Back home from Norway

Ferry from Lofoten

As I wrote in my previous post we took the ferry from Moskenes to Bodø at 07:00 on Friday.

We left the cabin at 04:30 to make sure we got there on time. It was just 89km, but Google Maps told me it would take me 1 hour and 30 minutes. Due to the snow, wind and darkness it took us 1:48 to get there. In time for the ferry!

After 3 hours and 15 minutes we arrived in Bodø to head towards the SuperCharger in Grong. A 512km drive.

Model S on Ferry to Bodø

To Grong

The trip to Grong was long. Nothing really special to mention. Ice and snow on the roads, that is mainly it. A exhausting and long drive mainly.

Fiskevägen all over again!

We took the Fiskevägen route. This time from Grong to Krokom where I took it the other way around last year.

The 240km trip took us 4 hours and 30 minutes. We took it slowly since the view is just awesome!

Halfway we stopped in Rötviken to take a break and charge. Just as last year it was just a 3,6kW charger. It added only 4km of range while we took a break. We did it mainly for the show.

Free 50kW CHAdeMO charger

Getting from the Krokom (Sweden) SuperCharger to the one in Mora (Sweden) is over 300km and I don’t like such long stretches. At home I already found a free CHAdeMO charger in Sveg which is a small town along the E45 from Krokom to Mora.

I should be just a matter of plug in and hit the start button. It was!

Green Highway charger in Sveg

This charger is also part of the Green Highway. Much better than the 3,6kW charger in Rötviken!

We stayed in a Hotel in Sveg. So during our dinner in Sveg the car could fully charge.

‘Almost’ Home

From Sveg we followed the E45 towards Göteborg and down to Malmö and into Denmark. Slept in Bremen and drove the last 600km home.

This part of the trip was not that special. We just drove for 2 days 🙂

Energy Consumption

When I left home I hit the reset button for both trip counters. The end result is 5.571,3km with a total energy consumption of 1,179kWh. That averages to 212Wh/km.

Energy Consumption

Last day before we head back

Aurora Borealis

One of the things we can for was the Aurora Borealis, also called the ‘Northern Lights’.

For two nights we had clear skies and saw a beautiful display. You can find enough pictures on the internet, so I won’t post all of them!

aurora-borealias-1

aurora-borealias-2

aurora-borealias-3

Route home

The route home from the Lofoten Islands is going to be 3.000km. Our guess is that it will take us 4 to 5 days. Not due to the charging, but because you simply can not drive very fast through Norway and Sweden.

Ferry from the Lofoten

We will be taking the ferry from Moskenes to Bodø. The Hurtigruten from Stamsun to Bodø was not an option this time as it leaves late at night.

Route Norway Back 2016

This part of the trip probably won’t be very special. I hope that Fiskevägen will be as nice as it was last year. Besides from that we are not expecting any highlights anymore.

Snow performance of a RWD Model S

Waking up with snow

When we went to best last night the forecast said there would be 1 to 2cm of snowfall. Well, this morning it showed differently. It was 20 to 30cm!

At first it all looked good, the sun was shining and we wanted to go out for a hike through the mountains in the fresh snow.

Driveway to Cabin

More snow

The weather turned however and more and more snow came down on us. No hiking yet, so we started to play some cards.

After a few hours the father of the house owner showed up with his tractor to clear the driveway. We could go out!

Tractor with snow plow

Eventually we had about 30cm of snow over a period of 14 hours.

Model S under snow

Car under snow from back

RWD in the snow

Most people (including Tesla) talk about the snow performance of the Dual Motor Model S. Mine however is a RWD 85kWh from September 2013.

With the Hankook i-cept Evo 2 (W320) tyres it however performs just fine. Sure, it sometimes slips and traction control has to kick in quite often, but overall it works just fine.

Eventually we went out hiking and to get there we had to drive through fresh snow. Not a problem at all.

Obviously the Dual-Motor is a no-brainer when you live in these conditions, but a RWD Model S probably outperforms most other RWD vehicles, if not all.

Frozen charge port

After we went hiking we drove back to the cabin. At the cabin I wanted to plug in again, but the charge port would not open. It was frozen.

