EV touring: What happened when we ran our BYD Atto 3 battery down to zero

Fresh from a 4,550 km, three state, two week family road trip in an electric vehicle, David McEwen Iv reports back on his experience, including the good, the bad, the future, and a special mention. Imagine you're on a regional highway and have run out of petrol on the shoulder of the road. One option might be to knock on the door of the nearest farmhouse and ask if they could sell you a few litres of fuel in a jerry can.

In our case, I asked if they had a portable generator. We were 17 kilometres shy of Mildura when we lost our game of chicken with the range indicator on our BYD Atto 3. Unlike a Tesla, which has a bit of battery reserve (much like an internal combustion engine car's fuel gauge), on the Atto, 0% means 0%, and we'd barely made it to the shoulder.

We'd decided not to queue at the only charging station - on our entire trip - that had been occupied when we arrived. And I had been intrigued to test the limits of the car on this trip, knowing that the Atto's LFP battery chemistry is pretty forgiving when it comes to deep discharges. Of course, we had roadside assistance, and they were on their way.

But while we were waiting, we wandered over to the closest dwelling, a farm house. "Hi - we're the crazy city slickers in an electric car who have run out of battery outside your place," I began. I reckoned there was a better than 50% chance we'd get lucky with our request given the numerous uses of off grid power on a farm. Sure enough, showing that famous country hospitality, farmer Daniel was most obliging, quickly loading his generator in a ute and bringing it over.

Less than 10 minutes later, we'd gained enough via our mobile charger to drive the car into his yard. I'd noticed a 32 Amp socket on the corner of his shed and had asked if we could use that to speed up our top up. Our travel charging kit includes an after market mobile charger that has swappable plugs allowing us to use it at 10, 15 and 32 Amp.

Rather than wait for a couple of hours at 10 Amps on a noisy, polluting, petrol genset for enough charge to complete our journey, we switched to 7 kW charging. It turned out Daniel - a commercial table grape grower - had 100 kW of solar on the roof of his shed, so his power was free and zero emissions. Not long after that, roadside assist turned up, but we no longer needed their help.

Instead, they were able to give the family a lift into Mildura, where we were staying that night. After a chat with Daniel about EVs, solar and grapes, he refused my offer of a contribution for his trouble, fuel and power, and I bade him farewell.

Driving Experience

And that was, literally, the only spot of bother we had on the trip. Driving an EV seems effortless compared to even an auto ICE car.

It's smooth (no engine vibration), quiet, and odourless. Acceleration is instantaneous and precise, with no jerky gear changes. As a result, drivers arrive feeling less fatigued.

For those in the back seat there's more leg room, due to the lack of transmission hump on EV's designed from the ground up. Later in the trip, driving the Great Ocean Road was pure delight. An EV sticks to the road and corners well due to its low and distributed centre of gravity with the heavy battery under the car.

In an accident this means a much lower chance of a roll over. The electric motors are much smaller than a large ICE engine block, translating to a better crumple zone to protect forward occupants in the event of a head on collision. Fire risk in a crash - and in general - is low.[1] Perhaps the most satisfying view from the cockpit of an EV is driving past smelly expensive highway servos, some of which had queues to enter.

In our opinion it's much nicer to pull up to a charging station in the middle of a small town, generally close to a better range of food, shopping and entertainment options. With the range of today's EV's and increasing numbers of fast chargers, it's pretty easy to plan charging around meal breaks and overnight at accommodation (using a mobile charger or destination chargers). Including paying contributions to charge at some of the places we stayed, we estimated we paid about half of what the fuel cost would have been in our previous Mazda CX-5 (a pretty similar size to the Atto), giving us more to spend on food and activities.

Now, not everything was perfect. Some "fast" chargers were positively pedestrian. Heading to lunch with the app showing 45 minutes to full, then watching it increase to hours as additional cars occupied adjacent bays and cannibalised the available power.

It was rare but frustrating. The plethora of charging apps was clunky, and we were glad our phones were on the network with better coverage in the bush. South Australia's brand new RAA charging network was a breath of fresh air and a glimpse of the future, generally with ample power, and featuring the credit card tap capability now required by any charging project receiving federal support [2] (no app required).

