I always wanted to find out in a practical sense, what kind of overhead does an EV impose while doing long drives. So decided to do a Kannyakumari to Kashmir drive and find out for myself. Since I am based out of Bengaluru, the first step was to reach Kannyakumari. This trip has to be done by me, solo, nobody else in the car with me.
02-May-2026 - Starting point, Bengaluru to Kanyakumari, 635 Kilometers, 🚗 9 hours 56 minutes
I decided to leave early for Kanyakumari so that I can reach on time and have a good night's sleep. Left at 05:20 am and headed towards Kannyakumari via NH-44.I get a practical range of around 675 to 700 kilometers on a full charge so reaching Kannyakumari was not really and issue. The biggest issue was that there is no decent charger available in Kanyakumari and I wanted to leave as close to 100% in the morning. That issue resulted in some challenges.
I drove for around one and half hours and arrived at Murugal Idly Shop for my breakfast. Had a nice breakfast and spend around 30 minutes for breakfast. Left this place at 7:25 am and continued driving for almost four and half hours.
I stopped at Zeon Charger near Dindigul. This place as a A2B on opposite side. Although I did not need charging but I was being mindful of the fact that I will not get really fast chargers in Kanyakumari and this was a 120KW charger. Although it turned out to be less than perfect because another car was already there and I had to share power with them.
Nevertheless I spend almost an hour here and topped up the car to 100% and had my lunch at the same time and then l left for Kanyakumari.
Charged for 40 minutes, 52.1 KWh, ₹25.90 per KWh total ₹1,592.28
I arrived in Kanyakumari at around 4:45 pm and checked into Hotel Tamilnadu. Rest of the day was spend in walking around near the shoreline.
I had an early dinner in a local eatery and then before going to bed, decided to checkout if there was any charging possible nearby. Found a HP petrol pump with a working charger, decided to top-up there.
This was not a great charger. There was another car that had parked to the left and was using right side gun. The gun wouldn't reach my car. After some time that guy left and I charged for around an hour. This place was almost an 20 minutes from my hotel and since I had driven to that place, I felt I should charge there. But the charger was very slow.
Charged for 58:40 minutes, 28.17 KWh, ₹15.50 per KWh total ₹515.23
Finally drove back to hotel and went to bed. Hotel Tamilnadu is a typical government hotel, great location, average service.
03-May-2026 - Kanyakumari to Hospete (Kireeti), 948 Kilometers, 🚗15 hours 23 minutes
Finally my K2K drive has to beging. I little bit of anxiety, I got up early, earlier than I wanted to get up. So I started straight away. I skipped breakfast in the hotel and decided to have it at the same A2B near dindigul where I charged while coming to Kanyakumari. Started from the place at 05:00 am.
Drove for 4 hours and arrived at same Zeon Charger near Dindigul.
I arrived at the charger/restaurant at around 09:10 am. I had decided that I would charge only once and then cross Bengaluru and then stop on the other end of Bengaluru. So decided to charge the vehicle to 100%. Also I had to have my breakfast. This was a saturday and that too as part of a long weekened. So the restaurant itself had a waiting list. Luckily when I reached charger, there was nobody so I promptly put my car for charging and waited to find a table in A2B.
Charged for 01:19:00 hours, total 81.20 KWh,₹25.90 per KWh, total ₹2,481.63
This was a long stop because of rush in the restaurant. By the time I left it was almost 11:00 am. From here, I was all set to cross Bengaluru, drove for straight eight hours (seven hours and 44 minutes to be precise). Got to Bengaluru, too NICE road, got out on the other end on Pune highway.
Arrived at Hotel Nanjundeshwara Veg at 6:43 pm which had one of those new Mahindra Charge_IN chargers.
Again because of the experience in morning, I was dreading crowd but this place was OK. They have four charging guns and only once was occupied. So I put my car on spare charger and went to have my dinner.
Charged for 01:00:00 hours, total 73.68 KWh,₹20.00 per KWh, total ₹1,738.85
Started from this place at 8:00 pm and arrive in Hotel Royal Orchid near Hampi at 11:44 pm.
The primary reason for choosing this hotel was that they had a Jio-BP charger. This charger is little flaky but it still did the job.
