Aside from a visit to Pune with Nikhil, the Audi e-tron has been Hormazd’s each day driver. However residing simply 7 kilometres away from the workplace and with a charger at each ends, serving because the boss’ each day driver is solely not a problem.
Thus, I deliberate to seek out out if somebody like me, with a 37km journey a method and no charger at residence, might dwell the EV life. And to make issues attention-grabbing, I might take it residence over a weekend that we deliberate to move again into city to go to mates.
This may imply a 75km office-home-office spherical journey, in addition to working round on the weekend with the household and the 80-odd kilometre journey visiting mates. In our assessments, the 95kWh battery of the e-tron would return a mean of 350-380km on a full cost, and so some fast psychological maths confirmed me that I might certainly survive the weekend with no sweat, however vary anxiousness could be actual and I used to be decided to not use a public charger to easily prime off. In addition to, as we realized from Nikhil’s journey to Pune (earlier report Might 2022) to participate within the EV rally, not all chargers really work on a regular basis. So a full cost on the workplace was all I used to be planning on utilizing over the course of the weekend.
I topped the battery on Friday and left that night time for residence with a 99 p.c cost. The journey residence was fairly uneventful, and whereas I believed I’d use 10 p.c of the battery, I consumed about 8 p.c. Not dangerous in any respect, what helped save a p.c or so was the site visitors, which ensured I had lots of lift-off regen each time it slowed.
Although it wants a big spot, parking is kind of simple because of the 360-degree digicam and light-weight steering.
The subsequent day was a visit to the dentist to get my daughter’s braces fitted and my pockets flattened. Sure, dentistry is dear; thank God I had the e-tron, which prices – on our workplace charger – about Rs 750 to totally cost. Hmm, now that I consider it, it didn’t vastly influence the dentist’s invoice, but it surely’s nonetheless good to know. Parking along side the highway was one other side of our each day life the e-tron must dwell as much as. Whereas it’s a massive automotive, manoeuvring it right into a spot meant for a mid to massive sedan isn’t too difficult, because the all-round cameras make gentle work of this; the power-assisted steering isn’t unwieldy both.
SAFE AND SECURE: Cargo internet is kind of helpful in securing free cargo.
Braces completed, we resolve to move to a guide sale we noticed on the way in which, you understand, the ‘by the kilo’ kind. As we’re a household of avid readers, we purchased fairly a number of books, and with our fastidious makes an attempt at not utilizing plastic baggage, we carried all of them free. That’s the place the boot internet got here in helpful, securing what would in any other case have been free cargo sliding round, and canine ears is one thing I merely hate on my books. This whole outing was 17km and took 6 p.c of the battery.
NO CREEP: Creep perform absent. Makes shifting in sluggish site visitors troublesome.
The Sunday drive to satisfy our mates would, nevertheless, take much more. We dwell in Dahisar and so they at Colaba – principally two ends of Mumbai – which is round 45km a method, and including to that might be any driving we’d do on the town. Additionally, being a Sunday, we’d use much more of the battery, as there wouldn’t be a lot site visitors, and thus, the chance to learn from lots of regen.
Our mates Rohan and Smriti have a stunning Sequence-1 Land Rover, however the Audi being an electrical piqued their curiosity, and I obliged – or is it indulged – with some electrifying launches, a lot to the delight of their children too. It all the time surprises individuals how fast electrical vehicles get off the road, and the Audi isn’t any totally different. The launches would imply a much bigger chew into the battery, however we had left residence within the morning with 85 p.c, so it was all good.
HOT SEAT: With cooled seats now fairly frequent you miss them right here.
Again residence at night time, we’d lined 110km, which value us 29 p.c of the battery. This meant the e-tron had 55 p.c of the battery remaining, over half its capability, not dangerous in any respect. All that was left was the run again to the workplace, which I knew would solely take about 10 p.c. And are available Tuesday (I didn’t go in on Monday, although drove a bit round the home), I used to be left with 45 p.c of the entire cost after reaching workplace.
POINT OF VIEW: Good to see rendered lights mimicking the precise ones.
So, the entire weekend journey noticed me cowl precisely 200km and use 55 p.c of the battery; mathematically, that might equate to a couple of 363km vary. So yeah, residing the EV life with a charger on just one finish could be very doable, a minimum of with the e-tron. Subsequent up could be to attempt the identical with a smaller battery.
Tata Motors?
Additionally learn:
Audi e-tron 55 quattro India overview, check drive
Audi e-tron long run overview, first report