I am doing a lot of longer journeys of late. These are mainly motorway journeys, and around 350-to-450-mile round trips. I am getting a solid 200 miles indicated on the night-time leg (colder) and 220 miles indicated on the day-time leg. Quite happy with this, especially given the charging speeds on ultra-rapid chargers. I also managed to pull 9.6kw on a three-phase AC public charger recently, which surprised me (see attached photo).
My journey and strategy for the long trips is as follows:
- Leave home on 100% SoC from home charging
- A 'splash and dash' charge when I take a comfort break or stop for a bite to eat after around 2 hours (up to 15 mins or so elapsed time)
- A rapid charge to 60 - 70% on arrival at my destination (up to 15 mins or so elapsed time) followed by a fast charge whilst the car is parked. If I were staying at my destination overnight, the rapid charge would not be necessary
- Leave destination with 100% SoC
- A 'splash and dash' charge when I take a comfort break or stop for a bit to eat (10-15 mins or so elapsed time)
Yesterday's journey was 448 miles and I used the following (ignoring diff between total and usable battery capacity i.e. 64 kWh and 61.7kWh):
Home charging to 100% - 64 kWh
Rapid Charging - 53kWh
AC charging - 29 kWh
SoC on return 19% - 12 kWh
kWh's used 134 (64+53+29-12)
Distance covered 448 miles (according to Google Maps not the cars trip computer)
Calculated miles per kWh 3.34
As a final scenario, based on the data above, even if you assume I arrived home with zero SoC, which I didn't of course, the miles per kWh would still be just over 3.0. And, if you multiply usable battery capacity of 61.7 by the calculated miles kWh from above, the total range is 206 miles.
The above strategy comfortably gets me too and from my destination with lots of 'buffer' miles in the battery. I have been using Bonnet charging exclusively for my rapid charging and at my destination I use a Be.EV AC charger. I am hopeful in the warmer months I will need a little less public charging.
I can also comment on the comfort of the car on longer journeys, given I am spending up to 10 hours driving in a 24-hour window. From my personal perspective I can say the seats and general comfort are as good as my previous cars (EV and ICE). The infotainment system glitches are irritating and hopefully they get sorted soon but if someone asked me to mark the car out of 10, I would award it a solid 9, all things considered.
UPDATE: I've just reworked the maths since I had omitted one of the small rapid charges in error. I also totalled up the cost of the journey and it was £52.20 for public charging and £4.80 for home charging, making a total of £57. This equates to 12.7 pence per mile.