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tigerbalm

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As we head inland away from the warming influence of the Norwegian Sea, the temperatures will drop, the snow will increase and the roads may be very icy.
Well, was it true? Yep!

Lowest temp – and it never got warmer than -10C.

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Much heavier snow on the road and surrounding trees in Lapland.

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Plenty ice.

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This is the part of the trip most likely to require snow chains to complement our "continental-style" winter tyres
Well? Not a chance. The Pirelli's never missed a beat. Even as speed limits increased in Finland.

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Hello Sweden!

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Arrived at our cosy cabin after a long but enjoyable day's driving. Want to do the day's report justice – so going to rest up and publish it tomorrow.

Screenshot 2022-02-21 at 20.14.52.png
Interesting to see your Taycan’s tires erasing the snowmobile tracks in the snow at the cabin!
 

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Well, was it true? Yep!

Lowest temp – and it never got warmer than -10C.

51895594226_db8ea2515b_4k.jpg


Much heavier snow on the road and surrounding trees in Lapland.

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Plenty ice.

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Well? Not a chance. The Pirelli's never missed a beat. Even as speed limits increased in Finland.

51896276235_22386b3cc5_4k.jpg
This does look rather icy. Out of curiosity, what average speed are you doing on roads like this? I understand you'd slow down upon oncoming traffic, but even without that, do you dare doing more than say 60km/h?
 
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tigerbalm

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How is the heat pump coping at those temperatures?
I am not sure how to measure that. What I can say is that the cabin temperatures are very warm and comfortable. We tend to run ours at +20C and it had no trouble maintaining that when the outside temperature was -20C – a 40C degree difference.

We ran the AC on "eco" mode the entire time, so no need to run it in normal and didn't even remember that is an option.

The Battery Management System (BMS) seems to love the available ambient cold air running over the front radiators and likes to keep the battery pretty cool – between freezing and 7C – when driving even at 100km/h climbing up 500 meter hills.

Consumption figures are not much higher when outside temps are +5C, 0C, -5C, -10C or -20C. Is that the heat pump doing its thing?

This does look rather icy. Out of curiosity, what average speed are you doing on roads like this? I understand you'd slow down upon oncoming traffic, but even without that, do you dare doing more than say 60km/h?
In general we're running at the posted speed limits – 80km/h in Norway and 100 km/h in Finland. The local traffic probably moves a little bit over the limits and we'll leave and assist them to pass us. We don't speed while being guests in a country.

We use re-gen to our advantage. When we see a tight corner coming up and there is relatively low grip due to ice (there is generally excellent grip on snow) I will take my foot off the accelerator/throttle pedal and observe if friction alone will slow us down enough to take the corner.

If it isn't – and often it won't be on ice – I'll then press the regen button on the steering wheel – that will instantly start to smoothly slow us down – hitting the regen button again to turn it off – as we reach the corner and then glide around it and smoothly accelerate out of it.

This way there is no pedal inputs during the corner and keeps things nicely stable. An EV isn't a disadvantage in the arctic – it's an asset – I'm being serious here.

One thing arctic local drivers understand is stopping distances in this environment. They may be going a little quicker than posted limits but they'll stay well back from you until they are comfortable to overtake.

When we arrive behind slower moving traffic – mostly trucks – we'll do the same and they'll then switch on their right indicator to let you know its safe to overtake them.

Everyone here is working together.
 
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Day 12: Aurora Borealis Observatory (Norway) -> Svanstein (Sweden)

Porsche Taycan Taycan To The Arctic Circle Road Trip 2022 Screenshot 2022-02-20 at 17.34.25


Long trip planned today – to maximise our time in Norway we were always going to have to long-leg it back to Ireland during the second half of the trip. We walked down to where we had plugged in the car to find that it had not fully charged and the red-ring light was showing on the charging port. Not sure what was the cause but it happens.

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This meant a slight tweak to our day's charging plan – we're going to stop at a nearby Mer 50 kW charger to get an initial top-up. And this brings up one of the biggest frustrations of today. None of our planned chargers – including this one – are available on the PCM navigation when filtered as "charging stations". This means that the car is just treating them as waypoints and will not pre-heat the battery. With outside ambient temperatures well below -10C all day, this would prove to prolong our charges by approximately 35%.

Porsche, why can't we just manually mark/override a waypoint as a charging stop and have the car prepare the battery ?

We quickly arrived at the charger with a battery temperature of -7C with outside temperature of -12C.

