We had initially booked the Citroen eC3 but later upgraded to the Tata Nexon EV Prime. The driving experience was marvellous with minimal to no fatigue.
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Inception of the idea
So the idea was to have an extended test drive of an EV before actually buying one. Hence, I started searching as to where can I rent one and voila, stumbled upon SparkCars. Issue was that they did not have a daily rental service in Jaipur (Closer to Gurugram but only a long-term leasing facility was available in Jaipur) and daily rental was available only in Bengaluru. As if the Gods were on my side, some work came up in Bengaluru in Aug and without wasting a minute I called them regarding the booking.
Second question was where do I take the vehicle to? So wifey and I started looking for places to visit near Bengaluru and zeroed in on Coorg as we had not been there before. It was also at a decent distance from Bengaluru for a first-ever EV road trip with adequate charging options on the way. (Also to ease out the range anxiety. More on the charging infra in the latter half of the post).
Booking and vehicle selection
The company offers Citroen eC3 and Nexon EV Prime for daily rentals and has ZS EV for long-term leasing option. I’m not sure about the pricing (trip was in Aug 23) but initially, I had booked the eC3 for 4800/day with some refundable security deposit. After 2 weeks from the initial booking (sometime in mid-June) I got a call from the company that a Nexon EV Prime XZ+ (top variant) was available for 5500/day.
I immediately upgraded as I had to do DC charging most of the time and was not confident with the air-cooled battery system of the eC3 (Nexon EV has a liquid-cooled battery). I had also checked regular ICE vehicles from different rental companies just to cross-check whether EVs were coming out to be expensive, but to my surprise, cSUVs like XUV 300, ICE Nexon etc were almost in the same price bracket.
There was an extra fee for delivery as well as pick up of the car from the airport. Compared the cab fares, was almost the same so opted to pay extra for this option since did not want to miss my flight getting stuck in Bengaluru traffic.
Terms and conditions
Like ICE vehicles, the deal was to return the car with the same SOC as while taking delivery. The car had to be cleaned from the exterior and interior on returning. Failing the above 2 conditions, a nominal maintenance fee would be charged. There was no limit on the number of kilometres that one could drive.
Going to Coorg
Landed in Bengaluru at around 0900 and scheduled the delivery at 1000 (took luggage delivery from the conveyor belt into consideration). Luggage came quite quickly and we were out of the terminal by 0915. Got in touch with the company person and I was informed that the driver was en route with the car. He asked us to wait at the Taj Hotel (There’s a Tata charger in the basement). We waited at the hotel reception lounge and took delivery of the car by 1000.
Got the car with the above SOC
Had planned out the entire trip using the Plugshare app keeping in mind even backup chargers on the way in case the primary one was occupied/non-functional. We started from Bengaluru airport around 1000 hrs and reached our first stop on the BLR MYS expressway at a McDonald’s where a BPCL charger was located.
Unfortunately, the McDonald’s seemed to have closed for good but there was a multi-cuisine food court in the same petrol pump complex where we had brunch (the food was decent). Took us around 45 mins for lunch and meanwhile the car charged for 2 sessions with the details attached. Initially had charged for half an hour but then since wifey was still eating (she’ll kill me for writing this!), thought I’d charge for another 15 mins. (Range anxiety as we had to go another 200 km).
There was a minor glitch where the charger did not start the second session immediately and was getting disconnected. Called customer care and they told me to use the Ionage app instead of the Hello BPCL app and the charging started with that. Lost 10 mins in this issue. There is no minimum balance required to be maintained in either of these wallets to initiate charging.
Stats after reaching our first charger
A guy was available for assistance for charging, didn’t require though (Thanks to all the info here on Team-BHP!)
Charging summary
Following this session, we headed out with 80% SOC to our next charging station as I was skeptical about the elevation before reaching Coorg so thought would do another charging session in between in Mysuru.
Reached another BPCL charger in Mysuru
Decided on BPCL again as I liked the no minimum balance concept but it did not work this time. As soon as it connected, it would charge me money but the car would not take charge. Tried twice, but to no gain. Quickly opened Plugshare to locate another one at a Tata service centre and proceeded there. Wasted around 20 mins at this charger.
Reached the Zeon charger at Hebbal with 40% SOC and charged there till 79%. Took 30 mins and we waited in the service centre customer lounge and watched an episode of The Good Doctor on our tablet.
