Electric Roadtrip (day 2)
Day two of an epic EV road trip across South Africa
Day two of a 2 200km road trip across South Africa in electric cars, in which TechCentral is participating, proved even more eventful than the drama-filled first day, with trouble starting not long after the conclusion of a leisurely breakfast in Graaff-Reinet.
After a later-than-scheduled arrival in Nieu-Bethesda on Thursday evening – after resolving our charging authentication challenges in Colesberg – it was another pre-dawn, coffee-fuelled start.
We were on the road at dawn, on route to the Drostdy Hotel in Graaff-Reinet that has the only direct-current fast charger in town. Our ultimate destination for the day was Gqeberha.
We arrived at the Drostdy Hotel in town with 21% battery remaining – only a minor decline owing to regenerative braking on the steep mountain pass leading out of Nieu-Bethesda, which helped top up the battery level.
After breakfast at Maria’s, an excellent restaurant near the hotel, and having topped up some of the vehicles’ batteries, we hit the road.
Our first stop, which was meant to be just a few minutes, was at Jansenville, the site of a DC fast charger. Unfortunately, this is where the big drama of the day began.
The GridCars-owned fast charger at that location – a dusty garage forecourt – refused to provide the BYD with power, and, unlike in Colesberg, we weren’t able to resolve the situation with the help of the GridCars support team in Johannesburg.
Eventually, after a long two hours in the hot desert sun, a decision was taken to plug the BYD into an ordinary electrical outlet at the service station shop where the GridCars charger was located to get the vehicle up to sufficient charge to drive back to the DC fast charger in Graaff-Reinet.
But at the speed it was charging over the store’s 220V connection – a mere 1.6kW – we realised the BYD team had a long wait of many, many hours ahead of them. Unable to assist them any further, we decided to push on to Gqebera to charge at the AIDC-EC owned 150kw charger, built and operated by Rubicon.
There may have been an incompatibility with the charging station, which was built in 2018 – a lifetime ago in EV technology terms. But that’s just our speculation – we’re not sure what the root cause of the problem was.
At the time of writing, it was still not clear why the fast charger at Jansenville refused to charge the BYD, though we suspect the car – a new model from the Chinese auto giant – wanted 800V from the charger, which was only able to offer 500V.
The latest was that the vehicle would be loaded onto a flatbed truck and taken to the BYD dealership in Gqeberha to have it charged and ready for Saturday’s leg of the journey.
Back on the road, we made quick time into Gqeberha, with the vehicles (excluding the BYD) all making their way separately to the fast charger at the stadium, where we were able to top up from nearly empty to more than 80% charge in about half an hour.
The third leg of the adventure on Saturday, which will have another early start, will take in the Garden Route (including Fancourt in George), the famous Swartberg Pass and the picturesque Karoo town of Prince Albert.
More will follow in the coming days. – © 2024 NewsCentral Media