On February 12th, I drove the WmAuto EX5 long-term test car from my home to Shanghai. On the way, I stopped at the Zhuji service area to recharge, where I chatted with owners of other electric cars such as the Roewe Marvel X, NIO ES8, and BYD Yuan EV. Some were using their electric cars to travel home for the Spring Festival, while others frequently took electric cars on highways. I collected some of their viewpoints to share with everyone.
It’s about 170 kilometers from my home to Zhuji service area, and after arriving there, the dashboard showed about 100 kilometers of remaining range. According to Amap, the next Xia Sha service area is 78 kilometers away, so for safety reasons, I decided to recharge at Zhuji service area and have lunch. First, I want to complain that because we didn’t choose the PTC battery heating option for our WmAuto EX5, the current was only 40A and the maximum charging power was only a pitiful 13 kW in an environment where the outside temperature was 2-3 degrees and the battery temperature was 19 degrees.
I felt disappointed, so I tried to find some comfort in the Roewe Marvel X with air-cooled batteries next to me, only to find out that the maximum current was 124A for a charging power of about 50 kW, and the battery temperature reached 42 degrees, leaving me envious.
I chatted with the owner of the Roewe Marvel X, who bought the rear-wheel-drive version of the car in Shanghai before the Spring Festival for just under 300,000 yuan, drove it to his hometown of Shangrao for the holidays, and now is driving it back to Shanghai, a journey of about 500 kilometers that requires recharging three times. At the Zhuji service area, he was already recharging for the second time (no wonder the battery temperature was high). Since the owner just acquired the car, he wasn’t entirely sure about its actual driving range, but he estimated it was around 300 kilometers.
What’s strange is that the owner’s family didn’t even know of the existence of the WmAuto EX5. When they learned that the car costs only about 150,000 yuan with a range of 200-300 kilometers, they all thought Roewe was too expensive, twice the price of WmAuto, and that it would be better to buy an Audi for 300,000 yuan. They were speechless.
After filling up to 80%, the car owner left. Shortly afterwards, a 2017 Jianghuai iEV6E arrived, with a battery temperature of only around 20 degrees. It must be quite painful to drive at high speeds with a comprehensive range of only 170 kilometers. The car owner said that this car is mainly used for his wife’s commute, and he left after seeing that the charging current was only 40A.
After dinner, the service area was bustling with activity. There were only two charging piles at Zhujiazhuang service area. Besides the NIO ES8, the WmAuto and Jianghuai cars behind them were waiting in line with the Yundu π3.
As soon as I walked up to the car, the owner of the ES8 asked me how much longer it would take, showing a State of Charge at 55%. Helplessly, I told him that it would probably take some time. The ES8 owner said it was okay, as he had called a service car for charging.
As we waited, I asked the owner of the ES8 how he felt about driving the car and whether he had encountered any bugs. He said that he felt okay driving the car, and this was the 299X starting edition. He had picked it up 120 days ago and had driven it nearly 16,000 kilometers, mostly on highways from Jinhua, Jiaxing, Lishui, and Hangzhou. He had only encountered a problem with the system before a system update, but he hadn’t had any problems since then.
I was surprised that he had driven nearly 16,000 kilometers in just four months, considering that my family’s car can only drive just over 10,000 kilometers a year, so I kept asking. Did he find it inconvenient to drive an electric car on the highway? How far can he drive on a full charge?
He said that he knew the car quite well, and the remaining mileage on the dashboard was fairly accurate. He drove at a speed of 120km/h with the air conditioning on throughout the journey. When the battery was low, he just entered the service area and charged it. He drove as far as 210 kilometers once, and the fastest charging was at the service area in Jinhua, where the charging speed was 240A.
The charging speed at the Xiaoshan service area behind Zhujiazhuang was still acceptable, but it was not reported by the Amap. There were no charging piles at the Xiashe service area behind it. In Hangzhou, he directly swapped batteries, which was very convenient and only took 10 minutes. He had already swapped 7-8 batteries, and now the car owner planned to upgrade to 100-degree battery once it was available, as the current one was an 84-degree battery.Then the elder brother who is using ES8 got interested in this WEY EX5, took a seat and experienced it. He summarized three intuitive feelings. Firstly, your car is so small (definitely cannot be compared with ES8). Secondly, the feeling of the dashboard is better than ES8, and ES8 dashboard has general texture and little sense of technology. The feeling of the central control screen is similar for both cars (Does the WEY one have the sense of technology?). Thirdly, this car is quite beautiful (thanks to my car washing…).
