Day 1
Started from Pune by the Intercity Express, which has a Thane stop instead of the normal Kalyan one. Caught a fast local at Thane to go to Kurla. Kurla (W) is an extension of Dharavi The station road is quite narrow, to the extent that only autos and two wheelers ply on these one way roads. Farah and Raphae had organised a dinner get together at the Kurla Phoenix Market City, about 3 km from Kurla station. Walked for a km before realising that I would delay everyone’s dinner, Took an auto to reach Phoenix.
The entire PII gang was there. Amit was visiting from Sikkim. Abhishek drove down from Kurla. Amit was staying in the Thane area and had taken a local train from Thane 15 minutes before my local. Amit shifted base from aamchi Mumbai to pristine Gangtok a few years ago. Spends time at Siliguri too. Most of his work can happen remotely because most of it is ideative. His bread and butter is creative work for digital agencies. Also dabbles in sustainability. And to add to the spice, is also part of an edtech startup which is working on solutions in the mental health space.
Reached Moiz Apartments at near midnight. Farah, the perfect host, had got two separate apartments ready – for yours truly and Kamlesh. We put the Tigor for charging before we signed off for the day. Left Moiz Apt at 0700 hours and had a peaceful drive to reach Abhishek’s place, close to the Mahindra factory at Kandivali. The spare tire takes up about 20% of boot space. We managed to fit our 4 bags in the relatively small boot. Thankfully Abhishek was travelling lighter than usual. We ended up using his coat as a window shade through the day. Bought some bananas and wadas near his house, and we were on the road.
Our first stop was at Vapi, where Abhishek sampled the coffee at Starbucks. I managed to convince a fruit seller to make a watermelon chaat for me. Kamlesh was carrying a dabba, which had emptied out its watermelons. Used the dabba for a watermelon refill. The idea of having one dozen bananas per day for our group appealed to me. It’s a healthy snack. After a half an hour break at Vapi, we moved on and headed to Bilimora. The Chargezone fast charger was 10 kilometres before Bilimora at the Empire hotel.
We met with Vedanshu. who does video editing for Pluginindia. Vedanshu’s brother, a programmer, took us to Jalaram Khakhra House. Lunch was an assortment of Gujju snacks, most of them having a besan base. We had to return back to the charging station because of an error in charging. We realised there were two options in the app for the Tigor EV – The older 120 km range one and the current Ziptron. The Tigor CAN bus does not talk too well to most fast chargers. So the user has to become a CAN substitute, and key in vehicle details. Not a very happy thought – as future vehicles may have more battery options – some of which even the users may not be aware of. Strong suggestion to Tata Motors is to get their act together on the CAN bus front. What we need is an Android kind of open source – not the Apple type of Gated community that Tata currently lives in.
On our ChargeZone app, we had chosen the older Tigor version, which has a 15 kWH battery. We should have realised our error when their software did not allow us to choose anything more than 15 kW. We had viewed this as a bug – and had gone on to chose the full charge option. We found out later that there was a genuine programming bug too. When you select dark mode on your phone, some of the font colors continue to remain black. So Tigor EV Ziptron, exists as – ahem, dark matter. After discovering this bug, we restarted charging and left with 96% charge.
Our next stop was at Karjan, near Baroda. We met with Gaurav, who looks after new projects at ChargeZone. The company has already installed 650 charging guns, most being in the b2b space. Ashok Leyland is a big customer in Ahmedabad. The business model for Leyland is a service contract; electricity being provided by the government via the bus company. Incidentally, there are non Leyland Hinduja group companies which have the operating contract for running the buses. We discussed the swapping experiment that was tried at Ahmedabad, with Sun Mobility. Turned out that there were mechanical problems in the swapping system – and so the swap batteries were converted to fixed batteries. The initial buses had been fitted with 320 kWh batteries – but bus operators soon realised that this was overkill. The batteries were downgraded to 200 kWh – which sufficed for the 200 km daily running of a typical municipal transport bus. The buses are fast charged overnight – takes about 2 hours per bus. There is a 45 minute boost charge which is given when the shift change happens. Shift changes are staggered and start from 1230, ending at 1730 hrs.
ChargeZone also has 65 public chargers. The good news is that revenues at some of the Mumbai Ahmedabad route chargers are covering operating costs of rent and electricity!
Chargezone is now electrifying the Pune Bangalore route. Pune Shirdi was done recently by installing two chargers – one at Sangamner and the second at Shirdi. The company either rents the space for the charger or has a revenue share agreement. The rental agreements are for 10 years – and the revenue share agreements for 20. The share of the location owner depends on location. Lower traffic means lower share. It start with 20% and can go on to 30%. There is an exclusivity clause in the agreement, where the location owner cannot provide charging facility of any other CPO.
The chargers are being supplied by Pune based ADOR. Liked the charger, as it did not give us any problems during the few hours that we spent around it. To add to that, the electricity situation in Gujarat is quite good. Having said that, Chargezone is experimenting with solar-storage solutions for charging. They are buying electricity at an average of Rs. 7.5 per unit from the GSEB – and retailing it at Rs. 18 plus 18% GST. Would be interesting to see if having your own generation and storage justifies the RoI math.
