EURO TRIP

Here’s Dhruv Saxena’s account of what it was like to drive from the northernmost point to the southern tip of the European landmass in an electric car in pursuit of an ambitious world record

- Dhruv Saxena

Back in December 2019, a team from Auto Today set out on a rather ambitious journey driving across Europe in an electric car. While that is quite a challenge in itself, we were also attempting to establish a world record for the shortest time taken to drive from the northernmost point in Europe to the southernmost point. The experience gave us a deeper understanding of what it’s like road tripping in an EV and just how prepared developed nations are to tackle the global shift from ICE vehicles to ones that run on electricity.

SOME PLANNING REQUIRED

Needless to say, an attempt of this magnitude required copious amounts of planning before we even landed in Europe. We have at our disposal a Hyundai Kona Electric in its long-range form with a 64kWh battery pack good for a claimed range of around 470km. Since we’d be solely relying on the public charging network, it was imperative to keep in mind that fast charging would allow us to charge quickly only up to 80 per cent each time. Plus, we’d primarily be driving across highways and freeways averaging around 80 to 100kmph thus, depleting the battery quicker. With those things in mind, we charted out a route with the aim of covering around 300km between charging stops. Initial impressions with respect to the availability of chargers were positive with an ample number available including backups in case the one we had planned to use gave trouble.