Driving in a convoy of 17 EVs from KL-Kuantan-KL, is our infrastructure ready?
Shaun · Apr 6, 2023 07:11 PM
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Driving an EV from KL to the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia and back is manageable
Driving in a group of 17 EVs for the same trip is another story
Is or will our charging infrastructure ever be ready?
About two months ago, yours truly was on an EV-only trip to the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. It was a visit to Mercedes-Benz Malaysiaâs production facility at Pekan with 17 Mercedes EQ models for the launch of the CKD Mercedes-Benz EQS 500.
Now, if youâre an EV user whoâs planning this trip independently, youâd probably look up the available chargers in Kuantan via an app such as PlugShare. You might even fire up another app - A Better Routeplanner (ABRP) - to reduce your mental gymnastics in planning your journey.
The proposed plan would be perfectly manageable on an individual basis but when you have a group of say, more than 10 EVs, going to the east coast with several destinations gets challenging.
For starters, there are only two DC fast chargers (one on each direction) on the East Coast Expressway, which is at the Petronas Gambang R&R.
With the Mercedes-Benz EQB 350 selected as our EV and destinations keyed in, ABRP suggests charging at the eastbound Petronas Gambang R&R for 45 minutes to juice up the battery from 34 percent to 95 percent state of charge (SoC).
Therein lies our first conundrum, never mind charging up to 95 percent on a DC fast charger (something thatâs typically frowned upon by EV users), topping to 80 percent will take 30 minutes or so. For that trip, there were 17 Mercedes EQ models ranging from the EQA to the EQS.
Even if we discount the longer range EQE and EQS (there were two of each) that will make it to the first destination without a recharge, there are still 13 EQs that will have to wait in line. The charging station only allows two EVs to be charged at a time.
13 EVs, two at a time, 30 minutes each, you do the math on how long the group would be required to wait around at the rest stop. Alas, a schedule to follow meant the team couldnât allocate 30 minutes for each EV and instead gave about 10 minutes.
Those who were driving enthusiastically had even lower SoC than estimated by the app. With only a 10-minute charge, they barely had enough juice to get to the first destination that is the hotel, which doesnât have an EV charger.
There are two DC chargers closest to the hotel, one of them happens to be a BMW dealership (you can understand why itâs not favourable for this particular trip) and other is a recond dealership. The latter is where this writer assumes the crew members took the EQ models out to charge after the group had arrived.
They had likely spent the whole night charging the 17 EQ models because the morning after, all the EQs had about 80 percent SoC for the drive to the production plant in Pekan. This was only achieved with the help of an entire crew.
Even so, heading from the hotel to the production plant, and later to another location just off the East Coast Expressway for lunch is a 110-km journey in total, which meant that the SoC for the shorter range EQs were at about 50 percent or less depending on how it was driven. Suffice to say that it's insufficient for the journey back to KL.
That meant another challenge for the crew to charge up the EQs while the media was having lunch. And the closest DC charger happens to be at the westbound Petronas Gambang R&R. Imagine making long diversions on the East Coast Expressway just to get a charge, while using charge.
On your own, you would have to âhogâ the DC charger to get sufficient charge for multiple destinations, and it all must be pre-planned with no detours or unexpected surprises like an offline charger â which by the way, the eastbound DC charger at Petronas Gambang was down for the better part of last month.
Rigid and idealistic, spontaneity be damned. Does that sound like a perfect weekend getaway to you?
A group of 10 EVs or more at a time heading from Klang Valley to the east coast is not an unrealistic scenario, especially when you consider the EV take-up rate in the past year. Right now in Klang Valley, youâd probably stumble upon a BYD Atto 3 at any charging station. With the upcoming Raya celebrations, this scenario could well be recreated.
Itâs great to witness such response to EVs from the consumers but the question now is, how is the expansion of charging infrastructure keeping up? Currently, there are still less than 1000 EV chargers (AC and DC chargers included) in Malaysia, with 900 units reported in February 2023.
Minister of International Trade and Industry (MITI), Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz, announced that the government aims to provide 10,000 units of EV chargers by 2025. But in the past months since the year began, only three DC chargers (all of which are the TNB Electron DC charging stations) have been added on major highways.
At the current rate EVs are coming in, the infrastructure development doesnât appear to be keeping up. Malaysia is well past the initial âchicken or the egg firstâ situation as manufacturers are actively bringing in EVs, which means itâs all eyes on the charging network providers and their investors.
They, on the other hand, are faced with tough decisions on location and scale of the charging station/hub. Build it to accommodate peak seasons and it will be vacant for the remainder of the time.
Another issue is charging port location on EVs. Cars with internal combustion engines typically have their fuel doors at the rear quarters (Porsche 911s and other unique cars aside). That makes it easier for fuel station engineers to position their pumps accordingly.
With EVs, there is no standardised location for charging ports, it can be placed on any side of the car depending on the architecture and the manufacturerâs decision. Which means in certain situations with a bi-directional tethered DC charger, if one side is being used, not every EV is able to utilise the other as the cables usually arenât very long.
The Ora Good Cat had to use the 350 kW charger (which it cannot fully utilise) because the 180 kW charger was misused.
Also, the thing about EVs (specifically BEVs) is that in a hypothetical situation where every vehicle on the road is a BEV, even if there are equal amount of DC chargers as fuel pumps, it still wouldnât be enough when you consider the time taken to refuel compared to the time taken to recharge.
There are already queues in fuel stations during peak seasons, can you imagine if everyone drives an EV?
Some will argue that home charging is the way to go, but charging at home isn't enough to get you from KL-Kuantan-KL, for instance. Which means you'd still have to depend on public charging network and putting the pieces together, you'd realise that it's not possible for the infrastructure to keep up.
The point is this â the future is not just electric (battery-electric specifically), itâs not feasible once youâve worked out the math. Itâs a solution, not thesolution.
The quest for automotive knowledge began as soon as the earliest memories. Various sources information, even questionable ones, have been explored including video games, television, magazines, or even internet forums. Still stuck in that rabbit hole.