The real cost advantage of EVs is evident when you use the car for drive between cities. Remains to be seen how comfortable the charging experience will end up being. Spoke to Gaurav about establishing a network of CPOs, which hopefully can mandate a single RFID device for all networks. ChargeZone already has a tie up with Fortum for interchangeability. Instead of waiting for the government to come up with a CPO policy, it is best that the operators themselves come up with a cooperative kind of structure, which does the interconnections between CPOs. PII can volunteer to help.
The same glitch of choosing the wrong Tigor happened at Karjan. We restarted charging and reached 96 percent after having paused at 85%. It was 1900 hours by the time we left Karjan. Took the Vadodara bypass and then the expressway to Ahmedabad. We drove at speeds of between 80-90 kmph on the expressway. The expressway reminded me of the NICE road in Bangalore, where you have to overtake through the leftmost lane quite often. Both are 4 lane roads, with one tarred shoulder lane. We found some hitchhikers waiting on the sides – which actually made the leftside overtaking manoeuvres quite dangerous.
We had averaged 105 wh per km through the day, which was not too bad, considering that the AC was on most of the time. We had set the car’s cabin temperature at 26 deg C – and that would have helped. Fun fact – the Tigor battery has its own chiller system. And the battery was being maintained at an even cooler 25 deg C. Would be interesting to know whether the chiller energy is being included in the wh/km figure that is shown on the tripmeter.
The wh/km inched up to 107 at expressway speeds. The relatively small increase was because we already had 400 km under our belt by the time we hit the expressway. And the average wh/km is a kind of weighted average. The past punya helped us overcome the current paap of our high speed driving. It was 2230 hrs when we hit the ring road in Ahmedabad. Like in my last entry to Ahmedabad, there was a cop waiting to make money out of outstation cars. Fortunately, the white on green number plate has got bad readability – and we were shooed through without a bribe. We went to the ChargeZone station at Vastrapur – and found the location to be convenient. We had an offer from a Tigor user to use slow charging at his place. We troubled our friend at 2300 hrs, and he happily lent us his Tigor to go back to Ginger Hotel in Vastrapur, which was going to host us for the night.
Was happy to note that Tata had a slow 15 A charger installed at the hotel. Was told that Tata Power has installed the slow guys at all Tata properties. It took us more than 20 minutes to check in. The Ginger team needs to work on reducing this; we were already dead tired by the time we had reached. The lady at the reception was unable to supply RO water and claimed that even the kitchen uses Bisleri! Had to go down to the car to fetch non-mineral water. This is a sign of personal senility. I avoid mineral water bottles even in Rajdhanis – going down to the platform to refill my – ahem – reused plastic bottle. My quixotic contribution to reducing plastic use.
Day 2
After checking into the hotel at midnight, got up at 06:30 thanks to the alarm. Kamlesh and Yours Truly, went down to meet our Tigor friend. I liked his suggestion about having rear AC vents. In my backseat stay, I had to position myself in the middle of the two seats to get some cool air flow from the dashboard vents. For a 14 lakh car, that’s about the bare minimum that a customer should demand from a car service provider.
Caught up with Chirantan over breakfast. There is some talk of Gyanshala’s expansion at Ahmedabad. Chirantan is enjoying his newly married life with monthly meetings scheduled. In my mind, this is how all marriages should be. As of now, more trips are happening from Delhi to Ahmedabad than vice versa. I proposed to Chirantan that Peepal Tree can use Gyanshala’s English and Math workbooks. I also volunteered to help the Gyanshala design integrate activities into the existing worksheets. Chirantan will talk to Professor Pankaj Jain and let me know by Thursday. Gave him a short test drive of the Tigor. Hope he switches to electric soon.
It was 1100 hours by the time we left. The first stop was a HP-Tata Power JV charging station on the outskirts of Gandhinagar. Was about 45 km from the hotel. We reached to find that the station was not yet in operation. The petrol pump had a power connection of 15 kilowatt. An application had been made to the Gujarat Electricity Board for upgrading to 30 kilowatt, which is what the charger requires. The approval had yet to come in. We talked to the Tata Power team and were promised an update on station operation by Thursday. As of Apr 22, there are no fast chargers between Ahmedabad and Udaipur. So we were forced to do slow charging. The HP dealer did offer us a 15 A socket charging, but our mind was already made up: head to the Himmatnagar Tata motors dealership for a longer charging session.
We were driving without any cabin AC because of range anxiety, coupled with slower charging times. Tried conserving energy by tailgating a few buses, but unfortunately these buses had too many stops. We reached Himmatnagar around 1245 hrs with an SoC of 62%. Himmatnagar is about 80 km from Ahmedabad. The Tata dealership was extremely helpful. One of the working bays had been converted to an EV charging area. They get a few customers every week for using their charging. As of now, they are providing the charging service, gratis. We were made comfortable in an air conditioned seating area for customers. Chatted up with the dealership team about EVs.
Had a very nice conversation with one of the fellow customers, who had come to service his diesel Nexon. Our friend is a farmer cum LIC agent from Bhilora, about 50 km away from Himmatnagar. His son is a pass out of NIT Rourkela, who runs a startup which is associated with the Honeybee network of IIMA’s Prof Anil Gupta. The daughter is studying journalism at the LD engineering college campus at Gandhinagar. I asked our friend about the challenges facing the farming community in his area. He talked of a shortage of labour. And of increasing raw material prices, especially fertilizers. The BJP has been losing vote share in Gujarat off late. And it needs to really look at getting farmers out of their oil based fertiliser addiction.
