1400km (870 mile) EV v Diesel challenge! There was just $5 between them...the results surprised!

CarExpert

So, everybody says that EVs are cheaper to run. We wanted to put that theory to the test over an extended road trip. We drove between Adelaide (in Australia...) and Sydney, which is around 1400km in a diesel Audi Q5 and a full electric Kia EV6 to see how inconvenient a regional road trip would be in an EV and also how much cheaper the road trip would be. The results were surprising!  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 On the road 1:49 Stop 1 - Tailem Bend 3:37 Stop 2 - Ouyen 6:47 Stop 3 - Hay 8:43 Stop 4 - Tarcutta 11:46 Stop 5 - Sutton Forest 12:55 Verdict and costs 14:38  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #kia #audi #ev #diesel #challenge

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. So you've heard from everyone EVs range anxiety. You can't drive them long distance

00:05 I wanted to put that theory to the test and today we're going to drive an EV a

00:10 diesel Audi and also a hybrid support car from Adelaide to Sydney

00:14 Which is a long distance and we want to see exactly how inconvenient it is come into this shot Elbors

00:19 Elbors co-founder of car expert is going to be joining me

00:23 Elbors has a collection of supercars and knows absolutely nothing about driving gently

00:29 This is correct. This is correct

00:30 Which is why they're giving me the diesel long range

00:32 Which I've turned off the air con for and I put the pressure up as high as they possibly go because I cannot lose

00:37 The dismount. Yes

00:39 So part of our aim today is to figure out exactly how much longer it's going to take me to do the trip in an

00:44 EV. The EV that we have is the Kia EV6 long range. It's the base model and this is the Audi Q5

00:50 35 TDI diesel. There it is. It is basically the entry level to the Q5 range

00:55 But it also has a 70 litre tank at averages less than 5 litres per 100 K

01:00 So it's gonna be really interesting to see how it goes and exactly how much time I have to waste as part of this

01:04 so

01:05 Yeah, the whole thing we're going to film as much as we can along the way

01:08 But we will sit down later on to go through the results and give you a better idea of exactly how long everything has taken

01:14 And how inconvenient the charging infrastructure has been so as Elbors mentioned we've checked high pressures. What did you go up to?

01:20 Look, they started on 31. They're now 46 31. Oh my god. That is bad

01:25 It was very comfortable now. It's not so much. Okay. Well, the theory behind that is high tire pressure less rolling resistance more range with the EV6

01:32 I've left it at 36, which is the recommended tire pressure simply because I want to see how it goes

01:36 You've brimmed that that's at a hundred percent. Let's I've got my M&Ms and Red Bull. Let's get out of here

01:42 Yes, quite a lot of that stuff. Actually, we've packed enough for about three weeks away. So we'll see how we go

01:48 So

01:50 One thing I just realized is you may not actually know Adelaide all that well and

02:01 If you don't Adelaide is like at sea level but to get onto the freeway out of Adelaide you go up these

02:08 Like super steep hills for a long time and obviously that is killing my consumption here

02:15 I was at sort of around 17 kilowatt hours per 100 K's in and around Adelaide

02:19 But now I'm sort of sitting around that 22 marker and it's dropped my range slightly as well

02:25 But I am trying to use

02:27 Here's a hundred sign. I'm just gradually

02:30 Grouping up from 60 to 100 here. One of the tools I use during the trip is an awesome website called a better route planner

02:38 It's a free site that takes weather topology and realistic EV driving range into account to give you an idea of where

02:45 And how often you're gonna need a charge

02:47 I'll be using it as a guide for this trip to figure out where and when I need to stop

02:52 So one thing I didn't realize about this Audi is that it doesn't have active cruise control now

03:00 That's because this is the absolute base model. However, that kind of ruins my plans

03:05 So this is now the real test of my right foot now

03:10 Elbors I deliberately picked to the inland route because it gets us as close as possible to his realistic driving range for him to

03:18 Make the 1400 kilometer trip. He needs to consume less than 5 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers

03:23 Yes, he can obviously stop anywhere to fill up his car pretty quickly

03:28 Unlike me in the EV, but he is taking the challenge seriously and to make sure he doesn't run out of fuel

03:34 He has decided to drive a little slower to make sure he actually makes it to Sydney

03:39 Okay, so we are charging this is a 350 kilowatt charger

03:44 This is capable of charging 800 volts and up to about 250 kilowatt peak

03:49 Now these are interesting because these actually have liquid cooled cables

03:52 That's why when you put your hand on that you can actually feel it vibrating a bit because it is putting

