Recently UFODRIVE contacted me to talk about opportunities to share the fun of electric driving with the world. They have been offering electric cars for rent in many European cities since the beginning of 2019. I vividly remember my happiness when reading about the launch of the company. Alongside different brands on offer they include the Tesla Model 3 Long Range that I was very interested in trying! When you just want to book your own Tesla straight away, don’t forget to enter the code PEVFELIX for 5% UFODRIVE discount!

A friend of mine, Hannah Kori, has a new exhibit in Berlin right now and I was hoping to visit the opening night last Thursday. It was easy to plan the ideal back and forth trip because UFODRIVE granted me the Tesla Model 3 LR for 48 hours.

To give you some context, I’ve been trying out many electric vehicles, from motorcycles to scooters to bikes to luxurious cars like the Jaguar I-Pace. I tried out HPC’s (high power chargers) in Sweden, in the South of France, in Switzerland; anywhere I could find them.

My Europe-wide EV roadtrip theme started with the I-Pace, which was available for rent last November ‘18 at Sixt NL. Thanks to invitations from lots of friends to visit them across Europe, I went on an ‘EV discovery tour’ from Sweden to Wales and Spain (Madrid) to the Swiss Alps (and Italy). Next year I hope to make it as far as Romania. I hardly travel alone, you can book me to go anywhere in Europe! I’ve used rideshare websites like BlaBlaCar a lot too, as to not travel solo.

When I heard Tesla would deliver the Model 3 to Europe with CCS charging capabilities, I knew that they were on the right track. Suddenly the vehicle became plug & play anywhere. And let’s not forget about the upgrades that the car has received over the air (without visiting a service centre). I’m not sure what the max charging speed was when these cars started to arrive in The Netherlands back in February, but recent updates make 190kW+ charging a reality. For reference, the Porsche Taycan that will cost €100k+ and deliveries starting in January ‘20 will have 260kW charging at launch, which is the fastest I’ve heard of so far.

Picking up the Tesla

Fast forward to last week when UFODRIVE confirmed I could take their Model 3 LR based at Amsterdam Central Station for a spin to Berlin and back! Early in the morning I biked over to the Oosterdok garage. UFODRIVE is clearly indicated and their app is also a help. It was super easy to find the bay where the Teslas are parked. Signing the rental contract using the app is very simple, after which you can unlock the car directly. Use the charging card inside to free the car from the charger and off you go!

The Model 3 is a somewhat baffling car to enter without anyone ‘helping you out’. Even the door handles are a bit of a mystery when you look at them. But once you take a stab at it they are easy to figure out and work well. It feels like some sort of trick, and I kinda love it!

Never before when renting a vehicle (‘long term’) could I just walk into a car parking and leave, keyless! It makes so much sense that after years of using apps like Car2Go, Fetch & DriveNow (not to mention Emmy, Coup and all the others) that renting a car for a roadtrip should be this easy too!

I had to learn a couple of things, even just opening the doors especially from the inside feels like you’re in a new world. It does make me wonder, when electricity is not available, will these doors still open? There are no physical door handles, which totally feels like the future is here, right now.

UFODRIVE app

I love apps that combine speed & flexibility, ease of use. The UFODRIVE app makes it easy to book your car, find it, open it, and then you are free to go! No more waiting for a person to be available at a rental desk, after which you normally still have to find the car and ‘work it out’ with a second person. The app warns you in advance your rental is about the start and when you arrive early, you can already hop in the car and just leave. I love this simplicity and when your rental has started you can use the app to lock and unlock the Tesla. My first rental car without keys! Keep your phone topped up though. I was happily surprised to find included charging cables for all phone types in the car. I brought my own cables (like I always do) but didn’t need them!

There are some things I hope UFODRIVE will work at for the future. For example when arriving in a city the app can show chargers, but you don’t know their status. I encountered some broken chargers in Berlin, others that were off limits or in use. A ‘forward to Tesla navi’ button would be cool, because also finding a charging on your phone still leaves you up to decide how to get that info to the Tesla.

Finding a way to use to Tesla app would be even more cool, I don’t know what that app has in store since I never used it. But I’m sure it would be worth it. Who knows what will be in store for the future.

Time to go

GOM showed 402km. When renting at UFODRIVE you wil always get into the vehicle at 90% SoC (State of Charge of the battery) or more. Since I heard rumours of Ionity Salzbergen having the newest charging columns up and running in a test phase, I put this as our first destination in the navi. 190km to go: a solid two hour drive. Ionity has been hard at work for a PAN European charging network of high speed chargers, there are still some gaps but it’s getting better everyday!

The VW’s don’t realize the new columns 1&2 on the right are in free vend right now! — The VW’s don’t realize the new columns 1&2 on the right are in *free vend* right now!

