India RecordFastest Golden Quadrilateral Drive ft Mercedes-Benz EQS 580 I Part 1 Varanasi to Pune

By Auto TodayThe talk about sustainable mobility and electric cars is increasingly dominating the debate in India and there is an increasing push from the government towards the making and selling of electric cars in the country. While it may have been possible to use an electric car as a city runabout, most have been skeptical of doing long trips with electric cars. However, in the past year, not only has infrastructure development been given a push with many OEMs and service providers putting up fast chargers but a number of world class electric cars have also been launched in the country.

So when the question of whether India is ready for electric cars came up we decided to find out for ourselves by embarking on a very ambitious drive across the country. In fact, over a decade back when the roads connecting the four, or rather five main metro cities of India was ready, and called the Golden Quadrilateral (or G-Quad for short), we had taken an ICE car and set a record for a round trip connecting Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai. And with an electric car, we decided to replicate the very same drive. We decided to start off at the city of Varanasi on the Golden Quadrilateral, drive to Kolkata, and on to Chennai and Bengaluru, and from there to Pune, Mumbai, Vadodara, Udaipur, Jaipur, Delhi, Lucknow and back to Varanasi.

And for that we chose the Mercedes Benz EQS580 and the choice was quite simple because it is the car with the highest range on a single charge. Not that it is was an automatic choice as roads across India are more suited to SUVs or rather cars with higher ground clearance so we would have to tread gingerly on lots of sections of the roads connecting these five metro cities. Also the car has to last the 6,000-odd km that we were intending to drive and with Mercedes, one has that peace of mind. While we understood that it is not a car that is accessible to many, but it could be a technology demonstrator – of the capabilities of electric cars. And the final reason why we did go ahead with the EQS580 was that Mercedes has taken it upon itself to set up fast chargers at its dealerships – to walk the talk and back up the sales. No other OEM has such an extensive setup of fast and ultra fast chargers in the country yet and that would play a crucial role in the successful completion of the G-Quad drive.

However, there were a number of differences. When driving an ICE car, our stops were on the main G-Quad highway, we bypassed all cities and just touched the municipal limits of most of the cities we had to include on the route. In the case of the electric car drive, our stops were dictated by the availability of fast chargers – that were often on the highways but more often than not, deep inside cities. And though we could control our start time from Varanasi, we could not control the time we were entering any of the other cities, which could be at peak traffic hours. With unforeseen delays and charging problems, we spent over two hours getting into and out of Kolkata and an hour getting out of Bengaluru and another hour getting to Pune even though our stop in Pune was on the bypass but we did save time passing through the cities of Chennai, Jaipur and Delhi. The other major difference between the ICE car drive we did over a decade back and now was the availability of some expressways on the route and we used them whenever we could, though at times adding to the distance rather than shortening it. This also gave us the flexibility to drive at higher speeds given the speed limits of expressways are higher, though at times we had to drive well under the speed limits to conserve energy.

While we knew whatever time we would take to do the entire drive would be a record, the intention was never to set records but just to prove that electric cars, the currently more sustainable option, can be used to drive right across the country and could be the future of mobility.

Leg 1 – Varanasi to Kolkata

Midnight was the chosen time for the flag-off and on hand were the top guys of Taj Ganges, Varanasi, Vivek Sharma, GM, and Amit Tandon, director of sales, to flag us off. After a quick shoot at the main gate of the hotel we were off, having chosen midnight as the time to start our journey in the hope of being able to make a quick exit from the crowded and bustling city.

However, what we hadn’t factored into our calculations were the auspicious days for weddings and the night of the 15th of February turned out to be just one such day. So at 0000hrs on the 16th as we exited the vicinity of the hotel, we first ran into a number of horse-drawn carriages, mares, bands making their way back from various weddings and a number of vehicles of all shapes and sizes with posters of someone having wed someone else. The roads getting out of the city are narrow and the roads approaching Mughalsarai are also dug up with dividers in between. So progress was slow and I was already cursing my luck and my choice of time for starting the drive when things got worse as we ran into not one but three wedding processions, occupying either the entire road or the entire left side of the road. Already well behind schedule and hoping to catch up on time, when we hit the AH1, the traffic, which was significant for that time of the night or early morning, came to a halt.

