This week I took the SR/S for a work trip to Berkshire, a trip of 430 miles over 3 days. I decided to take the Givi top box, rather than the Kriega drypacks, and see how the top box compared on practicality and fuel efficiency. On previous trips I've cut cross country to the M42 near Bromsgrove, then headed down the M40 until I needed a full charge in Banbury, roughly half way between home and the office. Then back onto the M40 to High Wycombe, onto the A404(M) to Maidenhead and finally back east on the M4.
The majority of these miles were at motorway speeds, so I expected fuel consumption to be around 180Wh per mile, giving me a range of 70 miles. However on this trip I was seeing well over 200Wh per mile, which meant that I needed two charging stops on the motorway. Whilst the weather was a little chillier than previously, I believe the increased fuel consumption was down to the aerodynamics of the top box. Admittedly this is based on a statistical sample of 1 journey, so I'll keep an eye on this for future trips.
To split the journey into thirds, I decided to use the GridServe Electric Highway chargers at Warwick and Cherwell services. Since their recent upgrade all of the motorway chargers appear to support 22kW AC Type 2 connectors, so I could get the maximum 12kW that the SR/S can draw.
It was interesting to see that the SR/S continues charging at 12kW all the way to 100% state of charge, and doesn't taper off at higher percentages. Also that cruising at 70mph for 60 miles, then charging at 12kW, then another stint at 70mph and another charging session at 12kW didn't raise the battery temp above the central band. It seems that if you really wanted to, you could complete long journeys at speed with very predictable charging stops.
The bonus of the trip was a visit to Sweeney & Todd in Reading, genuinely the best chicken, honey and mustard pies anywhere!
