What to do when your EV runs out of charge

Range anxiety is mostly a thing of the past. Many modern EVs can travel at least 400km without a recharge.

But sometimes, and even with the best-laid plans in place, EV owners are brought undone by a perfect storm of circumstances.

For a recent trip to Gippsland, I booked accommodation for myself and my wife Jenni near Moe, about 130km from home in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. The destination was within 10km of Chargefox fast and ultra-fast chargers.

Our car, a Kia Niro EV, regularly exceeds its official efficiency figures. Maybe that’s made me complacent.

Our plan was to get away from Melbourne and its November horse racing frolics for a couple of nights in the country, where we could visit the Holden Museum in Trafalgar and Old Gippstown in Moe.

I didn’t charge the car fully before we left, expecting to recharge at the Chargefox chargers for the return journey. We set out with 380km of range, rather than the full 455km.

Due to incessantly terrible weather and elevated terrain, the range plummeted quickly. We drove to Traralgon for dinner the second night with a range of 144km remaining. That trip was 30km in each direction, so I decided to recharge the car in Traralgon while we were having dinner.

Unfortunately, the destination chargers in Traralgon would only connect to the car with a ‘public charging’ lead – a Type 2 male connector to the female socket on the wall. Our lead was a ‘home charging’ unit with a three-pin/10-Amp household plug. So we couldn’t charge the car in Traralgon.

We had to forego the satellite navigation’s ‘eco’ route for the return journey at about the 10km mark, due to flood water across the road. We arrived back at our cabin with a range of just 55km, but at least that was enough for the 10km journey to the Chargefox chargers in Moe the next morning.

The next morning we drove to the Chargefox facility, only to discover that none of the four charging stations was operational. Not one.

Chargefox support was sympathetic but unable to help much when I rang. These units in Moe are frequently the subject of vandalism, we were told.

The Chargefox man suggested we drive to Warragul and charge from a 10-Amp outlet at the BP service station there. A 10-Amp outlet is a standard household power point (output of about 2.4kW).

“It will be slow, but at least you’ll get home,” he told me.

The BP station was 31.5km away and the car was down to 40km of range. That was cutting it fine.

We set off, driving conservatively. About 5km out from our destination, the car posted a warning message that the battery was dangerously depleted.

A yellow battery warning light began to glow in the instrument binnacle, the range-to-discharged figure changed from ‘5’ (kilometres remaining) to a line of three dashes; the on-board computer could no longer calculate how much further the car could travel.

As alarming as anything else, the battery-charge graphic was down to the last of the red bars for reserve power.

Travelling through Warragul, the car would not run above 40km/h. We were now officially in ‘limp-home’ mode for the final kilometre to our destination, the BP forecourt.

While I stayed with the car, Jenni approached a worker serving behind the counter at BP, only to be told there was no electric outlet for EV charging. There never had been. We had been misinformed.

Numerous phone calls followed – to Kia Assistance, the RACV, and some hours later, the Evie support line. Kia kindly offered to truck the car to the nearest dealer, in Traralgon. But that was 80km to the east, not 100km to the west, the direction we wanted to travel.

Fortunately, the Monacellars Liquor store next door had plenty of parking and a couple of external power points, one of which we could use to charge the Niro. Jenni entered the bottle shop and spoke with the extremely helpful Neil behind the counter.

Look him up sometime, he won’t forget that day in a hurry. I offered him $20 to cover the store’s expenses. Ironically, he recorded the $20 in the till as ‘Miscellaneous, petrol’. He told us that would be hard to explain to his manager, since the store didn’t actually sell petrol. It doesn’t normally sell electricity either.

After seven and a half hours, the Niro’s battery was charged to 24 per cent. Seven and a half hours of reading, walking around the town, grabbing lunch in a local cafe and window shopping.

At 24 per cent, the battery was sufficiently replenished for the 73km drive to Dandenong, where an operating Evie charger at an Ampol service station topped up the battery charge again from nine to 36 per cent in the space of just 10 minutes.

That was enough for the final 25km, with the climate control operating. We arrived home about eight hours later than originally anticipated.

Truly, this was a story for the ages, a tale of triumph over adversity and the milk of human kindness – in a store that will also sell you non-alcoholic grog.

But mostly, this was a bedtime story for boy scouts: Be prepared for a perfect storm when you’re driving an EV in the country.

When the sat-nav tells you the battery charge is too low to reach your destination:
• Cancel the sat-nav route guidance and reprogram for the ‘eco’ alternative
• Immediately turn off the climate control
• Use front and/or rear window demisters at intervals to maintain a safe field of vision
• Set the powertrain mode to ‘Eco’
• Turn off the headlights’ auto high-beam assist
• Turn off auto windscreen wipers and operate them manually, as required
• Reduce speed by 20km/h but no more, any greater speed differential can be unsafe
• Take the back roads rather than freeways, since these are usually subject to lower speed limits
• Maintain higher cruising speeds through bends, where safe to do so, but not tyre-scrubbing speeds
• Take advantage of brake energy recovery wherever possible (downhill) and adjust for higher regeneration
• Drive for efficiency and coast up to traffic lights, anticipating when the lights will change to green
• Avoid coming to a complete halt as often as possible
• Between different speed limit zones, accelerate gently to higher speeds or maintain the same speed if that’s viable
• Always aim to reach civilisation with good mobile phone reception, even if there’s no charger in that location

How to avoid range shortfall or being stranded
• Buy a ‘public charging’ (Type 2) lead to keep in the car for use with destination chargers
• Read up and take note about EV charging facilities in the areas you’ll be visiting before leaving home
• Make sure the car is fully charged before any journey to rural areas
• Take a long, heavy-duty extension lead with a plastic sheath on the female end to keep water away from the pins of the plug for the recharging lead
• If there’s no alternative, recharge the car overnight using the extension lead run out through the window or door of your cabin or motel room
• Seal vulnerable elements of the lead and vehicle’s charge port with kitchen cling wrap while charging in the open air

• Ring EV charger network service providers (Chargefox, Evie) to confirm that their charging stations are operational in the vicinity of your destination before departure
• Take at least one mobile phone (fully charged) and at least one other portable device (laptop or hand-held battery) to provide additional power for the phone
• Drive for economy in areas where there is a major gap in the EV charger network coverage
• If caught in a location without nearby fast charging, seek assistance from local businesses who may let you charge from an unused power point
• Car dealers selling EVs and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) – Audi, BMW, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Volvo, and of course, Tesla – may recharge your car for you (for a cost), even if your car is not the brand they usually service. Ask nicely…
• Bring along a partner who will ask the tough questions, like: “Do you mind if we use your power point to charge our EV?”

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