Dhruv who was beside me felt it would be the checkpost on the UP – Bihar border and Google Maps showed a 30 minute delay. But after moving for just about a kilometre in half an hour and then being stationary for another 15 minutes, my patience ran out and I handed the wheel to Dhruv to head out and uncover the mystery behind the traffic jam. I walked about a couple of kilometres and found to my dismay, a royal mess with an absolute gridlock as vehicles headed in both directions on either side of the road – head to head at times! Luckily I was able to find a traffic policeman and after a lot of pleading and persuasion he accompanied me back to the EQS and, we began the arduous task of clearing the way for the car, one truck length at a time. My Fitbit showed that I walked nearly eight kilometres that morning and it cost us well over two hours to clear that jam and get moving again. What I understood to be the reason for the jam was that a bridge had only one side open, so traffic coming from the east was on the wrong side and then due to poor marking and signages, stayed on the wrong side for more time than was required, eventually blocking off our side of the road first as there were vehicles facing in both directions on both sides of the road.

Though we made good time once past this traffic jam, it wasn’t the worst of our troubles on this leg. Our next charging stop was scheduled at Durgapur Airport at a 120kW JoulePoint charging station – that refused to charge the EQS580 despite the engineers trying for nearly an hour and a half. We reached Durgapur with over 500km on the clock and low single digits of charge left and the idea here was to charge to 80 per cent and then head to the outskirts of Kolkata where there was a 30kW charger and top up just enough to get to Bhubaneswar.

With JoulePoint not working, our alternate there was the 30kW charger at Fortune Park Pushpanjali in Durgapur town. We made it there with barely any charge left and then had a power cut while charging to add to our woes. Two hours lost in the traffic jam, one and a half lost while trying to charge at the 120kW charger and then spending over three hours charging when one hour would have been enough at Durgapur.

We also switched our Kolkata charging stop from the outskirts to the Mercedes-Benz dealership which had a 60kW charger as we only charged enough at the 30kW charger at Durgapur to get to Kolkata. Entering Kolkata about six hours behind schedule was another challenge in peak traffic. We also got stuck on the main road which was for commercial vehicles while private vehicles were supposed to take the service road. So we handed over the car at the Mercedes-Benz dealership to the next team at about 1530hrs on the 16th of February. Words by Yogendra Pratap.

Leg 2 – Kolkata to Vizag

The team had gotten off to a rough start, the traffic on the UP-Bihar border was the first major hurdle. Meanwhile, in Kolkata, we waited with bated breath staring at the GPS position, stood still for what felt like hours. On a record attempt, a traffic jam like this was a death knell. But with some affirmative action and some help from the Bihar Police, the team was soon en route to Kolkata and making up time. And then the JoulePoint charger happened, making a scheduled one-hour stop into four. It seemed like it would be game over. The car arrived in Kolkata seven hours after it was supposed to. Our buffer between our ETA and our flight out of Vizag was four hours. This was going to be tough.

A background check of the route revealed that this next leg had the absolute worst roads on this route. For those who don’t know, the Golden Quadrilateral is presently being upgraded, and wider roads and lit sections are on the menu, but for us, this meant road works, and how. I was paired with Rahul, whose patience would put Job to shame. In contrast, if you took his teammate and hung him upside down and shook him, not even an ounce of patience would be found. Our strategy was simply to play to our strengths. The first leg between Kolkata and Bhubaneswar was to be piloted by Rahul, and the next leg, which had four lanes all the way to Vizag and would require “mode push” was my duty.

In Kolkata, while we waited for our car to charge, I was getting impatient. My source of worry was my little exo-strategy to get Rahul to drive the first leg, which had been to underplay the severity of the road works that lay ahead. Hoping that at the end of it, he’d be too tired to murder me for my deceit.

