So before I get into this, I should point out that it was my first time driving an EV and I definitely didn't know much about range etc. On the Friday evening, before golf, I was doing some errands after picking the car up, and I immediately loved it, it was responsive and fun to drive, nippy, and handled really well. When you roll down the windows it makes a slight whirr sound which is cool, and very reminsenct of electric motorbikes used in the 80's movie 'Tron' ( coincidental naming perhaps?).
When I got back to my apartment which doesn't have a charging station. The car was at 82% which I presumed if compared to my petrol car, would be sufficient to get me my 240km round trip. Let's see.
I must admit I was a bit late out the door, and once on the expressway I put the foot down, it drives at speed easily and I was making good time. Fortunately, I arrived at the clubhouse on time. Unfortunately, when I looked at the battery it read 33%. Oh no, was this EV newbie going to be stuck somewhere in Saitama on the way back? Deciding not to worry about it for now, I focused on the 18 holes before us.
After a cracking day on the course, we got back in the Q4 for the return journey, I found using Google maps that there was a charging station at one of the parking areas on the Tohoku expressway about 50km into the return journey. Thinking my math was solid- I hit the road. It was shot day and we had the AC on and driving at a good pace, after about 10 minutes I realized the battery was going down quicker than the KMs were suggesting! So I decided to save some battery by slowing down and turning off the AC. This actually did the trick and the battery-by-distance readout became accurate. We made it to the service area and thankfully nobody was in the only quick charger or the regular (slower) EV chargers (3) We set it on charge for 30 minutes and headed in for some ramen. When we came back the cycle had finished but the car had only gained 20%, so I put it on again and headed for coffee. FIne, and with another 20% in the car, we had just over 50% and proceeded the rest of the way home (with the windows down!) We made it back to the dealership no problem, in fact, 10% to spare!