03:56 Fluid through this cable to keep it nice and cool

03:59 So we plugged in at 80% and it's even pulling like 80 or 90 kilowatts there

04:05 At 80% which is pretty impressive. So the suggestion here is to take us to about 95%

04:09 And this should be enough to get us to our next stop, which is a little while away

04:13 [Music]

04:35 So we are on the road

04:38 I just thought I'd just say how much I love this country

04:41 It is, yeah, I love doing road trips like this because you get to see

04:44 You get to see Australia and you get to see exactly what it's all about. How are we traveling?

04:49 So I have jacked the speed up a little bit when we were leaving

04:52 Adelaide obviously it was quite hilly and a lot of speed cameras and stuff like that. So

04:59 What I've done now is put the speed up to

05:04 Real speed and when I say that I'm not using the indicated speed on the speedometer

05:09 I'm using a GPS speed here and that is not only increasing the

05:13 Energy consumption. It's decreasing our range

05:17 So we're now currently averaging 22 kilowatt hours per 100k since we charged

05:21 That figure is 20.1 since we left Adelaide. So you can see that

05:28 Things are picking up a little bit now

05:30 But yeah, it's all going well so far really quite comfortable in this the local ride and handling tune they did on EV6 compared to

05:37 Ioniq 5 that missed out and all that stuff. I think it's pretty evident and here in country Australia where you're getting much

05:44 A greater variety of road conditions. This feels far more at home than something like an Ioniq 5 does

05:50 So yeah pretty impressed with it so far and I think Alvorz has been cheating and there is a fast approaching electric

05:58 Kia

05:59 Is that you ahead of me? That's right. I'm saving fuel

06:02 Well, I'm going to

06:06 Not save fuel and go around you

06:09 Bye

06:12 Because I'm going to go to the charger and hopefully by the time I get there

06:17 I can have some juice before you turn up and for us to have some lunch

06:21 I'm considering increasing my average speed to 91 just to get that extra one kilometer

06:27 I'm, not even speeding that much either. Good idea. Well, I will see you at Oyun and

06:32 We'll see how we go. Enjoy looking at the back of the EV6

06:37 Oyun is the next stop on our charging journey

06:41 The only issue here is that the charger is a pretty slow charger for a DC charger

06:46 And it's going to take a little while for the EV6 to actually get to its full charge

06:49 And the recommended charge capacity to reach our overnight stop in Hay which is in New South Wales

06:55 So, let's go

06:57 I might just keep going

07:04 Because you're just gonna have to wait all that extra time you've made up

07:09 After discovering there was nothing open for food in Oyun, Elbors ditched us

07:14 And I decided to pull the plug a little early to catch up to him

07:17 Uh, this is totally unexpected

07:19 but the road to Sydney

07:22 from

07:23 Uh where we were is actually closed

07:26 They've now told me to go back like 38 kilometers to another town to go on this insane detour

07:33 Which I cannot work out where it is and i'm wasting incredibly precious

07:37 milliliters of my

07:40 premium diesel fuel

07:42 So as Elbors started explaining the bridge crossing the Murray River in Piangel was closed

07:47 They closed it about 10 minutes before we arrived

07:50 So our detour added about 70 kilometers to the trip after having to drive south to Naya

07:55 To cross the river and then back again to connect to the original road that we're on

07:59 After getting around the road closure. I finally caught up with Elbors again. He was pretty hungry again. So I threw him a banana

08:15 And hit me right in the head

08:17 As we got closer the range kept creeping down thanks to the cold weather I have two percent battery left

08:26 And

08:29 Five kilometers range and I have four kilometers left to drive

08:32 My nav is basically taking me direct to the charger and I will arrive with

08:37 Virtually nothing left in the tank. So, um, yeah

08:42 Hey was our overnight stay and there was a slow-ish dc charger in town

08:47 Thankfully there was nobody there at that time of night and we're able to plug the ev6 up to charge at 50 kilowatts

08:53 While we went to the truck stop to eat dinner literally

08:56 two kilometers range

08:59 1% battery left

09:01 Um, yeah that um that detour really screwed us. Um, so average ended up being 20.8 kilowatt hours per 100k's

09:09 um the decision to uh

09:11 take the car off the charger a little earlier probably wasn't the best idea because uh,

