Preparing for a #BerlinChallenge: #IONIQ5 edition!
Never before have I tried the BerlinChallenge in one year with all these brand new EV’s. After the BMW iX3 (under seven hours!) and the VW ID.3 (just over) it’s time for the new #chargingmonster:
The IONIQ5. (Project 45 edition, AWD, big wheels and so on).
Background of the #BerlinChallenge
For those of you not familiar with the electricfelix #BerlinChallenge, it all started with a Jaguar ride back in 2018. I had been driving to Berlin for years and years with many luxurious diesel powered vehicles, inviting BlaBlaCar-passengers to survive the rental fees.
Newspaper Trouw (NL) wrote about it, in Dutch. Back then it was possible to use the Maingau Plus card that never went mainstream: driving to Berlin for ten euros (it also took ten hours thanks to lacking infrastructure. Hannover was a black hole, back then (no #HighPowerCharging at all) - we had to do a loop south to find one of the first German Fastned stations.
A bit of history: 2019, 2020 & 2021
The Tesla Model 3, The Porsche Taycan, The BMW iX3, The VW ID.3. They all proved worthy of the challenge.
Clearly the Taycan is in a league of it’s own, and has been the king of fast charging for some time now. With 800V power coming to the new Hyundai/Kia lineup I hope it’s time for new adventures.
I’m incredibly lucky to have a friend that upgraded his classic IONIQ (we recently went to Spain on a 28kWh battery) to the new Project 45 edition of the IONIQ5. Clearly, we have to try the #BerlinChallenge again.
Summer of 2021
Fast forward to this Sunday, 18th of July in Berlin and we’re about to head back to Amsterdam yet again. Time trial mode on. The idea was always to leave from Hermannplatz, Berlin to Amstelstation, Amsterdam. Since traffic got in the way a lot, I’ve setup a new Berlin start just south of Herman Strase S bahn station.
The Hannover problem
Unfortunately we noticed on the way to Berlin part of the highway is closed in the opposite direction. This will make any record beating drive completely impossible. We will try out best to still squeeze a fast journey out of the IONIQ5 of course and you can follow us live every step of the way using Polarsteps!