We arrived fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. It helped that I had hit the 230km/h+ speed limit of the car. I would recommend staying under 200km/h because the car handles better that way. Especially on the German Autobahn (not the greatest road quality). 19% SoC at arrival: very interesting to look carefully at charging speeds! Within 30 seconds the charging rate already exceeded 170kW.

Comfort

What about the level of comfort in the car? From the start back in Amsterdam, as soon as you open the doors there’s this interesting combination that I feel is very American in a way: looks are pure luxury. Leather seats, but is it real? The inside is very sleek. The aerodynamics on the outside and the ‘crystal black’ feel are definitely hinting at higher priced vehicles. Though as soon as you close the door, the sound while closing is not at all luxurious. Same when you open the trunk, it’s manual and especially when shutting it, it lacks a luxurious dampening of the sound.

The (front) seats are fully electric and heated. Half the I-Paces other rental companies supplied me in the past had manual seats, and not always heated (though sometimes they overdo it and serve cooled seats too, depending on the trim of course). But, all these things are not that important. I think we should focus on what happens when you’re driving the EV.

Instant fun

First of all you get in and you can drive away immediately. This may not sound like a big deal but it is. When building an electric vehicle there’s no reason to create the all too common ‘start/stop’ button. All the other brands have been making them, because they never really built an electric vehicle from the ground up. It’s always somehow based on ICE cars that they used to make. With (too many) buttons. Tesla takes the approach very minimalistic though. I feel like a button for the trunk or the charge port could make sense (especially for a rental), but of course Tesla shows you these buttons on screen as soon as you put the car into ‘P’.

I guess I could get used to the screen but for tasks with physical parts of the car it still feels unnatural, to me of course. For example when finishing a fast charge the cable stayed locked. Perhaps because I shut the charge down using the display of the charger (Not the Tesla way, their chargers don’t have buttons). I had to ‘dive into’ the Tesla charge menu to actually unlock the cable. Lesson learned is that you should initiate stopping the charge from the car, because that way you can instantly unlock the cable from the Tesla-side. Charging door locks automatically afterwards!

My first Tesla Supercharger visit: Lauenau

Back to the ride, because of a special moment this Thursday afternoon: my first Tesla Supercharger visit ever, at Lauenau (close to Hanover). Had a bit of a fight with the cable to connect it to the car, but after this small misunderstanding the charge rapidly went up to the 134kW max. Nice speed obviously but much less than Ionity can handle at this point, all over Europe. So to me, the fact that Tesla navi doesn’t have a clue about Ionity chargers, is something they should enhance. But yeah.

We got lucky, as soon as more than 4 Tesla’s are charging up, speeds will go down for the duo charging couple.

Most important about the ride today is the freedom to charge anywhere. Never before could I drive this fast to Berlin, just because the Tesla Supercharger near Hanover is ideally located. (Lucky fact for other EV drivers, Ionity is building a station in the area, finally!) But, Tesla navi will only tell you to charge at Superchargers. Maybe convenient but definitely not the fastest way to travel with a Model 3 LR! At the Supercharger there is a Burger King selling veggie burgers, but wow were they slow at serving. We overstayed a little bit and charging speeds had dropped drastically. On to the last Ionity stop for today: Magdeburg!

Second Ionity charging station of the day

Arrival at Ionity Magdeburg: 42% SoC, thanks to lots of traffic and misty weather it wasn’t possible for us to drive fast(er). Within one minute of charging, speeds went up to 147kW. Not too shabby! What’s cool about this spot is the Supercharger that is located opposite to the Ionity columns. To illustrate the picture below with some more information: only seven minutes after arrival the charge is still at 106kW speeds. We already added 100km of range, and a passenger is still enjoying a toilet break. Just a ten minutes pitstop and we’re back on the road to continue the race to Berlin.

Unfortunately near Potsdam some polizei were blocking off the highway. Everybody was guided to the local roads, and it took us quite a while to reach Berlin. We did end up doing some beautiful sightseeing, there’s always a good side to a slowdown. Of course the battery also loves some relaxing and we were ahead of schedule anyway! Waiting for the traffic light to turn green I am really liking the pano roof.

Potsdamer tree. Glass roof. Yes please. More on Instagram.

Soon we would drive into Berlin following Waze guidance on my phone because the Tesla navi had no clue that the cops were sending us off the (blocked) road. Normally I put my phone up at a vent shaft but it appears as though the Model 3 doesn’t have any. With the useful screen in the middle maybe the better question would be ‘why would you want your phone there?’, but I love Waze. So maybe a ‘stick the phone to the window’ solution would have to do for future Model 3 trips. Day 1, no Autopilot used yet, I wanted to get a feel of the manual handling of the car first. Almost 700km driven and I can say, it’s a bit noisy at higher speeds but other than that, a lovely driving experience. The seats don’t compare to the Jaguar, but are definitely good enough. Throttle response is simply amazing.

