Extreme Summer Driving through the Gangetic Plains
Part one of the massive drive from New Delhi to Kolkata - April 2024
Housekeeping
I’ve recently released a deep dive of the charging infrastructure report in India. The report will give you a primer on how the states are doing in terms of maintaining the charging infrastructure, along with geographical strengths and weaknesses of CPOs.
In other news, Tata Motors has kept my Tiago EV in service for more than two months now. I’ve previously written about the faults in my car. They aren’t willing to answer some of the questions I have asked about my car. We’ve exchanged notices and I am working on filing a consumer forum complaint against Tata Motors and Wasan Motors. If you can help, please drop a comment or reach out to me. Stay subscribed to not miss an update.
Part 2 of the post is now published here.
As usual, if you’d like to skip the text, you can dive into the data for the Delhi Kolkata trip here.
If you are one for the visuals, check out my pan India charging stations playlist and the Delhi Kolkata playlist on YouTube. Enjoy!
This is the first part of the trip report which covers New Delhi to Varanasi. The next part will cover the rest of the trip till Kolkata.
The Planning
The planning for this trip was a task. This trip was one of the longest (distance wise) one way trips I’ve done so far. The planning took more effort because the drive was through a geography I’ve never driven before. The only other trip similar in length was Mumbai Delhi / Delhi Mumbai. I was excited and nervous both at the same time for this solo trip.
Delhi Mumbai passes through Haryana (4th), Rajasthan (6th), Gujarat (3rd) and Maharashtra (1st). Whereas this trip was through Uttar Pradesh (10th), Bihar (24th), Jharkhand (23rd) and West Bengal (12th). The numbers in the bracket indicate the rank of these states in terms of CCS2 (fast) charging points.
If you’ve been following my charging infrastructure stories, you know that the charging infrastructure is poor in central and eastern parts of the country.
There are two major routes through Uttar Pradesh enroute New Delhi to Kolkata. The first one is New Delhi - Agra - Lucknow - Azamgarh - Aurangabad (Bihar) - Dhanbad - Asansol - Kolkata. The second is New Delhi - Agra - Kanpur - Prayagraj - Varanasi - Aurangabad (Bihar) - Dhanbad - Asansol - Kolkata. From Bihar, both routes merge to form a single route.
The elevation profile across Uttar Pradesh is similar. So elevation as a criteria is ruled out to select the route. Post Uttar Pradesh, there is one stretch across the Koderma plateau in Jharkhand, with an elevation of 400 meters.
The distance from New Delhi to Kolkata is around 1550 km. This route passes through major expressways in Uttar Pradesh with poor charging infrastructure. These expressways are great roads, assuming like the Delhi Mumbai Expressway one. It can get pretty boring driving because the farms, the tree shade, the roadside dhabas are too far and few, though one could cover more distance in a shorter time frame.
I had considered the first route, i.e. Delhi - Azamgarh - Kolkata. Luckily, Azamgarh has a 7.2kW charger listed on PlugShare, with the owner’s number. I spoke with the owner a few days before the trip. He mentioned that the charger is in the garage and he prefers to keep the car locked overnight from 10pm to 6-7 am or so. This would not work for me because I would reach there by say 8-9 pm and restart my trip at around 4 am the next day. I didn’t want to put someone through a bother because of my planned early start the next day.
My personal best distance covered solo in a single day has been around 750 km. Having two back to back long days was going to push my limits. I was doing a road trip after a big break. My last 1000 km+ one way road trip was Mumbai to Delhi in September. Thus it was important to break the journey somewhere on the Gorakhpur - Azamgarh - Varanasi axis which was around 700-800 km from New Delhi.
I reached out to friends on X and am glad for everyone’s input and help.
Considering all the above, I decided on the best of both worlds. I chose a route that is both shorter than 1550 km and has some charging infrastructure along the route. First up, there was no point to go all the way to Agra and then to Lucknow / Kanpur. In Agra, I would have had to get off the expressway to charge at a reliable charging point.
Instead, I focused on the Grand Trunk road. There were chargers all along the route (working or not, was a separate factor). GT road is one of the oldest roads in the Indian subcontinent. It is a road that connects Kabul in Afghanistan to Dhaka in Bangladesh. It was a privilege to drive on one of the oldest roads in the Indian subcontinent.
The plan for this trip was New Delhi - Gujepur - Lucknow - Varanasi (overnight halt) - Aurangabad (Bihar) - Asansol (West Bengal) - Kolkata.
Let’s go!
Delhi - Aligarh
With a nifty charging stop, it is possible to go from New Delhi to Lucknow in a 2022 MG ZS EV. Lucknow is ~475 km from South Delhi whereas my MG has a real world range of ~400 km. Via GT Road, the working charging options were in Aligarh (Tata Power), Etah (BPCL), Bhogaon (BPCL), and Gujepur (Jio BP).
My first preference was to charge at Gujepur, which is ~375 km from New Delhi. That was perfect because it allowed me to cover a long stretch early in the morning. JioBP charger was rated as 60kW, which was better than other slower fast charging options. Unfortunately, the reviews on the Jio BP app said that the charger was derated and was working at 10kW only. I confirmed the same with my contacts at Jio BP. They said that they’ve applied for load enhancement and for now the charger was working only at 10kW. The app should’ve said so, I believe.
