Yesterday, we embarked on the third leg of our incredible electric journey, leaving the charming city of Copenhagen behind and heading towards the vibrant, water-kissed city of Stockholm.
It was a nice sunny day for driving across the stunning Øresund Bridge and beyond, although there were some sporadic rain showers later on.
Car charge and usage data
With the early signs of thinning traffic levels compared to further south, a fairly constant speed was achievable on the motorways. The maximum speed along the route was almost always 110 or 120 km/h, with very few changes.
Three charges during the day, the final one being very short, just so we had a decent amount of charge left for overnight parking.
As a result, we managed a very respectable 3.9 miles per kWh.
Story of the day
One of the things we are trying to do is balance out the long amounts of sitting down in the car with fresh air and exercise, so we went for a two kilometre walk around roads and a park near to the hotel. The car was parked quite far away from the room, with two separate staircases and a lift involved, so we got some extra exercise there… weights too, with the luggage.
The next step was to get driving to our next country of the trip – Sweden – which we started the day on the doorstep of, anyway. The team decided to go to virtually the last restaurant in Denmark – McDonald’s – but were pleasantly surprised at the breakfast menu. There were no McMuffins or hash-browns. Instead, we decided to have Oreo muffins and macarons. Perhaps slightly counter-productive with the healthy bit beforehand, but better than the stuff we might have had back at home.
Within thirty minutes of driving from our first stop, we had reached the Øresund bridge, which actually starts off as a tunnel. This takes you to Pepper island (a man-made island between Denmark and Sweden) and then there was the stunning, iconic bridge the rest of the way. This took us to the shore of Sweden and we were in our seventh country – just like that.
There were many interesting things on the journey up to our hotel and to the capital city. For example, we saw the Swedish city of Malmö, but we didn’t drive through it because our journey was not in that direction. We also passed the starting place for the main loop of our journey. The plan is to drive up the east coast of Sweden and then down the west coast of Norway. But this point, not far from Helsingborg, is where we will end up at the same point in a couple of weeks.
First charge of the day was just a quick stop outside of a 50s style diner. Second charge of the day was at a self-service restaurant with trays and options at a counter. Everything was written in Swedish only but of course the level of spoken English was fantastic. We know – and try to use – a few phrases in each language but with the best will in the world we’re not quite proficient in all the languages and variants in use on this trip.
The team decided to get peppered salmon which came with potatoes, a salad and a rich mayonnaise. The salmon was actually really nice as well as beautifully seasoned. With the warm weather we gambled with some unfamiliar ice creams. One was nut caramel, which was great and the other was a black liquorice one which was terrible, but it was a cool diamond shape so it had to be tried at least once. Never again.
One of the “early drafts” of the navigation included a location with 40 Superchargers. That’s a lot of capacity. We decided to go there and check it out, partly to see it and partly as a final top up so we would be leaving the car overnight with a reasonable level of charge. There was also an enormous supermarket nearby. This is where we did some filming to go with our Day 3 highlights video (we’re trying to publish highlights of each driving day where we can).
The team hit the road again. There were cool things on this journey as well, such as large model airplanes on the side of the road. We also saw these enormous electric pylons, that seemed twice as wide as the normal ones. The scenery was beautiful as well. There were forests and there was also a huge, very calm lake that we drove past. This had shimmering water and deep green trees surrounding it. It was very picturesque.
We were passing a number of latitude milestones. One that stood out in particular was getting further north than mainland Great Britain. We were now higher up the globe than Dunnet Head – somewhere we went on a previous trip, with a highlights video available on our YouTube channel. Having experienced the narrow, winding roads of the far north of Scotland, it really did seem like a world apart, zipping along the dual-carriageway E4 in bright sunshine.
The rain did come – in a short burst or two – and as part of this the motorway was jammed for a short while. The satnav took us on a beautiful detour through some country roads and small villages – a welcome change.
We eventually entered Stockholm, where there was Friday night traffic, the rare (for us) feel of hustle and bustle, and different junctions going off everywhere. It was even a struggle to find the hotel car park but after looping around the area a couple of times, we managed to find it.