The exhibition by Hannah Kori

AC charging in Berlin..

I will not get into too much detail of the search for a working AC charger in Berlin. Like last time in town I did find many WeShare cars blocking chargers (without being connected and charging). Also the Eneco charging card (supplied in car by UFODRIVE) that is supposed to be Ladenetz compatible, isn’t, really. Just as I noticed with the Nuon charging card (another Dutch energy company), charging up at Allego AC chargers all over Berlin is not possible. This can be a very tiring game of finding an actual useful charger in a German city. It’s not my first EV adventure in this country and I am missing my Xiaomi kick scooter! Luckily Merkel understands there is work to be done.

I encountered a Vattenfall charger that was taped off (their own app showed the machine as online). Add to that connection problems with my favourite Chargemap app, I thought I would go back to a Lidl charger (DC, 50kW) I had used back in August. On the way there I noticed an Innogy AC charger next to the Sony Center (Potsdamer Platz). Here the Eneco charging card supplied by UFODRIVE did work! As a happy camper I could leave the Tesla here and a shared Coup Gogoro scooter was waiting for me to head over to the exhibition right away.

Day 2, back to Amsterdam

I walked through Berlin to catch a bit of sun and enjoy the art that is to be seen everywhere on the streets of this marvellous city. I looked up my stats in some shared mobility apps to find out if I had some free minutes left anywhere. The Emmy app showed me I still had an hour of free driving, perfect! Who doesn’t want to start the day on an electric Schwalbe!

What a breeze, Berlin by electric scooter!

Heading over for breakfast with the artist, about time to take the car back to the hottest neighbourhood in town. Here the Allego AC chargers only seem to work with NewMotion (Shell Recharge) and PlugSurfing charging cards.. Minimalist luxury interior? Check!

Seriously impressive, haven’t seen this minimalist approach in any car in my entire life.

Before we start heading home, I’m picking up a friend at the artists’ home. I first went over for a sunny coffee at one of my favourite places, calm moments like these make me want to stay in Berlin!

With the battery fully charged ‘GOM’ shows 491km. Predicted range shows 450km based on the last 50 km driven. A Better Routeplanner shows the following stats, based on fast driving!

Predicted travel, I will try to add a short Fastned Melle visit to test speeds at their ABB HPC charger.

Just before 3PM the race to Amsterdam starts. Unfortunately the roads around Berlin are very busy. Almost an hour later we have finally arrived at the outskirts. As soon as we meet the unlimited sign, I try to stick to 190km/h towards Ionity Magdeburg. Today it’s time to test Tesla Autopilot. At times it impresses. Although it maxes out at 150km/h which is simply too slow on the Autobahn! Phantom breaking happens all too often. It’s not dangerous, but my passengers don’t love it. Also some parts of these roads are very old and that creates uncertainty about the lines. But what is most problematic with Autopilot is that it doesn’t seem to have any dynamic speed sign recognition (yet). Nowadays many parts of the road in Germany have changing speed limits over the course of the day. None of these get picked up like in a modern Mercedes, BMW, etc. Makes me wonder if the cameras are not there, or just not used.. I did read about more software updates coming soon though.

Tesla navi, not a chance, I won’t follow this advice!

First Ionity charger on Day 2

A ten minute charge up at Ionity Magdeburg, charging starts at 44% SoC with 147kW speeds, ten minutes later it’s still doing 95kW. 134km added according to the Tesla dash, but that is when taking recent speed into account, I think. We have been cruising around at 150km/h+ continuously. We’re off to Tesla Supercharger Lauenau! We arrive with less than 70km on the GOM, charging reaches near instantly 131kW speeds. Since I’m curious to try the Fastned HPC near Melle (at Van der Valk hotel), we leave quickly again.

Beating the Tesla Supercharger by an inch, charging at 142kW+ speeds.

Day 2: Racing and charging

We don’t need much juice to continue the ride to Ionity Salzbergen The new columns here (I put up a small video on YouTube, see below) are in free vend for now. If you’re in the neighbourhood soon, check them out! The race continues. Because of the darkness I decide to lower cruising speed to around 160km/h. After four minutes at Ionity Salzbergen charging speed is stable at 191kW! In 4 minutes more than 11kWh is already added to the battery. 500Amps, 384Volts. Eight minutes after we started the charge, it’s still at 164kW speeds, with 25kWh added, at 419Amps & 393Volts. I’m heavily impressed. We end this round after 10 minutes sharp with 29.5kWh added!

