Yesterday, on Day 20 of our journey, we left the beautiful city of Helsingborg and drove towards the Germany / Netherlands border, a significant milestone in our journey.
This was one of our longest days’ driving, with close to 550 miles driven across four countries.
Car charge and usage data
We needed three full charges to complete this long journey: two in Denmark and one in Germany.
There was a lot of stop-start traffic, especially in Germany with major roadworks and also in Denmark with broken down vehicles. We achieved just 3.0 miles per kWh, our lowest figure on the trip.
Story of the day
We were quickly on the road by 8:30am. We had an extremely long drive ahead of us to get to the Netherlands. It’s a good thing the weather was absolutely amazing compared to the previous week, or the journey would have been even more difficult.
The sun was beaming down on our faces, practically melting us. Well, not quite. In fact, it was a wonderful amount of warmth. The roads were mainly motorways which meant smooth sailing and not too many stops.
Our first charge stop was in Køge, Denmark. This had actually been one of our previous charge stops on the way up as well. Only this time we got a different charger. While we were there, our driver went into the Circle K shop and bought another salted caramel coffee, because those ones had been the best so far. While we were waiting for the car to charge, we sat in the sun for a little while and got a tiny bit tanned, for the first time in around a fortnight. Then we had to leave.
With still hours of driving ahead of us, we were back on the road in no time. After a while, we ended up in a traffic jam heading up to the Great Belt Bridge. This was rather frustrating as we needed to get to our destination before it got dark – not something we really had to think about when north of the Arctic Circle. Oh well.
After the bridge, the car decided to change its mind a few times. It started with one charger but then it wobbled a bit and then did the same again. For a short while, it even redirected us via the ferry route, even though we had already committed to taking the land route, partly because of the satnav and partly for a change compared to day 2’s trip on the ferry. Although we’re sure it was just adjusting to the conditions, the indecisiveness was starting to get irritating so we decided to turn of navigation for a little while. Some time after though we decided to turn it back on and we were finally being sent in the same direction as we were going.
Second charge was also in Denmark, on a retail park. We were near some roadside fast food chains, as well as many other places. As it was around 1:00pm when we got there, we decided to get lunch. There was this place nearby called Sunset Boulevard. In there, we decided to get sandwiches and potato wedges. After we finished, we left and managed to find more Superchargers outside of the restaurant.
After filling up on yet more carbs and topping up the car pretty high, we got back to driving for several hours more. The sun was still shining down, which lightened our moods and increased the temperature massively. The 27 degrees was a lot more than 7 or 8 degrees at the top of Norway. A nice change but still. Eventually, we left Denmark and got to Germany. And we got back to the Autobahn where the option is there to drive a bit faster in places, although despite the novelty value if you’re not from around these parts it can be a false economy in terms of battery usage and – if you come up against jams – not getting to your destination massively quicker.
When we got near Hamburg, there were so many sets of roadworks and we were lucky if we got to 20km/h in that traffic. And this lasted for around half an hour, possibly even longer.
A while after the long drive, we got to our third charge stop of the day. We recorded a video about the day so far, highlighting where we’d charged.
Then, we were back on the Autobahn. Thanks to roadworks we were driving on the other side of the road as they were doing work on our side. Eventually, we got back to driving normally though, and were just focused on getting where we needed to be. There was also a point of the drive where we turned onto a country lane which was absolutely beautiful. The sun was beaming onto the trees perfectly.
About twelve hours after we started driving, we were just across the border into the Netherlands and very much ready for our hotel.