I start my longer road trips by 4-5 am. It is pleasant to drive in the morning. After driving for a couple of hundred kms and then stopping at around 10 am is ideal. By then, my colleagues are already in the office and I can take my work calls while the car is getting charged. For this trip, I started at 4:30 am.
BPCL has unreliable chargers, so my only option was to stop and charge early in my journey at Tata PEZC’s charger at Mascot Motors, Aligarh.
The charger is located at a Tata Motors dealership and the parking for the charger is outside the same. There’s a security guard who is helpful. The charger can be accessed only from inside the dealership compound though.
I reached the charger by 6:50 am with 67% SoC. I had covered 134 km. The journey was pleasant.
I used the Tata PEZC RFID to start charging. There’s a problem with the RFID and that is for another article. Tata PEZC should directly list the charger capacity on their app, instead of showing the costs to charge for 15 minutes. That isn’t indicative of the charger’s charging speed, because rates can (and have changed) change any day and each car can charge at varying speed depending on the make, model, battery state of charge etc.
In 30 mins, I topped up my car to 95% SoC. I had to cover an additional distance of ~350 km and I needed only 87.5% battery capacity. I had more than enough charge to continue onwards to Lucknow.
Aligarh - Lucknow
In Lucknow, I preferred to not enter the city and choose the charger closest to the highway. That left me with few options - SAS Hyundai Tata Power (60kW), Lucknow Airport Adani (30kW), IT Tribunal Labotek EV (30kW) and Lulu Mall GOEC (60kW). The first one was a dealership. The second one could have issues accessing the charger because it could either be airside or landside. I had never heard of Labotek CPO and it wasn’t confidence inspiring. Lulu Mall on the other hand had 1 25kW, 1 60kW and 1 7.2kW chargers. Plus with a mall, you are guaranteed to get food. My confidence in Lulu Mall grew when fellow EV owner _7567Rex on Twitter advised me to go for the same.
I reached Lulu Mall with 16% SoC. Wonder why I didn’t end up with 7-8% SoC? Check out the windy app screenshot. I had the support of a massive tail wind. This helped me reduce my consumption.
With tail wind, the car needs to put less energy to cut through the wind. So, the next time you are planning a trip, do not forget to check the wind speed. It has an impact on your consumption numbers.
I reached the Lulu mall charger and was delighted to see that the charger was empty. The mall did not have enough signs to point to the charger. I had to keep asking the security guards to guide me.
At the charger, there were three setups. 1 gun 25kW Delta charger, 2 gun Tirex 60kW charger and 1 7.2kW AC charger. Naturally, I connected my car to the 2 gun 60kW charger. The charger could not initiate charging. This site also had a local helper named Aman to help with connecting the gun and starting the charging session.
I tried twice, however the car wouldn’t start charging. Aman also rebooted the charger by switching off mains and restarted the system. Still, there was no success. The system or the person here should be able to say that something is wrong. Or should at least be able to say why the charging wouldn’t initiate. Aman promptly got on a call with the support team.
Deciding to not waste any more time, I connected my car to the 25kW Delta charger by GoEC. I was bummed about getting slow speeds, but some charge is better than no charge. While connecting my car to 25kW, I also raised the complaint via my connections at GOEC. I understand the privilege I have here that I don’t go via usual support channels. I’m mindful of this and will try reaching through support the next time. Within minutes of raising the complaint, I was told to try again on the 60kW charger. It seems like the team initiated the charge from the back end.
I waited for a few minutes. The car was charging at 50kW. Satisfied, I went up to the mall to freshen up and have a meal. I sipped my cold drink while gorging delicious kebabs in the air conditioned mall. I would also like to recommend using their clean washrooms.
After getting some rest, I checked Plugshare to decide the final route, and where I would be staying for the night.
Lucknow - Varanasi
Varanasi was still ~300 km away. I was confident that I wouldn’t have to charge enroute if I left with more than 90% SoC. I decided to take the Sultanpur Jaunpur Varanasi route because that was the shortest, though it didn’t have any chargers. I wouldn’t take this route if my car had less range or charge.
After spending 68 mins at the mall, the car was at 97% charge. 300 km seemed like it was easily doable. I left the mall at around 2:30 pm with the sun shining brightly. It was over 40 degrees celsius and pretty unpleasant to drive in the heat. Using air conditioning in the car would mean that I might not be able to make it to the destination, or I would have to take an additional stop to charge my car.
Within a couple of hours, it would be evening and time for the sun to set. Meanwhile, thousands of brick kilns, all along the highways, emitting smoke, working in full swing kept me company.
In Varanasi, I wanted to charge at Tata PEZC’s AC Type2 slow charger. Tata PEZC has 4 charging locations - Taj (private charging point reserved for customers and accommodation wasn’t pocket friendly), one fast charger at the dealership (did not want to spend time at the dealership), two sets of fast and slow chargers at the hotel (best suited). (Plugshare scores of Hotel Ganges Grand - NA and Hotel Tridev Grand - 9).