Charging summary
Stats after completing Zeon charging session at Hebbal
Left the place at 1617 and reached Club Mahindra resort around 1900. Maintained a speed of 80 on the highway as far as possible and AC was on for around 30% of the time since morning was cool and it rained a bit on the way and it was anyways cool in Coorg.
Coorg
Club Mahindra had a Sunfuel AC charger in their parking. The charging here was slightly tricky as the charger had to be connected to your phone’s personal hotspot and only then it started charging. But this was only to initiate charging, you could walk away from the charger and disconnect your hotspot and it would continue charging. Needed the hotel technician’s help for this and used it for charging on the second night. Issue with the Sunfuel app is you can recharge only in multiples of Rs 500 with the minimum amount being 500. Found this really expensive as I barely charged there and had to shell out 500 bucks (compared to what I paid at previous chargers). Did not charge at the hotel for the first night.
Had located a DCFC to charge for the next day morning. It was located in a hotel’s parking at Madikeri.
Charged to 80% while we had breakfast at a local restaurant and took the car for local sightseeing.
Charging summary
Went to see Chiklihole Reservoir and Abbey Falls. Came back with enough charge and put the car on charging at night. The parking where the charger is located is the highest parking lot of the resort (There are a total of 4 parking lots at different elevations). So by the time it was time to remove the charger (2200 hrs), it had started raining. So decided not to go in the rain to remove the charger gun (Asked the hotel if any other EV guest had checked in, they said no). The rental company person was kind enough to let me know the SOC at 2200 hrs by looking at the Zconnect app (I had no access to the app as it was installed on his phone only). The car charged overnight to 100%.
Next day since we had full SOC, we planned to go to Iruppu Falls which were approx 80 kms from our resort, almost touching the Kerala border. Was a great drive with excellent roads. Was a descent initially so hardly used any charge and in fact gained charge by regeneration.
Small white stream (if you zoom in) is Iruppu falls
The car could have easily reached back to the resort without charging but there was a Zeon charger on our way so thought of doing a quick top up just for precautionary sake (Range anxiety was gone for me, but not for wifey).
Chilling in the car while charging
Charging summary
I’ve driven on hills before but always in a manual transmission car, this was the first time driving an automatic and that too an EV on hills. I have never experienced such effortless driving on hills before. Had the experience of using sport mode while overtaking a Range Rover Velar, boy I was awestruck by that! It was as if the car had a NOS kit installed and wifey said the look on Velar’s driver was worth seeing.
Reached back at the resort and just relaxed in the evening. Did not charge that night at the resort as I found Sunfuel charging quite expensive. Had planned to charge the next day en route.
Back to Bengaluru
Had planned to have breakfast at Kushalnagar at Cafe Levista which had a BPCL charger adjacent to it. Started from the resort at 1000 hrs and reached Kushalnagar at 1045 hrs. Went in to look for breakfast in the cafe and figured out that they hardly had anything to eat except a few fried items like fries and cutlets. This was a bummer as had to somehow fill our stomachs with that fried stuff and coffee. Bought some coffee for home from there. Charged for around 45 mins there as we had breakfast.
Charging summary
Started from there to reach our lunch place on the main BLR MYS expressway and had a nice lunch at Shivalli Restaurant.
Charging summary
An interesting thing happened at this charger. The app showed that charging stopped after 15 mins. My order had not come till then so went to check what’s the issue so as to restart charging. But to my surprise, the car was still charging. So came back finished our lunch and went back after 30 mins to see that the charging was still going on. Did not see any other EV coming so sat in the car for another 10 mins and charged it to 95%. No money was deducted after the initial 15 mins. Thinking was to have max charge before reaching the airport so that it would take less time to charge it back to 70% (SOC while taking delivery of the car). Reached Bengaluru outskirts pretty early and called up the company if I could return the car early at their office instead of the airport. They happily agreed to it and offered to refund my airport pick-up fee of Rs 1000. They also did not charge me for returning the car less than pick up SOC. Dropped the car at their office and booked a Blusmart for the airport.
Final stats while returning the car
Summary
Covered almost 900 kms in my first EV trip ever by paying approx Rs 2000 (Rs 2.2/km). The driving experience was marvellous with minimal to no fatigue including driving on hills. The car rental came to be around 5000/day. Car was pretty well maintained despite having done around 12000 kms on the odo.
I’m in love with EVs and planning to buy my own (waiting for Suzuki eVX to launch next year). Would strongly recommend this service for anyone in Bengaluru and surrounding areas who is planning to buy an EV to have a first-hand experience of the technology before actually investing in it.
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