Electric cars are making its way into society like never before. It looks evident that Electric vehicles (EV) are here to stay with their ever increasing popularity may even take over regular Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) cars sooner than we think.
But how would you experience driving an EV before committing to buy one? After all the they aren’t cheap just yet. Where average cost of new EV is around 35K.
You can book test drive directly with Automaker for 20 mins ridetime possibly but if that’s not enough there is a better option where you can drive it for longer, test all its features and best of all you can take it on your holiday.
You can do this by hiring it for whole day/week or months with growing number of Electric only car rental companies. And because of growing charging network worldwide its now much easier to take that leap finally driving your own electric car one day.
To test this theory, I hired Tesla Model S for 4 days for a road trip to Scotland which cost me in total £408 with insurance. I calculated if I had hired equivalent size 5 seater diesel, it would have cost same plus extra on fuel.
Here are steps you can follow to plan your first EV Holiday:
Step 1: Plan your trip ahead
My planning started on Tesla Trips website, here you can enter your Location and interested Destination to roughly plan your route. This will show number of Tesla Superchargers on the route.
- What is Tesla Supercharger?
Tesla’s network of fast-charging stations with variation of 150kW to 250kW charging capacity. Depending on various factor time spent charging car can be vaguely around 30 mins.
Step 2: Find overnight stay
Clicking on Show nearby Destination Charging link on same page will show you available places to stay with Destination chargers. I selected Loch Tay Highland Lodges in Scotland because it was very at scenic location and had great amenities. But mainly as it was on the way to Ben Nevis our furthest destination.
- What is Tesla Destination charger?
Tesla’s network of slow-charging point(s) with variation of 6kW to 22kW charging capacity. Depending on various factor time spent charging car can be vaguely around 10 hours.
Step 3: Hire any EV of your choice
I choose Tesla Model S 75 with Autopilot feature from EVision car rentals, cause I was thinking of buying a similar model and EVision had great reviews for an electric car rental startup. Check for Range and features you need. There are other EVs and Tesla’s like Model X and 3 also that you can hire with them.
Step 4: Plan your charging points
Whack your itinerary plan like one below to calculate distance between charge points.
Important – Miles covered between charging point must be less than range of the car. The Model S 75 kWh had realistic range of 220 miles but it’s advertised as 250 miles. So I tried to keep total distance around 180 miles to be on safer side.
Cause various things can affect range of the car like acceleration, weather, elevations and you never know if you will have a diversion due to road closure like we had on Day 2, yeap that was fun!
Here’s how I planned my itinerary for Scotland
Day 1
- Starting point – Leeds Evision location (80% charge)
- Mid charging point – Scotch Corner Supercharger (60 miles)
- Destination – Windermere Lake (70 miles)
- Overnight charging point – Gretna Supercharger (25 miles)
Total daily miles – 155 miles
Day 2
- Starting point – Gretna Supercharger (Fully charged)
- Destination – Stirling Castle (100 miles)
- Overnight charging point – Loch Tay Highland Lodges (45 miles)
- plus unexpected road closure detour(40 miles)
Total daily miles – 185 miles
Day 3
- Starting point – Loch Tay Highland Lodges (Fully charged)
- Destination – Nevis Range Ben Nevis (80 miles)
- Overnight charging point – Loch Tay Highland Lodges (80 miles)
Total daily miles – 160 miles
Day 4
- Starting point – Loch Tay Highland Lodges (Fully charged)
- Mid charging point – Abington Supercharger (95 miles)
Penrith Tebay Supercharger (95 miles) - Destination – Leeds Evision location
Total daily miles – 190 miles
But before jumping in Tesla to drive it far for very first time, I would recommend booking that free 20 mins test drive with them. Where you can get used to basic controls, charging procedures and ask any questions. As Tesla cars are quite different for instance there is no start button or a handbrake. Doing the test drive will be like a crash course in getting ready for the big trip. And later when you do such a long trip you will learn lot of important things first hand for transitioning over to EV.
What I learned from my first EV experience is that the final 80 to 100 percent can take considerably longer even on Supercharger if you really want to get maximum juice out of the car. However it’s not recommended to charge above 80% for battery degradation purpose.
How was the Autopilot experience?
Most eagerly the reason I wanted to drive a Tesla apart from other EVs was to try its Autopilot feature. And to test if it actually works or is just a gimmick.
- What is Tesla Autopilot?
Its a camera and sensor assisted software system that allows driver to let car drive itself.
The Model S I managed to get unfortunately was on old Autopilot version-1. There have been several new versions released since then. But due to the limitation of when the car was built, it was stuck on old hardware i.e. HW1 aka AP1. I tried below modes for most part of the journey. Can’t say it went without hiccup but I’m told by a friend who owns Tesla with AP2 and above are smoother and more reliable.
- Autosteer – Which maintains car between white lanes looking through several cameras and GPS data
- Traffic aware cruise control and collision warning – Alerts driver to take over when other vehicle attempts to cause accident while moving
Just a bit of caution “Autopilot” doesn’t mean car drives itself but its the driver who drives it through the Autopilot feature. Its like a very advanced cruise control and You got to know how to use it. There is a fine difference where people often confuse Autopilot with Full Self Drive (FSD). Later one has the self-driving technology which requires HW3.
Revolution Electrified’s Take
Doing this trip I wanted to test Tesla Charging Network works even in the most remote area of UK. So hence I planned an extreme roadtrip test to go till foot of Ben Nevis the tallest mountain in UK proving no issues with “range anxiety” if you plan ahead. But Tesla onboard screen navigations is also capable to show same detail on the fly planning too and it’s quite easy.
And it isn’t a problem to charge on go in UK for other EVs but the sheer complexity of third party charging points is another story plus you have to pay higher for the electricity cost at those charging stations. Which is why I wanted to keep things straightforward and stick with *free unlimited Tesla Charging Network on our first EV holiday.
Once you take a ride in one such EV car you will soon realize there is no looking back with this EV Revolution that’s happening right now. And the feeling of instant acceleration you will get in modern EVs is something to be felt rather than explained. So please give it a try I’m sure you will love it.
* for car hired with EVision at least or newly brought Tesla S and X. Otherwise its a paid service.