Our last stop, mainly for fun & food (and extra testing), will be Apeldoorn-Zuid Ionity. So far we have tried chargers made by Veefil, (the new models at Salzbergen), Tesla Superchargers (at Lauenau), Tritium chargers at Lauenau, and the ABB chargers at Fastned Melle. Now it’s time to test the ABB chargers at Apeldoorn and see how they compare (same as Fastned but should be running with more hardware & hopefully more power). I’ve been reading about software updates still needed for them to max out the Model 3 and it makes me wonder about the Porsche Taycan for example. Indeed, even though we arrive after more racing with low % SoC, we ‘only’ receive a 178kW charging speed. Of course this is more than good enough (and much higher speed than Fastned delivered earlier). Eating a veggie snack at McDonald’s next door, leaves us connected to the charger for so long that we end up with an immense ‘overcharge’. We could race back and forth to Amsterdam from here.

To conclude

The driving today has been spectacular. I haven’t looked in any serious way at the predicted range we had left at any time. I have just been racing, charging, rinse, repeat. It’s been an amazing 7 hours when we make it to Amsterdam. Thanks to the many short stops I still feel completely fresh, what a lovely rhythm. Today I have tried Autopilot, but! Autopilot maxes out at 150km/h. I’ve only used it at the busy parts of the Autobahn (and in NL). What I can’t figure out is why it didn't seem to want to change lanes. Tried with the indicator but no response. Phantom breaking is very real. It happened on (far too) many occasions. The car was running on the newest v10 software at the time, but of course Tesla will keep at it!

What I liked a lot was the Autopilot sublety when speeding up and down, it will be silky smooth unless somebody squeezes into your lane. A bit disappointed by cruise control maxing out at 150km/h. Even the Jaguar handles 180km/h and let’s not even get into the German brands. Of course I realize even in Germany Autobahn racing might not last forever and anywhere else in the world this doesn’t make any sense. Important to remember is that with decent charging infrastructure, one can really enjoy the German Autobahn in an electric car right now. Without the (sort of expected) punishment when reaching the charger!

Lovely details

There are so many details to love: when pulling up to a charger, opening the door lowers the volume of the music in the car! Driving the Jaguar I’ve really grown accustomed to the music shutting off. Highly annoying. These subtle qualities are everywhere and make the vehicle easy to like. I loved that when driving ‘too fast’ to make it to Lauenau (Hanover) for example, navi will tell you exactly how much you need to slowdown to make it. Of course I just charged up at Ionity (Magdeburg) for some minutes, but still lovely advice.

Quirks

I was surprised to find out there was no e-Pedal (Nissan) or One Pedal Driving (BMW) in the Model 3. I actually had to use the break pedal to get to a standstill. But if I understand correctly, most recent updates have the Model 3 now doing a full stop by itself. Probably this is the most important lesson: Tesla can update anything over the air. For a rental car, this is completely amazing.

What I did find out is that when you open the door in ‘D’, you can drive the car with the door open. Not many brands let you (still) do this. But what has been most interesting is the Tesla navi. In my opinion, it’s super barebones. AC city charging: no help. Charging up at Ionity or Fastned? No help. When we left Supercharger Lauenau, because I wanted to test the Fastned ABB charger further down the road, Tesla navi told me I wouldn’t make it to Ionity Salzbergen (that I put in as a manual destination). It started telling us to turn around, back to Lauenau! Now I finally understand these stories of friends who tried out a Tesla from family and so on. They have been sent on pretty huge detours, because Tesla navi will only help you find Tesla Superchargers! I really think it should be able to look for alternatives outside of the Tesla Realm. Especially in the Model 3! (This was different driving a Model S/X of course, it’s pretty new for Tesla still to be able to charge anywhere).

In many countries with a Model 3 you might be far better off checking Chargemap for yourself, to see if there are any HPC’s in the neighbourhood, that can both be faster than Superchargers (right now, when looking at Ionity and such) and could also be better located for your travel! Or even cheaper perhaps. I didn’t find any way to influence the navi in any way, you can tell it to skip tolls but that seems to be pretty much it. Also when Waze guided us off the highway near Potsdam because of a recent crash, Tesla navi had no idea. I will say navi in a Jaguar (or Audi, or etc, etc) is also laughable, but people saying Tesla is so much better, not so much. (Also I much prefer the openness of Fastned and Ionity welcoming any EV compared to this Tesla Supercharger elite feeling that doesn’t open the doors for anybody else).

Thank you!

A mind blowing experience. Very happy that UFODRIVE invited me for this test ride. Thanks a lot. This has once again proven that the world of EV’s is only about to grow from here. Infrastructure will play a huge part, read my last blog about that topic, when I took the Hyundai Ioniq to Paris!

Don’t forget you can try the Model 3 yourself, or the Model S, or any of the other EV vehicles on offer depending on your region. Just download the UFODRIVE app and see for yourself. Hassle free car renting has never been a reality at this level yet! When you enter the code PEVFELIX this will immediately lead to a 5% discount on your UFODRIVE booking. Even without the app you can book directly using the webform.

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40 hours in a Tesla Model 3 LR to Berlin and back with UFODRIVE