One of the most important features of a TWIKE is it’s ability to charge its batteries when breaking instead of wasting the kinetic energy on heating brake-pads. This is why TW560 proudly sports the bumper sticker below… to tickle ICE-driver’s brains 🙂 TW560’s recuperation has been patchy lately. When pressing the recuperation-button the inverter now usually nothing happens – a major source of frustration for a TWIKE pilot 🙂 Before we just either call our TWIKE mechanic to schedule a repair or do it ourselves, it is always a good idea to see what the exact problem might be. In […]
Other EV’s: Test Driving the Sono Sion
Always interested in alternative concepts and other EV’s in general, Sono Motors has been on my radar for quite some time. Their USP is being able to harvest the energy of the sun during the many hours a car usually spends not driving and parked outside. A sunny day adds up to 30km range … totally FREE thanks to the sun. This concept, coupled with some very clever thinking (instead of using custom parts, why not buy existing ones and save on development costs, making the car able to provide energy on the go, moss as an air filter, etc.) […]
TDST2017 – Day9-10: A hasty return to Switzerland
I wasn’t able to arrange a return on Monday arriving Tuesday as planned. My company requires me to be back at the office Monday morning. I leave about the same time as my family after a tearful goodbye from my Austrian family which will continue buying wine from local wineries until later this afternoon. My destination for today is Villach – one of three destinations served by daily car-trains from Feldkirch. At 172 km, my trip today is rather short and involves me crossing through Slovenia again. I think it’s very obvious to regular readers of my blog that […]
TDST2017 – Day 6-8: Lots of Sun & Wine
Styria – what a beautiful and blissful place on this planet. Add fine weather and you’re set. Our family members arrive one by one and by Thursday evening, even my youngest joins us for what has become a must-attend yearly event for our extended Austrian family. There isn’t much to do. Eat Styrian specialties, drink local wines, talk & spend time together. From an EV driver’s point of view, Styria has always been easy to travel – every winery has many red triple-phase plugs and know-how regarding how much energy can be consumed throughout a nightly charge was never a […]
TDST2017 – Day5: Northern Slovenia to Styria -> Wow!
After having slept fitfully and longer than the last days, we head down to our hotel’s breakfast room since today we’re only covering 200km to get to our family meeting in southern Styria and have some time to spare. A very nice choice of food is to be expected with the type of hotel we’ve chosen – however, the coffee machine was one of the automatic and horrible kind – just have a look at the user interface! Our day starts cold, humid and very gray … and with a full battery – always a nice feeling to know […]
TDST2017 – Day4: Ljubljana <3
An early start yet again. Today, instead of a clear and blue sky, we’re greeted by heavy humidity and 30m visibility. Packing our TWIKE, we shiver with 9°C and the fog getting everything humid within minutes. Thankfully, the drive to the ferry is only 5 minutes – this doesn’t change the fact that we get to the pier 2 minutes too late and have to wait for 45 minutes until the next departure. No problem, since there is a bar just 10m away…serving my favourite poison plus some jam filled croissants – yum! Our being the last not […]
TDST2017 – Day3: Venice, here we come!
We get up early, have a quick coffee as a starter for the day and get into the TWIKE. Our goal for today is to get to Venice as quickly as possible in order to have as much time left over as possible to explore the city together. Since there is a direct Autostrada from Milan to Venice and my friends in Brescia assured me that the road surface was good, I decided to give this option a try: We join the Autostrada with just a few cars – we expected more for 7am – and easily take part […]
TDST2017 – Day2: Drive-free day in Brescia
Our first drive-free day on our second yearly TWIKE-adventure. We open the window of our room to be greeted not only by a very typical Mediterranean view, but also by a brilliant day awaiting us. Since last time I was in Brescia, I didn’t get to see to much of the city – this time I’m trying to catch up a little 🙂 First, we head out to have a look at Brescia’s marble quarries – source of a very nice marble variant called Botticino. Many older buildings in Brescia are built from this stone. Looking down from the hills […]
TDST2017 – Day1: A beautiful drive to Brescia
As always, the last few days before a trip are a whirl of preparations, getting everything done and looking forward to the drive. Weather is forecast to be perfect – my daughter and myself are very much looking forward to our trip together. Saturday morning, it’s still dark outside when we get up and start packing our TWIKE. I’ve changed the charge model to maximum capacity trip-mode (as coined by Tesla-speak) and TW560 spent the night slowly charging to 100%/17.7kWh capacity, which we will be needing today. With 10 years experience and efficiency, we load all our stuff into the […]
TDST2017: Less than a week!
All systems go. New GPS tracking & mapping solution activated and ready TWIKE fully serviced Chocolate buying date set Friends phoned and confirmed Hotel in Venice booked Train back to Switzerland booked Made space on phone’s SD card Tested TW_560’s Twitter feed We’re ready and looking forward to our trip. Due to unforseen complications, I had to cut my trip short by one day and thus will not be able to drive all the way back home in my TWIKE but will take the train from Villach to Feldkirch and drive from there to my office directly and start working […]