We left Kolkata, in the midst of rush hour, thankfully our route out of the dealership had several flyovers leading to the famous second-Hooghly bridge and our exit. The first half of the route had spirits soaring as the Kona expressway lay ahead of us 100km of quick four-lane roads, albeit entirely ruined by WB Police who had, in their infinite wisdom, decided to set up impromptu slaloms at every crossing. Luckily for us, the EQS’ four-wheel steering ensured that we weren’t really feeling the 5.2 meters of the car as we navigated the slaloms.

After the Kharagpur exit the expressway did end, as did the WBP’s slaloms, but this was where it got really bad. A dual carriageway in the cover of night along one of the country’s busiest national highways. This was dangerous. To solve the problems, the NHAI had decided that speeds needed to be limited, and this meant speed breakers. 108 of them to be precise, on a 50km stretch of road. In a normal car, this would be annoying. But in the EQS with, 110mm of standard ground clearance that can be raised to a maximum of 125mm, it was relatively more tricky. Nothing wrong on the car’s part per se, more of a criticism of the state of roads and highways in India. The speed breakers were 500 meters apart on average and could vary from a single large speed breaker to a cluster of large ones and everything in between. Each time we would approach one, it would take 40 seconds to raise the car, and a few more minutes to find the dual carriageway clear enough to cross. Clench. Crossover diagonally hoping to god your brain had calculated the angle right, unclench, and then get back on the road. Only to do it all over again. This was rinsed and repeated 108 times.

At Bhadrak, we caught up with the completed section of the new G-Quad with blasted glutes and four lanes of a fully-lit expressway. Our original plan had been to arrive at Bhubaneswar with some charge to spare and then save some time in charging. That plan was thrown out the window without hesitation and Rahul piled on the pace. We recovered some time en route Bhubaneswar and unanimously agreed that another 10 minutes with the charger would offset the time we gained on the way in. On account of Rahul’s patience and consistency, we offset the negative delta by one hour. Sitrep – T+6 hours.

“You’re not going to make it,” said Abhik who was scheduled to take over from Visakhapatnam. “Conserve charge and get another flight”, Google had informed us that we would take 9.5 hours between Bhubaneswar and Vizag. “Dipayan, it’s okay, these things happen,” said Job from the passenger’s seat right before he settled in for some much-deserved sleep.

While this should come to no one’s surprise. I patiently listened to the advice being offered, immediately disregarded all of it, and put my foot down, gingerly. My strategy was to coast as much as possible, use momentum to my advantage, and maintain good speeds at all times to stay as close as possible to our targeted average speed. The EQS’ intelligent recuperation system decided when it was safe to coast and when to recover the charge lost. It’s a learning curve to get used to but I had spent some time preemptively getting over it. We had 471km to Visakhapatnam and 500km of range, this wasn’t the time to be overzealous. Through the wee hours of the morning, the cycle of throttle, lift, coast and repeat continued. Until we were 100km from Vizag and an hour to go for scheduled boarding. The roads were ideal for the pace and no stops meant there was no need to push, we kept the pace and sailed to our charging location at Vizag three hours behind the scheduled time. We had made up four hours in total. We handed the keys over and then rushed to catch our flight out, which we did, arriving at the gate exactly 3 minutes before it was scheduled to shut. Words by Dipayan Dutta.

Leg 3 – Vizag to Chennai

Time is of the essence. This cliched statement accurately summarises the urgency that this drive was. Calculating time, speed, distance is one thing while attempting a record drive but mixing kW, range estimates and charging time into the potpourri of the various aspects of the job at hand, dialled the intensity all the way up to eleven.