Then the owner’s son asked me in a childish voice, “What is the acceleration time of this car per hundred kilometers?” I said 8.5 seconds, which definitely cannot be compared with your 4.4 seconds (sorry for interrupting). The owner’s son is probably in elementary or junior high school. It must be said that NIO’s 4.4-second acceleration per hundred kilometers is really popular among people.
Halfway through the conversation, the ES8 owner received a call from the guy who adds electricity. Because the guy who adds electricity was on the opposite high-speed railway, he needed to pass the Zhujigu Service Area and get off the highway before re-entering the highway, which is very time-consuming. Therefore, he wanted to ask the owner if the remaining electricity could be driven to the nearest exit and then join him to add electricity. Unfortunately, this elder brother was really in a difficult situation. The remaining mileage displayed on the dashboard was only 22km. He could only continue to wait for the guy who adds electricity.
During the waiting process, a Jinhua-licensed BYD e6 came, and a water of white cars were queuing up for charging, and a group of owners were talking. The elder brother who owned the BYD e6 was slightly older and had not heard of any of these new brands that were making cars. We introduced them separately.
He said that he had bought the BYD e6 for half a year, about 100,000 yuan. The energy consumption on the expressway is about 20kWh/100km, and the battery, which is barely enough to drive when the temperature reaches 43.5 degrees Celsius, can drive 200km. In the city, the energy consumption will be lower, probably around 14-16, and the lowest energy consumption he reached was 12.
After charging for more than an hour, the SOC exceeded 80%. Looking at so many people waiting behind, I didn’t feel good about staying longer. I immediately gave up the charging station, but at this time, NIO’s charging car had not arrived yet. Looking at the ES8 driving into the charging station, I curiously went up to see the charging speed, which was really fast, 200A current, about 69 kW charging power. I asked the owner if he still wanted to wait for the charging car. He said, “I’ll charge first and wait for him to come. He is now near the Zhujigu Service Area on the opposite side.” (I don’t know if it’s feasible to communicate with the highway staff and go through the connecting culvert from the service area to the opposite service area).## From contacting the big brother for electric service till now, it’s been almost half an hour. I estimate that I’ll have to wait for a while. Time is tight, so I have to hurry back on the road. I won’t be able to see the electric car, and after saying goodbye to a few car owners, I continued my journey home.
In addition, there are State Grid charging piles in Xiaoshan Service Area, which is about 40 kilometers after Zhuzhou Service, but it is strange that Amap does not indicate this. There are indeed no State Grid charging piles in Xiasha Service Area, but there is a new energy charging station called Jiurong New Energy Charging Station. There are 8 DC fast charging piles in total, and the price is 1.5 yuan per kWh, and you need to download a special APP.
Finally, let me summarize it for everyone.
About NIO: NIO’s service is indeed very good, and this car owner is quite satisfied with the car. Especially, the first batch of car owners have many preferential services, so car owners feel very happy. If a larger battery pack is launched in the future, the pain point of ES8 may be further improved. (P.S. Recently, the most encountered car at the service area charging station is NIO ES8.)
About WM: People’s awareness of the WM brand is not particularly high, and there are still many consumers, even electric car owners have not heard of WM yet. Their first intuitive impression of WM was how beautiful it is and the price of 150,000 yuan was quite affordable.
About driving electric cars on the highway: Now there are more and more electric car users who drive on the highway, and there are already queues for charging piles at holiday service areas, whether out of necessity or really enjoying driving an electric car. As for WM, here’s my experience. First of all, driving on the highway is much more enjoyable than my 1.6T 3008, which I bought for 200,000 RMB four years ago. However, stopping and charging every 200 kilometers is a bit frequent for me, and I also have anxiety about not daring to turn on the air conditioner. The efficiency and overall experience on the highway is not as good as that of fossil fuel cars, but I look forward to the day when electric cars surpass fossil fuel vehicles!
* What’s it like to travel 400 kilometers home during Spring Festival with an electric car?
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.