Charging again!
Last weekend we rented an electric Kia eNiro to finish our plan that went slightly different last year: visiting Legoland.
While the electric Volvo Amazon wagon, Voltvo, is still waiting for me to find time and courage to start working on it, we hired a Kia eNiro to take us to Legoland in Denmark.
Our Nissan eNV200 is a nice car for driving short distances (we most of the time do) but not suitable for driving 630 km to Billund in one day.
Kia eNiro comfort
With an estimated and realistic range of 380 km, we expected that we only needed to charge twice to arrive near Legoland. Every now and then I want to replace the Volvo 940 with an electric car and the eNiro was high on the wishlist but not affordable enough. This was a good opportunity to test it. What a great car! Comfortable, silent and lots of possibilities to tweak the way it drives. The “one pedal plus left steering flipper” drive is just awesome.
Surprising coincidence
While the Kia just keeps on going, at a certain point we felt we needed a break and decided to take an earlier (charging) stop than we originally anticipated. What a coincidence! It turned out it was the exact same charging station as the one one year ago on the 7th of June when we were on our way to the boat in Kiel with Voltvo. Only difference was the fast charging outlet we used, CCS instead of CHAdeMO.
Reduced charging speeds
Last year with the electric Volvo Amazon it was both fun and challenging. It was the sixth fast charging session and the batteries were warm and thus the charging speed was reduced. So it was a matter of finding a balance between having enough energy to reach the boat to Sweden and having enough time to get there before the gates closed.
With the Kia it was only the second charging session so it maxed on the kW’s the charging station could deliver. The really fast charging cars were charging at the other side by the way.
What an amazing piece of engineering this Porsche Taycan with it’s 800V architecture (also true for the Ionic 5).
However, on your return trip this was different, even with the Kia. On Sunday we had to charge more often, it was a hotter day and we drove a bit faster. As a result the Kia would not charge faster than 31 kW (instead of 70 kW) at our last fast charge stop.
Thanks Legoland!
By the way, Legoland was great. We stayed all day and in particular enjoyed Miniland.
Thanks for the update.
I have been thinking about making an evolvo out of my Amazon wagon. Yours is much more refined than what I have envisioned. Did you pin down the source of the fire last year?
At the moment I have some theories but have not been able to come to a conclusion. Perhaps I will never find out. Will share further information and new blog posts from August / September onwards.