Heading up the South Eastern Freeway towards Tailem Bend and Keith

 The first leg involved driving out of the fine city of Adelaide, going up the South-Eastern freeway, the major highway out of Adelaide on the way to Melbourne.

It was still dark, and on the freeway, it was interesting to see that there were quite a few semi-trailers sharing the road. I thought I would miss them at that time.

July in Australia is still winter, and this year's was particularly cold. Glad the heater was on, at a balmy 21 degrees Celsius. 

The Polestar handled the incline very well, and one thing is that this car has virtually zero body roll, and very pleasant to drive (a big difference to the Toyota Prado Landcruiser I have been driving in the past, which has it's own benefits, but not stability on fast turns!).

First charging stop was Keith, where there is a Chargefox DC fast charger at the BP truck stop there, just off the freeway. It was easy to find, and I arrived there around 6am, in time for breakfast. 

Got a few curious looks from a truckie refuelling at the bowser. The Saturday morning inside the service station contained the familiar bleary-eyed assistant behind the counter, with the usual assortment of toasted ready-made breakfasts. I chose a ham and cheese toastie and a flat white, which came out promptly. Although, safe to say most customers and staff didn't look like they wanted to be hanging around there so early on a weekend!

I was supposed to stay for about 45 minutes, which can seem like quite a long time in a cafe, which is something to get used to, since it is not 10-15 minutes at the bowser!

After a toilet break, and a quick disposal of some rubbish, it was time to hop back into the car for the next leg of the journey. 

Preparations and Setting off

 So what does one do to prepare for a trip like this? I started by looking up previous accounts (eg blogs) of the road trip in an EV, especially to do with the Adelaide-Melbourne stretch. 

Turns out that there's a couple of guys who did the Melbourne- Adelaide return trip   back in 2019 in a Hyundai Kona I believe. 

This was quite useful in just realising the fact that charging the car along the way was going to add several hours to the overall trip time.

Given that the car I was using has a longer range (around 450km full charge), I was anticipating fewer stops and overall less time required charging. It sounded like the Hyundai trip required 5 hours charging time one way.

There are three useful apps which I learnt are worthwhile downloading (thanks to a Youtube video for this info):

Plugshare

Chargefox

ABRP - A better route planner

Other apps which may be useful:

Evie

Jolt

Nextcharge

Owing to work commitments, my plan was to set off early Saturday morning, as I figured I would be fresher in the morning rather than evening, and have always enjoyed seeing the sun come up at dawn while driving. 

After a fitful sleep (probably too excited) on the Friday night, having slept about 4-5 hours, I awoke, packed the car with the suitcase I'd prepared the night before, and set off from home around 3:30am.

 

Adelaide to Melbourne and back in a weekend in a Polestar 2!

 Dear reader, 

I'd like to present an account of my recent road trip from Adelaide (South Australia)  to Melbourne (Victoria)  and back in one weekend in an electric vehicle, the Polestar 2.

I'll be documenting the journey with mainly descriptions and with a few photos here and there, to outline in particular the charging stations, and also tips that I might have found handy when embarking on such a trip.

The trip was compressed into such a short period of time for distance travelled, owing to work commitments, but it provided an interesting challenge to have a time limit on it!

regards,

EVNomad

Below is a picture of charging the PS2 at a public charging station (Chargefox on Franklin st, Adelaide city) the night before (just to practice using one before the actual trip). Was treated to a worthy distraction in the Porche Taycan parked next to me!