If you know someone who has a network as wide as PlugShare and has a user experience that can help a lot more with planning, please drop me an email - priyansevs@gmail.com . Would love to try it out. The software needs to either work with PlugShare data or have as extensive coverage as the chargers report.
I had checked on the Plugshare app and seen poor reviews for the Hotels Ganges Grand and Tridev Grand, but I still decided to go for them. The other slow charging options were 3.3kW Bolt chargers which would be my backup. I wanted to do a full charge overnight so that I didn’t waste day time to charge my car.
I enquired at Hotel Ganges Grand because it was cheaper. Getting to the hotel on Ram Navami (Hindu festival) during peak evening traffic in a holy Hindu city wasn’t going to be easy. I followed maps right to the hotel before hitting a barricade not allowing me to go another 50m to the hotel. The cops had put the barricade and I needed to take a 3km detour, which took more than 30 mins. As soon as I entered the non dedicated basement parking of the hotel, I knew I had made the wrong decision. The basement car park had over 100 2 wheelers, parked all along the L shaped walls of the basement parking. The basement parking was managed by an enterprising bunch of youthful people who requested me to park behind the 2 wheelers, like the other cars.
The charger was clearly ICEd and there was no chance that I would get to park near the charger to initiate charging. All I wanted to do was to go to the room, take a shower, eat some tamatar chaat (a local delicacy made of tomatoes) and sleep. But unfortunately, the night wasn’t over.
It made no sense to park here and I was back on the crowded streets. I navigated to Hotel Tridev Grand and was hoping things would be better there, so that I could just crash for the night.
In hindsight, I should have called Hotel Ganges Grand and asked about the charging facility, while enquiring about the stay at the hotel. Maybe the exhaustion from the drive took over and I forgot to do so. I had also evaluated getting out of the city and camping overnight at Chandauli at the BPCL charger, another 29 km away from Varanasi and at the edge of the massive Uttar Pradesh state.
I thought it wouldn’t hurt checking out Tridev Grand, else the last option was to charge at Chandauli in the morning or night.
I was following the navigation blindly and got stuck in a very tiny street in Varanasi. The street was ok for 2 wheelers and 3 wheeler auto rickshaws (tuk tuks) to pass, but not for my MG ZS EV. This is yet another problem for city folks like me. We rely so much on maps and navigation that we forget to use our brains while navigating.
I held up traffic for a good 30 minutes, before young IIT BHU master’s students realized what was happening and decided to help. I was on the verge of calling the cops to help me out of the gridlock traffic. Indians aren’t a patient bunch when it comes to obeying traffic rules. They are individually smart and collectively foolish, as said by V Raghunathan in his game theory book Games Indians Play.
The young management graduates helped with the traffic were able to get the car out of the jam. They were studying doing their masters at IIT BHU, vying for local government jobs. We spoke about the bleak job situation when I gave them a ride to IIT BHU. I am forever grateful to them for helping me out of a tough situation.
I reached the hotel and requested the kind security guard to help me get to the charging point. The guard unhooked the chain leading to the basement parking and signalled me to come over.
When I entered yet another basement parking lot, I was glad to see order around here. The charger had some 2W parked around, but they had left enough space for someone to connect their car to the charger.
Compare it yourself
I checked the 7.2kW charger and it showed offline. Exhausted and with no energy to fix the 7.2kW charger, I connected the fast charger. I used my RFID card to activate charging. With RFID charging, you can preset the limit of units that will be charged. I had set it to 25kWh for some reason, and the charging session lasted only for 25kWh, when I clearly needed more than that. I had to restart the session once the session was over.
After spending a grand 3 hours in the narrow streets of Varanasi, the car was finally charging. I went up to the hotel to negotiate for a room for a few hours. When I inquired a few hours ago from Lucknow, I was told that there were no rooms available, so I had little hope. I had mentally prepared myself to spend the night in the car. I met the manager and he was very kind to me. I narrated what happened and he was determined to work something out for me. He mentioned that a room might checkout late at night and if it did, he could give it to me at a discount.
With a bleak hope of accommodation, it was time to pay attention to food - tamatar chaat. I went to the street food vendor the manager recommended, but unfortunately it was closed for the night. I decided to not think much and went to the first fast food place that could fill me up. I munched down a couple of burgers and felt relieved that the day came to an end.
The basement parking is attached to a mall, which also houses the hotel in the same compound. The security at the parking lot closes the main door to the parking for security. The keys are available with the 24h hotel help, so I could sleep with peace. They were happy to open it up at 4am or whenever I woke up to begin my day.
I crashed within minutes in my room after a quick cold shower.
Next day morning, my car was sitting ready for me at 100% SoC. The trickier part of the trip began now.
This is the end of Part 1. Part 2 will cover the journey from Varanasi to Kolkata.
Part 2 of the post is now published here.
This piece can be re-published (CC BY-NC-SA) with a line mentioning ‘This was originally published on ExpWithEVs.in’ and a link back to this page. In case of re-publishing, please alert priyansevs@gmail.com
Text, data and editing - Priyans Murarka
Maps - Siddharth Agarwal
You do have a lot of patience!