Our Perlis EV Family Road Trip

 

Last weekend marks the longest journey with our EV, the BYD M6

Here was our route: 

1. BSD to R&R Bukit Semanggol (Perak) 🔋⚡: 264km

2. Semanggol to Penang: 130km

3. Penang to Alor Setar ⚡🔋: 130km

4. Alor Setar to Kangar, Perlis: 50km 

5. Kangar to Penang 174km ⚡🔋

6. Penang 🔋⚡to BSD 342km 

Total distance: 1176km, total consumption ~200kWh, (average 17kWh/100km) 

Going into the journey, we were a bit anxious, when learning that the whole of Perlis only has one charging station.  But with some route planning it was doable, Alhamdulillah. 

Some notes:

- We charged a total of 5 times (twice on the way to Perlis, at Bkt. Semanggol & Alor Setar), three times on the way back from Perlis (partially at Penang Island, charged to full at Bukit Mertajam, and partially at Kawasan Rehat Behrang). In hindsight, we could have optimized the trip skipped one charging station and saved about 1 hour

- One frustrating aspect of the charging experience is that for some reason, some chargers just don't work. Oddly enough, one time, I tried using wifey's phone, it worked fine. This wasn't common (majority of chargers, especially Gentari was very easy to connect), though this unpredictability lends another layer of anxiety. 

- How fast you drive has a major impact to the battery consumption. At speeds exceeding 100km/h, the battery consumption does tend on the high side (19 kWh/100km).

- This was 5-month old baby Ali's first time with a front-facing configuration. With both child car seats front facing, the M6 middle seat was spacious enough for our eldest Boi (8yo Muawiyah) to sit in the middle seat

- During our trip to Penang, Muawiyah sat at the back row, with one seat up, and the other seat for storing our luggage. This limited our storage space, so we had just enough space. But after arriving in Penang, he got bored at the back and wanted to accompany his adik2 on the middle row, and the middle seat was comfortable enough for him to sit in the middle seat all the way throughout our Penang > Alor Setar > Perlis > KL Trip. This allowed us to fully fold our back row seat, leaving us with plenty of comfortable boot space 

- Charging in Penang island was a bit tricky, because it was difficult to find fast chargers

- The driving experience itself was nice and smooth. Wifey considers this her dream car. Alhamdulillah 🤲🏽

- Driving with 3 kids (a baby, a toddler, and an energetic kinesthetic 8-year old) requires a lot of preparation, patience, and planning. Whatever duration you planned your trip, just add 40%. Just stay calm, and enjoy the journey and your time together. Kids will grow, and a time will come when we will miss these moments.