As the vehicle charged, we went to a next door hotel, the Milestone. The bill for 3 people came to Rs. 800, and that was when Kamlesh and yours truly shared a veg biryani! Kind of expensive for a small town. It was around 14:30 hours by the time we left Himmatnagar. Battery SoC was 87 percent. 200 kilometer still to go! Post lunch, Abhishek took on driving duties. After about 20 kilometres, we took a left and left the 6 lane highway. It was a nice two lane road, which meandered for about 20 kilometer before we joined another 6 lane highway, which was part of the Golden quadrilateral. Stopped to admire a lake on the way. From the time we joined the Golden quadrilateral highway, the Aravalli range started. For the next 60-70 kilometer it was rolling hills. Kudos to NHAI for having built a decent 6 lane road in such a terrain.
At first sight, the Aravallis remind you of the Shivaliks, the hill range at the base of the Himalayas. But when you see the road cuts you realise that most of the rock in this hill range is sedimentary. Marble mining is a big time industry here in the Aravallis – and marble is nothing but compressed skeletons of our ancestors. Most of the sedimented rocks have layers which are closer to vertical than horizontal. So it must have been an undersea floor at one time, which has been pushed up by tectonic movements.
We stopped at Neel Gagan dhaba, which had been recommended as a good charging top-up point. Unfortunately, the puncture shop at the dhaba, from where we were to draw our 15 A supply, had no earthing. The car refused to charge. So we plunged on, hoping to reach Udaipur with our current SoC. The mathematics was not in our favour. The car’s estimation of range and our destination distance was almost the same. I always like to have some buffer in case things don’t go as per plan.
I took over driving duties from Abhishek. Do some very light pedal driving at power ranges of 2-3 bars. We were lucky that we also lost some altitude after the dhaba. Managed to get down the day’s average SoC from 105 wh/km to 99 wh/km. As the speed dropped, we realised we were running late. Had promised my IIMC batchmate, Vishwanathan, who is now a prof at IIM Udaipur, that we will meet him around 18:30 hours. So about 50 kilometres short of Udaipur, started my bus tailgating to increase the average speed, while maintaining wh/km on the lower side. Found a Bharat Benz bus which was maintaining speeds of 70-80 kmph. Then latched on to a Tempo Traveller, which was running around at speeds closer to 100 kmph. The Traveller does not have the same cross sectional area as the bigger buses – so the wh/km started shooting up With all these acrobatics, managed to reach IIM Udaipur at 18:45 hours and 13 % SoC. Took us half an hour to start charging at the substation near the faculty quarters. Extremely helpful technicians. There were problems related to earthing on the extension board. Managed to find another plug point from which had good earthing – and was close enough to charge the car directly. At 19:15 hours the charging finally started.
Chatted up with Parvati, Vishy’s better half. She has seen an uptake in her yoga teacher classes, thanks to the lockdown. Also met with their lovely daughter, Gayatri, who was on a short break from her school. She starts her 9th grade next week. Gayatri is interested in law, Abhishek had a good gyan session with her about the work she can do now to make a career in law. Abhishek himself is looking at getting an LLB at some point of time. He is already a BA and MA in English literature. We walked down to the student mess for a lovely dinner. The catering is handled by the Sarovar group. The food was not too spicy, and the only sad part was the presence of jalebis. Had 20 of them – and this assured me of a constipated morning the next day. Control!!!!
Took a postprandial walk through the campus. There is a lake being created close to the gate. Water doesn’t stay for too long in the lake though. Going by my past experience in waterbody management, it will take a few years for silt to get deposited in the cracks and the lake to start filling. My suggestion would be to reroute the storm water pipes into the lake, of course, with an overflow arrangement.
It was 22:30 hours by the time we left IIM Udaipur. Drove down to SP motors, the Tata motors dealership, to make use of their fast charger. The bad news was that the charger was located inside the showroom – and there is no security around at night to let us in. We looked at the comments on the PlugShare app and found that most people had had a similar experience. So the next item in our charger treasure hunt was the MG dealership, some distance away on the Delhi bypass.
In hindsight, we could have just borrowed Vishy’s Nexon and come back to collect the car after a good overnight slow charge. Also, had we known about the Tata fast charger issue, we could have directly driven down to the MG dealership, which was much closer, as it was on the bypass on which IIM Udaipur is also located. By the time we landed up at the MG dealership it was almost 2245 hrs. Deja vu! No security watchman – and all locked up. The good news was that the fast charger was outside the showroom in the open area. There was a convenient parking slot that had been created on the showroom wall where you could park your car – and slip the charging cable through the opening in the grill.
After some initial hesitation, the quick silver fox jumped over the fence. And we plugged in the charger to start the fast charge. We started with an SoC of 26%, having used 5% in the journey from IIMU to this place. At 23:45 hours, Kamlesh got a call from the Statiq team informing that arrangements had been made at Hotel Vihaan for a slow charge. We jumped with joy and immediately started for the hotel. SoC was 87 %. Reached the hotel at midnight. We struggled with finding a 15 A plug point close enough for our car. After 30 minutes of sifting through the hotel campus, an extension cable was found at the DJ table. The earthing wire also was in good condition. So finally at 0030 hours, we said our good night to the car – and went in for our much awaited good nights.
