2302 Drove down to Hyderabad for FormulaE
Unusually high temperatures for February, no reliable charging points for over 200 kms, the FormulaE experience, 800 year old fort and going deeeeeeep!
Welcome to another road trip article.
This road trip happened in early February 2023, but I got around to writing about it now. I drove down from Mumbai to Hyderabad to watch the FormulaE race.
As usual, if you’d like to skip the text, you can dive into the spreadsheet here for the data. If you prefer the visual medium, I’ve made a short playlist of videos on YouTube. You can follow me on Twitter to get my live impressions about the happenings in the EV industry.
The Planning
One of my first trips in Moonlight, almost a year ago, was to Kalaburgi. The route till Solapur was common.
The chargers after Solapur are at Andapur, Sastapur, and Sathwar. Andapur and Sathwar chargers came online after my trip was completed. Sastapur is an old unreliable charger which I had used while returning from Kalaburagi to Mumbai. There are plenty of chargers within 100 km of Hyderabad on the Mumbai-Hyderabad highway.
One can also see the growth in charging infrastructure when comparing the route from Mumbai to Solapur from a year ago. Refer to my blog post for changes seen in 6 months across the Indian EV Charger Infrastructure.
Let’s go!
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Disclosure : I am the cofounder of ActiveBuildings
Forward leg
As usual, I started my journey before sunrise. I had an errand in the city, so the usual 140 km drive to Pune turned into a 170 km one. I reached at 49% SoC and decided to take a short charging break in Pune. It also allowed me to catch some sleep before continuing onwards.
I wanted to try Fortum’s open loop - no payment wallet system at MG Wakad. There were a couple of Tigor EV Lithium cabs charging / queuing up to charge. Lithium is a B2B company providing EV taxi services to corporate clients. Terrific business. One of the cab guys had finished charging and they let me skip the queue.
This is a short clip shot at the charger.
I connected the charging gun and the charging didn’t initiate. Tried holding the gun at an angle, but still no luck. The Tigor on the other gun was happily charging. I’ve heard and experienced this issue of not being able to charge on certain Delta chargers when a Tata car is plugged in. The charger OEM, the CPO and the car OEMs need to come together and solve this issue.
After failing to try out the open loop payment, I had two options to charge. I could go to GoEgo’s charger or Tata Power’s at Hotel Sayaji. I chose the latter because it was cheaper and I wasn’t looking for a faster top up. The charger is located inside the hotel premises. Several tourist cars blocked the charger, but they cleared the way for me to use it. Marking the spot as designated EV parking would’ve helped.
After a quick top up of 30 minutes, I continued towards Solapur. The sun was out and we had a clear sky. Pune traffic had also picked up. Navigating through Pune took 45 minutes. With hindsight, I shouldn't have charged before crossing Pune. I’ll remember that next time around! I typically travel without AC, but the heat and traffic got to me.
Here’s what was running through my head - I knew I had to stop and charge at Solapur before I could continue my journey to Hyderabad. There were only two options to charge in Solapur - one at the EFill’s 15kW charger at Hotel Maurya and another at Tata Power’s 25kW charger at a medical college. I had checked the Tata Power app and saw that the charger was greyed out for some reason. My only reliable bet was EFill’s 15kW charger.
Given the above situation, I had to minimize my charging time at Hotel Maurya’s DC Fast (Slow) charger. Thus, I decided to charge at the highest rated charger on the route before reaching Solapur. I charged at Nikol EV’s charger at Shivkrupa, before Indapur. Plugshare said the charger was 60kW. When plugged in, the maximum I could receive was 30kW.
There was no clear information on the app either. The Nikol EV app in now updated and they clearly mention that the guns are 30kW each.
As you can also see from the video, there’s nothing but a couple of eateries outside this compound. Spending time in the direct sun isn’t advisable. There should be some basic amenities like a washroom for users at such charging stations.
At least the charger worked and I got to use a new CPO’s app. The app had a slot booking option, so I booked one. I was ecstatic to see that they charged a fee of INR 10 to book the charger. In addition, they deducted INR 30 as a penalty from the wallet in case you don’t show up. This also meant that I had to load up my wallet before I even could use the charger. If only CPOs could make this payment process smoother.
I topped up to 75%, which was more than enough for me to get to Solapur and then continue my journey towards Hyderabad. It took me under 2 hours to reach Solapur. I drove from noon to 2 p.m. I put the AC in ECO mode and really struggled with the car’s AC. The MG ZS EV's AC in Eco mode is known for being problematic. Up until this leg of the trip, I never had an AC issue in my day-to-day or highway driving. It was over 40 degrees outside and I sweated despite the AC being switched on. It was idiotic of me to not switch to Normal or Sports mode to get chill air.
I managed to reach EFill’s charger with all my energy drained because of the heat and the sun. I had to drive around the block twice to locate the charger. The charger is right on the street with no street parking or signage for fast charging.
Here’s a short video of what you can see at the charger.
The charger worked as expected. I wanted to spend as much time as possible here, primarily because the charger was slow, I had to eat and rest. I waited there for around 2 hours. The Hotel Maurya staff allowed me to lie down on the couch after lunch. P.S. : Hotel Maurya doesn’t serve food.
The drive from Solapur to Hyderabad was ~300 km and I was confident I could cover the distance with or without AC. Thankfully, by the time I left, it was already 4 p.m. and I wasn’t facing the sun and it wasn’t directly above me. Covering 300 km on these highways takes around six hours.
Along the way, I crossed into Karnataka briefly before entering Telangana. I rechecked the map to ensure I was on the correct route <insert smiley>. The highways were a mix of 4 lane highways and single lane highways. There was ample amount of road construction being carried out.