It are just a few drops of water which can cause the port to freeze. The solution is simple. Take any credit card format plastic card and use it to force the port open. Simple as that!

Trondheim to the Lofoten Islands

Hurtigruten

We love driving the Model S, but after driving for over 72 hours it is also nice to be ‘driven’.

That’s why we took the Hurtigruten ferry from Trondheim to Stamsund. Stamsund is a port on the Lofoten Islands just 21km from the house we rented on the Lofoten through Airbnb.

On Tuesday we boarded the MS Nordlys at 11:00 and arrived in Stamsund the next day around 19:00.

Hurtigruten ferry dock

Selfie at Hurtigruten

Getting of the ship was tight. With only centimeters to spare and guiduance of the crew we were able to manouvre the Model S off the ship. Yes, it is a wide car!

‘Our’ house

After leaving the ship it took us roughly 45 minutes to drive to the house in Valberg. A beautiful house at the coast looking over the fjords. What an amazing place!

We are going to stay here for a few days to see the Aurora Borealis before we continue more North on the Lofoten.

Model S at house Lofoten

Non-studded tyres

Just as last year I’m driving non studded tyres. Why? We have to pass through Germany and Denmark and studded tyres are not allowed there.Last year I used Nokian Hakka R2 tyres which were great! This year I’m driving Hankook i-cept Evo 2 (W320) tyres and they work very good as well. The last 500m to the house is pure ice and you notice that the tyres have a hard time keeping traction. The traction control in the Model S works exceptionally good however and it works just fine.

Keep in mind: I drive a RWD Model S from September 2013. It is not a new Dual-Motor AWD Model S!

230V network

Most of the part of Norway have a 230V instead of the 400V we have in the Netherlands and other parts of Europe. This means that my UMC (Universal Mobile Connector) does not work here. This is a safety measure of the UMC.

In Norway you can recognize this by the Blue 230V label on electrical installations.

Norwegian 230V label

The UMC performs a check if there is 0V between Ground and Neutral, but here that’s not the case. There is 120V between GND and N which makes my UMC show a red light. It thinks there is a ground leak, which is a bad thing.

UMC red light

There is a special Norwegian version of the UMC, but I built my own using Smart EVSE. It does NOT perform a Ground check, but it allows me to charge.

SmartEVSE homebrew UMC

My Model S is happily charging at 13A right now.

Model S next to house Lofoten

This means I have a new charging POI on my Model S’s screen!

Charging POI on Lofoten

Time to relax!

After being on the road for 5 days it is time to relax. Watch the Aurora, go out hiking and do nothing.

From Middelburg to Trondheim

To Hirtshals

Last Saturday we left at 08:00 from Middelburg for the 1.100km drive to Hirtshals, Denmark. From there we would take the ferry to Larvik, Norway on Sunday morning.

It took us 14 hours to reach Hirtshals. Traffic was bad, very bad starting at Hamburg towards the border. Roadworks and border controls made it stop and go over almost 100km!

A short night followed since our ferry left at 08:00.

Lier South SuperCharger

After arriving in Larvik our first SuperCharger in Norway was Lier South, 100km from Larvik.

It was busy! After we parked all 8 stalls are occupied. Other Model S had to wait in the queue.

Lier South SuperCharger

A queue is bad, but it also shows that the infrastructure is used! It’s not a charger which is rarely used. From what I understood it was also a vacation period, so that might have caused the spike in traffic.

Lillehammer

After charging in Lier we headed to Lillehammer. We would stay the night there and charge again.

Fortum CHAdeMO

While heading to Lillehammer I stopped at a CHAdeMO from Fortum to see if I could charge there. The people from Fortum told me that I could use my Dutch phone and send a SMS to active it.

Well, that didn’t work. I borrowed a RFID tag from somebody else as a backup. On the Lofoten Islands I will need to use a Fortum charger, so I wanted to know if it worked. Lesson learned. It doesn’t.

Fortum CHAdeMO charger

Busy times at Lillehammer

On the E6 to Lillehammer we already spotted a lot of Model S coming from Lillehammer, so I expected the SuperCharger to be crowded.