09:16 If it if we I guess had have kept it in a little bit longer

09:19 We wouldn't be in this situation

09:20 And in addition to that if the roadworks weren't happening and the road wasn't closed

09:24 We also wouldn't be in this situation either

09:26 But um, yes, it is one of the benefits of having many fuel stations

09:30 You can just fill up a car whereas with an ev you literally have to make it to the destination

09:34 Otherwise you're going to find a power plug in a random spot to fill the car

09:37 So

09:39 So it's the last day um, I just thought I'd

09:50 Just mentioned something here

09:52 So, um, i'm brimming the car now to get it up to 100% just to make sure we're all good for the rest of the trip

09:57 The rest of the trip is actually all very fast chargers

10:01 So it means i'll only be stopping for short periods of time and there's less

10:04 Range anxiety because we're getting closer to sydney and there's more and more infrastructure

10:08 But I think this is just a good example last night. We got here with one percent and there is one charger

10:14 In this town, so had I have basically arrived here needing the charge and there was other evs waiting here

10:22 I probably would be

10:24 Shit out of luck to be honest. So, um, yeah, this is part of the problem with ev infrastructure in australia

10:29 There are just limited fast charging stations around and it does mean that on busy weekends and stuff like that

10:35 You may actually be waiting instead of just being able to turn up and plug up like we've been able to

10:39 My strategy yesterday was to stick to about 90 kilometers an hour

10:45 To keep the fuel usage down i've managed to do about 4.7 liters per 100 so far

10:50 We had a bit of a detour which added about 60 k's to the journey

10:53 Which is really frustrating because that was my buffer zone and i'm going to have to find a truck today to basically just coast behind

10:59 As close as legally possible all the way to sydney to really reduce my aerodynamic drag and hopefully they'll give me another

11:05 One or two liters of fuel which is what this is going to come down to but no matter what happens

11:09 I can't let Paul win. That's that's the primary goal

11:12 With a little over 700 kilometers to go things get better here for me because all of the charges from here on in are

11:20 350 kilowatt fast chargers and according to a better route planner

11:24 We don't actually need to stop for very long with each of these charging stops

11:29 We are just rolling into Tarkhada so a funny point well interesting point

11:34 This is the midway point between melbourne and sydney

11:38 So there you go irrelevant for our adelaide to sydney journey, but just a fun fact

11:44 So part of the problem is because these cables are so short

11:51 And there's so much tension on them

11:55 There's a locking mechanism in the car that locks the cable in position

11:58 And then if there is tension on it, it basically doesn't allow it to lock and it means it won't start

12:04 So you can see now it's actually locked in properly

12:06 That should actually kick off

12:09 So this um, this should actually really pick up a bit of pace because we're at 20 state of charge

12:15 The ramp profile here is quite strong

12:19 And also because uh, this is like the proper 350 kilowatt charging setup

12:24 The battery's already warm because we've been driving sort of all day should really start to pick up some steam

12:30 Yet again albors decided to leave the second he finished his chico roll instead of waiting for us

12:38 But it didn't take long for me to reel him in again and pass him as we got closer to sydney

12:42 Next stop for us is sutton forest for a quick top up

12:46 This will be our last stop before arriving in sydney and brimming both the q5 and the ev6

12:51 So let's quickly talk about inconvenience, um, we've been here now for a little while waiting for this to charge

12:58 But it hasn't actually been all that inconvenient, especially on the 350 kilowatt charges are actually quite fast in terms of

13:05 Uh how quickly they're plumbing energy back into the battery to give you enough?

13:09 Range for that next stretch

13:11 It really is only when you're on the 50 kilowatt charges or the 75s that it takes a little bit more time

13:15 But even now i've just arrived here plugged up, uh gone inside to do a quick wee and then back into the car

13:21 So yeah pretty impressed with that so far

13:24 Next stop is going to be sydney where i'm going to brim this and then we'll figure out exactly how much this has cost

13:29 compared to the diesel

13:32 So

13:34 Hey, hey

13:59 We made it I can't believe we made it actually, uh 80 kilometers left still in the tank and we're in sydney

14:05 Finally made it. So I found a charger here in this shopping center. I'm gonna fill this thing up now

14:11 That last leg was fantastic because it was basically downhill from sutton forest

14:16 It used like 14 kilowatt hours per 100 ks, which is pretty remarkable. So we used barely any battery at all

