Road trip underway! We're taking our BYD Seal from Sydney to Brisbane via the New England Highway, with an overnight stop in a motel in Tamworth.
One recharge at Cameron Park on the way which we probably could have skipped, but since we wanted to stop to grab a quick bite to eat for dinner anyway I did take the opportunity to top up.
That's just under 400 km driven, tomorrow we'll do the remaining 700 km.
Today's plan: charge in Tamworth before we leave, charge again at the halfway point in Tenterfield, then push on to Brisbane. It's 620 km, which will take an estimated 8 1/2 hours including just over an hour of charging time. We'll have breakfast and lunch during our charging stops so it's not just wasted time.
The journey to Brisbane was completed in accordance with the plan. Charged in Tamworth while having breakfast and in Tenterfield while having lunch, and made a couple of other quick stops for driver swaps and toilet breaks.
Tenterfield was the only time we had to wait for a charger, fortunately just for 15 minutes. Tesla's lopsided charger designs are awkward for non-Teslas that have their charging ports on the correct side of the car, but fortunately the cable was just long enough to reach across.
Tesla cars were very much in the minority at these chargers while we were there, a reflection of the fact that there are no other good ones nearby. There are NMRA chargers in Tenterfield and Glen Innes, and a Chargefox in Stanthorpe, but they are all single chargers with max charging rates of only 50 kW for the NRMA chargers and 75 kW for the Chargefox. By contrast the 4 Tesla chargers in Tenterfield are nominally capable of up to 250 kW if your car is too.
We drove 594.5 km today, bringing the total for the trip to 988.9 km door to door. Based on battery percentages I estimate the total energy consumption at 173 kWh, which works out to an average energy consumption of 17.5 kWh/100 km.
The 3 charging sessions came to a total of 129 kWh at a cost of AUD $101.51, with the rest of energy coming out of the battery charge we started with.
These chargers at Ampol North Lakes are a good design. Long cables with hinged support arms, which means that despite the charger being positioned between the two parking bays you can use either side, park either way around, and still reach your charging port regardless of which of the four corners of your car it's located on.
They're 160 kW chargers which is no longer cutting edge, but our car can only handle a max of 150 kW anyway so that's a non-issue for me.
The drive back to Sydney begins tomorrow. About 1000 km with an overnight stop in a motel in Glen Innes.
We could potentially save about 25 minutes by going back via Gloucester instead of Tamworth. There's some nice scenic bits that way, but more demanding driving and fewer good places to take a break. I'll see how I feel on the day.
So far so good. Charged at our favourite AmpCharge before leaving Brisbane, topped up at the awkward wrong-side chargers in Tenterfield, and made it to our motel in Glen Innes in time to go get a chicken parmi at the Railway Tavern.
In hindsight it would have been good to leave Brisbane about an hour earlier so that we'd have arrived in Glen Innes well before sunset. As it was we ended up driving the last half an hour or so during dusk and had several close encounters with wallabies between Tenterfield and Glen Innes. Nothing requiring full on emergency braking fortunately, but at one point we did have to quickly stop due to a group of 3 wallabies just standing in the middle of the road in front of us.
Home again. Our road trip from Sydney to Brisbane totalled 2616.9 km over 17 days. I noticed that the media were running their "long queues at EV chargers" stories again over the Easter long weekend so I'll just note that during our entire trip we had to wait for a charger a total of once, for 15 minutes. Most of the times I charged the car ours was the only car charging.
Today's drive from Glen Innes to Sydney went smoothly. We drove to Armidale where we charged and had an early lunch (including, for me, a massive coffee), then drove Thunderbolt's Way through Gloucester to Raymond Terrace where we topped up the car again and had dinner. After that it was just a boring drive down the Pacific Motorway to Sydney.
Minor rant again about the stupid Tesla chargers. Tesla took government subsidies to build these chargers and in exchange had to open them to non-Tesla cars, but they still insisted on placing the chargers between parking bays. The cables are just long enough to stretch across to the other side of the bay for cars that have their charging port on the other side but the main problem is that Tesla makes no effort to make it clear which charger is supposed to be used from which bay. No signage, no markings on the ground, you're just supposed to know. Consequently a lot of drivers of non-Tesla cars who either don't know or don't care just plug in whichever charger is nearest to their car's charging port, and if they use the wrong side then they effectively occupy two spaces. I saw two cars doing this today.
Tesla should put the chargers in the middle of the bay so the cable can easily reach either side and it's obvious which charger goes with which bay, but failing that they could at least put up some signs.
I finally remembered that our Seal has the OEM dashcam installed, so there would be video of our wallaby encounters between Tenterfield and Glen Innes during our drive back to Sydney from Brisbane. They hadn't been overwritten yet so I was able to grab the relevant bits.
The video quality is pretty rubbish but it's better than nothing, and the data overlay is neat.
If you read the first sentence of that and are thinking, "hang on, do BYD Seals come with a dashcam or not?" the answer is they do come with one. In China.
To avoid potential privacy concerns BYD leave out the dashcam camera module when assembling export Seals, but the missing modules are readily available from AliExpress, etc., for about $100. I just had to buy one, pop open the windscreen electronics housing, click the camera into place, plug in the cable that was already there, and stick a microSD card in the slot below the centre console.
The video isn't great, it only records from a single camera, and only when the car is turned on (no "sentry mode" here), but it's cheaper and less faff than getting a 3rd party dashcam wired up.
@pmoeser Yeah, the toll tag works just fine under there.
It was easy, the hardest part was getting the cover off (needed some car trim tools and more force than I expected). My understanding is that it is a bit more involved in the more recent BYDs (e.g. model year 2025 Seals) and you need to get a cable as well as a camera module, but it is still doable to install the OEM dashcam yourself.
Dammit, I should have edited this in as the soundtrack for that dashcam footage.
@spacelizard Or above the car, like a car wash hose. Heck, just turn it into a carport so the car is in the shade. Whack a solar panel on it too.
Edit: Ideas, examples.
@natcbr Or something like these, with long cables and fold out support arms: https://aus.social/@spacelizard/116349596856299746
Totally agree on the solar panels, outdoor car parking in general should be using solar panels for shade.
Attached: 2 images These chargers at Ampol North Lakes are a good design. Long cables with hinged support arms, which means that despite the charger being positioned between the two parking bays you can use either side, park either way around, and still reach your charging port regardless of which of the four corners of your car it's located on. They're 160 kW chargers which is no longer cutting edge, but our car can only handle a max of 150 kW anyway so that's a non-issue for me. #EV #ElectricCar #BYD #BYDSeal #EVRoadTrip
Anthony Horton
Wesley Moore
pmoe
Zorro
Nathanael C
I love this, so I
Adam
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