Pune-Bengaluru-Pune in my ZS EV: Key observations on public EV charging

Don’t waste time in DC charging above 90%. It easily adds 30-45 extra minutes to your break, with not much extra range in return.

BHPian oakpr recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I recently did a Pune-Bangalore-Pune round trip in 2022 MG ZS EV. While I have the full log of charging sessions and cost etc., here I will instead focus on my key observations and learnings from this drive.

Key learnings (aka notes for trip planning):

• The MG ZS EV is a competent highway machine. Even with driving constantly at 100-110, you can expect very respectable 320 km range on full charge.
• I decided to plan my charging stops at 250km, keeping another 70km range in hand because I was traveling with family. Didn’t want to take undue risks by leaving it very late.
• Don’t waste time in DC charging above 90%. It easily adds 30-45 extra minutes to your break, with not much extra range in return. Plus this wait gets extremely annoying to family members who are used to quick petrol top-up until now.

Good stuff:

• There is a decent spread of charging network and range anxiety is non-existent.
• Restaurants have figured out this game that a charger and safe parking can be a differentiator. Soon we’ll see more chargers in highway restaurants, even before the PSU petrol pump chains roll out their proposed network.
• LFP batteries can gracefully handle back-to-back DC charging sessions. I did total 9 consecutive fast charging sessions with no perceptible drop in range anytime. No warnings / suggestions from the car asking for slow charge either.
• Maharashtra leg has excellent (and still developing) charging network. It’s fast reaching the petrol/diesel maturity where I can just go to next charger if current one is busy – just like petrol pumps.
• Zeon is using ABB chargers which I found to be most reliable, albeit slow at 22Kw or 25Kw. Tata chargers are good too.
• Big to Gogate Plaza in Belagavi and Log9 Fortum station in Bengaluru. This is what future stations should be like! They have multiple charging points, covered parking, access to washrooms and food options nearby.
• Stated countless times for EVs, but worth repeating at every chance. Very smooth and quiet drive, with negligible NVH translating significantly reduced fatigue. This, coming from someone driving Toyota Corolla petrol automatic which was no slouch in NVH department.

Stuff that needs improvement over time:

• Every single charger required 2-4 attempts to start charging successfully. Always count on it. If you manage in single try, buy a lottery ticket because today is your lucky day!
• Charger reliability is a major concern. It compounds when you don’t have another one in reasonable distance.
• 25Kw charging speed feels very slow. Even those advertised as 60Kw chargers will drop to 30Kw speed when two cars are charging at once. It’s adequate for Tata cars with lower peak charging rate – but for ZS EV and future cars capable of charging faster than 60Kw, this network feels very “first generation”. I won’t be surprised if this will soon get relegated as back-up chargers.
• Charger population is still more dense in cities than highways. Until that changes, be prepared to navigate through city traffic for visit in-and-out to your charger. You’ll lose that mental momentum of long-distance cruising.
• 250km breaks are adequate and good for safe driving, but for those of us earlier used to 500km stretches of calm driving will find repetitive breaks annoying – especially in last legs of the trip.
• Karnataka leg of the journey needs further improvement in charging infra. It’s sparse for now, with 1-2 chargers at precise spread of 200km. And if someone is using the charger when you reach, good luck!

Bad Experiences …and then there were few outliers where charging experience was plain bad:

Jio BP charger at Davanagere:

• A different ZS EV was charging alone and at rapid pace.
• Another Nexon EV arrives and starts charging using second gun.
• For some reason, at that moment first charger goes kaput and ZS EV stops charging. Multiple attempts and calls to customer care yield no results.
• Everyone is apprehensive to restart the whole charging station. For all we know, it could stop both chargers working and next one is not in reasonable distance.
• So now everyone is waiting. First the Nexon charges to 100% (at much lower rate by design). Then the first ZS EV charges to 100%; and then my turn to top up. Total 4 hours spent at the station, with not even a tea stall or food joint nearby
• More cars keep arriving in the meantime and keep joining the queue, so nobody is prepared to attempt a full restart of the station!

Shell charger at Old Madra road in Bangalore:

• Big promise of high speed charging at 120Kw. Will be 60Kw even if two cars charge at once. Well separated and ring fenced area, away from petrol stations.
• We reach there, plug in and charging does not start. We’re used to it by now so we attempt 4 times.
• Then we call customer care, who tell us it’s a hardware problem and someone had already reported it 30 min back. Ticket is raised and hardware team will solve it earliest by tomorrow.
• I ask them why the app doesn’t show it offline, because I could have avoided a 45 min drive to the place. They say app doesn’t have any such feature to mark stations as down from backend!!
• We left and charged at nearby Tata charger at much slower rate of 25Kw. Total 90 min wasted, plus another 60 min for actual charging.

Jio BP charger at Kolhapur:

• I am alone at this station, I plug in and it starts charging at full 60Kw speed. Voila!! I’m happy and go to nearby restaurant 200m away.
• Another Tigor EV arrives while my charging was on. Couldn’t get his charging to start.
• He calls customer care – who simply advise to restart the station by pressing emergency off switch!! Never occurred to them that another charging session was on at the time!
• I get notification in app, and come running (full sprint 200m). I first restart my own charging session, but this time only at 30Kw speed. Damn!
• Then I help the fellow owner, and still can’t get his charging to start after 5-6 attempts. He’s disappointed and leaves for another charger 2km away. He successfully charged it there, but we both lost time due to this.

All in all, a happy tale and big confidence booster when I prepare for next long drive. Let me know if anyone wants a detailed log of charging stations, costs and times, will be happy to share.

Keyword: Pune-Bengaluru-Pune in my ZS EV: Key observations on public EV charging