: A 1500 Km Road Trip in an Electric Car, For Just Rs 700: Jaipur Engineer Shares How #IndiaNEWS #Electric Vehicles A few months ago, Aakash, an electronics engineer based out of Jaipur, had made plans

A 1500 Km Road Trip in an Electric Car, For Just Rs 700: Jaipur Engineer Shares How #IndiaNEWS #Electric Vehicles
A few months ago, Aakash, an electronics engineer based out of Jaipur, had made plans with his friends to take a long road trip to Longewala, a town in Jaisalmer district on the Indo-Pak border.
While his friends would travel in their IC-engine vehicles, Aakash was planning on driving his Tata Nexon electric vehicle (EV), which has a premium battery range of 312 km. But his friends cancelled on their plans last minute. Aakash, however, was already committed to the trip and had made extensive preparations. Instead of his friends, he would take his wife Kaushal.
Thus, in the wee hours of Christmas morning in 2020, the couple embarked on their nearly 1500 km round trip from Jaipur to Longewala, taking them through Pushkar, Jodhpur and Jaisalmer. With little to no hiccups, they completed the trip to Longewala and back in over four days.
“We started the journey from my home in Jaipur to Pushkar, where we stayed overnight and charged the vehicle. From Pushkar, we went to Jodhpur, Jaisalmer and then Longewala town on the Indo-Pak border,??? says Aakash, the founder of Aha 3D innovations which designs 3D printers.
What’s particularly remarkable about this trip was that they spent approximately only Rs 700 to Rs 800 charging their EV. If Aakash had taken this trip in a conventional IC-engine vehicle, that has an average mileage of 15 km per litre, he would have spent close to Rs 9,000 just on petrol. So, how did Aakash take this long road trip to the Indo-Pak border with barely any hiccups and pay so little to power his EV?
Aakash and Kaushal at the start of their journey.
What Do You Need to Take Your EV Out on Long Road Trips?
First off, EV drivers need to ensure that they can charge their vehicle at any given point.
To start off, Aakash made an extension cable and attached it to an electricity meter (electrometer) so that he could measure the electricity consumed and pay the owner of the concerned establishment. During the trip, he also carried an earthing kit because a lot of the hotels and establishments did not have proper earthing.
“EV owners often resort to making DIY earthing kits (an iron rod covered by copper wire is inserted into the ground). As you may know, earthing is the process of protecting against unwarranted spikes of electricity that can cause damage to an appliance or in this case my EV. Its important that earthing is available for this vehicle. There is an iron rod, which I can pitch into the ground and connect a wire to it. This creates earthing, and then this wire connected to the vehicle charger. During my journey, I discovered more ways of earthing like using a copper plate for water-tank based electrical earthing and clamp for getting earthing with any metal structure like plumbing (GI pipes), hand-pumps, railings, pole, electricity board pits, etc.

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