Finally got myself an electric car (Hyundai – Kona Electric) 2 days ago, arriving auspiciously 1 week before my would be anniversary. I am sure Jenna had something to do with it 😉
Either way, took the Friday off work, got my banking done, delivered my old car (with a proper farewell) on a one way trip – and retained one of the special charms that Jenna had put there on it.
Galactic Grey – ended up much better colour than expected (photos to come).
Adventure begins with my first passenger being Jenna on the passenger side (honouring the ‘ancestor/late wife’). The first person to see the car was Seline. First passenger was Muz.
Seeing my last/first car was a 2003 Mazda Protege, this is a huge step up.
The biggest change awareness for EV is the battery/charging. My first lessons was how to judge consumption. So far it’s averaging ~12.9kW/km – which is great – my 2 days travel, which in Australia is large has only taken 25% consumption.
First lesson: Charging specs> Trickle (wall plug) charging is 2.1kW. To fully use the solar->EV , it would have to be ~11am+to not dip into batteries, and giving batteries some time to charge prior to 11am. At the current season, it looks like charging will have to stop ~3pmish, leaving about 4 hours free energy per day (assuming sun). This is not a bad equation.
Lesson 2: luxuries. Yes, I did get a highlander version, but most things don’t draw much energy -except aircon. It will drop estimation by ~50km. But with a range of over 400km, I’m sure I can afford luxuries.
Lesson 3: Budgetting range. This is probably a “me” thing. I would love to find out how many km’s I run in a week, and budget my power/battery around it. It’s only been 2 days, and I’ve clocked up ~200km (Australian landscape is far). I still have another ~270km on the estimation – so I’m way on my target of 1 charge per week.
Lesson 4: Charge stations. I’m still working on this one. The EV app on the display seemed good, but I suspect PlugShare is a better app. First looks tells me that the Kona Electric works off Type-2/1772 plugs. Will have to look deeper into that.