A good note about the test drive is not the cheapest train. At first, a sea of enthusiasm soon gave way to a clash with the harsh truth of life.
So, there is a private house for the experiment, but, unfortunately, there is no garage. But in the presence of a 50-meter construction extension cord – an indispensable thing in the household. With his help, his own car was repaired more than once, so the scheme has already been worked out. You throw the extension cord through the window, pull it to the car, and directly hang the outlet on a specially prepared stick or put it under the car so that it does not get wet. Bravo, you are amazing. Most electric cars, by the way, do not charge if there is no ground.
There is no problem with this, but there is another one. Around the house on the day of the experiment, active landscaping work was carried out, so it was not possible to drive the car into the yard. And I was afraid to leave an extension cord and an adapter for charging outside the fence at night. Although there is a forest around and perhaps moose will covet this “wealth”, but still somehow uncomfortable.
In general, it was decided to postpone refueling until the morning. Here’s how fast an electric car charges from 30 to 80% under different conditions, according to the manufacturer:
✓ fast street charging/pole with 60 kW equipment – in 0.87 hours;
✓ fast street charging/pole with 120 kW equipment – in 0.63 hours;
✓ DC charging (10 kW) – in 55 minutes.
Geometry C had 34% left, and therefore my friends and I figured that in the morning in four hours the “train” would gain another 30%, which would definitely be enough for a one-way trip. It wasn’t there.
Our trip was scheduled for 11:00. Therefore, I woke up at 07:00 and immediately connected Geometry to the charger. The process has begun, the car is closed, guards in the form of an angry shepherd are assigned – you can go to the house to drink tea and get ready.
Sometimes I looked out the window: the LEDs on the sides of the headlights are lit in blue, which means everything is okay. Around 10:30 I decided to throw things in the car. On the display – 37%. Plus 3% in three hours, ay! Yes, we knew that an electric car charges very slowly from a home outlet. But this is somehow too much.
I’m calling the dealer. Answer: Perhaps the fact is that the car is charging outside at temperatures below zero. But colleagues are also surprised by this result. Spoiler: no, I didn’t screw up anywhere. And the next night I will again try to charge the car from the house socket.
…..
According to the map, it was determined that the nearest gas station near the village of Podberezhye is 18 km away. Just in case, they called there and clarified whether the charging station was working. Power reserve – 50 km, to the gas station – 18 km … It seems that everything converges. But no: when the navigator was 10 km away from the gas station, the power reserve completely changed to dashes, and the car, it seems, was driving only on our prayers. Guess what the fatal error was? That’s right, we didn’t switch the Sport mode to a more economical one. Honestly? Ashamed. Let’s write it off for lack of sleep due to an early rise.
After spending 60 minutes on charging, we got a reserve of 70% of the battery. Kirovsk is 123 km away. Converging? After some light math, yes. But Geometry thinks otherwise. We drove into Kirovsk already with 15% charge and 75 km in reserve. We drove mostly in Eco mode. We switched to Sport once to quickly overtake the cars in front, and at the end of the road we followed Eco +. Cruise control was barely used.
But in Kirovsk, we still had to drive to the Smazhenka cafe, and then get to the nearest charging station in Bobruisk. To be honest, I couldn’t get rid of the feeling of anxiety all the way: I was afraid that the car would be discharged right on the highway and I would have to call a tow truck while my friends were freezing in the cabin and damaging me.
On the road from Kirovsk to Bobruisk (distance – about 25 km), we had 69 km of reserve left according to the computer readings. We drove, it seems, as economically as possible. But we got to the Bobruisk “Malanka” with only 3% of the charge.
A small note. Malanka writes off money in this way: at the beginning of charging, it withdraws 25 rubles from the card, and at the end it returns them and takes exactly the amount that the car was charged for. This time it all started as usual: 25 rubles disappeared in an instant, but after a couple of minutes they returned. At the same time, another 21 rubles were deducted from the card. But the charge of the car did not even increase by one percent. Spoiler: we wrote to the support service (you can’t call there), and the money was returned to us after an hour and a half. And if it were the last blood?
Fortunately, at that time, a nearby electric column became free. The owner of the Mazda MX-30 swore, calling his car an “electric broom”, and went home. We quickly re-parked and made another attempt to recharge. Successful this time. Power reserve – 316 km, on the display – 68%. It is not clear how “Geometry” calculates these parameters. Assuming 100% is 550km, 316km should equate to 57% charge. On the map – minus 20 rubles, about 10 more was spent on tea and dessert in the shopping center.
A reasonable question: what was the problem at least once to charge the car up to 100%? Honestly: nothing. I just wanted to leave Kirovsk while it was light.
The 39-year-old “navigator” said that he would definitely not buy an “electric train” in the coming years: he was not ready to lay a route through charging stations and constantly calculate in his head how long the power reserve would last. In addition, our application periodically blunted and crashed – by the end of the day it already infuriated everyone.
At night, we once again put the electric car on charge from the home network. The result is sad: in 7 hours the car gained 7%, that is, 1% per hour.
The injustice was terribly infuriating: why are the 100 km of power reserve indicated on the panel not really so? Although there are no complaints about the display readings in Eco + mode. But with such settings, all the joy of using the “electric train” is also lost: there are no speakers, and when the charge is low, everything is turned off, including the stove.
We spent 62 rubles for three charges (we don’t count frail attempts to connect to the home network). That is, every 100 km of the road cost us about 14.5 rubles. This means that almost any “state employee” on gas will be more economical. But recall that a lot depends on the driving style, the selected mode and other factors.
The ideal conditions for the operation of such an “electric train” are a house with an extension in the form of a garage and its own charging station. True, the latter costs … And you need to take into account what tariff you pay for electricity. As a result, there are too many individual inputs to calculate whether Geometry C is really economical.