Recently my spouse and I took a week off to journey two of the rail trails in Victoria. Naturally, I used to be decided to drive right down to Beechworth, our start line, within the newly acquired Hyundai Ioniq 5 electrical SUV.
Since there isn’t a roof-rack for the Hyundai and as we – in our late 60s – have moved to e-bikes, albeit it mild ones, we wanted to have the manufacturing unit fitted Hyundai towbar and backed that up with a Thule bike rack. The tow bar and the bike rack could be fitted and unfitted fairly rapidly.
It’s about 620km right down to Beechworth from our home and we ended up charging 3 times – at Goulburn, Gundagai and Barnawartha – arriving at Beechworth with 75% cost and having spent simply 63 minutes charging.
The journey time was corresponding to comparable journeys I’ve executed earlier than going electrical. Despite the automobile and the chargers each in principle being able to 350kW charging, at no level did any of the chargers get a lot above 200kW. It was the identical on my prior lengthy distance journey from Brisbane.
The Hyundai makes a fantastic touring automobile when it comes to road-worthiness and luxury. Its dealing with is common, as is the suspension by the requirements of some vehicles I’ve pushed, however the electronics together with adaptive cruise management and assisted steering work fairly nicely.
In my opinion the screens are the best measurement and match into the automobile inside with out dominating it. The one drawback of the electronics is that each time I put the automobile in reverse the bike provider causes the “rear collision automatic brake” system to interact and that is fiddly to beat.
It’s exhausting to evaluate what impression the bikes have on the automobile’s effectivity, however as usually occurs because the battery will get heat from cruising down the express-way at 110km/h after which being recharged rapidly by the tip of the journey, I used to be seeing 25kWh/100km a lot of the time and naturally the battery is rarely full.
From Bright, we drove right down to Mansfield. There aren’t any charging amenities in Mansfield and the closest quick charger is at Euroa and it was damaged – and in any occasion was nicely out of our means. So I used to be apprehensive.
Fortunately our “Tour de Vineyard” host Bernard got here up with the sensible concept of renting a powered caravan/tenting site for the three days while we cycled from Mansfield to Tallarook by way of Alexandra. We loved this journey and, by coincidence, ate lunch at a cafe seated subsequent to Sandy McKinnon, writer of “The unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow.”
Returning to the automobile after three days we discovered it was lonely however totally charged and ready for us on the very good caravan park at Mansfield.
The journey again concerned the identical charging sequence in reverse besides we stayed in a single day at Yass the place we took benefit of the 50kW free charger earlier than heading off to the superb portrait exhibition on the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.
It’s price noting that the charging infrastructure in Canberra, the Nation’s capital, is pretty common with one 50kW charger round the principle vacationer space and a few low energy ones.
In common, after journeys within the Hyundai from Brisbane to Sydney, Sydney to Victoria return and Sydney to the Hunter I can say that quick charging makes the journeys virtually as fast as in a petrol automobile, offered the chargers are working, they usually typically usually are not, and offered no-one else is utilizing the charger, which they generally are.
The different drawback is that you simply mainly find yourself consuming the place there’s a automobile charger and the Chargefox community usually doesn’t have the standard of the meals as a criterion in the place to find a charger.
For the trade I count on continued pressure as each the variety of EVs and the variety of chargers develop. Reliable 350kW chargers with numerous retailers, hopefully with respectable eating places, are positively the one option to maintain drivers comfortable as the electrical car transition continues.
I’ve extra lengthy distance journeys developing and really feel assured sufficient, however vary nervousness continues to be a factor and there’s additionally the query of the long-term impression on battery lifetime of an excessive amount of quick charging.
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As a footnote, I can advocate biking the victorian rail trails. I’ve executed a lot of biking however at my age I discover the light-weight e-bike has put the enjoyment again into it. E-bikes actually are a nice option to get round our lovely countryside and rail trails actually convey out the most effective of it. It was nice to see some 5B photo voltaic panels used on the Barnawartha charging site.
David Leitch is principal of analyst agency ITK and co-host of RenewEconomy’s widespread and weekly Energy Insiders podcast.
David Leitch is an vitality analyst with ITK, and co-host of the Energy Insiders podcast.