Day 3, September 11th, 2020, From Zunyi, Guizhou to Chengdu, Sichuan
Departed at 8:00 AM and arrived at 4:00 PM, drove for 6 hours, and charged twice for a total of 45 minutes, covering 530 km.
Charging today was great, all at high-speed service areas, with fast charging provided by State Grid at up to 90 kw, which can charge 250 km in half an hour.
Many people are concerned about how long it takes to fully charge an EV. Actually, on long trips, you don’t always need to fully charge or wait until the battery is dead. For example, one time I had only 50 km of range left when arriving at a charging station, but the destination was still 250 km away. So I only needed to charge to 300 km, and when I arrived at the destination, there were charging stations everywhere with only 50 km of range left, and high-quality charging stations only took 30 minutes to charge 250 km. If it was a Tesla third-generation charging station, it would only take 15 minutes.
Charging today went smoothly, which was exactly what was planned, and there were no surprises. Actually, the number of charging stations along the highway is adequate, but their quality is just too unstable. There are charging stations where we plan, but we arrive to find them unusable for various reasons, which means that the operation and maintenance of these charging stations needs improvement.
At a service area, I was surprised to find a NIO battery swap station, where you can swap out a fully charged battery in just 5 minutes. The owner said this was the first battery swap he did in a year after buying the car, as he had always felt reluctant to do so. I said he could break this psychology after trying it once.
This time I will stay one more day in Chengdu, at a hotel near the bustling Chunxi Road. The weather is perfect, with pleasant temperature, humidity, and wind.
Some say Chengdu is a city where people come and never want to leave. As a newcomer, I believe it is more accurate to say it’s a city where young people come and never want to leave. With trendy guys and gals flooding the streets, the avant-garde and cool designs of shopping centers and stores make it feel like an extremely youthful and energetic place— and not just for 28-year-olds, but 18-year-olds.
For example, the following picture is from a hot pot restaurant that is very trendy.
Chengdu is really a paradise for those who love spicy food. Most of the food halls in the mall are either spicy or hot pot. I put in maximum effort to pick a Japanese restaurant, because we all agreed that Japanese, Western, and fast food like McDonald’s are more suitable for our stomachs and appetites. The result? It was delicious.
Tomorrow, I will wander around Chengdu like a blind person touching an elephant.
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.