Volvo C40 helps achieve EV breakthrough for slow adopter

There has been one major roadblock preventing me from making the shift to full-electric driving: a 530 km (330 mile) journey into the unknown. With the help of a Volvo C40, it was time to look fear in the eye and try not to blink.

I regularly travel from southern Germany to northwest Italy. In my BMW X3 it takes as little as 5 hour and 15 minutes with one re-fueling stop. When the dogs come along the time increases to 6 hours with at least two stops.

I knew it wouldn’t be possible to match those times in an EV because my colleague, Andrea Malan, provided sage advice after he completed two journeys of 850-plus km between Milan and Paris this summer. He said: “Try to keep your speed between 100 and 110 kph to preserve the battery.” That’s well under the 130 kph or higher I usually drive, given that parts of the trip are on the Autobahn.

I kept the speeds down, which to be honest made the drive a little less stressful. I was also uber-cautious about range, adding more power to the battery than was essential at three recharging stops. Why? Because I had no idea whether the infrastructure along the route was robust enough to allow me complete the journey. As a result, the drive took 9 hours and 30 minutes.

Here are the key takeaways from round one of the journey.

• Purchase a Type II cable that can be plugged into a regular socket because the last recharge, which took more than an hour, was done solely because I had no way to replenish the battery at the location I would stay.

• Bring foul weather gear, pack lots of food and beverages, and be ready to “commune with nature” because none of the three charging locations was covered (not fun on a rainy, windy nigh) and two of the three locations had no easy access to food or a bathroom.
• Travel with someone you enjoy spending time with, fortunately my wife joined me for this adventure, because those long recharge sessions would have been unbearable if I was with the wrong person.
• One pedal driving, which can be turned on or off in the C40, is a joy. It also helps put charge back into the battery, which makes a big difference on a long trip.
• The C40’s range optimizer helped tremendously by adjusting the climate control system to preserve the battery. It made the cabin a bit stuffy from time to time, but for the right reason.
• The fast-charging networks in Germany (I used Ionity) and Austria (I used EnerCharge) are developing rapidly and the facilities were in well-lit areas and nearly all charge points were operating at each location. The network in Italy (I used Enel) is a not as developed and the charging speeds are sometimes slower.
• Volvo’s Google-based navigation system provided reliable direction to the charging locations as well as the opportunity to search the nearby area for alternative spots to get electricity. The best part of all was that it calculated not only how much battery you had left but also how much you would have by the time you reached your final destination. This was also the case while charging, which means you knew exactly how much charge you would need to safely get to your destination. This feature should be a mandatory in every EV because it provided great peace of mind.

Getting ready for the return

Before starting the return trip I had to run some errands in the area. After that, I wanted to top up the battery. I chose an Ionity location off the highway near Portogruaro, Italy.

Only three of the six fast-charge points were working, which led to some dismay from a wide range of out-of-town customers. During my 40 minutes on the charger that afternoon I also saw a guy from the UK with a Skoda Enyaq iV, a couple from Holland with a Kia e-Soul, an Austrian family with a BMW iX, and three German couples with a Porsche Taycan, a Mercedes-Benz EQS and a Hyundai Ioniq 5, respectively.

The location was really hard to find (it took two tries even with help from the navigation system). The six chargers were well hidden from the street behind a dingy Eni fuel station that was closed and looked like it might stay that way.

Given that it was an absolutely uninviting spot and half the chargers were broken, it’s no wonder former Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess in the summer of 2021 verbally slapped Ionity, a venture set up by VW, Daimler, BMW and Ford Motor, because of his less-than-premium experience in Italy.

That being said, my charging experiences at two Ionity locations in Germany, one near Landsburg and the other south of Munich on the A8 Autobahn, were efficient and problem-free.

Heading home

I started the trip back to Germany a little after 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning with more than 80 percent battery. Just before 9 a.m. I stopped at a location across the Italian border in Arnoldstein, Austria, with about 20 percent charge.

Using a provider called Kelag, I charged up to less than 90 percent, which took 1 hour and 10 minutes.

At least the chargers, which were not protected from the elements, were close to food and bathrooms. Sadly, there were also a few broken charge points at this location. I also experienced a line of people who wanted to get power.

I decided to make my second and last stop in Antif, Austria, near Salzburg, at about noontime. The location, right next to a tennis club and restaurant, had two excellent fast chargers with speeds of more than 350 km/h and nearly 85 kW.

By 12:35 p.m. the C40 had enough charge to make it home (charging speed dipped to 157 km/h and 38 kW near the end, which is normal). The computer said I would arrive with more than 20 percent of battery power.

The trip took 8 hours and 30 minutes, but that included a one hour traffic jam crossing the German-Austrian border, so let’s call it 7 hours and 30 minutes. That’s a two-hour improvement on the first leg of the trip. Combined charging time was about 2 hours.

These are the key takeaways from round two of the journey.

• Planning is essential to getting comfortable with an EV. Load up on apps with information about the charging network and also provide some feedback on your experience to the apps to help the next person who might be trying that location.
• Don’t worry about the oil companies. Volvo provided a brilliant piece of tech on the key ring that I waved at each charge point to active it. This eyedrop-shaped device, from Newmotion, which is a member of the Shell Group, worked on all but one of the eight charge points I used. If I get an EV, this magic piece of plastic is the second purchase -- after a wallbox.
• I purposely traveled on a weekend when there wouldn’t be massive lines of Germans and Austrians returning home ahead of the start of school year. Even during this off-peak time and despite traveling at off-peak hours, I had to wait for a charge point, or I was asked to finish up quicker than planned. With EV sales rising fast in Europe, I fear the struggle to get access to a charge point will only get worse.
• Charging, even under ideal circumstances, makes a long trip even longer. That is neither convenient nor fun.

The bottom line is that until real range increases to 400 km or better (the C40’s range was about 320 km) and until recharging becomes as quick as refueling, I will need a fuel-powered car in the fleet for long-distance travel.

Based on my travel patterns, an EV is still only viable as a second car.

Given that average net retail transaction price in Germany for a new EV is nearly 63,000 euros, compared with about 32,200 euros for non-EVs, it will be a while before I can afford to spend that much on such a fast-depreciating asset, even with the incentives and other perks being offered.