to Sringeri & back is a good 200+ kms. Considering the hilly drives, I expected a stop here atleast on one way would be must. Hence, I chose to stop at Shantigrama during my onward journey instead of the more popular Yadiyur chargers. That way, if the Tata FC at Gateway hotel was out or unavailable, I could head to Sringeri and stop at it on the way back. Though the FC at Gateway hotel was available during both legs of my journey.

On the return journey though, the Tata FC had some hiccups likely due to voltage fluctuations. It turned off automatically a couple of times. I had to spend a total of 1.5 hrs + here. I was tempted to leave with enough SOC to reach Yediyur and charge at Paakashala or Hotel Mayura. But the risk of availability far too great. Hassan to Bangalore is a busy route on Sunday evenings. If I get hit up by another EV charging at one of these stations then I would get stuck with too long a wait. Hence, I decided to rather spend the extra time at Gateway hotel and charge enough to reach home if need be. I was checking charger statuses at both Paakashala & Hotel Mayura  when I was 2 hours away and both chargers were continually getting used. The risk of availability did prove to be real. As luck would have it, the charger just got freed up as I was pulling into the parking lot of Paakashala. The 50kw charger was super amazing. In 40 minutes, by the time we finished our dinner, my car too got fed stomach full.

So key takeaways on planning:

1.      Plan for charging stops where chargers are reliable and preferable where multiple chargers are within short distance away

2.      For a 300 km+ trip, account for 1.5 to 2 additional hours for commute than an ICE car. This helps not have high pressure on time loss.

 The experience of driving a ZS EV is a whole lot of fun and worth a separate post.

Foodie tip: Along the Sringer-Chikmagalur route, near Balehonnur there are two great places for awesome coffee : Bhadra coffee stop & Khandya Cafe. 

First impressions with my MG ZS EV 2022— The story of first 100km

<This post has been moved from medium.com where i had originally published>

PS: Within minutes of publishing this, I have been corrected on the ORVM gap. Thanks to Rupam & Vivek. Corrected it inline below.

 First impression is the best impression they say, lets see if that’s the case with my brand new MG ZS EV 2022. I clocked 100KM within 24 hours of receiving the delivery and rubber met the road on many expectations that had built up. So, its best to record here before driving too far in the memory lane.

Instant pickup, joy of driving without engine noise & automatic transmission and low cost of driving are first things everyone talks about hence I will not detail about them. They are all true though.

Sale & Delivery experience from MG Rajajinagar, Bangalore was very good. No complaints whatsoever.

• Overall build quality feels good & sturdy. Except for in the EV specific front grill & charging port door which is wobbly and feels like plastic
• Dashboard display has apt info, is very neatly organized & takes very little time to get used to
• Maps seem to be really good, even calls out warnings on speedbreakers & curves
• Infotainment system is very good in terms of organization of apps, layout etc. It takes a little time to get familiarized due to the large volume content.
• Wireless mobile charger is a huge plus and works really well. Other cars I have seen with wireless charger has alignment issues but in MG I could just throw the phone and it starts charging.
• Map pockets & bottle holders are large and really useful. I am sure to use them and be thankful when on long trips
• The mobile app is fantastic. Except for a little slow load at certain times, everything about the mobile app is very good. Very informative & handy to track, control and monitor the car.
• Light & wiper controls are inverse of that of other normal Indian cars.
• Cruise control has a very weird design that I haven’t seen in any other car. Its a lever underneath the light control lever. Not sure if that design is good or bad but is different & weird.
• Arm rest in the door is placed a little too low, a little higher would have made driving more comfortable
• There is something about the seat that doesn’t hit a home run. I haven’t yet been able to figure out a position that I can call fully comfortable
• Tilt & telescopic steering adjustment is a huge miss. Even the tilt has very limited range, so having to drive with steering lower than my preference.
• A constant display of outside temperature in either the dashboard or infotainment would have been good
• Mirrors (ORVMs) retract when car is locked but there is no control to close when driving. These are super necessary when driving in narrow roads. Correction : ORVMs can be retracted by pressing down the adjustment knob.
• Glove box light, cooling in glove box, reading lights for rear seats, sun glasses holder & puddle lights are few other basic features that are present in most other cars in this price segment & that one would expect but are not present. These are a big miss.
• There are tons of silly issues or what seem to be software bugs.
• Audio source (including off) is not remembered/reset when parked and FM radio turns on by default when car is turned on
• Drive mode is reset when parked and defaults to Normal
• Mute on map’s voice is reset when parked
• Regen setting is not remembered and defaults to 3

Due to these bugs, starting a drive gives a feeling of a pilot starting a flight with check lists. Start the car -> turn the radio off -> change the drive mode -> turn off voice in maps -> clear for take(drive) off.

Overall, my first impression has been good and have totally enjoyed the drive. The missing features / hardware will surely be a shortfall that hopefully will be included in the next version. But the software bugs are surely something that has to be fixed and I will work to bring to MG’s attention.