14:23 So i'm gonna brim it now. We'll have a look at how much this costs compared to the diesel. We'll see who the winner is

14:28 So

14:30 So we've arrived back at the car expert office

14:41 People working hard in the background there and it's time to go over our results and before I do I just want to reiterate

14:46 Um, yes, obviously if you were driving an internal combustion car, you could have easily stopped countless times

14:52 But I really did want to set a challenge here to alborz to get to sydney

14:57 In the in the hope that he did break down somewhere

14:59 But I think you wanted to set a challenge where I would definitely lose and I didn't that was the main thing

15:03 Yes, it's very disappointing. Um now in terms of how much everything cost

15:07 Tell me how much it cost you to fuel your car because we brimmed it at the start

15:11 Brimmed it at the finish as well. And this will give us an indication of exactly how much fuel you use for that trip

15:18 Yes, so I used

15:20 62.33 liters and it cost

15:22 130.83 now, I just want to point out that diesel is super expensive at the moment

15:27 Yes, and under normal circumstances, it might not have been that bad. Okay, that means you averaged 4.38 liters per 100 ks

15:34 Um now here's something surprising my trip

15:36 I added up all of the charging stops that I had to make keep in mind one of the major charging stops

15:42 Which was our stop at hay where the car almost ran out of electricity

15:45 That was free of charge

15:47 So with without that one sort of charged included

15:52 125 dollars and 56 cents so and I should point out also that I did

15:56 1420.6 kilometers. Yeah, right. You were a little bit less than that because I was the guinea pig finding all the routes that were closed

16:03 Yes, yes where that detour popped up you had to go do some hunting

16:06 So you ended up doing 20 ks less than me more than you. Yeah more than me. Sorry. Yeah, and it was

16:11 Only five dollars cheaper for me

16:14 And I had a look at the numbers here if we had to have charged at hay on a fast charger and paid for it

16:19 I would have actually used it would have cost me more to do that same trip

16:23 Which really surprised me because the whole thing about evs is they're meant to keep lots of things keep surprising you and they're so obvious

16:28 You paid more for the car and you paid more to charge it and you got to spend heaps of time waiting around

16:33 Well, I could have kept going. Well, you know, I didn't really wait around that long. So just to recap

16:38 Um, it took probably the final time when we stopped the stopwatch. It was 15 minutes

16:43 Between you filling and recharging to I think there was a bit of pity stopping there for you along the way

16:48 Had to stop and eat because you wouldn't want him to go hungry

16:51 Um, so that is very interesting. Uh, I was as I said surprised by that

16:56 It shows you that you can still drive an internal combustion car whether it's an efficient diesel or a hybrid

17:01 And it still be cheaper than an ev

17:04 But it also does show you that you can do this type of trip in an ev as well

17:08 It is expensive, but you can actually go regional like we did and do a long distance trip

17:13 Had we have gone the more popular way, which is closer to melbourne

17:17 They're all fast chargers and I wouldn't have had to stop anywhere near as long as I did at oyin and hay with always excuses

17:23 Always excuses it is true. Um, and I did like the ev6. It was quite nice

17:27 Look to be honest. My car, um was the base model of that audi and it didn't even have active cruise

17:32 I was surprised it had power windows

17:34 So if I had to pick which car I was in I would have definitely picked the kia

17:37 Yeah, I think you had a much more comfortable drive. Yeah, something being overtaken about 30 times during that trip was very frustrating

17:43 Yes, and while loveballs was doing 90 k's an hour to make sure he actually made it to sydney. Uh, I would blast past him regularly

17:49 at um

17:50 Nearish the speed limit to make sure he didn't beat me

17:54 So yeah in a real world circumstance, I would do 110 which was the speed limit

17:57 And I would have just stopped and refueled and I would have got there way faster than you it's still a fun challenge

18:02 Anyway, so, uh, let us know in the comment section below. Did you enjoy the video?

18:05 What do you want to see us doing next? Because I quite enjoyed our road trip. I I liked assaulting you with a banana

18:11 I thought that was good fun. I think it still hurts to be honest

18:13 So let us know down there

18:15 if you did enjoy this video

18:16 Please make sure you like it and you share it with your mates and if you haven't done so already subscribe to

18:20 the channel and press the bell icon, but

18:22 until next time

18:24 See you later

18:26 See you later to that camera

18:28 You have to wait I did I did it first i'm a consummate professional like you

Category

Transcript

Recommended