Finally another road trip; Stuttgart - Poland - Lithuania - Berlin

It was now a damn long time, but now you can finally think about a road trip again and even do it. And that's exactly what I'm doing now.

This morning we set out, the day's stage is the Polish border approx. 600 km away. On Saturday we want to spend the day in Warsaw and meet a local follower there. Sunday we continue to Kaunas, in Lithuania, there is a good friend at home. Monday / Tuesday we will be there. Then it's slowly going back, but it's not exactly planned yet. Friday evening I arrive in Berlin, Saturday / Sunday is the season finale of Formula E. Monday I'm going to return from the trip, from Berlin via Frankfurt.

I'm talking about us, because my parents drive the Model S in parallel to Kaunas. But they will stay there longer.

And for all who otherwise ask:

I drive on the Autobahn, without the lorry cruising (because I hate that) and with cruise control at 111 km / h. Charging is done at rest stops with 22 kW. In Germany I activate charging stations with mobility + via EnBW; for abroad I now have around every app. Let's see what I'll need. I haven't actively planned charging stations in advance. Usually I only check the next 1-2 stations and look for the next one when the charging stop.

Checked the tire pressure again this morning in Rutesheim, I drive with the front at 2.3 bar and at the rear at 2.5 bar. So factory specifications, higher pressure hardly brings more range and limits the cornering speed. The first charging stop today was at EnBW.

I think I will tell you once a day what was going on during the day.

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Day 1

.. as expected, it consisted of driving, charging, driving, charging, ..

I'm kind of happy every time I drive by Schnaittach. It just looks great when you come down the mountain and the autobahn splits in two around the mountain. I just think it's cool.

As always, I avoid E.OFF charging stations as they live up to their reputation. But sometimes it cannot be avoided. At one of them I found this nice driver:

.. unfortunately my charging port is on the right side and then there is no other sensible way to charge it than to park the driver's door like that.

I have had it a few times in the past. People actually know that they are not allowed to park there, so nobody complains and you then secretly, quietly and quietly, watch that you are getting out of there.

In general I have seen everything today, only snow and hail are missing. Rain, aquaplaning and then putting on your sunglasses again. It changed several times today. After all, the convertible is 100% airtight in all weathers, that's really great.

In the evening I drove by, more or less by chance, this charging station in Chemnitz:

Super pretty and that they were inspired by Fastned, they can't hide either. But in that case it's not that bad, what you did turned out really good.

The toilets have a vacuum cleaner, there is compressed air directly at the charging points and there is also a launch with a terrace and ice above.

.. is definitely a great change there.

But now I'm in the third traffic jam today and this is even including full closure. Let's see when I get to my destination today. But think that there won't be anything exciting anymore today. That’s why I’m currently writing this post, while being stuck.

In total it was a good 600 km. I calculate with a 50 km / h average, including charging. That would still be possible today without a traffic jam.

Tomorrow there will be a good 500 km, then I'll be in Warsaw. Let's see how it goes, according to my reader, it'll be a breeze.

Time for an interim report. Yesterday, after I said "nothing more happens today":

A friend saw the photo from the charging park in Chemnitz and just came by. He caught me on the next charging stop, so we could chat a bit.

And as if you hadn't just driven 600 km away from home, an VW eGolf parked next to me and plugged in. With a license plate from my home town.

And something else for the category "Moritz is a professional":

At the last charging stop, there were no signs at the rest stop indicating where the charging stations are. Accordingly, I was a bit confused at first. But the gut feeling knows normally where to go. In Germany you first have to confidently drive past the gas station and then you will see the charging station somewhere. But not this time. I drove past the gas station and saw nothing. Puzzled as I was, I then carefully watch a Mercedes EQC as it drove out of the gas station. "So, for once, the charging station is right next to the gas station," I thought to myself and drove where the EQC came from.

.. nope, the EQC was also still searching and it wasn't there. Saw him again when I found the column 500 m further.

"Good evening Moritz, let's drive home!"

.. do you think my smart is up to something? Should I tether it to something for the night?

Day 2:

That was a surprisingly relaxed day. But first a photo of the smart in front of the hotel. : saint:

I can recommend GreenWay to anyone who wants to charge reliably in Poland. Nice app, only in Polish, but they all work the same. So it can still be operated without any problems and since they cooperate with NewMotion (i.e. Shell), they are also great to open with our apps. As you should, do not start the first charging stop with an almost empty battery, with a relaxed 50% I successfully tried the first station.

It works without any problems and perfectly. Some people already know the charging hardware from other countries, including Germany.

The next station was then 7 km down the highway and reminded me that I was now in a different country. Where German think "No b, there will certainly be no train. The tracks must be shut down.", but the Polish traffic stops and looks to see if a train is coming. In fact, a train is ringing and trying to get through. Set off when everyone is standing.

Drove through very slowly, but it was also relatively short, so it didn't take longer than for us. Whoever comes down from the autobahn realizes that Poland, just behind the German border, is not a rich country. I think more Germans should be aware of what a nice country we life in. But back on the autobahn and at the rest stops, no savings were made here. Phenomenal roads, bridges and structures, that's really respectable. Nicely done Poland. I don't think anything is older than 5-10 years. At least what I have now driven on the Autobahn.

