Another electric car, another race. When a warm May afternoon one Volkswagen ID.3 crossed the courtyard of our editorial office, kindly granted on trial by the Verona headquarters, a thrill of excitement shook a large part of the team in unison. After all, if an electrical challenge calls, it’s hard to back down and those who have already followed our adventures know that if with Extreme Office we managed to get to Vigevano, with a real car we would have been able to do well worse other.
With the map in hand, our choice of destination fell on Roma, but since there is no competition without ambitious goals, with their set of obstacles and unexpected events, to make our itinerary even more stimulating we decided to recharge our car using, listen, not the network of public pay stations located on good part of the national territory, but a source of electrons a no cost.
No, I’m clearly not talking about the Schuko stolen from the housewives in the middle of the boot and neither about the superchargers. Tesla, pillars of a dense ecosystem for the exclusive use of the brand’s customers, but of the infrastructures located in the parking lots of some large shopping centers, supermarkets or other hospitality businesses. Hyper, Decathlon, Tigers, long S, Ikea, Eurospin e Lidl are some of the names of large companies that offer this service in many of their stores, not so much to encourage electric mobility as to attract customers who, between one charging break and the next, get on the trolley, combining profit with profit .
The protagonist of our electrical challenge is one Volkswagen ID.3 1st Plus gives 150 kW (204 hp) with 58 kWh battery which accepts two charging modes: the one in alternating current AC (Mode 2 and Mode 3), with a Type2 connector, and the one in direct current DC (Mode 4) with the CCS Combo2 standard. P.For a more in-depth knowledge of the model, we suggest you rely on Luigi’s proof a few months ago.
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THE ELECTRIC DIARIES
Our first stop was Bologna, an easy stop and go about 200 kilometers from the starting point, where we had already intercepted some free refueling stations. In order not to go blind, we have in fact made a quick selection of the free recharge stages by initially focusing on Lidl, which counts on a rather widespread network of points of sale. In Bologna there are six, all in peripheral areas but easily reachable from the motorway, and in one of them there are even two colonnine fast multistandard which have become our lifeline. Too bad that, once we arrived at our destination, we had to note with great regret that they were not working.
After a change of course in search of another point of sale, which like most Lidl stores houses columns with double Type 2 plugs that dispense up to 22 kW in AC (in some cases the power is limited to 11 kW) and a quick lunch waiting to reach “full”, we opted for a very risky pull up to Orvieto, about 260 kilometers away.
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Auto
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19 Apr
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Cruise control set at 110 km / h to avoid ruinous drops in autonomy (between 110 and 130 km / h there is an abyss in terms of consumption), 50 shades of Tuscan green, a questionable soundtrack (Francesco and I have irreconcilable music) but a commendable comfort because, it must be said, in the ID.3 you are really comfortable, especially behind. After three hours of travel and many fewer battery notches, you can see the sparkle of the sign in the distance Eurospin silhouetted in the leaden sky was pure enjoyment.
The charging power of the columns in the discount car park is the same as that of the infrastructure Lidl and fortunately, contrary to what happened in the Emilian capital, no obstacle stood between us and the coveted refueling. After a couple of hours we had the battery at an acceptable charge point for the final sprint to the capital.
At the end of the day, with about 600 kilometers traveled, over 10 hours of travel, two charging stages (including various grind-autonomy wanderings), 140 kWh consumed e 78 kWh recharged, the forward path of our electrical challenge has finally come to an end. And never like that evening, when via Salaria led us to the city in a twilight light with a mystical face, did we finally understand the meaning of the saying “See Rome then die”. Literally.
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RETURN
It is certainly not over here: from Rome, after a day off and one day of work, we obviously had to return. I do not deny that I was tempted to abandon my companions in (dis) adventure and get on the first Frecciarossa towards Milan-Central or to hitchhike appealing only to petrol or diesel cars (just kidding).
Understand me: during our “Roman holidays” I developed a rare form of autonomy phobia, to put it in English “range anxiety”, made even less bearable by the aggravating circumstance of gratuity as a mandatory requirement of our challenge. Without a wall box or a domestic socket to attach the car in the garage during the night (or even just the possibility to “go wrong” with the pay columns), I would say that the opposite would have been anomalous. Fortunately, between Ikea and others Lidl, the Capitoline stay in the end turned out to be sustainable also from the point of view of energy loading.
All very nice, but there is a however: if it is true that ours was a risky choice, it is equally true that traveling – even for long journeys – with your own electric car by recharging it thanks to the classic energy refueling options proposed by the various industry players is feasible and, in some cases, even very comfortable. Enel X, BeCharge, A2A, Ionity: the names are many, the columns that make up their infrastructural network even more.
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TRAVELING COLUMNS
However, there remains the problem of the shortage of electricity columns along the motorway section, which should soon be resolved thanks to an amendment of the Budget Law of 2021 which provides for the installation of a fast charging station every 50 kilometers on the motorway. And then there is the maxi floor of Motorways for Italy, which fits into this context and which should lead to the opening of 67 charging points on the motorway network (with 4 or 6 columns each) in the service areas with power up to 350 kW (the first station has recently seen the light on the Autostrada del Sole in the Modena area and in the Flaminia Est area north of Rome). This means that, approximately every 90 kilometers, it will be possible to have an ultra-fast recharge in direct current in 15-20 minutes.
Another observation is more than necessary: in the course of our Electric Odyssey we realized that most of the rapid columns are located in suburbs or in semi-deserted industrial areas, far from the historic city centers. This fact, in addition to displeasing the owners of electric cars with little time available, discouraged tourism from “recharging” which we – if we hadn’t had to rely on the free network – would have gladly practiced, filling the waiting time with a cultural tour or with alternative activities to mere department store shopping.
The heart of a city like Rome should have many more fast energy refueling stations, not to mention the center of Florence, where they can hardly be found. I’ll tell you more: in the case of the Tuscan capital, it is also difficult to find the standard 22 kW ones. The average, in fact, is 3 kW, which means spending almost 20 hours of your time waiting for the car to recharge from 0 to 100%.
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COSTS
As already stated, the refueling of our trip was completely free. One thing that, at the end of the games, instills a pinch of pride. But if it had been paid, how much would we have spent? The journey Milan-Rome driven by an electric car with autonomy up to 385 km should have a cost between 50 and 120 euros. Of course, it depends on the type of vehicle used, the initial range and the charging stations. To make an estimate, just consider a price of 0.45-0.50 euros per kWh, multiplying the figure by the average energy consumption of the car.
In our case, the average consumption of the Volkswagen ID.3 was around 20 kWh/100 km, with a cost of around 57 euro one way (excluding motorway toll booths).
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