EV summer tour in Norway

From the 7th to the 23rd of July we went for a journey in Norway with our BMW i3. Here I will shortly tell you about this journey and our experiences without going into details. I will share pictures of the beautiful Norwegian nature whit you, some from the road some others. This trip was most of all our summer vacation, but it was also essential to gather even more knowledge about EV travelling for my work and for the book I’m writing. 

As you can see from the map, we did travel for the south-east of Norway up to Lofoten, whit some detours. The total distance travelled in the 17 days was 4300km, and the longest we went on a day was 905 km from Narvik to Trondheim. 

As a lot of families from Norway spent their summer vacation in Norway this year, it was a lot of news about ferry queues and even long queues on charging stations. We did only ones wait for a ferry because of the traffic, but for several times we did wait because of bad timing. On the day we travelled 900km we missed the ferry by 3 minutes and had to wait for one and a half hour. 

When it comes to charging, we did only had to wait a few times. Ones we did wait for 30 minutes because a fellow in a brand new i-Pace did not understand that he should move his car when full. He did explain that he needed to finish his meal at the restaurant, and I tried to explain that that is not good charging manners. Other than that, there was no waiting worth mentioning. 

One of the reasons for this is how I plan to charge. On my telephone, I follow the traffic on a two or three charging sites, and then choose the one which has less traffic. In addition, I always plan to charge before the battery is empty, and if for some reason all charges at the chosen site are occupated, I just go to the next one. 

This strategy is possible for two reasons. First of all, the BMW i3 has an optimal charging curve. May cars charge fast only when the state of charge is low, and decrease the charging speed already when the battery is half full. The i3 has full charging speed until 85 % charged and still has quite rapid charging at 95 %. The second reason is good charging infrastructure in Norway. On bigger roads, we at least have charging sites every 50 km, and every charging site has at least two charging stations. But it usually is much denser. 

This is not the first time I travel to the north of Norway with an EV. The first time was in 2014 with a Tesla S85. The exciting thing is that this time we could travel longer in one day even though we had a car with a battery under half the size of the Tesla. The reason is charging infrastructure. Six years ago, it was no quick charges that my Tesla could use north of Domb?s. This shows that good charging infrastructure is more important than battery size for long-distance travelling in an EV. The myth that battery size and range is the only thing that matters is wrong. It is no need to spend a lot of money and travel around with a big battery in case of a long trip of two every year. This is one of my most essential learnings after close to 50.000 km behind the wheels of many different EVs in the last ten years. 

On the journey, we had an average consumption at 14kWh/100km, and totally we used around 600kWh. Of this 365kWh was charged at charging operators. The total price for this charging war NOK 1,546, which gives a rate of 4.24 NOK / kWh or around 0.4 €/kWh. Rest of the charging did we do at friends we visited, at parking sites offering free charging and of course at home before we left. 

We used four different charging operators in the trip; Fortum, Gr?nn Kontakt, BKK and Circle K. We used the operators apps to see if the charging stations were occupied, and in addition, we used the apps Ladestasjoner and Plugshare to find charging stations. The operator with the best app is BKK, and everyone should learn from them. The app is called Bilkraft, and in the app, I could read out SOC in % and charging speed in kWh throughout the charging session. The only thing missing is the current cost for a kWh as they have a compound rate where they charge you for both energy (2.90 NOK/kWh) and time (1.25 NOK/min). If the user at any time could read out the actual cost per kWh, it would be perfect. 

The last thing I will discuss here is the accelerator pedal in an EV. When driving on roads that go up and down the hills as we have here in Norway, it makes a massive difference for the comfort if it takes advantage of the regenerative braking possible with an EV. The i3 has maybe one of the best pedals on the market, and it makes the travel down steep, curvy roads a pleasure. After tested most of the EVs on the market and I have had some disappointments when it comes to the pedal, like the Taycan and the e-Tron that increase the speed downhill even when the foot is off the accelerator pedal. It is possible to adjust this on the e-Tron, but then you miss out of other smart functions. So I end with a piece of advice for you who design electric cars. Please take with you the possibilities that an electric driveline provides, do not let yourself be persuaded to imitate traditional drivelines with an internal combustion engine. BMW did understand this when they developed the i3 ten years ago, and I hope they use this in the new iX3 although it is far from as innovative as the i3 was, or can I even say are seven years after its launch.

Click below to see all the pictures.