Completing a 16-day, nine-country rally across the Baltic Sea is tough enough. Doing it in an all-electric automotive looks like, well, madness. Right? Well, that’s exactly what my husband and I did, tackling the 2024 Baltic Sea Circle Rally in a European-spec short wheelbase Volkswagen ID. Buzz Pro EV.
The Baltic Sea Circle Rally is the brainchild of Hamburg, Germany-based rally organization Superlative Adventure Club (SAC). Run since 2011, the Baltic Sea Circle Rally is an element fun run and part competition, touring through backroads with no GPS and only paper maps, filled with a large sense of adventure as teams camped along the best way.
Every year, the Baltic Circle Sea Rally (each summer and winter iterations) asks teams to lift no less than 500 euros (roughly $540 USD) for his or her favorite charity. We selected to support The Jessi Combs Foundation – the charity named in honor of the late racer and TV personality, which educates and supports young women looking for careers in automotive trades and similar fields. Together with several generous donors, we raised $3,239 USD (over 2,985 euros) for the nonprofit.
Unlike some competitions in North America, just like the Alcan 5000 Rally, the Baltic Sea Circle Rally is an adventure rally where unique every day challenges and off-the-wall missions created an exciting journey across the Baltic Sea while basking within the midnight sun. There have been 140 teams entered on this 12 months’s Baltic Sea Circle Rally, with all but one team not from Europe or its nearby regions: us. My husband and I traveled from Oregon to Germany to compete. We were also the one team piloting an all-electric vehicle this 12 months — an incredible feat given we wanted to travel 5,000 miles through nine countries.
Where did the rally take us?
Some rallies, like time-speed-distance competitions, are based on precision and particular routes. However the Baltic Sea Circle Rally has a suggested course that’s noted in a thick spiral-bound roadbook. It might loosely be followed, so long as you cross the finish line. Or, as some teams did, you can massively deviate from the course or head home early in the event you selected.
Teams began in northern Germany and worked their way through the eight of the nine countries that meet the Baltic Sea, plus Norway. Over the 16-day duration, June 22 through July 7, we drove a clockwise route through Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Despite the name, we didn’t actually spend much time near the Baltic Sea.
That was very true after we achieved one in every of our personal goals: drive to the northernmost point in all of Europe: Nordkapp, Norway, aka the North Cape. This special place beckons adventurers with its steep cliffs and iconic globe sculpture situated at 71°10′21″N 25°47′04″E. Nordkapp is just 1,306 miles from the North Pole and is taken into account the mid-point of the Baltic Circle Sea Rally.
An enormous green box with a Ququq BusBox
Our 2024 Volkswagen ID. Buzz Pro arrived sporting a really cool Bay Leaf Green paint job with an identical Jade Green/Mistral two-tone interior. Unlike the minivan-like three-row ID. Buzz that can eventually come to america, this was the Euro-spec, short-wheelbase two-row model that’s mainly an infinite hatchback with sliding doors. Emphasis on enormous. Besides its sheer capability, it features several smartly designed areas for storage, including a clever floor-mounted center console with bins, drawers and cubbies that’s removable and reversible, benefiting from the vehicle’s storage capabilities. It even features a secret bottle opener.
Our ID. Buzz Pro van also featured a Ququq BusBox-4 camping system for sleeping, cooking, and storing gear — an additional installed for the rally. This unique interior camp unit is simple to establish in any ID. Buzz. Simply fold the rear seats down, secure the Ququq camp box in place, and voilà, the ID. Buzz turns right into a camper van. The system works super-well; it’s well built, thoughtfully designed, sturdy and simple to make use of.
Volkswagen’s volts
This Euro-spec ID. Buzz has a single rear motor that generates 201 HP and 229 pound-feet of torque, which is identical output because the ID.4 Standard sold here in america, albeit with an even bigger, 82-kilowatt battery. Considering the ID. Buzz is an even bigger vehicle, it shouldn’t be surprising that it’s quite slow, hitting 62 mph (100 km/h) in 10.2 seconds.
As this was an earlier-built 2024 ID. Buzz, that 82-kWh battery was said to attain 250 to 262 miles of range, but that’s on the uber-optimistic WLTP European testing cycle. Here’s what it actually managed. After 36 charges and extensive statistical evaluation, our ID. Buzz Pro netted a big selection of total kilometers after charging to 100%. On the high end, we actually surpassed that WLTP estimate. As an example, we charged in Molde, Norway, arriving with 57% and 272 kilometers (169 miles) of charge left. We had lots of distant traveling coming up, so we decided to top off. After 38 minutes to achieve 100% charge, we bumped our ID. Buzz as much as a powerful 467 km (290 miles). We also managed two other charges that topped over 440 kilometers (273 miles). Conversely, we amassed just a few charges that hardly topped 200 miles when fully charging it.
