There’s this general belief that road trips should really only be attempted by ICE cars. Many cite the lack of EV charging infrastructure across the border, and the limited range of an electric car as factors that would deter them from attempting such a feat.
An unscheduled stop for more electricity can seriously derail one’s travel plans. And it’d be fairly significant, especially if you only have the weekend to travel. So, against common wisdom, and despite running on a tight schedule, we decided to use a last generation Kia Niro EV as our chariot on this drive.
But, Why an Electric Car?
As this was a last minute, spur-of-the-moment decision, none of us had access to any of our shared family cars. After exhausting our contact list, we ended up with a choice of two cars. A hatchback, in the form of a Mercedes A-Class, and a crossover, which we ended up shooting for.
Cost was definitely a major factor in our decision, as the Niro was significantly cheaper to rent than the A180. There’s also the novelty of taking an electric vehicle up to KL, which is something that hasn’t been documented often on the internet just yet.
Initial Doubts
A quick Google search will reveal that Kia estimates the Niro EV’s range to be in the mid-400s. As EVs tend to be less efficient at higher speeds, we expected the car to realistically not make it to KL on a single charge. Rather, we’d have to drop by one of the many DC fast chargers scattered across the NSHW for a quick top-up to complete our trip.
I spent the evening before our drive testing the car out on our highways, and through various scenarios to try and work out just how much time we’d have to spend at one of these charging stations. But what I realised is that, despite the intentional inefficient driving style, the car returned a power consumption average that would allow us to actually make it to Kuala Lumpur without needing to recharge.
So that became our new goal – to try and make it to KL without having to recharge the car. Game on, then?
Pre-Departure Checks?
Well, we really didn’t do any. Typically, on any efficiency-challenge-esque drives, you’d be shedding weight and checking tyre pressures. But we did not do that to keep it as realistic as possible.
Right before making the hop across the border, we charged up the car at Goldbell’s HQ in Tuas. As we were running behind schedule (we intended to set off early to beat the customs jams), we set off without a full charge.
The 10+ kilometre trek to Second Link barely made a dent in the battery percentage, and the congestion at customs didn’t really affect our estimated range too. When we finally cleared both customs, we opted to cruise at roughly 110 km/h, as a) it was the posted speed limit, and b) appeared to not drastically affect the range whilst still allowing us to cover ground at a decent rate.
We only made two stops. Once on the Northbound Shell at Kulai on the NSHW for a snack/toilet stop, and once more further down at a toll booth when we realised we didn’t have sufficient balance in our Touch-n-go card.
Pace was decently rapid, and we managed to cover the distance from Kulai to the general Port Dickson area in a little over 2 hours. There was no range anxiety at all, and we drove around the posted speed limit all the way through this stretch of the drive.
The car indicated an average electrical consumption of about 7.2km/kWh, which is slightly above the 6.8km/kWh that Kia says the car would do. Keep in mind that this was with us driving at speed without an opportunity for regenerative braking.
All throughout the drive, we had a buffer range of about 150 kilometres. As the charge dwindled however, this buffer was also affected. Past Seramban, we appeared to lose 2 kilometres of range per kilometre travelled.
We worked out that whilst the car would still have enough charge to bring us to our destination, it’d be cutting it really close, especially if the charger that we selected was faulty. We decided to back off for this stretch, to try and keep the range in check.
There were definitely times that we were tempted to hop off the NSHW and find a charger right before KL in a bid to alleviate the range anxiety though. But in hindsight, that shouldn’t have been something that we needed to worry about. Averaging 90 km/h, we managed to cross the toll booths into KL with about an indicated 100 kilometres left.
We had to navigate the usual KL congestion, and it was definitely very nervy to do so, since we really didn’t want to run out of charge in the middle of a heavy traffic jam. Once we cleared the traffic build up, we were basically on the home stretch.
The end point was supposed to be a DC fast charger at the foot of KLCC. Or rather, it was a newish charger that was relatively underutilised within walking distance of the city centre. Instead, we soon realised that whilst we were in KL, this charger was actually on the outskirts of the city.
We actually ended up first entering KLCC, then driving some 17 kilometres to its outskirts to access the charger. The car was plugged in with 16% and an estimated 65 kilometres remaining.
We Made It! But at What Cost?
The 352 kilometre journey ended up using 80% charge. I’ll spare you the maths, but this ended up costing us $34 based on SP’s pricing. A similarly priced (on the used car market) hybrid vehicle will cost you $62 to fill up to cover the same trip.
And it is not like we did anything drastically different on this drive – we still drove at a reasonable speed, and even the charging wasn’t exactly inconvenient, as we spent the downtime before our next destination on a spot of lunch.But there are still going to be limitations to an electric car road trip. For more capable EVs, like this Niro EV, you’d be more likely to have the range to explore areas off-the-beaten track.
However, city-centric compact EVs are less likely to have the mechanical capability to do so. As such, you can really only stick to areas with the proper charging infrastructure.
Still, as Singaporeans tend to really only flock to JB or KL, as long as you are smart about the way you drive, an EV can be as competent as an ICE car on such drives. However, you’d still want an ICE vehicle if you regularly travel to less urbanised areas of Malaysia, as these areas are unlikely to have electric car chargers at the moment!
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