BHPian jagan88 recently shared this with other enthusiasts: First impressions & Test driveMany years ago, I read a post here on team-bhp about someone doing astrophotography, and I instantly liked their BMW coupe design. Since then, I started liking coupe designs. Here’s that brilliant thread https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shift…phy-hobby.html Some time in May/June, I requested a test drive of XEV 9e at Neon Motors, Chandanagar (Hyd). The sales rep (Mr. Naresh) promptly got me the car the next day and I did a very elaborate test drive around my area. I loved the car. My wife liked the back seat comfort, too. I didn’t explore any features or drive modes. But overall, quite impressed with the suspension. I was driving Hexa back then and my benchmark was already super high. I have an active booking of Slavia 1.5Tsi dsg. While I reluctantly did a test drive, I was blown away by the features, capabilities, and the car itself! I wish the car came with dark seats. Fast forward to August, and I confirmed the booking of pack3 through my company’s lease. Planned Vs ExecutedInitial plan: Hyderabad – Tirupati – Thiruvannamalai – Madurai – Kodaikanal – Munnar – Kochi – Allepey – Thiruvananthapuram – Kanyakumari – Rameswaram – Hyderabad (via Chennai) Final on-the-go: Hyderabad – Tirupati – Thiruvannamalai – Trichy – Madurai – Rameswaram – Kanyakumari – Kovalam – Thiruvananthapuram – Kochi – Guruvayur – Hyderabad (via Coimbatore) After my first few legs of the trip and reaching Madurai, I was super confident that I did not need to plan too much. There are enough charging stations, the range is great, and I could treat this like how I’d normally drive on plan in my ICE car. That led to the change in routes on the go. Day 1: Hyderabad to Tirupati Day 2: Tirupati Day 3: Tiruvannamalai and Madurai Day 4: Rameswaram Day 5: Kanyakumari Day 6: Kovalam Day 7: Kovalam Day 8: Thiruvananthapuram Day 9: Varkala Day 10: Kochi Day 11: Guruvayur, Hyderabad The Drive Experience: 90% of the drive was done in “Default” mode. Only during the last 200kms of the trip, I tried switching modes and loved “Everyday”. Wish I did this earlier I liked the thoughtfulness of the auto turning on the front camera for a few seconds after engaging the reverse. It’s a boon in parking spots and 3-point U-turns I could turn off both the other two screens during night drives and get the navigation (G maps) onto the main driver screen. This worked with Android Auto. After the first 1,000 odd kms, I threw range anxiety out of the window. There are plenty of chargers everywhere, and during my return leg, I just did a few quick top-ups wherever I stopped. My preferred chargers are Chargezone and Statiq. Bootspace was plenty. Took all of our luggage for 10 days and even some more in the very usable frunk too. No niggles or issues experienced. Everything worked great. Drove it like an ICE. Cruised at 110-110kmph for most of the highways. Tirupati:We reached Tirupati at around 3 o’clock in the morning, charged at Voltran for 90 minutes and then drove to Tirumala. We got the Srivani tickets here with a donation of 10,000 rupees per person and a 500 rupee for the actual ticket. Starting September, the Srivani darshan tickets are being given for the same day and our darshan is at evening 4 o’clock. Thiruvannamalai:The car parking here is a little away from the temple, and you need to take an auto to go to the temple. Unionized, and they have a fixed price. Since we started visiting these temples just before the Dashara holidays or the Navratri began, we could get easy darshans without long waiting times in the queue. But once Brahmotshavalu began in Tirupati, all of these places would eventually be rushed. After the Darshan, I drove to nearby Sarwana Bhavan, which has a Hyundai charging station. The Chargezone app worked here. Plugged in the car for charging, had brunch, and left for the next stop, Madurai. Sri Rangam:On the way to Madurai, I noticed that we were passing through Trichy / Srirangam. Thought we would just stop over here, visit the Srirangam temple complex, and then head on to Madurai. Srirangam is a huge temple complex that we are not aware of. We enquired with a few local folks, and they asked us which temple. Only after entering one of the gates to the temple, we realize it’s actually a temple complex and there are multiple temples within a single compound. The whole temple complex is well-maintained. It has fewer crowds, and there are EV go-karts available for elderly people to take from one temple to another within the complex. Madurai:We had a great darshan of Madhura Meenakshi Ammavaru here. I found a charge zone station, which is located inside the Marriott hotel in Madurai. We started charging here, had dinner and once it was charged, I decided that we could probably go see if the darshan is available. Google showed the temple is open until 9.30pm. At 9 o’clock we reached the temple for darshan and behind us the temple was closed while they were giving the final arati for the goddess and then the pavalimpu seva. We could witness this whole thing for about 30 minutes without any crowd. Rameswaram & Danushkodi:We stayed near the shore and in the evening had a very good view of the sky and the sea. Later, we went to the temple here. Once again, we were lucky to be there before the holiday rush began. There was no crowd and we got ample time to offer our prayers to Lord Shiva. The next day we woke up early for the sunrise, sat for some time near the shore, and then had breakfast and checked out of the hotel. The idea was to go to the Dhanushkoti. On the way to the Dhanushkoti, we found a many centuries old Freyrama temple. We took a little detour and we visited the temple. There we learnt that this is the place where Vibhishana got Pattabhishekam by Lord Rama after winning