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After a 44 minute wait, we were on our way – still following the E6 and tracking slightly north. It felt good to get a few more km north!

Leaving the peaceful Norwegian fjords behind us.

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Eventually, we caught up with the E8 and started heading east and south east.

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Before crossing into Finland – at a height of 500 meters near Saana Mountain.

OMG, we're back in the eurozone – we know this!

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The sense of remoteness increases almost immediately after entering Lapland.

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Shortly afterwards, we reach our first Finnish charger, which we start using our Fortum Charge & Drive fob. Again, this starts slower for us due to our battery temperature on arrival of 11C. Even though we left the last Mer charger with a temp of 23C, it seems with the plentiful amount of freezing outside air (around -16C at this point) the Battery Management System (BMS) is happy to cool the battery right down while we're on the move. It was interesting to see how cool the battery could be while the drive train was under plenty of strain in this terrority.

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We continue along the E8 across a beautiful snow and ice wilderness.

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Porsche Taycan Taycan To The Arctic Circle Road Trip 2022 51895994054_148a992e71_4k


Reaching Muonio in the late afternoon at another Recharge charger. This one had another car – a Hyundai – plugged in and wasn't giving us more than 70 kWh – despite the 225 kW promises – even after our battery was warmer than 35C.

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One thing we're getting used to is clearing down the sensors – radar and infrared cameras – if we push up against a snow bank when parked for charging. Otherwise, you'll get a PCM warning shortly after getting underway that the sensors are blocked – and they will be!

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We were still a few 100 km away from our destination tonight and with it being late afternoon, we pushed on – thankfully utilising the higher permitted speed limits on these Finnish roads.

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Though continuing to be careful as the snow levels increase on the roads and its surroundings.

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Arriving into Pello – our last stop in Finland – as darkness fell. Here we were joined by the same car as the previous charger – a group of guys touring around from Helsinki! This time the charger was rated for a shared 150 kW – a more honest branding – as we both got 70 kW each. We complained to them about our pre-heating PCM navigation woes and they commented that their car didn't even have the concept of battery preparation. Yikes, we didn't even know that was still a thing! That shut us up!

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We needed a decent top-up here for tomorrow and as our cabin tonight has limited cooking facilities, we took the opportunity to eat some food at a local restaurant while we were charging.

After both car and humans were refuelled we headed over the bridge in the town into Sweden as a light snow fell.

Thank you Finland for showing us a real winter wonderland in Lapland and giving us extremely remote and reliable chargers and little taste of being back in the euro (€).

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We had around 25 km to go into Sweden before we reached our accommodation – our first time diving in darkness on this trip. It is now that options like the adaptive matrix headlights, infrared camera – there are many elk warning signs – and radar providing collision protection and warnings – really help – and allow us to concentrate on driving the car safely.

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We arrive at our comfy cottage for overnight, with a frosty -18C evening outside.

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We plug that car into the cottage – it has outside plugs – but the current available is too low for the car to be happy.

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Not to worry, we have plenty of charge for tomorrow.

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joacimli

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@tigerbalm now you're approaching my old hoods! I don't know what route you will be taking but if you're travelling south in Sweden there is a 175 kW charger in Luleå at the sub-contractor for Scania vehicles.
 
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@tigerbalm now you're approaching my old hoods! I don't know what route you will be taking but if you're travelling south in Sweden there is a 175 kW charger in Luleå at the sub-contractor for Scania vehicles.
Thank you @joacimli. I had these in my plan for today:

Porsche Taycan Taycan To The Arctic Circle Road Trip 2022 Screenshot 2022-02-22 at 08.54.28


Is that the one? Or should I be hunting for something better?
 


joacimli

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Thank you @joacimli. I had these in my plan for today:

Screenshot 2022-02-22 at 08.54.28.png


Is that the one? Or should I be hunting for something better?
That's indeed the one @tigerbalm I have travelled to Umeå myself from Stockholm with the Taycan as my son is attending the University, there is virtually a "white spot" around Umeå, so top up in Skellefteå as they have "Ultra fast chargers".
 

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@tigerbalm Nice trip & photos! Love it! :cool:
I might suggest you switch in Sport+ to heat the battery before a charge. Useful in cold when the PCM didn’t preheat
Can’t wait for your daily report, drive safe!
 
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Day 13: Svanstein (Sweden) -> Umeå (Sweden)

Porsche Taycan Taycan To The Arctic Circle Road Trip 2022 Screenshot 2022-02-07 at 19.41.19


We awoke in our cottage to a light dusting of snow overnight.