It was! 9 of the 10 stalls we busy, so we parked at the last stall available.

As we were charging we saw more Model S arrive. We still had 100km left in the battery and we would leave the next morning. We vacated the stall and to decided to charge the next morning for the 155km drive to Dombas and Trondheim.

We checked in at the hotel and went for a dinner in Lillehammer.

SuperCharging with a cold battery

The next morning the car had been in -8C for the night. When I switched to ‘Drive’ a warning indicated that regenerative braking had been disabled. This was due to the battery being cold.

SuperCharging didn’t go very fast. When I just started it would charge with 17kW and slowly climbed to roughly 30kW before we had enough to leave for Dombas.

This was a similar experience as last year at the Krokom SuperCharger in -22C.

The picture below shows that we were charging with 24kW where under normal conditions it should have been about 80kW.

Slow Lillehammer SuperCharger

To Trondheim

From Lillehammer we drove to the Dombas SuperCharger. After a charge and lunch there we headed down to Klett (near Trondheim).

Nothing really special on this part of the trip. The temperature was about -5C and the (road) conditions were good.

To the Lofoten

Our destination is a house we rented through Airbnb on the Lofoten Islands.

From Trondheim we are taking the Hurtigruten ferry to Stamsund on the Lofoten. This will take 2 days.

From Stamsund to the house it is just 21km. Time to relax!

Energy Consumption

The tripmeter shows 1861km and a total usage of 391kWh. That’s 210Wh/km. Not bad at all!

Fully electric to Norway, again!

Last Year

In the beginning of 2015 I drove a 5.500km trip with my father to the most Northern Tesla Motors SuperCharger. For a few reasons:

  • To see the Aurora Borealis
  • To prove it can be done with an electric car
  • Because I like roadtrips and travelling

This winter I’m going it again!

My Model S

I have a ‘classic’ Model S from September 2013. No Auto-Pilot features or All-Wheel drive. It’s a 85kWh RWD model.

The ODO currently displays 110.000km and when we get back it won’t be long before I hit the 120.000km.

Still enjoying this car every time I drive it.

Lofoten

My girlfriend also wants to go to Norway to see the Aurora Borealis. She heard me telling her all the stories for over a year about how great it was and how much I like Norway.

So I said: “Why don’t we go there?”

This year the destination will be the Lofoten Islands. From what I’ve seen and heard it is about the best place to watch the Aurora Borealis!

Route to Lofoten

Our route will take us from Middelburg (Netherlands) to Hirtshals (Denmark) where we take the ferry towards Larvik (Norway). Following the Tesla SuperChargers we will drive to Bodø from where we take the ferry to the Lofoten Islands.

Route Norway 2016

On the Lofoten there are no Tesla SuperChargers, so I’ll be using the CHAdeMO chargers using the CHAdeMO adapter to charge my Model S there.

Tesla CHAdeMO adapter

I found these CHAdeMO chargers on elbil.no’s Hurtigladekartet and on uppladdning.nu.

Route back home

We’ll drive back through Sweden where I want to take Fiskevägen again. What a beautiful route!

Route Norway Back 2016

The total route should be about 6.000km

Preparations

Since I did almost all the preparing last year already I still have about everything I need.

Making sure we have enough water, food, heat and proper winter gear with us. We should be fine!

To Norway and back using just Tesla SuperChargers

I had never seen the Aurora Borealis and with the growing SuperCharger network of Tesla Motors I’ve driven my Tesla Model S from the Netherlands to the North of Norway using just SuperChargers.

A 5412km roadtrip going through Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway using just the Tesla Motors SuperCharger network.

An amazing trip through snow, ice, rain and -22 Celcius. Driven 100% electric and without a single problem.

I’ve written multiple blogposts about my trip:

Energy Consumption

Everybody always talks about how much more EVs start consuming in the cold. To see if this was true I kept a detailed triplog of every leg of the journey.

The sheet is on Google Docs and shows that over 5412km I used 1197kWh of energy. That comes down to 221Wh/km or 22kWh/100km.

That is 10% more then the ‘Typical Range’ (Tesla terminology) the car tells me.

