Tesla sets another record breakthrough in Guinness Book of Records courtesy of its popular Model 3 sedan. The Tesla Model 3 achieved the shortest ever total charging time in an electric vehicle (EV) while driving from John O’Groats to Land’s End.
The previous record of 3 hr 44 min 33 sec was achieved by Jeff Allan (USA/UK) and Ben Cottam-Allan (UK) on October 7, 2015. The father and son team drove from John O’Groats to Land’s End in a Tesla P85D.
On the 12th of September, 2020, the trio of Zero Carbon World’s Dean Fielding, Chairman and ABB FIA Formula E Championship racing driver Alexander Sims and EV specialist David Peilow covered a 855 mile journey in 15 hours and46 minutes driving a Tesla Model 3 vehicle.
Three representatives achieved the record-breaking time of 1 hour 31 minutes and 32 seconds during a sponsored run by Zero Carbon World charity, smashing the old record by more than two hours.
The team stopped to replenish the Tesla Model 3 at three 350kW IONITY stations in Perth (Perth and Kinross), Gretna Green (Dumfries and Galloway) and Cullompton (Devon), along with one 150kW Tesla Supercharger station in Essington (South Staffordshire), just to make sure not to overcharge the Model 3 during the record-breaking run.
“We didn’t overcharge the car at any time,” said Zero Carbon World chairman, Alexander Sims. “We were mostly charging somewhere in the 50-60% region, with one of our charging stops taking the car to 80%. We would make it to the next charger with around 4-5% remaining. David did all the calculations for us and it was very well predicted.”
Made it at 22:16.
15h 46m overall.
1h 31m 32s of charging.
Old record well and truly smashed! pic.twitter.com/Z7GLrif1nz
— Zero Carbon World (@ZeroCarbonWorld) September 12, 2020
According to Zero Carbon trustee Dan Fielding, there was a massive improvement over the past decade on EV, charging capabilities and charging infrastructure. They want this record-breaking event to bring attention to the fact that the UK is increasingly becoming EV-friendly and that making the switch to an EV is feasible, practical and enjoyable for both long and short journeys.
The performance specification of a standard production Tesla Model 3 was carefully taken into consideration for this world record attempt.
Peilow stated that they averaged 6.05km/kWh, with a charging efficiency of 97% during the journey. He added, “When considering the grid carbon intensity and losses, we averaged 19.5g CO2/km. The Tesla Model 3 Performance was chosen for the record attempt due to its charging capacity, rate and range. Not all EVs could achieve the charging time we did, but plenty of EV models are capable of comfortably making the epic road trip, simply by charging to 80% rather than our minimal charges.”
The average time it takes to fully charge an electric vehicle through a regular charging station still takes hours. However, the event certainly proved that there are improvements in the UK with regards to EV technology and charging infrastructure.
Range and charging time are two of the biggest and most important criteria for people who are interested in buying electric vehicles around the world. To reduce these concerns among those prospective buyers, EV technology, batteries, and charging stations were constantly improving through the decades.
The less cost of charging compared to gas also improves the buyers perspective on EVs. The approximate Supercharger cost is $0.26 per kilowatt hour while gasoline cost assumes a 28 MPG for a Model 3 at $2.85 per gallon.
Tesla has currently installed a total of 1,971 Supercharger Stations with 17,467 Superchargers in Asia, North America, Europe, and the Middle East. The nearest and most convenient charging points can also be navigated and viewed in the Tesla app.
“Since I last made this journey back in 2011, the charging infrastructure has improved dramatically across the UK. High-speed charging networks such as IONITY use the CCS charging standard that many EVs use. It’s fantastic to see the national charging network growing in the UK and across Europe to make such long journeys easy and accessible for more EV drivers.” said Peilow.
Sims exclaimed that the support of the EV community played a major role in completing the record attempt. He added, “Thank you to the fantastic support that we received at each charging station from fellow EV drivers. They helped us to gather all the required data, images and video in order to fully catalogue the record attempt, and we will be submitting this to Guinness World Records with the hope that it will be able to validate the attempt in the coming weeks.”
Zero Carbon World, a charity that was established in 2009, has funded more than 700 EV charging points across the UK. The charity aims to bring carbon reduction projects in the UK, challenging misconceptions surrounding carbon reduction among individuals and organizations, and encourage the widespread adoption of sustainable solutions.