Day 3
The first thing in the morning was a quick negotiation with the hotel management to buy the extension cable. This was a good emergency device – and we were taking this as our lucky talisman through the trip. The hotel had a Btwin single speed bike which I borrowed for a short ride to the Pichola lake. The formation of the lakes must have preceded the settlement of the region. Udaipur is the local minima of the Aravali range. We had lost almost a couple of hundred metres of altitude between IIM Udaipur and the city. On the way to Jaipur, we again had to climb a few hundred meters as we reached the tunnel enroute.
Most of the old Udaipur city is situated around the Pichola lake. Could see some boating activity going on. Also some swimming, with both young boys and old ducks doing the rounds of the lake. Was tempted to try some local snacks, but alas there was complimentary breakfast at the hotel, so the culinary experimentation did not happen. Ended up buying some harbaara, carrot, cucumber and oranges. Our hotel was in an upmarket locality where every second building was a hotel. There were a lot of cabs parked waiting for customers to happen. Chatted up with a few curious cabbies and did the electric math with them. Unfortunately, both the Nexon and Tigor Ziptron are not available for commercial sales. Nudged them to consider the BYD. It is a damn good Innova substitute.
Had a nice early breakfast on the rooftop restaurant of hotel Viaan. Poha and Aloo Paratha washed down with some lemon tea. The restaurant served some honey along with the tea, but the alert vegan in me made me decline the honey. Abhishek took his own sweet time to get ready; it was already 1000 hours by the time we left. We stopped at the Fateh sagar lake. Very clean compared to Pichola. And home to the Maharaja’s palace.
The first big town that comes after you cross after Udaipur is Nathdwara. The road slopes down as you cross the flyover over the town. In order to control the speed, there are very uncomfortable rumblers every 15 metres. Thanks to the Tigor’s great suspension, I was overtaking other cars on the rumbler strips at almost double the crawling speed that other cars had slowed down to. I realised the wisdom of the local cars’ slow speeds after the third rumbler.
The Tigor slipped into Neutral from Drive without my having anything to do with the gear knob. The power was still on as the dashboard and LCD screen so the auxiliary battery was still connected. SoC was 83%, so there were no battery drain issue. Managed to take the vehicle to the side of the road from the center lane, thanks to the down slope. After 5 minutes of trying, I moved the vehicle further down where the flyover meets the road coming from Nathdwara town. There was a tamarind tree on the road side below the flyover. Took advantage of its shade, as we did not want the battery to heat up.
Called up the Tata Motors team, who were super helpful. I did a video call with the regional head of service at Tata Motors, Jaipur. The first thing that the TML team does when such a software malfunctions is to do a hard reboot. The computer of the car is connected all the time, even when you push the power off switch. You need to do what we used to do in old laptops and phones: take out the battery and put it back in. For the EV, this happens when you take the auxiliary battery out of the circuit. To do that, you take the orange insulated 10 number spanner that has been provided with the toolkit, and remove the negative terminal of the auxiliary battery. Then wait for 5 minutes. Based on video instructions from the service team, I did that.
Alas, the display still continued to show the HV critical error. The next action point was to open the dicky and remove the spare tire. Under the mating, on the floor was a bolted plate under which is the MSD, the safety fuse for the HV section of the vehicle. I was told to push down the MSD hard. It already seemed to be snugly fitted. Experiment two tried, root cause yet to be identified. Third experiment was to remove the plastic cover in the boot area. Had to borrow a Phillips screwdriver from a local mechanic to do that. Just below the cover is an aluminium box which is the PDU assembly. The Power distribution unit is where the electronic switches are housed. In case of any battery overheating or current surges, the switches disconnect the battery from the motor. There are 6 high voltage connectors attached to the PDU. All the connectors were checked, and all seemed to be well fitted. There was nothing to do, but to wait and watch.
Abhishek and Kamlesh had taken an auto to do some snacking in Nathdwara city. I wasn’t feeling too hungry, so I continued sitting in the car and munching on the greens that I had purchased during the morning ride. The tow truck from the Udaipur unit of TVS logistics drove in at 14:30 hours. I accompanied the truck into the journey back to Udaipur in the truck. Tata Motors had also sent a cab, in which Kamlesh and Abhishek returned. The team at the Chambal Motors, the Tata Motors Udaipur dealer was quite helpful. Our vehicle was immediately taken to a pit for repair.
We had to run a diagnostic tool after connecting a Panasonic laptop provided by Tata Motors to the dealer. You access the car’s network through a port located below the steering wheel area of the dashboard. You just pull out the section as it is fitted using clips. No screwdriver required. The dealership laptop was not connecting to our Tigor, so another laptop was requested from SP dealers, the other Tata Motors dealership, which was just across the road. The new laptop arrived in10 minutes. After connecting, the laptop informed us that there was a problem with the PWM connection to the motor. We started a series of checks on the connectors. The connectivity between different pins of some of the connectors was checked. There was a lot of help being provided remotely to the local team. But unfortunately the problem still was not traceable. Tata Motors team decided to send over a technician from Jaipur the next day.
It was 1900 hours by now, and we knew that our naseeb was to stay one more night at Udaipur. We checked into Hotel Spirit, which was also located in the industrial area, just half a kilometre away from the TML Chambal service centre. My good night prayer to the guys in deep space was a hope that we should not do another night stay at Udaipur!