Charged for 00:58:00 hours, total 53.24 KWh,₹25.99 per KWh, total ₹1,632.77
Charged for 00:14:23 hours, total 14.01 KWh,₹22.00 per KWh, total ₹363.70
I drove for another hour and half and saw a charger named Saguna EVCS in a restaurant/dhaba named Saguna. By this time it was 11:20 am.
I had never heard of this name but I put the car for charger, ordered food and tea and started talking to the owner. He mentioned that he has bought all the equipment himself and attached it with a CPO called Nikol. He said that he manages everything and he pays small amount to the CPO for visibility on the app. He also mentioned that if app doesn't work, he can manually start it and take the payment directly. It was nice to see different business model.
I left this place at 12:20pm.
Charged for 00:59:33 hours, total 56.75 KWh,₹21.99 per KWh, total ₹1,472.00
I had planned on staying in Hotel Sheraton Grand in indore for second night because they have a Chargezone charger. When I checked on the Chargezone app, it showed the charger to be offline. Just to be sure, I called the call center and they mentioned that due to Civil construction on the site, the charger might be offline. This kind of put spanner in the work as far as my plan went. As per original plan I did not need any charging session after this. I had planned on a small top-up at a restaurant as I neared Indore and had my dinner but when I checked that charger, it said one gun was faulty.
To be on the safe side, I decided to charge somewhere earlier. Unfortunately as you enter Maharashtra, smaller towns do have chargers but most are 30 KW. Those 120 KW chargers of Tamilnadu and Karnataka become rarety.
I first encountered a BPCL petrol station which mentioned that it had a 30 KW charger. I assumed it would be 30 KW per gun and if there is no other car, I might get 60 KW.
I started charging but the speed was too slow. I decided to give it some time but eventually gave up.
Charged for 00:40:51 hours, total 19.25 KWh,₹15.50 per KWh, total ₹352.08
As soon as I left this place and drove for another kilomater or so, I saw another signage that claimed of a 120 Charger. So I again decided to charge there.
This was a good place, the only issue was there was nothing around it. Not even a tea or coffee stall. So I had to make my own tea and kill some time.
Charged for 00:56:17 hours, total 74.56 KWh,₹22.00 per KWh, total ₹1,935.58
I left this place at 9:30 pm. The only issue was that I had not had dinner and Indore was still some time away. So I decided to stop at Hotel Rajhans in Julwania, the same place where I was thinking of charging and have something to eat.
I arrived in Hotel Rajhans at 10:41 pm and had my dinner. BTW when I arrived here, one gun of charger was working so I connected it anyway.
Even though the car was almost 90% at this time. But given the fact that there was no place to charging in the night, I decided to charge it completely so that I don't have to worry about charging in the morning.
Charged for 00:02:20 hours, total 2.79 KWh,₹22.00 per KWh, total ₹72.43
Finally drove straight to Sheraton Grand in Indore and arrive there by 2:00 am. I decided it was too late and I will take it easy the next day.
I decided to forego the alarm and decided I will leave when I wake up.
05-May-2026 - Indore to Gurgaon, 717 Kilometers, 🚗11 hours 36 minutes
Got up comparatively leisurely and had a good breakfast and then checkedout of the hotel by 8:45 am. By this time I realized that there was some issue with one of the tires, it was leaking air. So I decided to get it repaired somewhere. After driving for little over one hour, I found a place that was ready to make a proper puncture by patching it from inside. It was good that I decided to do that because the leak was from one of the earlier puncture repairs and the traditional methond would not have helped. Arrived at the puncture shop at 9:50 am and left by 10:30 am. There was a restaurant nearby but that guy refused to make a sugarless tea, so no tea again.
Ujjain to Garoth road is now completly done and you can enter NE-4 at Garoth. I drove for around 2 hours and stopped at the first food court on NE-4. This place had a Volttic charger as well so I topped up here.
Charged for 00:24:46 hours, total 23.84 KWh,₹22.00 per KWh, total ₹618.89
I had a coffee and top-up in car and left this place and continued on NE-4. After around 60-70 kilometers on NE-4 near Mukandara you have to exit NE-4 because some tunnel or flyover is still not done. So I had to exit onto the old highway. As soon as I was about to enter the highway again, I saw Ishyu Highway Rasoi.
