KIA Record Run

New world record for an EV

DRIVERS: Vitoldas Milius, Aidas Bubinas & Yogendra Pratap

Electric cars are touted to be the future and when our former-colleagues in Lithuania informed us that there was an opportunity to drive an electric car in a longish format, we decided to partner them for the drive. As the drive was to mark the occasion of a 1006km race in the country we set our target for driving the same distance. When we found out that there was no established record for driving a long distance with an electric car, we decided to attempt to set a 1000km record in association with the motoring journalists association of Lithuania. It would have been simple to choose two charging points, the same distance apart as the range of the car and connected by an excellent stretch of highway to set the record! But as the idea behind the drive was to illustrate to the public in Lithuania that it was possible to drive over a thousand kilometres across the length and breadth of the country, we added a twist to the challenge and stipulated that we could not charge at the same charging location more than once. That made things interesting! We set off the evening before the event from the Baltic resort town of Palanga with the intention of finishing in the same city but at the venue of the event nearly 24 hours and 1006km later. Surprisingly, Lithuania has a good network of charging points, and with the help of a global charging points app, we charted our course. The Soul EV has a range of about 200km but it varies according to the driving

cycle it has been tested under. EPA in the USA stipulates the range to be 182km; NEDC cycle puts it at 250km while the South Korean cycle puts it at 180km. For real world conditions and a load of 250kg we decided not to risk it and planned our charging points at under 150km and the maximum we drove on a single charge was 152km. All the charging points were free, some at the parking lots of global super markets and others at nondescript locations and obscure but well marked locations off highways and all courtesy different companies including some whose major business was petroleum-related. We used fast charging and the single longest charge was for 32 minutes and we stopped 12 times for charging spending a total of about five and a half hours for charging the car, and another hour and ten minutes for photography. We consumed 168kW of power and ended up driving at an average speed of 67kmph. Although we could have driven much faster we tried to keep at the

THE IDEA BEHIND THE DRIVE WAS TO ILLUSTRATE THAT IT’S POSSIBLE TO DRIVE AN ELECTRIC VEHICLE FOR OVER 1,000KM ACROSS THE LENGTH AND BREADTH OF LITHUANIA

highest level of the KIA Soul EV eco-friendly driving scale which was 8. All in all, we discovered that even with a mass market EV it is possible to drive long distances and in places like Lithuania there is already a charging infrastructure that is highly under-utilised as never once did we arrive at a charging point and find no fast charging slots available. But at the same time one needs to have a much higher range to make it practical. We had fun taking turns driving an EV for over 21 hours and set an EV world record for 1000km doing that!

PICTURES: VALDAS JARUTIS The three drivers at the start of a gruelling1,006km drive in the KIA Soul EV. From the left: Vitoldas Milius, Yogendra Pratap and Aidas Bubinas

We stopped by at most of the major landmarks that came along the way including the centre point of Lithuania (top) and the town hall of Vilnius

1 & 2. We only opted for fast charging with 50kW chargers and usually charged for only the most effective charge per hour period and that was usually for about half-anhour, which gave us about 80 per cent of our range. 3 & 4. The Past & the Future: We passed by wind farms and oil wells that lay abandoned. These will be familiar sights thanks to an increasing number of EVs

1. At the finish line and after having driven for over 20 hours 2 & 3. Charging points came in a variety of guises, mostly at shopping areas but also at nondescript pitstops along highways 4 & 5. The display on the infotainment system gives a wealth of EV specific info plus an eco-level meter