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EV patrons immediately are accustomed to taking a look at new autos with not less than 300 km and generally as a lot as 600 km of vary.
Once I speak to them, new house owners are sometimes shocked to be taught that the second EV in my family is a 2012 Nissan LEAF with a most vary of about 110 km. I clarify that this automobile has by no means left Canberra (till now) and at all times charged at a charge of three.6 kW in my storage. For what it’s used for, it’s sensible. We should always have extra EVs prefer it out there immediately.
Late final 12 months, the NRMA put in a pair of DC quick chargers in Braidwood, a city midway between Canberra and Batemans Bay on the NSW south coast.
This truth, mixed with Bjorn Nyland’s latest Youtube movies of him doing 500 km journeys in older, brief vary EVs, acquired me enthusiastic about the opportunity of driving my LEAF to the coast. The NRMA chargers at Braidwood instantly made this a risk. So, final weekend, my son and I attempted it!
I had no intention of being the EV stranded on the aspect of the street, snapped by the anti-EV brigade, so I rigorously ready for the journey with A Higher Route Planner (ABRP). The ABRP instructed me I may journey in each instructions if I charged at Canberra Airport on the japanese fringe of Canberra (a really brief top-up) and Braidwood.
After planning a visit, ABRP has a driving mode that reveals distance to your vacation spot, present state of cost and estimated state of cost in your arrival.
This will get up to date as you drive giving much more confidence. ABRP can get further information from the automobile through a Bluetooth dongle that plugs into the OBD2 port.
On this method, ABRP can use stay information somewhat than estimating state of cost over the journey (and arrival) based mostly on the terrain and pace limits. One other app, LeafSpy, gave us entry to all types of inside information from the automobile together with the battery temperature, kilowatt hours remaining, state of cost, and so forth.
In our earlier expertise, ABRP is sort of conservative, and that’s in all probability a helpful attribute. We left Canberra Airport for Braidwood and as we went, the arrival state of cost began climbing. That was a great begin! We arrived in Braidwood with 19% cost.
Utilizing fairly conservative settings in ABRP we discovered we may very simply make it to Batemans Bay (after all, it’s downhill!).
The massive query was, may we get again? There was no level driving down if we couldn’t get again up!
The Kings Freeway on the Clyde Mountain will not be an amazing place to run into bother at one of the best of occasions. There’s not many locations to soundly pull over and poor cell phone protection. Primarily based on the drive up to now, and the plan proven by ABRP, we have been sufficiently assured that we determined to proceed to drive down the Clyde Mountain to Batemans Bay.
In Batemans Bay, we drove straight to a CHAdeMO quick charger to re-charge. The leg again to Braidwood was, after all, the one which bothered me probably the most. It’s a 700 metre climb over 45 km adopted by one other 20 km to Braidwood.
We charged on the quick charger to 90% after which moved to a close-by AC station to cost all the way in which as much as 100%. This is without doubt one of the few situations the place charging to 100% is justified!
We set off house from Batemans Bay with ABRP and LeafSpy working. My son was intently monitoring each apps for me whereas we drove up the Clyde. ABRP initially confirmed an estimated state of cost on arrival into Braidwood of 18%.
It’s value noting that the vary estimate that’s offered on the LEAF instrument cluster, recognized colloquially because the “guess-o-meter”, is basically unhelpful (therefore the title).
It’s overly pessimistic and the estimated vary bounces round loads. I skilled myself to not have a look at. Watching state of cost and estimated arrival state of cost in ABRP was rather more useful.
By the point we had reached about midway up the Clyde Mountain, our arrival state of cost had climbed as much as 29%. Close to the highest of the mountain, on the well-known Pooh’s Nook, we realised we have been going to comfortably make it to Braidwood. We rolled into Braidwood with 33% cost remaining. See how exhausting it’s to expire of juice with correct planning?
As soon as again in Braidwood, we triumphantly charged to 90% after which drove again to Canberra. We stopped at Canberra Airport for about 5 minutes so as to add a small quantity of further cost to soundly get house.
Looking back, the outbound cease at Canberra Airport was in all probability pointless as we left from house with a 100% cost, and will that not be sufficient to achieve Braidwood, and there’s ample AC charging in Bungendore (between Canberra and Braidwood) so as to add any top-up.
Likewise, on the way in which house, it could be doable to omit the Canberra Airport quick charging cease and divert to one among any variety of charging stations round Canberra if required.
Which means the one charging stops required for us to get from Canberra to the coast and again is a pair of quick fees (about 20 minutes every) at Braidwood.
I’ve little question that I may do the journey once more extra rapidly and effortlessly. You actually need to have performed it as soon as to understand how a lot security margin you are inclined to instinctively construct in. In actual fact, we see this with new EV house owners on a regular basis – charging their lengthy vary EVs to 100% “simply in case”.
With expertise on any given route, a driver rapidly learns the charging requirement based mostly on their automobile and the terrain.
Whereas this would possibly appear to be a little bit of an EV excessive sport pioneered by Bjorn Nyland, it was a helpful train to display that individuals with cheaper, shorter vary automobiles can now do longer distance journeys in the event that they actually need to.
Once I first purchased my LEAF, I assumed I might by no means be capable to take it out of Canberra. With sufficient charging stations in sufficient locations, it’s really fairly doable and a little bit of an journey! The small battery of the Nissan LEAF mixed with its 50 kW DC charging makes every charging cease, whereas extra quite a few, brief.
Ben Elliston is the chair of the ACT department of the Australian Electrical Car Affiliation.
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