It was already 2:30 pm so it was past lunch time and this also had a charger so I decided to have lunch and also top up.
Charged for 00:23:00 hours, total 15.51 KWh,₹22.00 per KWh, total ₹402.64
Charged for 01:09:00 hours, total 75.31 KWh,₹25.99 per KWh, total ₹2,309.62
As per my original plan, I was planning to drive towards Ludiana or Jalandhar but since I started late and some time was wasted in puncture repair, I decided to take a halt in Gurgaon. That was probably not the best decision but was the most comfortable one.
I booked into Holiday Inn NH-8, they have a Vinfast charger that can be used on Electreefi app. Since it was not a slow charger, I decided to put the car for charging after I get up in the morning. I arrived at the hotel at 10:15 pm and straighaway went to bed,
06-May-2026 - Gurgaon to Patnitop, 690 kilometers, 🚗 13 hours 2 minues
I got up at around 7:15 am and put the car on charge. Then I got ready and had my breakfast and by the time I was done with that, the car was charged 100%.
Charged for 02:34:00 hours, total 48.72 KWh,₹19.00 per KWh, total ₹1,092.30
I checked out and then left towards Srinagar. I did not want to drive late at night near Srinagar so decided to take a halt somewhere on the way. Found a hotel in Patnitop which also had a charging setup, so decided to take a night halt there. It still turned out to be too hectic because of lots of roads under construction due to Delhi - Katra expressway.
Staying in Gurgaon was a good decision from one angle, I was well rested but gurgaon turned out to be nightmare to get out of because I hit the peak morning office traffic.
Left the hotel at 8:45am and drove for next two and half hours, Arrived at a small mall kind of place that also had startbucks etc at 11:11 am. Had a bio break and then coffee and continued at 11:31 am.
I really wanted to stop at Indo-American Diner, but when I arrive there, there was no power. I did not want to have dinner when there was no charging so continued driving. Drove for another two hours and fifteen minutes and arrived at Celebration Bazar in Khanna at 1:45 pm.
This place has a statiq charger where I charged my car and also had Lunch at McDonalds.
Charged for 00:57:00 hours, total 41.78 KWh,₹22.49 per KWh, total ₹1,108.71
Started from this place at 2:50 pm and drove for 3 hours and 10 minutes. Stopped at a small mall called Society Mall. Arrived here at 5:55 pm.
Just wanted to have a coffee, there was a charger as well so charged as well.
Charged for 00:18:00 hours, total 14.22 KWh,₹24.00 per KWh, total ₹402.71
Started from this place at 6:20 pm and continued towards Pathankot. Around this time, google suggested to go via Jammu so I decided to go that way.
Arrived in Pathankot at 7:02 pm. At this time it was clear that I would reach Patnitop very very late. I decided to have an early dinner here. I saw this mall called Pathankot Downtown 44.
This also had a Tata charger. Even though at this I did not need charging but still decided to top up and have my dinner here.
Charged for 00:33:00 hours, total 24.22 KWh,₹17.80 per KWh, total ₹508.72
This mall was pretty good. Decided to try some sandwiches and stuff. Pretty good.
From here on, it was to be a continuous drive. Reached Jammu, got lost in Jammu and then finally continued towards Patnitop. Saw the majestic Vaishnodevi hills on the way.
Drove for another four and half hours and arrived in Patnitop, Skyview resort at 12:22 am. This place is great for EV travellers. They have both fast and slow chargers. I plugged in the car for final time before reaching Srinagar and went to sleep.
The distance remaining was not much so decided to take it easy for the last day. Also if you stay at Skyview, they give a complementary ride to the cable car from resort to the top of the hill. This opens only at 10:30am. So I decided that I would to the ride and then leave.
07-May-2026 - Patnitop to Srinagar 150 kilometers, 🚗3 hours 50 minutes
Got up in the morning, the car was charging from a slow charger. Got ready, had good breakfast. Got into the gandola.
Charged for 11:17:00 hours, total 58.02 KWh,₹17.80 per KWh, total ₹1,218.69
Left the Skyview hotel at 11:50am and drove for non-stop 3 hours 50 minutes and arrived in Srinagar at 3:40 pm.
Here are the salient points of this effort.
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