Day 4
Decided to have a leisurely breakfast. Met with a fellow breakfaster, Chandrakant ji. He was in Udaipur to visit a few studios to check out some art. Chandrakant grew up in Bhuj, and then went on to do his education from Ahmedabad and Bombay. He left for UK in the seventies – and started an arts supply store. His son has now taken over the store, closed it down – and shifted to an entirely online model. Chandrakant now travels 6 months a year, with the spending money that the business gives him. His favourite destination is the South of France, where he sees art in every scene that he stares at. He is a fellow commuting cyclist – both in London and Bhuj. I wonder how he can use art to make cycling less infra dig amongst the motorcycle driving community that is India.
Kamlesh and Yours Truly walked down to the Tata service station, as Abhishek caught up on some work in his hotel room. We reached around 1030 hrs – and were very very very pleasantly surprised to see the Tigor unparked. Amit, our friend from Jaipur had reached around 0830 hrs and had immediately set to work. Our initial hypothesis was that one of the motor connectors had come loose. (That’s what the laptop tool indicated.) But Amit, did not think so. He set about removing and refitting the undercarriage battery connectors. And Voila! The car was back in action. We are still not sure which of the connectors was the culprit, which is a pity. Else, we could have shared the feedback with the TML team – and hopefully they could have done some rerouting or redesign of the harness in that area. It definitely was not the PDU connectors, as they had been double checked in front of us.
Amit then went on to take a 30 km ride with the Tigor, putting it on rough roads to see if the problem came back. It did not. By the time the car returned, the SoC was 53%. We took it to the MG dealership for a top up upto 93%. And then returned to the showroom, where Amit installed the latest version of the BMS software. We then went on to do a slow charge upto 100%. This was required for the BMS calibration. The vehicle was then handed back to us. Exactly 24 hours had elapsed since it had entered the showroom. Looked like deep space had answered the suggestive communication that I had been sending the previous night. We were ready to go.
Picked up Abhishek and the luggage from Hotel Spirit – and we were on our way. This time Abhishek was driving – and we very gingerly went over the speed breakers of Nathdwara. The Aravallis continued for 50 odd km. And the wh per km hovered between 105 and 110. We were as usual driving with AC off. After 1730 hrs, the drive became really comfortable – as the desert starts cooling down fast. At 1800 hrs, we came across a very interesting restaurant – Pit Stop, located at Deogarh. We decided that it was worth making a pit stop. It is run by the Raja of Deogarh. It has a vehicle theme. The food was good, though on the expensive side. The tables need to be reworked – there is no place to put your feet below the Jeep themed tables. We met with the owner after we had finished our snacks and our photography. He gave us the good news that Tata Power is putting up a fast charger at his property. We could see that the installation had been done already. Commissioning though had yet to happen. It indeed would be a good pit stop on the Udaipur-Jaipur route.
Had some hefty snacks over there and declared to ourselves that dinner was done. Was 1900 hrs by the time we left. Abhishek took over driving duties – and we reached the fast charger at Beaver without any trouble. Was 2000 hrs by then. There were some initial hiccups in connecting with the charger, but it got resolved after 5 triese. In the meantime, we did try the call center, but Statiq only provided us with static. Thankfully, we did not need help from them. We had to charge it to 100 percent – and decided that we will come down after an hour to switch off the connection. There was a power outage at 2145 hrs and the charging stopped. Kamlesh had to spend another 20 minutes as he waited for charging to restart – and reach the century mark in SoC. He mist have felt quite sleepy after that – as he followed good etiquette and disconnected the charger. At 2330 hrs, he realised that the etiquette had been only partly followed. He had left the car parked in front of the charger. A MG owner came in for charging and Kamlesh had to be woken up to repark the car. My suggestion to Statiq team is that they have two guns at the charger, but only a single parking location. Some re-architecting of the space should be done such that you can park at least two cars next to each other at the charger.
Day 5
After a relatively early finish to the day, it was decided that we will do an early start to our Delhi journey We managed to leave at 0530 hrs – it was a comfortable 23 deg C. It was a dark desert highway, and there was cool wind in the hair. We used a constant power of 2-3 bar, did some wind-cheating and reached Jaipur in 2 hrs 45 minutes. Average wh/km was 110. Not too bad, considering that the AC was on for the last 30 minutes of the journey. We looked up the Tata Power App and decided to land up at Ginger Hotel where we would have the same lovely breakfast we had had at Ahmedabad. We were destined to be hungry – the fast charger had yet to be installed. Hard luck. We then went on to the fast charger at 4 points Sheraton. Our luck followed. This one also refused to work – and kept on showing an error message. We proved to be third time lucky at the MG dealership on Tonk Road. It had a Tata charger which was working flawlessly. I guess when you use it everyday yourself, you ensure that it works. My advice to th EV community is to prefer the MG charger over others in the city. We had the same experience with the Jaguar in Pune and at Udaipur.
After a quick breakfast, we met with Akash, of Aha CruiseNext. Turns out, that I had talked to Akash about 10 years ago, when I had purchased a 3d printer from him. I happened to be his first customer – and it was good to have met him in person after so many years. 3d printers continues to be his bread and butter. Most of his customers are R and D centers and prototyping shops. Accuracy still remains an issue. He has made an interesting retrofit for the Nexon EV which does cruise control. The device has to be fitted in series with the accelerator. It also connects to the data bus of the vehicle to get speed and power data.