From Tromsø to Trondheim

Power failure

On Thursday we charged my Model S again at Jekta Shoppingcenter since we were taking the Hurtigruten ferry that night to Trondheim and I wanted the battery to be full.

The battery was charged around 14:30, so we headed towards the polar museum in downtown Tromsø.

After driving just 500 meters the city got dark. All lights went out, power failure!

Lucky me that we just finished charging. It took over 2 hours before the power came back. So no Polar Museum since that was closed. We sat in the car for 2 hours since there was nothing to do and it was very cold and windy outside.

Dark city of Tromso

Hurtigruten

Since this is also a vacation for us we figured it was nice to take the Hurtigruten ferry from Tromsø to Trondheim. A 2-day and 3 nights trip which takes you through the Fjords here in Norway.

Hurtigruten Ferry

After driving on to the ship the Hurtigruten employee asked for the key of the car. He explained that they need to move the cars as people come on and go off.

I gave him the key and just as we were about to go up, he asked: How does this car work?

He had never driven a Model S before. I gave him a brief walkthrough in 2 minutes, explaining that it’s simply a automatic. D, R and P, that’s all. I didn’t look and him parking the car. Thought it was best to just trust the guy.

After sailing for a day I checked on my phone (WiFi on board) to see how my car was doing. The battery was still at 312km, but it said the car was parked on the dock in Tromsø!

Did they drive the car off again to make some room and forgot to drive it on again? For some peace of mind I wanted to know if it was on the ship. The nice lady at the reception asked the car deck if they could check if a white Tesla was onboard. It was.

Model S on Ferry

View from Hurtigruten

Trondheim

Early Sunday morning we arrived in Trondheim at 06:30. Our next destination was Lillehammer, but to get there we had to use the Dombås SuperCharger. 200km from Trondheim. Although the battery was still full enough (290km) I wanted to have some reserve.

The SuperCharger near Trondheim (Klett) was still about a week away from being finished, so that was no option. I called the Tesla Service Center in Trondheim in advance since I heard that they had 22kW charging available. A quick phone call told me that they had 4 22kW chargers available outside the gate. They were accessible 24/7.

Charging at Tesla Trondheim

After the charge it was time to head to the Dombås SuperCharger!

The most Northern SuperCharger on the planet

Setermoen

After staying the night in Narvik at the Scandic hotel we left for the most Northern SuperCharger on the planet. Setermoen to be exact.

In Narvik it was +2 Celcius and some wet snow was coming down. We figured we were in for a drive on slushy roads again. That was true for the first 30km, but suddenly we started climbing and it started snowing!

E6 from Narvik to Setermoen

I also took a small video of the weather. It was fine to drive in, but as you can see, the roads are covered in snow and visibility sometimes wasn’t that good. Just use your common sense when driving in those conditions.

But finally, after 3346km using just Tesla SuperChargers we arrived in Setermoen!

Charging at the Setermoen SuperCharger

SuperCharger map arrow Setermoen

All the way from the Netherlands we’ve driven to the most Northern SuperCharger! A hard thing to do? No, not at all. Just make sure you adapt to the Swedish and Norwegian conditions. Be prepared, that’s all.

Tromsø

Setermoen was however not our final destination! After charging in Setermoen for a while we continued up North towards Tromsø.

In Tromsø we met with a future Model S owner, Thilo Bubek. When he saw I was making this trip he contacted me so we could meet up. We did and obviously we talked a lot, I mean a lot, about Tesla.

We also came to Tromsø to watch the Aurora Borealis. It happens that Thilo has photography as a hobby and he knew the good places to watch the Aurora.

Aurora at Sommarøy

It took an hour to drive from Tromsø to Sommarøy. We had stood in the -4C with heavy winds for hours and hours, but we saw a beautiful Aurora display! Clear skies with half moon.

Aurora Sommaroy Norway

Us at Sommaroy Norway

At 01:00 we figured it was time to go home, the display was over.

On the way back we made a quick picture of my Model S under the moonlight and a bit of Aurora:

tesla-model-s-moonlight

The credits for these pictures go to Thilo Bubek. He’s a lot better in taking pictures then I am!

