It’s still nice and cool when I’m packing my TWIKE for its newest adventure. I’m really looking forward to my week in Italy.
I haven’t been to Italy for 3 years now since TDI2021. Unlike last time, this trip will involve some long-distance-non-hypermiling travel and recharging en-route.
As long-time readers of this blog know, I’ve been driving EV’s since way before public charging stations were a thing and have seen how sloppy IT implementation and ambiguous standardisation documents can make electric travel a real pain. Let’s see how things pan out today.
Packing took me around 30 seconds – this time I’m taking an electric cooler with me as I’m bringing my friends in Italy some special treats that need to stay cool whilst I’m driving south of the alps – northern Italy’s temperatures are forecast to hit above 35°C today!
Also, I like cold drinks 🙂
With all the usual cables and connectors packed, I’m ready to leave.
5.51 am, I boot the drive computer and enter the password – it shows me 419V OCV and around 295km range – much less than usual as I will take the motorway for most of the trip to the Italian border.
One thing I really like when driving on the motorway on a work-free day early morning is how empty the usually super-clogged motorways around Zurich are!
The next 100 km are uneventful – except for the fact that driving with a higher-than-usual voltage from the pack makes the TWIKE way more responsive and that It can sustain higher speeds easier.
I’m always in awe how beautiful Switzerland is – today is no different! The first golden rays of sunlight bathe the landscape in an unreal light making the whole drive look like some kind of graphics card framerate demo with maximum lighting effects activated.
Eventually, I get to climb towards the Gotthard tunnel.
Driving up this valley, I always think about the people living here with basically 1 motorway and 1 road and the millions of cars and trucks a year sustaining a good part of Europe’s north-south traffic.
By the time I’ve arrived at the climb, I Google Maps shows me a pile-up of cars growing quickly in front of the tunnel.
The last exit before the 4 km long pile-up is Göschenen – where I would take the road up the Gotthard pass. According to Google the wait is 15 mins – much less than the detour would cost me.
Besides having crossed the pass many, many times, my goal for today is to drive as far as possible – at least 550km, half way to my friends place.
…not much further down the road I’m stuck in traffic waiting to be let into the tunnel.
It’s indeed around 15 mins to the front of the line where one car is let into the tunnel a time with enough distance between them to avoid accidents and pile-ups in the tunnel itself.
See in the video how this looked like for me:
For someone in a TWIKE it’s always a treat to drive into the tunnel. At 80kph the speed is perfectly adapted to easy driving with cruise control enabled.
The really interesting thing about driving through this long tunnel is the vast temperature differences one can experience – when driving in a TWIKE: enter the tunnel at 13°C you will find yourself at a toasty 33°C. This is definitely different when crossing the tunnel in a closed car!
After crossing the tunnel, the rest of the drive to Lugano was mostly coasting down the motorway at max speed allowed, recuperating the rest back into the battery and crossing the Monte Ceneri tunnel.
Nothing much to write except the road surfaces on the Swiss-Italian side of the Gotthard were way less smooth than on the other side.
Arriving in Lugano, always worth a visit, was a quick detour from the motorway. I wanted to have a quick coffee and take some pictures of the TWIKE along the lake.
It’s always a treat to drive along lake Lugano – there are many photo opps for TW560!
I head back on the motorway to Chiasso – just before the border crossing I leave the motorway to drive to Como and my first charging stop of the day. It’s going to be the same one I successfully charged from when returning from my mega-trip to Portugal.
Also, the chargers are just across from a shopping centre with air conditioning and a take-away pizzeria that makes really good focaccia!
Crossing the border in a TWIKE is a real treat – especially crossing into Italy, one of my favourite countries!
Are things going to be as effortless as last time? Things start well as 3 of 4 spots are already taken and one is left for me.
I get the cables ready, fire up my Enel X app (ENEL! Get someone professional to translate your app and fix the UI and user flow. It’s one of the most dadaistic, flaky and unintuitive apps I know!) and initiate the charge.
Flipping the vehicle ready and charge ready switches on my out-of-spec cable makes the relays in the charging station click satisfyingly and hey, presto, I get my 229V on all phases.
My TWIKE starts ramping up the charge and I head to the shopping centre as temperatures are already close to 30°C.
I get myself some focaccia and a coffee and settle in for a 80 min charge – reading some blogs and watching some video content….until –
<geek mode>
Thank you, Italian mobile providers, for deciding to maintain GSM for CSD-fallback! This means that my GSM-based SMS alerting system for problems with my TWIKE still works in this country…unlike Switzerland where all providers have decided to go with WCDMA and sunset GSM. Sure, sure I get why: average cell sizes and similar reach on Band 8…but that doesn’t help me with my cheapo Siemens m35 GSM-only based solution.
</geek mode>
I get a SMS from TW560 telling me it that the mains voltage is zero and that it needs attention. This after the 5 min wait the TWIKE lets pass by to see if the mains come back on their own.