the battle with Ravana. Furthermore, it’s a short, nice ride to Ramanathapuram. There wasn’t much to do there. We took some pictures, looked at the sea or a round, and then on the way, we also noticed there’s a railway track and the train just passed beside us. It was a very good experience looking at the Google Maps on the screen and noticing that we are passing through a very small strip of land with the sea on either side. By this time, it was noo,n and we started to return via Ramanantapur to Kanya Kumari for the next stop. Found a Tucker charging station. Did a quick top-up and then moved to Ramananthapur for lunch. And again charging at a Relux charging stop. Kanyakumari: We reached Kanyakumari by dinner time. I visited Kanyakumari 10 years ago in 2015 along with my friends from Bangalore. Back then, it was scorching hot to visit the Vivekananda Rock Memorial. Now, with my wife and kid, it was all raining. It was a contrasting and wonderful experience to take a ferry in the clouds and rain to visit Vivekananda Rock Memorial. The ferry is available every 15 minutes starting at 8am. After checking out we started to go to Kovalam. Kovalam: It rained all through the journey. The roads are narrow and avg speeds at 30kmph. What a stunning beach at the UDS beach resort, Kovalam. This is more of a relaxed getaway for us and the 2 night, 3 days here were beautiful with the rains and cool breezes. This property has a beach access which is almost private. It’s a small sand strip behind the property with rocks on either end. We roamed around to Lulu Mall, Mall of Travancore, Shanmugam beach and strolled through the Vizhinjam stretch. Thiruvanantapuram:The car also reached 2,100 on the odo and it was time for the first service. I looked at Google and called the folks at SS Mahindra, Peroorkada. Even with a language barrier, they were so helpful in accommodating my service request without a prior appointment. When I informed them that I’m travelling across TN and KL and would be leaving the next day, they were kind enough to take my service booking. I drove to the service center, and the service advisor, Amal promptly attended to me. Asked me if I was in the middle of a trip, checked the details on his device and confirmed there are no service actions and that they could complete the first service in an hour and I can wait in the lobby. I proceeded to have lunch at the nearest Sarvana Bhavan and by the time I reached back, the service was completed. I requested for a ‘no wash’ so I can save some time. The total bill came down to 0. There is a huge crowd at the Ananta Padmanabha Swamy Swami temple. You need to remove your shirt and have a doti. They have a strict dress code for both men and women. There are storage and cloak rooms to store the shirts and phones in a bag. They also sell Dotis and kaduvas (short towels for the upper body) at the same location. This is controlled by the govt. and not private sellers. While in the queue at security, I read about this temple at a hoarding. Ananta is the 5 headed snake. Padma Nabha, is the one who has lotus through navel. The idol is in sleeping position under the shadow of Padma’s hood and under the right hand is a shiva linga. Through the east entrance is the darshan and you get to see the whole idol through three doors aligned parallely. After the darshan, we did some shopping and had lunch at a nice place called Agasthya. Varkala:On the way to Varkala, I found this serene long beach with almost no one around. Spent an hour here watching the sea while my kid was collecting sea shells. Proceeded to Varkala. We were here for the sunset, and there are very good cafes on the cliffside. Initially, we didn’t decide to stay here. But the sunset was so beautiful that we decided to stay here for the evening and had dinner with a view of the sea along the cliff. There’s a good vegan place with nice pizzas among the rows of eateries. Kochi:We skipped Alleppey and checked into Ibis Kochi by evening. Since we skipped Alleppey and I wanted to take my family on a boating ride, I searched for a boat jetty nearby and found one within 15m drive. Drove there, parked and immediately got on to a sunset ferry for just rs200/person. It is a 1 hour evening ride on the boat. There’s a DJ dancefloor with music and lights in the lower deck section and an open deck on above to view the Cochin harbor, some islands and sunset. It’s a beautiful skyline during the return journey. It doesn’t stop anywhere, but just takes on a 1-hour round-trip. Guruvayur:Since we have come this far, we decided to add this stop into our itinerary at the last minute. And from then on, go ahead to Hyderabad. Checked out at Kochi after breakfast and reached Guruvayur template at 12:30. Again, we were very lucky since the temple closes at about 1:30pm. We got into the line and waited. The darshan was completed by 2:30pm and we had lunch at a nearby popular mess within the compound. The return journey began at 3:30pm and by 3pm the next day, we reached home. Google showed 20hours and I took 24hours. Slept for like 90minutes at a charging stop. I stopped at 7 places during my return but charged at 5 of them as I didn’t see a need to charge more. Postlude This is how I normally do my roadtrips. The first and the last legs are continuous and I did the same on my EV too. I did not miss my ICE (Hexa xta). During the last 200kms I discovered “Everyday” mode and loved it so much I read GTO once mentioning, all roadtrips on EVs are about only charging infra and experiences. I tried to be cautious not to just limit it to a charging discussion in this post. After the first few initial legs, I didn’t even plan that much. I was just looking at stations at my next destination and proceeding without any range anxiety. Few other pics: Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.