I didn’t have to worry about charging. By late evening, I had covered over 200 km from Solapur and around 650 km from Mumbai. I started feeling drowsy and decided to park at a rest stop. I used the washroom, had some food and called it a night. I slept comfortably in the car.
I woke up at dawn and drove into Hyderabad after a couple of hours of driving. Like I always do, I checked for chargers nearby. Several of them were from Tata PEZC, so I checked their app. Lo and behold, almost all of them were down and dysfunctional. Community groups also confirmed that the infrastructure in Telangana and elsewhere was down. Thankfully, I didn’t have to charge.
I was pleasantly surprised by the road infrastructure in Hyderabad city. I witnessed an accident right in front of me. Here you go :
I soon checked into my hostel and rested a bit. My hostel unfortunately didn’t have a slow charging setup. I wanted to fast charge my car only when I was ready to leave for Mumbai. I had around 29% charge / ~120 km range, which was more than enough for 2 days in the city.
Hyderabad
After a sumptuous meal at Chutney’s, I met people. I topped up at Lion Charge’s charging station on Jubliee Hills Road. Another MG was already charging while I connected my car to the other gun. The charger started charging, but stopped in a couple of minutes. The security guard at the charger was gracious enough to call Lion Charge’s support and follow the steps as requested. Briefly, there was no electricity at the charger. However, that got resolved quickly and the car started charging again.
The charging station has plenty of amenities along with a clean washroom and a lounge for families to relax in. I really appreciate this attention to detail. Thank you LionCharge. In case you are looking for a quick bite, there are many restaurants nearby. The AC charger, back in February, couldn’t be used, even with the 3.3kW granny charger. The plug type was different.
Formula E Race Day
My friend and I bought the Charged Grandstand tickets. The ticket cost INR 3500 (US$40) (early bird) / INR 4000 (US$48) (regular price). There was a lower tier of tickets available for INR 1000 (US$12). The higher tier tickets cost INR 7000 (US$84), INR 10000 (US$120) and INR 125000 (US$1500).
Expecting a lot of road traffic, we decided to ditch the car and get a cab to reach the venue. We used a Hyderabad-based EV cab service - Hail Cabs. The experience was enjoyable. You can read more about EV cab services in your city here.
FormulaE has qualifying and the main race on the same day with some gap in between. Most people spend time between races in the Fan Village. The track was over 2km long and the clouds decided to give the race a miss. This meant that most people were subjected to terrible heat throughout the day. Walking to and from the Fan Village was exhausting with scant to no shade along the way and the smelly Hussain Sagar lake accompanying you.
The tree cover above the seats increased as the rates climbed up. So INR 1000 seats had almost no tree cover. However, soon after the qualifying race began, no one checked what grandstand you were allotted and you could sit anywhere you like. The race was organized in India for the first time and such learnings are valuable. The organizers should understand this and provide better amenities next time around.
There were overpriced eateries offering all kinds of food in the Fan Village and near the stands. The best, however, was a company called Caro Water offering free drinking water in recyclable cardboard boxes. I am grateful to them! Here’s a link in case you are interested in knowing more about them.
Post race, the evening was spent at a nice brewery in Hyderabad. I planned to return to Mumbai the next day.
Hyderabad - Mumbai
Given my earlier experience of driving in 40 degrees C heat, I decided to avoid the sun altogether during my drive. The most suitable way to plan around this was to head to Solapur early morning, do a long charging session and then head towards Mumbai after the peak of the afternoon has passed.
En route to Solapur from Hyderabad, I stopped near a water body to stretch my legs. There was an 800 year old fort called Naldurg right next to the water body. Walking inside the stone structure made me forget about the heat despite a clear sky. Here are some photos.
With 85% SoC, I left Hyderabad and 300 km later reached Solapur with 10% SoC. On reaching the charger, I found out that it was already occupied by a Nexon which was charging. Luckily, the charger caretakers maintained a register to jot down the name, phone number and the units of electricity consumed for their records. The caretaker knew that the owner was a local and was charging here only because they didn’t have a slow charger installed at home. He was happy to call the owner and the owner disconnected the car and allowed me to charge.
Taking it from 10% SoC or 5kWh to full charge meant that topping up at least 45kWh of energy. On a 15kW DC Fast (slow) charger it would take over 3 hours. This worked out perfectly for me as I could get some rest, have lunch and finish some work.
I also wanted to see if I could do the whole Hyd Mumbai trip with just one stop at Solapur. Thus, I charged my car to 99% and left for Mumbai late afternoon. Charging my car from 10 to 99% cost INR 1190. The cost is low when compared to a full tank of petrol / diesel. I enjoyed the pleasant weather until Pune. Had to navigate traffic yet again in Pune.
I drove for 414 km before calling it a night and charging my car at home. I had 6 km range left and 2% SoC. The elevation change from Solapur to Mumbai would climb from 450m to 650m in Pune and end up at sea level in the city. Thus, the car should have had more range downhill. I don’t have hard numbers yet, but there is expected battery degradation of roughly under 5% after driving around 25000 km.
Summary and learnings :
Mumbai Hyd @ INR 2.1/km , Hyd Mumbai @ INR 1.7/km. More data here.
Use Normal / Sports mode for AC in MG ZS EV.
FormulaE is easy to follow on TV.
CPOs need to do a better job of providing accurate info on plugshare and on their apps.
This piece can be re-published (CC BY-NC-SA) with a line mentioning ‘This was originally published on ExpWithEVs Substack’ and a link back to this page. In case of re-publishing, please alert priyansevs@gmail.com
Text and data - Priyans Murarka
Map - Siddharth Agarwal
Editing - Typely.com
Thanks a lot for the detailed experience. Enjoyed the read and also it was very informative too!