When I get to the TWIKE, a radical 0.07kWh have been charged and the TWIKE is sitting there idling.
The charging app tells me that the charge has been ‘interrupted’ without giving any indication as to which party to the charging process has actually interrupted the charging…and, crucially, why. [grrr]
I start the charge another 3 times, each time the charge itself cuts out at around 6-7 minutes – it’s the charging station that terminates the charge.
This has already cost me over 30 mins and I’m getting a bit anxious as I have to cover at least 500 km today to be able to make it to my friends the next day since the total distance is around 950 km.
I decide to drive just a few hundred metres up the road to another Enel charging station to try my luck there.
Arriving there, I can see it’s the old version of Enel’s fleet off which I had charged in 2019 and had had massive problems with charging already then…Not a good start.
At least, unlike last time, I can actually read the display!
Here the situation is exactly the same – 7 minutes into the charge, the charging station terminates the charge.
Hm. This gets me thinking. Two chargers, same company, same problem. This sounds more like my TWIKE is doing something both charging stations don’t like.
I then check on my onboard computer when exactly the charge is interrupted. -> when the total amperage goes above 26A.
[TWIKE Tech explainer]
The TWIKE has one main way to charge – via the inverter that also provides the three-phased power to the motor. This inverter can charge up to 16A. The documentation says it can go all the way to 16A but I’ve never seen it go much above 14A. Since charging is basically and technically nothing more than motionless recuperation via one phase, you will hear the motor humming at 50Hz during a charge.
You can set the maximum charge rate to whatever you like and anything above will not be fed to the batteries. This is the same mechanism as when you set the maximum recuperation rate. The maximum recuperation energy total is 16A at 440V as set by the maximum DC bus voltage and recuperation amps -> 7.04kW.
Keeping this in mind, you can set the maximum charge rate for the TWIKE with additional chargers to exactly 32A@230V which roughly (as the mains voltage can vary) equates to 7.1kW.
This means that the inverter will reduce its charge to match the maximum flow. Down to zero, if necessary.
My TWIKE has two additional chargers that both put out 2.2kW each. Let’s assume I set the charge rate to 20A and plug in all three phases, both chargers will put out 2.2kW, as they cannot be controlled externally. The inverter will thus stay idle as the set max is covered by the external chargers.
When configured to 32A, both chargers will output 4.4kW and the inverter will cover the rest to the maximum, creating an imbalance on the phases. This usually is not a problem, since normal plugs don’t check for a balanced three-phase load i.e. you could, in theory charge off two phases or less and be ok.
[/TWIKE Tech explainer]
With this, I thought: ‘what if the charging stations check for phase load balance?’ and set the maximum charge to 24A and BOOM, the charge kept on going. This seems to have been the problem.
One small problem, obviously, if the external chargers, which are still configured to LiFePo3, don’t go up to the max voltage my pack accepts, start winding down the charge, I will have to lower the charge rate of the inverter to match the rate of the external chargers. Also, I’ll not be able to charge the batteries to their maximum and find the ideal cut-over point to disconnect the external chargers and charge one-phased via the inverter to the maximum I want to go without wasting too much time.
Now, back to the focaccias.
60 minutes later, I make my way back to the TWIKE to do some charging configuration for the last 20% of the charge.
Temperatures got really hot – the batteries were very close to their maximum operational charge envelope.
I then choose to disconnect and head into the oven that is the Italian Pianura with a charge around 70%.
Due to the temperatures, I decide to stay off the Autostradas and stick to Super Strada’s.
Every time I cross the Pianura I’m stunned how featureless it is and how boring driving along these roads is.
Later that afternoon, still driving at higher speeds and thus consuming way more than I usually would, it was time for another charge. I decided to stop in Modena, a city I’ve never been, charge and decide how far I want to go from there.
With my newly acquired knowledge, I set the TWIKE to charge at 26A and start exploring the city.
Here we go!
Modena has a beautiful city centre with many smaller bars beckoning. With me being dehydrated, this was a good match 🙂
Two beers in, I feel that I don’t want to go too far anymore – 100 kms max. I find a nice little hotel along the road I’m going to be taking tomorrow, book it and head out to the TWIKE that had been charging without problems.
The last 2 hours were not that hot anymore and finally, I got to see some hills.
Arriving at the hotel, I was greeted by a very interested owner totally understanding of my charging needs. He told me that I certainly could charge but he didn’t have any external plugs. He happily allowed me to do my usual thing: plug in the extension cord in my room and routing the cable all the way down the building towards the parking lot. All good! My TWIKE sat below, charging happily at a fairly low rate to be ready the next day.
This was a long day but I was able to get close to my goal of 550km today!
Later that evening, I head out to the main square for some dinner and was surprised to find a higher-tier restaurant with a very extensive wine selection and very good menu.
This was the treat I needed after this long day!
I got back to the hotel pretty late and ready for some sleep. Looking forward to my drive tomorrow!