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We plotted in our planned route and – a first for a while – the PCM choose the same charger we planned for – so hopefully battery pre-heating goes a bit better today.

As we headed south we crossed over the Arctic Circle again – this time in Sweden – where there was a simple monument marking the line.

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It felt like snow levels were lower today than they were yesterday in Finland, though there was still plenty!

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We arrived at our first charger – and yes – the Battery Management System had risen its temperature from below freezing to +27C as we pulled in – this really makes a difference. Unfortunately there was only one CCS charger at this location and it was occupied by a Tesla.

We pulled behind it in wait – the first charging queue/wait we've had on this trip. It soon became obvious that the lady driving the Tesla was having trouble getting it started. It kept saying that charging would start when enough power was available. The charger was a familiar ABB unit but had to be started from a specific web page where you put in your payment information – hate those – but from my preparation notes – was expecting it.

After the lady tried for a good ten minutes she asked us to have a go. We pulled up, plugged in, went through the payment gateway process and the charger started immediately! And as we had pre-heated battery it gave us its full 175 kW – the advertised amount for this charger – from the start!

We don't know much about Tesla's – but her car needed an adaptor to plug into CCS. We thought that all European Tesla's had CCS built-in and wondered if the adaptor was causing the issue for this charger. She unfortunately couldn't get it going and we couldn't offer much practical help and had a long trip ahead – so we had to get going. She planned to use an AC charger 200 meters away. We felt her frustration, and wished we could have offered more practical help. Charging locations with one single charger/cable really isn't good enough any more.

We forgot to take a picture of our charge here due to talking/helping.

The further south we travelled today, the more populated and industrial area's started to become. Sweden's 2+1 roads started to appear. This is a road format that was trialed in Ireland for a few years also.

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Posted speed limits increasing to 110 km/h – distances were much easier negotiated than Lapland yesterday! Noticed consumption a little higher due we think to the increased speeds and still very low air temperatures hovering around -15C.

Seeing chimneys billowing into the air – reminded us – regardless of the total environmental impact of EV's – we have emitted no local emissions into the pristine arctic air. Something really amazing if you consider doing this trip in – for example – a Porsche 911.

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We arrived at our 120 kW charger at Skellefteå – where we plugged in and grabbed some food nearby. This was one of those charges where we were happy to "over-charge" a bit because we were doing something else – eating.

And there was a spare charging cable – so we weren't blocking the charger from anyone. When we had finished our food we were at 94% battery level – and so were in a position to not bother with our last planned charger and instead hopefully grab a destination charge at our hotel. If we couldn't, there were a number of nearby 50 kW choices we could use in the morning.

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We set off on our final leg into the setting sun towards Umeå. It's hard to describe – or capture – but there is something very unique about the light and air in this area of the world. The sky feels bigger and closer.

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We pulled into our hotel – and thankfully there was a spare 7 kW charging space available. We lucked out as the hotel parking garage is limited.

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Our hotel made a mistake with our booking via hotels.com – they didn't know about ours and had double sold the room – so they gave us their best room. We lucked out again!

We are going to have our first room service meal on this trip tonight on our "Putin"-esq table for two!

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The days charging stats:

LocationStart SOC %End SOC %kWh addedCostDurationAmbient TempBattery TempCharger TypeNetwork
Luleå, Sweden18%72%45.20€21.50h 20m-15.027DC 175 kWLuleå Energy
Skellefteå, Sweden24%94%64.67€27.381h 5m-11.520DC 120 kWInCharge
Umeå, Sweden53%100%39.30€06h 0m-12.022AC 7 kWHotel

Today we did 458 km over 6:59 hours, with an average speed of 68 km/h, consuming 28.2 kWh/100km.
 
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I might suggest you switch in Sport+ to heat the battery before a charge. Useful in cold when the PCM didn’t preheat
I tried this today – perhaps I didn't do it for long enough – but I didn't notice that much rise in battery temps. I wonder do you also have to drive in a "Sports Plus" manner for it to have an impact? In these conditions my driving is the opposite – very smooth and anticipatory!
 

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I tried this today – perhaps I didn't do it for long enough – but I didn't notice that much rise in battery temps. I wonder do you also have to drive in a "Sports Plus" manner for it to have an impact? In these conditions my driving is the opposite – very smooth and anticipatory!
What a trip today!
Sports Plus should be driven accordingly ;)
 
 




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