I had assumed I’d be stopping at Euroa, about 1.5 hours out of Albury, but the directions the car was giving me said to drive on to Yea around 2 and a half hours from Albury. I really wanted to stop before Yea for a charge so I told it to take me Euroa, where I would then tell it take me all the way to Melbourne. Except when I said take me to the charging station at Euroa it said they were all unavailable, something I then confirmed int he Chargefox app and PlugShare. Inconvenient.
I searched along the route and found a charger in Benalla, that was just over an hour out of Albury, set that as my destination and immediately drove 1 block from the hotel to a coffee shop.
Priorities.
The charger at Benalla was in the middle of carpark behind the main street. There was an MG parked and connected. It had sun shields on both the front and rear windows and they looked like they were settling in for an extended period. The app had told me this charger was a 50kW charger, but it was barely puttering along at around 3kW - basically the same as a power point. The MG had been there for over an hour and wasn’t close to charged. Figuring I didn’t want to wait around to maybe get a trickle charge mid afternoon I checked further down the Hume for another option.
In for the long haul
There was an Ultra Fast charger at the service station at Avenel, just under an hour from where I was. The apps seemed to say that it was in good working order and I still had plenty of charge, so I set that as my destination and headed off.
I stopped charging around 84%
I got to Avenel with around 30% charge, but the car had decided that was only good enough for another 95km. Yesterday’s driving had averaged out at around 18kWh / 100km, where as today it was just over 20kWh / 100km. (Pootling around Canberra averages out at around 16kWh / 100km)
The difference in consumption is something I would also notice in my petrol car when driving to and from Melbourne, it is always higher on the stretch between Melbourne and Albury, even ignoring the twisty bits on the C366 or C382.
Charging at Avenel
I spent just over 20 minutes charging before setting my destination has my parent’s place, around 130km from the service station.
The last stretch was through the small twisty up and down roads around Warrandyte, in the rain. This section made almost no difference to my average consumption since leaving Albury. The one-peddle driving mode is great for gradually managing speed as the gradients change.
I had taken this route to Melbourne before, via Whittlesea and Warrandyte. It isn’t bad - a long stretch on the Hume at 110km/h, bypass the worst of the city and northern suburbs, but I do prefer going via Yea. I probably should have just followed the directions recommend, might have saved myself 15min with teh detour via Benalla. The chargers in Yea are Tesla Supercharger - but they do allow other makes of cars (unlike the chargers in Euroa).
Evie RFID card
By pure fluke more I have managed to charge at Evie charges each time this trip. I signed up to both Evie and Chargefox and ordered their equivalent RFID cards for easy charging and payment. Evie was the only one to arrive before I left. It has been very easy to use. The one thing I was probably most concerned about was trying to pay using an app on my phone with no Internet coverage somewhere along the Hume.
Now I am wondering what will be the most enjoyable trip back - is Yea too close to Melbourne and too far from Albury for comfort? Only one way to find out.