Our VW ID. Buzz Pro was said to have a 30-minute charge time from 5% to 80% SOC (state of charge), in the event you used DC charging at 170kW, the max it will handle. This timeframe seemed accurate in comparison with our figures.
Many of the chargers in our nine-country jaunt were 150 kilowatt (just a few were faster), though after we crossed from Finland into the Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, ultra-fast chargers were hard to return by. Most were 22 kW or lower, with occasional 50 kW units mixed in. We packed patience and left earlier each morning as other teams still slept so we could keep pace with the competition.
Volkswagen ID. Buzz impressions
“I used to be fearful about whether or not we would have enough range between charges,” my husband Andy said. This was his first long-distance endurance event in an all-electric vehicle. “There have been so many unknowns having an EV in Europe; I fearful we would run out of charge in the midst of nowhere.”
Nonetheless, after ending, Andy was confident in traveling longer distances with an EV, especially as we were driving one with a comparatively modest range just like the ID. Buzz.
Beyond its EV-ness, the ID. Buzz has great outward visibility and it was capable of do all the things we desired to do in it, including sleeping, storing gear and cooking. The ID. Buzz never lacked a spot to place gear, and remember, we had the smaller, two-row model. The one which’ll show up in america shall be greater, complete with a 91-kWh battery and a more powerful 282-hp motor from the updated ID.4. A dual-motor, all-wheel-drive variant good for 335 hp shall be available. It’ll even have an updated infotainment system and interior controls, unlike ours that was still blighted by what got here in the unique ID.4.
Charging challenges (and consequent wins)
Previous ralliers told us to cover no less than 310 miles (500 km) a day to complete the rally in time. Nonetheless, we pressed beyond and forged our way through 500 miles (800+ km) multiple days.
Most days we charged least thrice, maintaining continual reserves in case broken chargers, missing machines, etc. delayed us. That was a great call, it happened multiple times.
Seems charging an electrical vehicle in Germany is quite difficult for Americans. We couldn’t download German charging apps to our U.S.-based phones, nor could we pay with our American bank cards at German chargers as they inevitably required apps, special charging cards or RFID keys. Thankfully, we knew this prematurely and enlisted my German nephew, Pual, to present us a hand. Not only did he procure quite a few those special charging cards, he loaned us an old iPhone that might in truth work with the varied German charging apps.
Once in Scandinavia, nevertheless, we were capable of download charging apps and will use our phones to pay for charging. We also were capable of use Tesla Superchargers.
The eastern side of the Baltic Sea brought recent challenges. Once we crossed into Estonia, no app would work, including the brand new ones we loaded. Our initial research showed they need to have, but that gave the impression to be incorrect. The Baltic nations’ Circle K chargers were apparently not the identical as Scandinavia’s Circle Ks, and that app didn’t work, either. Even Tesla now not worked in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, plus Poland.
We weren’t dead within the water, though. Recent QR codes and app download instructions on charge machines got here to the rescue. Greenway is the biggest charging system in Poland, and once we figured that out it became our go-do charging system until back in Germany.
All told, it was fascinatingly complicated to determine the way to pilot an all-electric vehicle through nine countries and 4,771 miles with European phones and bank cards. That’s an infrastructure, technology and banking issue, though. Once charging sessions were authorized, our 2024 ID. Buzz was seamless and trustworthy, giving us smooth charging experiences time after time.
There’s also hope for the longer term. By 2027, recent European EV chargers shall be mandated to just accept bank cards with no need charging accounts, with existing units being retrofitted. Only two of the 36 chargers we used had direct bank card capability.
Crossing the finish line
In brief, we successfully accomplished the 16-day, nine-country international rally in our electric Volkswagen van. After crossing the finish line, we became the primary duo that lived outside of the European Union or adjoining country to compete in and finish an SAC rally with an EV. We also proved a very important point: Long-distance EV travel is possible. It takes planning, patience and suppleness, especially when things need to vary, but what we achieved is a complete lot harder than attempting to travel 4,771 miles through nine American states. Our charging infrastructure still needs a ton of labor, but no less than you don’t must borrow your nephew’s phone or download 13 different charging apps.
This Article First Appeared At www.autoblog.com