A peaceful night of sleep wasn’t meant to be. Questions about the team’s whereabouts, constantly checking WhatsApp updates on the group and sheer anticipation of not wasting a single second was of utmost priority. I was ready to leave early in the morning. Dipayan and Rahul were just about reaching Vizag and then the first of many issues presented itself. “If I gun it, I’ll be able to reach the 25kW charger with barely any range left. If I take it a bit easier then we could reach the 30kW charger but it’ll be tight.” I could sense the concern in Dipayan’s voice that morning while I tried to surface from whatever little shut eye I managed. Up until this point a difference of 5kW meant nothing to me but while I was calculating the time difference to the percentage of charge needed to reach Vijayawada, our next charging point on my leg of the journey, I realised how crucial this decision was going to be.

“Try and get to Anakapalle.” The result of the calculations and realisation of the importance of a mere 5kW, made me call Dipayan in hope of helping Rahul and him reach a decision. “Too late now, we’re just 30 minutes from the 25kW charger.” Dammit! So much for maths, something I was terrible at throughout my schooling years and for once I had thought that it would help.

We were ready for the EQS to arrive at BMW Kun Exclusive, one of those rare occasions where rival brands are more accepting of each other’s cars in their respective premises. The lack of EV charging infrastructure has necessitated the use of the available ecosystem which in this case, meant that a Mercedes EV would be welcomed into a BMW dealership. The only downside of this was the fact that we were losing out on a slightly faster charger placed about 45km out.

You see, 5kW from a 30kW charger could give us about 30km more range than charging from a slower 25kW charger in the same amount of time. Not much considering the sheer scale of the drive covering in excess of 6,000km but doing the distance in 100 hours was what made the equation tricky. Charging from a 25kW slow charger that mostly averaged 22kW meant that we had to spend more time and gain very little, so we had to get just enough charge to reach the slightly faster Tata charger. This calculation not only had to be precise but also have enough buffer to move to another charger in the event that it didn’t work or had another car plugged in. In the rush of things, I forgot an important variable that plagues our country’s electricity supply or the lack of it.

A power cut in the area where BMW Kun was located left us looking at each other’s blank faces, clearly not expecting it. A short wait in hope that ended up being more than we anticipated, only ended in disappointment and then a mad dash in the morning traffic-filled NH16 to Sree Balaji Service Station, an Indian Oil fuel bunk in Anakapalle on the highway that had a Tata Power EZ Charge 30kW charger. This was our best bet as Vizag and its surrounding areas were devoid of a higher capacity charger. This also meant that there was a long wait of almost a couple of hours in the harsh sun with only a billboard providing shade to gain 350km for covering the next 322km. The wait also made me think about future infrastructure requirements where in places like these, even a makeshift shelter would be helpful while owners of EVs should ideally stock up on food and water supplies to spend the hours it takes to charge a bigger battery from a slower charger.

Having spent so much time waiting in both places with barely any kilometres covered, I was getting anxious. In the driver’s seat of the lovely EQS, it took me just about a few seconds to forget the size of this luxury barge of an EV and concentrate on the blistering acceleration that it’s capable of. Combine that with the agility gained from the rear-wheel-steering, the EQS felt no less than a short wheelbase AMG coupe threading through the truck traffic with ease.

It was around Eluru, about 60km outside of Vijayawada and our charging stop, that I realised that the minimum range left on the EQS didn’t correspond to the kilometres left to cover on Google Maps. This immediately and almost subconsciously made me lift off the throttle, switch off the air-con and start with another set of mental calculations while having instructed Gurdeep, my co-driver on this leg, to search for available charging options. These are situations where driving an EV would need patience and practicality rather than hope and a prayer to get one to their destination. Using the EQS’ Maximise Range mode to ensure bare minimum energy consumption, I then proceeded to reduce my speed, minimise throttle variations and maximise coasting. Anticipating traffic movement ahead, I even prolonged my braking to get a bit more regen.