There are three modes – one which is the SuperEco – which is for hypermiling. It restricts the power to 1 bar. So you can get max juice out of the battery. Next is the Eco mode, which restricts the power to the Eco quarter of the vehicle. Then you have the coast mode, which just cuts out the regen – and changes the handling of the vehicle entirely. You also have a speed limit mode, which restricts you at a set speed. There is a central button which you press to set it to cruise control at whatever speed you are at. The interesting part of the control knob is that it connects wirelessly to the main electronics. So in a sense I worry about it getting hacked. Or worse still a kid taking it up to play when the car is being driven.
I found the cruise control mode to be nice. You can increment or decrement speed by rotating the knurled knob around the control disc. Aakash tells me that the same device would work with the Tigor EV too. Would be good to test this device for a few weeks and decided om its utility. A little bird tells me that the long range Nexon is going to have Cruise control, so will that be the end of Aha? Another worry area is warranty coverage for modified vehicles. Aakash is in discussions with the TML team – and they have yet to take a decision. But he has found the Tata team to be quite supportive. He recounted an interesting service experience that he had. His traction motor developed a crack. (This is a common problem with Nexon owners. Probably the result of design errors in the mounting bolts of the motor.) The TML team has replaced his Rs. 3 lakh motor under warranty, although they are aware of the modifications made in Aakash’s vehicle.
Would be happier if the cruise control is stick based like in the MG – I think having two dials and 4 more LEDs would add to the clutter – not just physically but mentally. I hope that the TML folks come up with that as an option soon. As far as Aha is concerned, Aakash should start working with two wheeler OEMs and get the concept of cruise control introduced in the two wheeler EV industry.
We were to meet with Nishcal ji of BattRE, but we were running short of time. We had to do a 95% to 100% top up charge when we returned to the MG charger. This is typically the slow charge cycle in the BMS algo. Charging rate is between 1 to 3 kW at this time. So it takes about 15 minutes. We left around 1230 hrs. Took a break at the Statiq charger at Behror, about 130 km from Jaipur. For the Tigor 150 – 170 km is the sweet spot distance between charges. Given that the range is around 230 km, it leaves enough buffer in your tank, at the same time optimising stop time for charging. There is a food court at Behror, Highway Xpress. Prices are reasonable. Had the Rajasthani thali which had dal bati. Did not go down too well with me. Kamlesh and Abhishek found their veg sandwich to be more palatable.
We reached the Statiq charger at Galeria Market, Gurgaon by 1740 hrs. Galleria is a busy market – and double parking is normal. Parking attendants usually push the cars around so that folks who have parked deeper can get their cars out. We had to take their help for parking the Tigor in the EV charger slot. There was a Mercedes parked right in front – and the owner had not put the car in neutral. We had to get the car in at an angle for it to start charging. 30 minutes later, we had to again manoeuvre the vehicle as a Nexon pulled up for charging. Discovered that the second CCS2 gun was not operational, so Madhur, our Nexon friend, had to wait till our charging got over.
In the meantime we chatted up with Akash, who looks after tech at Statiq. It’s a young and growing team. Statiq was started by 3 young engineers – all from Manipal Institute of Technology. Akash had spent 3 years at Tata Motors Lucknow plant before he joined Statiq. They were part of the Y combinator startup accelerator, and that experience has helped them in fundraising. They have currently deployed Delta chargers – but are in the midst of putting together their own chargers. One experiment that I thought will work out well is using a VIN based unique ID – which can then be linked to a common payment app, say the Fast tag. Like one Nexon user who did the Delhi Mumbai Pune trip was lamenting: 14 charging apps had to be loaded on the phone for his trip. There is some balance left in each of these apps. We need some across CPO collaboration ASAP, folks.
Capt Sanjay walked down from his house to meet with us. We then drove down to Sohna road to do a customer story. Ashish is the coordinator of the Nexon EV owner’s group in Delhi. Spent a few hours with him – and found out that he is a walking wikipedia on EVs and chargers. Ashish has dabbled in many businesses – the mainstay being construction. He spends some time in Vancouver, where his brother is a developer. He wants to do something in the EV space – and is quite well networked; would be interesting to see what idea he latches on to. He took us to his 13th floor flat in Malibu township on Sohna Road. It’s a lovely gated community, with more than 50% of the area green. You can feel a temperature difference as soon as you enter. Abhishek and Kamlesh spent some time with him talking about his ownership experience while Captain and I strolled around Malibu town. Was about 2230 hrs by the time we left. Captain dropped us off at our hotel and took the Tigor to his place for an overnight slow top up charge.
Day 6
We started off in the morning at 0800 hrs. Captain’s house was enroute – and we dropped him off after having failed to convince him to come with us to Jabri. In Delhi, there is a lot of challaning happening because of a strict imposition of speed limits. (I was told later by a Delhi police official that more than 1.5 lakh digital challans have been issued by Delhi’s speed guns in the last 6 months. Most of them remain unpaid. Delhi Police waits patiently till the vehicle comes up for sale, and then recovers all the dues.) There is a court order which mandates that speed limits be shown before each speed gun. This helps as different parts of Delhi have different speed limits: I could see boards of 50, 60, 70 and 80 kmph. The safe thing to do is to drive at 60. The guns are forgiving for an error of 5% – so you can go upto 63 kmph – but beyond that – you are welcomed with a digital challan. There is a speed radar and a camera. If the radar notes that the vehicle is above speed limit then the camera gets into action. Delhi police has spent around 15 to 20 lakhs for each installation. The photos go to the central control room, where a police official sanitises it by removing photos of police vehicles and ambulances. Fun fact: there are no cameras in Lutyen’s Delhi. The bureaucrats have ensured a free run for themselves and their ministers.