Key Learnings

We're still at a relatively early stage when it comes to EV infrastructure, so a bit more planning and patience is required compared to road tripping in an ICE vehicle.

But we certainly weren't blazing any new trails with our journey. Regional EV travel is 100% doable and getting easier every month.
Follow the ABCs of EV travel: Always Be Charging, and Always Bring Cables. At a minimum a mobile charger, heavy duty extension cord, and type 2 cable to use with destination chargers.

Where possible, plan accommodation where you can slow charge overnight. If there's a handy charger, top up whenever you stop. For the meantime, you'll also need PlugShare [3] (to find and compare chargers and their availability) and various charging apps on your phone.
Know your vehicle, including:

Maximum charging speed for destination & DC fast charging.

If we regularly drove long distances we would get something other than an Atto, which is limited to a fairly pedestrian 85 kilowatts: around one third the maximum charging speed of a Tesla, Polestar 3+ or Hyundai Ioniq 5
Battery usage recommendations. This is where the Atto's LFP chemistry is great, as it will happily cope with regular charging to 100% and close to 0%.
How accurate the indication of remaining range is. Not very, in the Atto's case, but its percentage indication was spot on.
Does it have any charging foibles, like our Atto's incompatibility even with un-locked Tesla superchargers?

EV drivers' Facebook groups are a great source for insights. Newer models are less likely to have these sorts of issues.

Understand how your vehicle's range is affected by driving conditions. Some factors are obvious and equally affect ICE vehicle efficiency, such as high speeds, towing, loads on roof racks and running the air con.

Others are more specific to EVs including:

Highway driving: both due to higher speeds but also less opportunity for regenerative braking. EV battery range is best with city driving, where ICE vehicles' efficiency is heavily penalised by idling.
Both hot and very cold days can decrease range.
Running the heater: an EV's electric motor produces very little waste heat so unlike an ICE, it needs to use battery power to generate heat, again decreasing range.

Needing to charge doesn't necessarily mean more or even much longer duration stops on a road trip, if you can plan around mealtimes and sightseeing. While the liquid fuel brands are investing in fast chargers at their highway service centres, smart small towns are spotting opportunities by putting chargers adjacent to shopping, beaches, playgrounds and other attractions.

We made great discoveries in places we would ordinarily have driven past.

Make Your Next Ride Electric

We've found EV driving and charging simpler than we expected. Friends with EVs report the same After all, as an EV owner you will no longer need to worry about things like clutches, gearboxes, oil filters or fan belts. It doesn't take long to get used to.

In the early days of the automobile, drivers or their passengers needed to hand crank the engine to start it, which could sometimes lead to broken arms [4]. Fuel stations were initially few and far between. EVs are already much more advanced than that, while the charging infrastructure, vehicle specs, and model selection is getting better by the day.

Battery performance (both in terms of cost and weight per kWh of capacity) continues to advance in leaps and bounds. Our two-year-old Atto already feels quaint compared to the latest models, though it's still a great car. We knew before we bought that new model prices were dropping, which will probably affect resale values for the next few years.

That's one of the reasons we selected what was then one of the most affordable EVs on the market, and we've had no regrets given the fuel and maintenance savings we're making. Really, it's no reason not to dip your toe in the EV waters today. Start with test drives.

Rent one for weekends away. Lease rather than buying outright. Buy second hand - there are bargains [5] to be had on great cars with plenty of remaining battery warranty.

If you start with your eyes open to the state of play you won't regret it: a 2024 survey [6] of over 23,000 current EV drivers in 18 countries found less than 1% would return to a petrol or diesel car if they had to replace their EV tomorrow.

In our case, there's no looking back.

References

^ Fire risk in a crash - and in general - is low. (theconversation.com)
^ receiving federal support (www.dcceew.gov.au)
^ PlugShare (www.plugshare.com)
^ broken arms (www.gigharbornow.org)
^ bargains (www.drive.com.au)
^ survey (globalevalliance.com)