This situation came as a blessing in disguise where the mad rush of things happening one after the other, simmered down on that fine evening on what seemed like a beautiful stretch of the NH16. For all the moments of Zen enjoyed to keep range anxiety at bay, we actually ended up gaining 15km. We reached Vijayawada and a 60kW charger which meant a two hour stop would get us a full charge to reach the TVS Sundaram Motors Mercedes-Benz showroom in Chennai. 447km had to be covered and covered quickly. Night time meant that traffic would start thinning out and the eight lane expressway heading out of Vijayawada was just what we could wish for. With the healthy average speed that we were able to manage on this stretch, without any worry of running out of charge while maintaining a steady pace, we arrived in Chennai well past midnight. Gurdeep and I could finally breathe a sigh of relief as we handed over the keys to Dhruv and Yogen to continue but even at this point in the drive, we hadn’t hit midway. Words by Abhik Das.

Leg 4 – Chennai to Pune

As we approached the halfway mark of our journey, the unholy trinity of bad roads, massive traffic jams and faulty chargers had put us on the back foot. Murphy’s Law seemed to be dictating proceedings as the car reached Chennai. We’d done as much as we could during legs 1, 2 and 3 to make up time, but we needed better luck as we headed out of Chennai towards Bengaluru. One positive outcome of the cumulative delays was that we entered Chennai well past midnight helping us avoid rush hour traffic. Plus, with the Mercedes-Benz dealership equipped with an ultra fast charger, replenishing the battery was quick and trouble free. Plus, with our next stop in Bengaluru just 358km away with another 180kW Mercedes-Benz charger awaiting us, we had more leeway when it came to putting the EQS’ generous power and torque to use.

The first 100 kilometres to Vellore from Chennai were marred with single-lane diversions owing to under construction patches and getting stuck behind slow moving commercial vehicles hampered pace. Once past Vellore, however, things started looking up with three lanes of smooth, blemish free tarmac allowing the EQS to stretch its legs. As the sun inched above the horizon, we entered the outskirts of Bengaluru and while traffic was thin, it was massive speed breakers that had us shedding speed quite frequently. We spent a little over an hour charging and by the time we were ready to exit Bengaluru and head back onto the highway, traffic had started building up despite it being a weekend. Still, we’d done enough homework to know what awaited us were good roads, at least until we exited Karnataka.

Good roads with minimal traffic meant we could hold higher speeds and still drive efficiently. Our next intended charging stop was a Zeon charger in Hubballi, Karnataka, 395km from the Mercedes-Benz dealership in Bengaluru. During the planning phase itself we had mapped out alternatives for all charging stops, especially the public chargers, keeping in mind the possibility of power outages and them being busy charging another vehicle. A few hours from the Zeon charger in Hubballi, with the app showing the connector unavailable, we started contemplating heading to an alternative. With enough range to reach the Tata Power charging station in Belagavi, an additional 124km down the road from the Zeon charger, and with it being listed as two connectors of 60kW each, we took the decision to skip the Zeon charger.

On the face of it, this seemed like a good call considering besides the higher rate of charge, there were two connectors available as opposed to the 50kW Zeon charger’s single connector setup which meant even if one was occupied, the other would have been free for us to use. Driving past the Zeon charger and seeing a vehicle already plugged in further reinforced what we thought was a good decision. The reality of it, though, was quite different. While both connectors at the Tata charger were free, we discovered 60kW was the rating for the whole unit and a single connector could supply a peak rate of charge of only 30kW. Quite misleading, that, but something that’s practiced by multiple service providers as we would later discover. 30kW meant we had to spend the double the time we’d intended charging, yet another setback. The one silver lining was that due to a glitch in the Tata Power EZ Charge app, we weren’t billed for any of the 89kWh that the EQS consumed.

For the last stint of this leg from Belagavi to Pune, the only thing on our minds was making up for time lost by charging slower than anticipated. Narrower highways as we entered Maharashtra, sugarcane-laden tractors moving at an excruciatingly slow pace tried their best to slow us down, but we still managed to average a more than respectable 74kmph over the 338km stint. The last 30-40 minutes to the Mercedes-Benz dealership were slower than we’d have liked owing to the busy nature of the stretch towards Baner. Before the clock struck 11pm, the EQS was parked and plugged at BU Bhandari Mercedes-Benz’s ultra fast charger. Words by Dhruv Saxena.