Took a wrong turn about 7 km from Dhaulakuan and had to go an extra 10 km as a result via South Delhi. The Apple Carplay map sometimes takes time to load locations and you end up missing turnoffs. Joined the ring road and continued to Pitampura where we exited. It was cool to see all cars going in slo-mo at 60 kmph. Our wh per km was sub 105 with AC on – thanks to being in the windstream of a river of cars. GT road is now being made 12 lane upto Sonepat – and average speed was less because of the construction work. Speed limit is 80 kmph in this stretch. After Sonipat, the limit increases to 90 kmph. We had to do a charge at a Statiq charger in Karnal. We reached there around 1100 hrs – and found a Blu Smart MG taxi already charging. The MG can charge at a much faster rate than the Tata vehicles – so we were unsure of how the amps would get split up between the MG and the Tigor. We had even been indicated by a few fellow EV owners that sometimes the algo keeps the non MG vehicle waiting till Big Bro finishes his stuff. Turned out it was evens-stevens. Both the vehicles were fed at 18 kW! We celebrated with some sandwiches at Subway – and came back after 1.5 hours to continue our journey. I drove down to Mindtree school in Ambala – and handed over the keys to Abhishek – who continued the drive to the hill station of Jabri – with a planned short break near Chandigarh for a top up charge.
Drive to Ambala. Statiq charger at Karnal.
Chat with Deepak
Chat with Hirdesh
Chat with Jagdeep
Day 7
Enjoyed chatting up with old friend in Chandigarh and one of them dropped me off to Zirakpur, where I met with Kamlesh and Abhishek. Kamlesh was at the wheel – and we had an uneventful drive to the Statiq charger at Karnal. We had to wait for a Nexon to finish charging. It was an old charger with one CCS2 and one Chademo. I think Statiq needs to do a retrofit and remove all the Chademos and replace them with CCS2s. And hopefully EESL should also follow suit. Though they do have an old fleet of E Veritos to support. The good news is that the sarkaari babus are now switching over to Nexon EVs in large numbers, so the CCS2 will end up getting into EESL chargers soon.
Our Nexon friend was a doctor who had switched from a Hexa to a Nexon. He stays in Greater Noida and workplace is in Gurgaon – so the total distance per day is 150 km. And on holidays, our friend travelled too. He had a black edition Nexon with sunroof etc. Was quite pleased with the savings of more than 30 k per month in the one month since the switch to the Nexon EV. He had a lawyer friend travelling with him – who had booked a Baleno. He was in the middle of a change of heart: wish that his Nexon drive had convinced him to up his budget and shift loyalties to EVs.
The Statiq charger was attached to a food court. Had an onion uttapam as we waited for the gaddi to top up. Was happy to see a lot of trees in the parking lot – and the Tigor managed to get some shade during its charging session. This is the best way to have a green charge! Was around 1530 hrs by the time we left. Tried experiments of reducing wh per km by trailing a PunBus but did not work out too well in the afternoon heat. Average wh pe rkm was 115 in the journey. Reached Delhi around 1800 hrs. Was an uneventful journey. Got down at Indraprastha metro station and took the larger EV to reach Sec 28 in Noida – to say hi to my younger sister and her family.
Day 8
Suresh ji picked me up at 0630 hrs from close to my sister’s house – and we drove down in his E2O to Nehru Park in Chanakyapuri. The E2O has done 1.4 lakh km – and is still delivering a range of 80 km! My e2O, which has only run 85 K km, is at 60 km range, so I think there is some cell balancing black magic that I need to get done from Mahindra. Suresh ji has an interesting background. He started his career with the AC industry. After a long stint with the leading names in the industry, he switched mid career to working with engineering design services. Something which he continues to this day.
We reached Nehru Park at 0715 hrs. The place was packed with runners – mostly running outside the park. It’s a lovely tree lined avenue. We decided to take a short walk inside on the park trail. Bumped into Dinesh Jain ji, who is one of the Lokpals in India. Had met him at 14 Trees, where we are both volunteers. By the time we had walked a km, we got a call from Vivek Ahuja, who had landed up with his Nexon. We all gathered around the EESL chargers – which we could only admire – but not use. The discussion revolved around long distance trips that EV owners had made.
Kamlesh had also put a message in the Ola scooter Delhi group, but the only scooter that turned up was a camera person who had hired by the Nexon EV group to do some shoots of the gaddis at location. Met with the team from Hopcharge – the portable battery charging service. They use a Suzuki CNG powered van to transport the 45 kwH battery. The battery is charged at their fast charger home base. The obvious question was why not use an EV? It’s like using camels to haul loads on a long trans Sahara ride. You need to carry fodder with you – and the compromise is always between the duration of the journey with the load that you can carry. In Hopcharge’s case the fodder is the battery energy. Were they to use their battery store to power their own vehicle, the energy delivered to the customer would come down.
Hopcharge has to get its long term pricing right for the solution to be viable. They are currently charging Rs. 30 per kWh for their subscription plan customers. A 50% premium over a fast charger seems justified, given their doorstep service. There is a plan where you pay Rs. 30 K for a year’s worth of charging. This could work for folks who stay in apartments where there is no fast charger or access to slow chargers in parking. It would also be a premium service for guys who just want to hand over the car keys and leave the nitty-gritties of charging to this Dunzo type of service.