And the racing driver in me is totally thrilled when there are digital displays on the roadside showing the air and road temperature (difficult to photograph)

.. greenway enjoyes my full confidence but not immediately. Since my parents drove in parallel or rather clearly ahead anyway, I use that for a potentially tight stations. Send them advance to check whether it works.

The only thing you could complain about: There are only charging stations every 80-90 km. With the smart, it is scary if the pillars are unreliable and you would rather have a bit of a buffer. But since everything is running reliably, it's more of a head thing than really an issue. I usually charge up to 80%, as the 22 kW are maintained until then. Now up to almost 100%, since the 11 kW will be charged by then. It costs me 10 minutes each time, but that is time well invested when there is no other buffer left.

.. but what should I say. It worked perfectly. I'm really excited about the charging network in Poland, what I've seen so far works great. The second last even had a buffer battery with it. I guess in order not to overload the local network with the charging currents. I think it's super cool.

Tonight we are having dinner with a local EQpassion follower in Warsaw. The next update and what happened tonight, I'll report tomorrow. Tomorrow we'll be in Warsaw all day.

Thanks for having me.

When we arrived in Warsaw yesterday evening, we were met by two local smart ED drivers. After we found out that I couldn't charge my smart at the hotel, we tried around a bit, but then gave up. But we had left it on the charging area right at the entrance.

As it was getting late, we finally decided to have something to eat. As it is, it was something really good and I don't even know what exactly it was. But the restaurant recommendation was great and we had a great evening with them.

Day 3

Today was packed with sights and supposed to be parks in Warsaw. Really a beautiful city. After breakfast we drove to our smart friends with my smart and my parents Tesla and left my smart there to charge it.

Since there were four of us, we used the Tesla for the city tour. I can't explain and describe everything what we saw today, it was too much, but Warsaw is definitely worth a trip. There are beautiful parks ..

.. a great city centre where they close a main street to pedestrians at the weekend ..

.. and a beautiful old town.

It's really nice here and our smart ED friends are great hosts. Later we are invited to have a barbecue with them. I'm really looking forward to it personally. jas_pik it's just awesome here.

Tomorrow we'll be back on the track. The destination will be Kaunas, only 450 km away, so hopefully a very relaxed day.

The barbecue with jas_pik and his family was really fantastic. Learned a lot, laughed a lot and ate very well. Was really wonderful and an unforgettable hospitality.

I don't have to tell you that we also talked shop a lot about smart and e-mobility in general. Both their and my project list has now become even longer.

Now that they have seen that you can drive the distance, we can hopefully welcome them to Germany next year with their smarties. Maybe even to the smart meeting. Let's see.

Day 4

Before everything else, I want to say that there are many Solaris electric buses in Warsaw. That's really super cool. Still audible, but much more pleasant because it is quieter. Plus, of course, no fumes.

Now the Warsaw - Kaunas trip was due. To my surprise, super stress free. On the Polish side, I continued to take every GreenWay station, so it was super easy to get to the border.

What I noticed was that the motorways are still very good here, but not yet finished everywhere. So there were parts where I had to take country roads, which could actually be called federal highways or expressways. I wasn't traveling much slower than on the autobahn.

Sometimes there were pieces that were already finished and then stopped ...

.. and partly also parts where the parallel road and motorway were already finished, but the motorway was not yet released. I think if you start off today from Germany, then you already have more highways than I had now.

Here is another picture of one of the expressways. Even the traffic wasn't that much, so I didn't have to stop anyone while taking the photo.

.. and in between there was this great photo opportunity in the parking garage in Lomza.

When I arrived at the border, the road and everything was neglected, but sometimes also something already under construction in parallel, so this perspective emerged:

After the border, it was exciting again how things are going with the charge, but that was even easier than with Greenway. There are charging points sponsored by the EU in Lithuania. Triple charger with a small roof and lighting for the night. It's all free, so plug it in and press start.

.. in the end there were more charging stations in Lithuania than I would have needed. But for the photos and because it's so beautiful ..

And then came Kaunas. Goal achieved.

Fun fact:

I drove past the place-name sign and thought "you could take a photo there. But that's really silly, who does that?" .. well and 500 meters further I turned around again and drove back to the sign. It really has to be.

Funfact 2:

In contrast to the old media system, without CarPlay, the CarPlay system cannot change the time, so when you cross the border, you have to do that manually.

Day 5

Yesterday we decided to wait till the thunderstorm in the morning is done and then rented e-scooters, with which we explored the whole city for about 23 km. For those of you who didn't know, Kaunas will be the cultural capital of 2022. Everything that is still under construction in this already beautiful city should then be finished. If you don't have any plans for 2022, you should consider Kaunas.

Beautiful city with everything your heart desires and not massively overcrowded, so it is still very beautiful.

Day 6

On Tuesday we met with Pauli, a good friend and god at the laptop, doing all the smart software stuff. He gave us a nice tour of the city and told us a bit first hand about his experiences here over the past 30-40 years.

We visited the monastery in Kaunas and were amazed at how elaborately it was designed inside. Anyone who knows me for a long time knows that I rarely, if ever, visit churches. But this was worth seeing. Even if it doesn't let the outside expect it, there is a beautiful area outside.

After that we went to another church, I think I have now already exceeded my number of church visits for this year. This one was misused as a warehouse during the Russian occupation and has only been completely restored in the last few years. Beautifully modern, meets my taste very much. