• Home
  • EV News
  • EV Blogs
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Vehicles
    • Sales
    • Electric Cars
    • Tata Electric Cars
    • Electric Scooters
    • OLA Electric
    • Electric Cycles
    • Electric MotorCycles
    • Electric Cargo Vehicles
    • Campus Vehicles
  • Categories
    • Community Charging
    • Buyer's Guides
    • Real Life EV Stories
    • How To Guides
    • EV Test Reports
    • EV Travelogues
    • EV Conversions
    • Events
    • Educate
  • About Us
  • Community
    • Discord
PluginIndia Electric Vehicles

Electric Car Roadtrips : Baby steps to the future

9/12/2015

18 Comments

 
By Kamlesh
The EV community in the cities of Pune and Mumbai did a series of test rides on an electric car - The Mahindra e2o between Mumbai and Pune over the last 2 weeks. A total of 5 electric cars drove around 1500 km with enthusiastic owners feeling green and great!  
​Together we saved more than 125 liters of petrol for our country and we did not pollute the air in the beautiful western ghat mountains.  All of us would want to do this again and again and again!

The EV community in India is not blessed with DC Quickcharge stations to make road trips easy for us.  
So Level 2, 15 Amp sockets is what we were after. Two normal stations were installed by PluginIndia community and Mahindra Reva at Khandala and Nerul, Mumbai.  All of a sudden, Mumbai-Pune was possible.

A distance of 150 km, 1 way, might appear trivial. But it is not as trivial as it sounds.  The reason for this is the Sahyadri mountains at Khandala/Lonavala, where we descend from an altitude of 625 meters to around 50 meters. 
This is not an issue while going from Pune to Mumbai as we go down and regenerative braking helps us gain energy!
​The problem as in all EV's is the huge energy consumed while climbing uphill.    
The fear of the ghat (mountain) along with lack of dedicated charge stations ensured many in the community did not dare venture in the expressway!  
​Ultimately the ghat proved to be a non issue due to strategically placed charging stations, efficient EV driving habits and well designed Mumbai-Pune expressway which eliminated steep hairpin bends.
Picture
All in the terrain
Here are stories of the 5 pioneers!

My exploratory drive - The Explorer!
​Pune-Mumbai-Pune : Yellow e2o - Eva
There were some test drives on the Mumbai-Pune route done by Mahindra Reva personnel and an occasional dare devil without permanently installed stations.  But this resulted in walking to shops asking for a 15 Amps socket and generally indulging in running around, convincing shop owners etc. All this resulting in frustration and wasted time!
Now that we have 2 dedicated stations, i would not have to go through all that and i wanted to find out bout the experience!  
​My video blog sums up the experience pretty well. Eva did great during the trip! 
Some other fun observations!
  • The electric car is super efficient on straight roads.  You are left wondering as you drive for around 10-15 km and then see the energy consumed is just worth 8-9 km. The sheer frugality of energy consumption just blows your mind. No oil based car can show such efficiencies.  An electric car takes less and gives more. Now that is the future, available right now!
  • Its all about regenerative energy!  EV owners always keep tabs on the amount of energy that gets stored back into the battery while going downhill.  The Pune-Mumbai drive, due to the downhill ghat - is the perfect opportunity to send electrons streaming back into the battery pack as you take your foot off the pedal.  
    This killer feature, not available in ICE cars, again increases efficiency.
  • ​As it was the first exploratory drive from the community, I was never alone - the entire community was with me on the Pune, Mumbai and even people from the Delhi Whatsapp group!  
    It was funny to read messages while i was waiting or driving!  (I know i should not read while driving!)
    "Can you make it back?", "How much regen did you achieve?", "Woaaah that is insane efficiency!", "What is the SOC (State of charge) at this spot?, "Wow! You made it past the ghats!",  "Tell me the SOC at this spot and i will calculate the efficiency!"
  • My efficiency record after reaching Santa Cruz, was 68 Watt hour per km, which sounded amazing.  That record stood just for a few days!  Mr Sagar Kulkarni broke it the following week! (See below)
  • People on the expressway always turn and look at Eva instead of looking ahead and driving! Bad Habit.
    One dude slowed his SUV and said - 'Respect!'  (Maybe he saw the 'No Mo OIL' sticker! Or maybe he was sarcastic!)
  • We all know what Valet Parking is.  We EV drivers found a new term - It is called "Valet Charging" !
    We can go to a Mahindra dealer and give our keys to someone. The car gets parked and is also set to charge!

Sagar Kulkarni  - The Record Breaker!
​Pune-Mumbai-Pune : Red e2o - Helios
Hi, I'm Sagar and i live in Bhugaon, Pune. The journey from Pune to Mumbai was fun as the car performed on its own and it was the most effortless driving I had experienced till now. The car had performed exceptionally well by traveling 155 Kms straight without any halts in a single charge. That is 35 Kms of excess energy generated through Regen with almost capacity to cover more 10 Kms of energy still left in the car. This was really commendable. The overall travel was very comfortable as my journey throughout my travel has always been with the AC switched on at a fan speed of 1-2 and the cooling set at around 3-4. The car had total of 2 passengers.

The journey while coming back took us double the time to reach Pune around 6 hours since we had to charge the car due to ghats for around 2 hours. It was again comfortable journey with the AC on and cruising average speed of 55-60 Kms constant. Both ways the car speed was the same, sometimes we reached a speed of 65-70kms.

In short it was a good experience to travel in an electric car, as it also pulled some attention on the expressway with thumbs up and hand waves in favor of the car. It was also the cheapest ride to travel between two cities. Total cost from Pune-Mumbai and back was Rs. 100 (the charging cost I had to pay at Khandala).
So overall a big thumbs up to the e2o for its performance and surprise it gave us!

Ami Vora - Nervousness to Confidence!
Mumbai-Pune-Mumbai : Red e2o - Lucky Wonder
Hi, I am Ami Vora and I live in Mumbai. I really never of thought of doing Mumbai-Pune trip on the e2o anytime before or taking e2o outside Mumbai as, i was always under the impression that it is not convenient & easy to take the e2o outside the city due to lack of charging stations. But thanks to Kamlesh's video on doing the Pune-Mumbai trip on an electric car, it was very motivating to do the same.  

Since I was taking the e2o outside city for the first time I was initially nervous about the same.
But special and heartiest thanks to the Pune-Mumbai EV community for the great encouragement, support to go for it.
Also thanks to Nitin, Iqbal from MReva for providing assurance if any problems occurs they will be there for rescue!
Thanks to Farah Halim,Raphae Halim & Amit Gupta for great company and making the trip so memorable, fun &,enjoyable without them I would have got lost!

Initially i was nervous but as i kept driving, i realized it was fun and easy than driving here in Mumbai. The roads are very well maintained, lots of space, full of greenery , no steep slopes and hard bends.  All this made it a total pleasure to drive.
In-fact many times while driving i used to take photos,videos.  

Charging e2o at Nerul,near Food Plaza ,& Khandala also acted as break time for us to refresh and chill out and got time to explore the near locality. 
After driving at good high speed on expressway on reaching back to Mumbai, I started overtaking here which I used to not do before. Also haven driven on the expressway on the e2o now, i do not feel like driving here in Mumbai which always full of traffic.  I feel like going back again!
Mumbai-Pune trip on an electric car was amazing, thrilling, fun, adventurous experience.
Everyone should drive an electric car outside Mumbai in the near future.

Amit Gupta - My electric car is just like me!  Clean, Green and Responsible!
Mumbai-Pune-Mumbai : Green e2o - Zero
Hi, I'm Amit and i live in Thane. I'am the Chief Green Officer at Green Why Not?
Going to Pune was adrenalin rush, making a point that Zero can go places too.
I have driven 24600 km as of today on 10th Dec 2015, without using a single drop of oil or polluting my city.
I finish 16 months of riding the e2o, a pleasure to me, an envy to others.  Looking now to go further.
And Yes! I would absolutely do Mumbai-Pune with Zero, again and again and again! 
Picture
Amit, heading back to Mumbai with his green 'Zero'
Picture
Zero - Flexing muscles!

Farah and Raphae Halim - Electric car road trip!
Mumbai-Pune-Mumbai : Blue e2o - T2PO

It was a beautiful morning of 27th Nov that we started on our 1st long ride to Pune in our electric car, named T2PO
​after the droid in StarWars ;).  
We headed out of Mumbai one morning with a companion EV driver / friend.
Our plan was to travel for more than 400 km to
  • Navi Mumbai
  • Khandala
  • Pune
  • Bhugaon, on outskirts of Pune
  • Ananda Kriyayoga Ashram near Lavasa 
  • Back to Mumbai
Picture
Route Map of our trip!
In anticipation of excessive battery consumption on the ghats, and no charging stations in between, we were over-over-cautious and charged the battery to its full capacity at G3 Motors, Nerul, Navi Mumbai - our first pitstop. ​
Picture
Charging at Nerul, Navi Mumbai
Picture
On the expressway!
Picture
The ghats were fun to drive, and driving an EV was smooth, effortless. No lags, no jerks, no hassles, no breakdowns. It just kept heading up the hill in forward mode. To overtake, we even used boost mode and gave other drivers some complex too as we sped up like a racer car!
Our next stop was at Khandala at the Khandala Motor Garage. Mr. Allauddin is most friendly and accommodating.
Very professional too, starts his stopwatch the moment u start charging at the community charge station set up by PluginIndia at his workshop. He will also make sure that you get the most charge for the duration u charge at his place. Such is his hospitality. Hats off to him.
Picture
At Pune!!! 3 electric cars
Picture
At Sheraton hotel in Pune. All EV owners - Amit, Farah and Raphae!
We reached Pune. The fresh air and the excitement of completing the journey made us livelier. We celebrated the moment by meeting old friends and new.
We then visited Sagar, who lives in Pune and has a solar power system.  He was kind enough to let us charge and give a demo of his system.  We have made another wonderful friend due to T2PO!
Picture
At Sagar's home. Solar system demo!
Our next stop was at the Ananda Kriyayoga Ashram near Lavasa, some 45 km from Pune, West.
The road to Ananda amongst the hills was a great re-gen experience. We were looking forward to a peaceful, meaningful getaway option that would get us closer to ourselves. Being lovingly welcomed by both Mama (dog) and Charlie (cat) along with Damodar (resident) immediately made us feel at home except that there was no electricity then, no internet or phone network. In pitch dark silence we could hear the crickets, distant sounds from the village close by, feel the presence of hospitable people and smell the hot buffet dinner. 
Picture
Lonely roads towards Ananda Ashram
Picture
Taking the correct left turn from Lavasa road to the Ashram!
Picture
Lovely guest rooms at the Ashram!
Picture
Raphae and T2PO charging at the Ashram
Picture
That is me!
The car happily charged in cool weather and fog, at the Ashram!
​
Enjoyed our stay and courageously started our journey back home. Some 200 kms ahead of us in an EV. One thing that worked in our favour were the downhill of the ghats. It was an effortless drive and felt as if it was a robot driving it. For quiet sometime neither did I press the brakes nor the accelerator. It kept a good pace of 50-60 kms downhill with perfect re-gen. 

Made it in good time, safely back home. Carrying wonderful memories and energised to take life head on.

​The car has made us come one step closer to our goal of achieving a clean, green and responsible lifestyle. It has definitely brought about a unique change in our life, got us connected to wonderful people and through PluginIndia we have had more opportunities than we could fathom.

Joy to you!
​Raphae and Farah Halim

Birds of the feather, flock to solar panels
The community met at Sagar Kulkarni's home, in Pune who has aSolar power setup.  
​Sagar was kind enough to let us charge the cars.
It was great experiecne for the community to understand how the solar power system works.
Picture
Picture

Final Words
The stats really look great. 1500 km of pure electric driving over a weekend.  Around 125 liters of petrol saved.  
Zero pollution emitted on the route.
Yes!  These are baby steps for electric car road trips in India.  But if this is the future of road trips, i'am not worried! 
18 Comments
Ramesh Krishnan
10/12/2015 12:30:44 am

Well done, keep rocking. Nice pictures too.

Reply
PlugInCaroo
10/12/2015 12:32:52 pm

Awesome blog and its pretty amazing to note that how a few people could put together what Mahindra couldn't do for 5yrs and Chetan for close to 21 yrs :-).. the power of people and the power of OPEN SOURCE is amazing...

But expecting Mahindra a petrol car company to promote electric car is like expecting Tiger to eat Grass...

Unless Government doesn't FINE Car companies FOR POLLUTING THE ENVIRONMENT AND BRINGING IN CLIMATE CHANGE these guys will continue destroying the earth.

PENALTY is a must on ANY VEHICLE that uses fossil fuel else these guys will keep putting more SUVs and cars with bigger engine and higher speed on the Road to kill people with speeding... now that Paris Sumit has set a target of 2100 for doing away with the Petrol & Diesel usage along with Coal it is good for country like India who have enough scope for Solar, Wind & BioGas.

Reply
KamyFC
10/12/2015 01:47:44 pm

Good points, PluginCaroo!

Reply
Farah
11/12/2015 09:20:50 am

Good points and we do need the EV segment to rise... But I feel penalty and punishments r a thing of the past.... If we want electric vehicles, we along with companies and Government should make direct efforts to promote EVs and bring in the technology required to make it a success instead of pulling the other down to see a rise in other segment....
What say?

Reply
PlugInCaroo
13/12/2015 12:56:26 pm

Lol Farah... Mahindra got hit hard by Kejri's ban on Diesel vehicles in Delhi... and Mahindra is protesting... http://www.thehindu.com/business/mahindra-mahindra-questions-green-tribunals-ban-on-diesel-vehicles/article7981131.ece?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=RSS_Syndication

Diesel Buses & Trucks will have to move to either CNG, Biogas or Electric.

Anyway the world has decided together to move OUT of the Fossil Fuel Era... in our lifetime... amazing...

PlugInCaroo
10/12/2015 12:39:32 pm

Also wondered why perpetually Indian standards are set below western standards...

Do we even have 1 standard that is above theirs?

Are we substandard people?

Why our Govt cannot ensure that companies have to buy a certain % of EV's, why are we to react after our ears are pulled by G7 nations?

Because CORRUPTION has made us weak....

Why we cannot tell all car to put a limit to the top speed at the max speed limit of our country (120kmph). This small act could save thousands of lives... and could also bring in some income for the Traffic Dept by way of speeding-fines.

Reply
Sudarshan Gophane
10/12/2015 11:07:09 pm

Hats off to you guys for taking steps towards future and proving the capabilities of EV. Kamlesh, Sagar Kulkarni (also guys from Mumbai) you may try for Pune to Shirdi with E2O.
I will be happy to help you to make this possible.... There are three charging stations on this route - Silver Juilee - Shikrapur (43 Km from Pune), Ahmednagar L&T House (where I am living) - (120 Km from Pune) and I will be able to arrange at Shirdi (186 from Pune).
Also you can explore historical city Ahmednagar if you plan this trip for 2 days. Also there is one businessman here who is owning E2O and making best use of it.

Rgds,
Sudarshan Gophane
Head - F&A
Larsen & Toubro Ltd,
Electrical & Automation
Ahmednagar

Reply
Raphae (Mumbai E2O)
12/12/2015 11:40:03 pm

Wow! Great offer Mr. Sudarshan. We'll surely keep it in mind for our next long drive. Thanks and Regards! - Raphae

Reply
Kamlesh
17/12/2015 04:21:22 pm

Thanks Sudarshan.
Pune to Shirdi - Sounds amazing. Do give us your email and we will plan doing a trip on this route sometime.

Reply
Sudarshan Gophane
21/12/2015 05:50:12 pm

SUDARSHAN.GOPHANE@LNTEBG.COM

I will be happy to help. Don't worry about accommodation, I will extend my help to get good accommodation and charging in between the journey, to make this journey cost effective also....

Ranjan Ray
17/12/2015 10:30:21 am

Truly, one of the most detailed and informative accounts of a successful drive in recent times. As seen with the RE:LIVE Delhi-Sariska-Jaipur drive, people have readily come forward to help with charging points thereby proving that charging points are not an issue at all.

Kudos to the team and looking forward to many more such drives till we can possibly meet at Bhopal or Indore and some such place between Mumbai/Pune and Delhi:)

Reply
Kamlesh
17/12/2015 11:32:28 am

Now that will be the Baap of EV roadtrips!
2 EV communities - Delhi and Pune/Mumbai coming together!

Reply
Thomas Walther link
14/3/2016 09:42:00 pm

Great Story, nice to see that electric vehicle community is also growing in other countries. I drive an Renault Zoe electric in Germany.
regards, Thomas

Reply
Kamlesh
14/3/2016 10:37:22 pm

Would love to see the Zoe in Action here in India.
We hope you are satisfied with the Zoe

Reply
Raphae
14/3/2016 11:13:52 pm

Hey thanks Thomas! We really like the Zoe and I agree with Kamlesh that we want to see it in action here in India. Among other things like power, and range, and 3 phase charging, the thing I like the most is that the charge port is in the front! :-D. Regards! - Raphae

Reply
Thomas Walther link
15/3/2016 01:08:20 am

Hi Raphae, Hi Kamlesh,
yes Zoe is really great car. I did also some longer trips up to 700km and with 3phase AC charge is really easy. We have public 3phase 22kW Typ2 plug in almost all cities. And if not you can always ask for red CEE 3phase plug. :-) The old Zoe like mine can charge up to 43kW AC, so full charge is 20minutes, thats awesone.
I'm also doing a community project for 43kW AC 3phase chargers with Typ2 plug and also built my own charging station at home.

Reva charge single phase? Wow long takes a full charge? And what is the capacity of battery?

regards,
Thomas

Reply
Kamlesh
15/3/2016 09:58:05 am

That is great to know.
So you use Fast AC charger most of the times. What is the Amps that is sent to charge the battery? 25 Amps?

Do you ever use DC Quick charge stations? Does the Zoe have a QuickCharge port that sends DC into the battery pack?

Would be awesome, if you could send us a small video of the Zoe! We can host it on our Youtube channel.
Features, Fast AC Charger etc.
Not a compulsion, just if you have time!

Yes the Reva we use simple Level 2 ---> 240 V, 16 Amp chargers
It takes around 4 hours to get from 20% to 100%.
Its a small battery - 10kWh Li-Ion.

Mahindra are hopefully installing QuickCharge stations soon.
Then it will be easier for us.

Reply
Thomas Walther link
15/3/2016 01:13:55 pm

Zoe charges single phase 5 Amps up to 32 Amps and 3phase 13A to 63A using Typ2 Mennekes plug. There is no DC charge option.
For fast charging we have triple charger (AC43 and DC CCS, CHAdeMO) next to the highways. But not complete state is covered because DC charging station are expensive to build up, so you sometimes have to use 22kW or 11kW AC when you travel with Zoe.
Our german cars (BMW i3, VW eGolf) have single phase AC and fast charging DC up to 50kW. And there is also Nissan Leaf and Kia Soul with single phase AC and DC CHAdeMO 50kW.

I will try to make a Zoe Video when I have some time. I have a lot of pictures on my profile https://www.facebook.com/th.walther , feel free to connect.

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Categories

    All
    Ask Your EV Guru
    Blogs From Heart & Soul
    Buyers Guides
    Charging Stations
    Clean Energy
    Commercial Vehicles
    Community Initiatives
    Conversion Kits
    Electric Bikes
    Electric Bus
    Electric Cars
    Electric MotorCycles
    Electric Scooters
    Events
    EV Expos & Exhibitions
    EV Industry News
    EV Sales
    EV Technology
    EV Travelogues
    How To Guides
    Interviews
    Podcasts
    RE:LIVE Events
    Student Projects
    Surveys

    Picture
    Picture

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013

    Picture

    RSS Feed

Plug in india

About us
Advertise with us
Contact us

Privacy Policy
Terms of Service

Support US

Get access to exclusive perks
  • Become a YouTube member
  • Become a Patreon

Subscribe to our newsletter

© COPYRIGHT 2019. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Home
  • EV News
  • EV Blogs
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Vehicles
    • Sales
    • Electric Cars
    • Tata Electric Cars
    • Electric Scooters
    • OLA Electric
    • Electric Cycles
    • Electric MotorCycles
    • Electric Cargo Vehicles
    • Campus Vehicles
  • Categories
    • Community Charging
    • Buyer's Guides
    • Real Life EV Stories
    • How To Guides
    • EV Test Reports
    • EV Travelogues
    • EV Conversions
    • Events
    • Educate
  • About Us
  • Community
    • Discord