The rescue service costs more – about Rs.1000 for a full charge. But when you are down and out on the road, this kind of price is what you are easily ready to pay. The other option is the tow truck, which will set you hack by at least double the amount, and that too without any energy going into the battery. I think the rescue missions can be a good customer acquisition tool for Hopharge. I think putting a 5 kWh battery on a scooter may be an even better idea for a fast ramp up. In a rescue mission the idea is to get some minimal charge in and get going. And more the feet on the street, the lower will be the response time – and customer satisfaction. Another idea that Hopcharge can look at is two wheeler rescues.
Still need to clear my fundae on DC-DC charging. What kind of voltage differentials do you need between the donor and donee battery. Can you charge a 72 V scooter from a 360 V DC battery? One thing that the team confirmed is that the system can provide a slow charge – as the amp rate can be set in the charging equipment. In any case, the RoI math should be interesting to do. There is a significant amount of labour and logistics cost associated with this kind of mobile charging. What kind of premium would justify this? Would customers be ready to pay this premium, when compared to slow charging options? How would the logistics of charging their own batteries work out when vehicle density increases? How would they manage customer queues and van travel? Should be worth watching out for. Have invited the Hopcharge team to visit the Chheda Shirwal plant to explore manufacturing tie-ups.
We then moved on to a lavish breakfast at Sagar Ratna, Ashoka Hotel. It was a short drive away – and had ample parking. Caught up with a BYD owner, who stays in Model town and has a textile unit in Sonepat. He does 150 km a day – and is quite happy with the super long range of the BYD. On Ashish’s advice, he has installed an ABB AC fast charger at home. With BYD, they don’t even bother with giving you 15 A plug points. Would take 24 hours for the car to get full on a slow charge. He is planning to do a trip to Bhilwara. With BYD, you can easily do 1000 km trips in a day. More than that is not possible on Indian roads in any case. Exceptions could be the Samruddhi Expressway types. Having broached the topics of expressways, the tragedy is that most expressways don’t have fast chargers installed. And being access controlled, you can’t even pop out to do a charge and come back. Gadkari ji should look into this and get some planning done. Ideally you need fast chargers every 25 km – and hopefully a CCD or Barista attached to it.
Had planned to return to Noida along with Suresh ji after breakfast, but the Nexon owners group convinced Suresh ji to join them for a trip to Leopard’s trail. Once he was brainwashed, I did not require too much of it myself. Requested Ashish to let me take over the demo BYD that he had got along. One of the Delhi veterans, who has a Nexon and Kona, had got his trusted E2O along. He has had a 30 kWH battery fitted by Hemank. We had to maintain speed so that the e2O could come along comfortably. The range is now 300 km, but the top speed still remains around 60 kmph. The original idea was to get the entire 30 kWh under the seat. But there were heating issues, so 5 kWh cells had to be taken out – and now rest between the rear seat and the co-passenger seat, making the e2O a three seater. The good news is that the 5 kWh pack can be removed after a little bit of rewiring. Methinks that a 25 kWh pack is good enough for the e2o. Btw, the old batteries are now powering up the house inside of an inverter.
Coming back to the BYD, it was a fun drive. The car had a full complement of passengers. We had set the AC at full blast – and the car was still drawing only 155 wh per km – Nexon territory. The car sells for Rs. 15 lakh in China – and like the Tigor, it shows that this is a budget car. Would have done great service as a 8 seater, but tests showed that the range would drop with the extra load – and hence it was restricted to 5 seater. Also with the under-dicky space mostly occupied by the battery, the spare tyre placement would have also been a challenge. BYD had expected sales mostly to the premium taxi operators, but has been surprised that private sales are higher. There is a segment that wants a 500 km range car – and is ready to compromise on creature comforts to get that. Shows the way ahead for MG and Tata.
Chatted up with a fellow EV marathoner – who had done Delhi-Pune-Delhi in his Nexon EV. Very similar experiences – the major difference being that the couple travelled without checking into any hotels enroute. Those were Covid times and with a mentality of being safe than sorry. There was an adventurous high speed chase part when some goondas tried blocking the road – and the Nexon did 120 km for 40 km – and the goonda car was kms behind after that. Of course, the battery took a beating – and they had to go in slo-mo after that to reach their planned charging point.
Got dropped off to Nehru Park by Anand Rishi. Was quite happy to note that he works with the Delhi Police. He is currently posted at the Rashtrapati Bhawan. The new speed limits have reduced the number of accidents in Delhi drastically. Most of the fatalities involve two wheelers. Anand’s wife works in the CISF at Delhi airport. They have two daughters. Wifey uses a Ford EcoSport to go to work. Anand and wife stay in the police quarters behind Vasant Kunj police station. Unlike most policemen, Anand does not have a police sticker on his car. He tells me that it has been more than 5 years since he has even worn a uniform. Honest, non power hungry guys like Anand are a rarity in the police force. Somehow – I think he transfers those qualities to the EV that he drives – the Nexon. Suresh ji then dropped me off to my sister’s place. Had a short nap before I left at 1830 hrs to catch the night Rajdhani EV to Jammu. The good news is that the bedding is back – so I don’t need to carry an extra half kg of bedsheet in my backpack next time. Wow! A great way to end the EV adventure!