To Trondheim

Tonight we are taking the Hutigruten coastal ferry from Tromsø to Trondheim. From there we’ll continue our journey back home, using just the SuperChargers again!

We passed the Arctic Circle!

Rain!

This morning we got up a 06:00 again to head to Narvik, a 500km trip from Mosjøen. We stayed the night in a hotel near the SuperCharger. As soon as I got up I went to the SuperCharger to fully charge the battery before breakfast.

When I walked out the hotel it was raining! What!? It also had snowed that night, but that later turned into rain. It was 1C when I got into the car.

The roads were all wet and sluggish, bad driving conditions.

At 07:15 we left the hotel and headed for the Storjord SuperCharger, a trip of 200km. The navigation told us it should take 3 hours, well, it took us 5.

Rain and frozen roads turn into ice. Ice is bad for driving on, so we had to take it slow and stop very often.

we are driving non-studded tires because we also pass countries where studded tires are not allowed and required. I know this is not ideal, but we had to. This morning I really wanted them.

After 2 hours the conditions got better, the rain turned into snow and the roads became less icy. Better conditions for my Nokian Hakka R2 tires.

Finally, at 12:20 we arrived at the Storjord SuperCharger!

New firmware with trip prediction

Last night I got a notification on my iPhone that a new firmware was available for my car. I configured it to update the car over night and this morning I got firmware version 6.1

This firmware brings a new feature where it calculates based on the speed limits, height difference and some other variables how much battery you will have left when you arrive at your destination. It basically tells you if you are going to make it.

We left with our battery charged to 90% and it told us that we would arrive with 29%. We arrived with 30%!

The next two legs of our trip today it also worked flawlessly, it was spot on in predicting.

The Arctic Circle

After charging at Storjord we headed for the Innhavet SuperCharger. Again a 200km trip where we would pass the Arctic Circle!

We started descending and at 650m above sea level we passed the Arctic Circle in windy, snowy and cold conditions, but we made it! Fully electric we drove 3200km from the Netherlands using just the SuperCharger network to the Arctic Circle!

Time for a selfie together with my dad:

Selfie Arctic Circle

And obviously a picture of my Model S parked on the Arctic Circle:

Parked Arctic Circle

Stuck at the Arctic…

But something else happened there as well! Due to the windy and snow conditions we saw a snow dune to late and couldn’t brake in time. The front of the car got stuck on it.

Model S stuck Arctic Circle

Nothing really bad. We were prepared, we had two shovels with us, so we dug ourselves out in about 20 minutes.

So I put my dad to work:

Dad digging Arctic Circle

After 20 minutes we were on our way again without any permanent damage.

The road to Narvik

After charging at Innhavet we headed for Narvik because there is a special Tesla owner there.

Tesla already blogged about Jens Kratholm. He owns 6 Roadsters and one Model S. Who says electric cars don’t work in the cold?

The road from Innhavet to Narvik was horrible again. Rain, snow, sluggish stuff on the road and a delayed ferry!

Wet road Norway

After taking the ferry we continued towards Narvik and we got stuck again! I politely pulled over for a Norwegian behind me, but since it was dark and raining I couldn’t see the parking spot properly. It was deep snow which had turned into a slush puppy due to all the rain. I started digging again….

At 19:00 we finally arrived in Narvik and had some coffee at Jens and talked about Tesla 🙂

Jens recommend us the Scandic Hotel in Narvik since it also has charging options. While we didn’t need the charge in Narvik to reach the last SuperCharger in Setermoen it would never hurt to do so.

The Scandic Hotel has two free 22kW (3x32A) chargers available where my Model S is now happily charging from.

Charging at Scandic Hotel Narvik

Tromsø

Tomorrow we are heading for Setermoen first, the most Northen SuperCharger on the planet! Afterwards we are driving to Tromsø where we will stay for a couple of days and hopefully see the Aurora / Northern Lights.

From Tromsø we will take a 2-day coastal ferry to Trondheim from where we will drive to Oslo and take a ferry back to Denmark. All again using just SuperChargers!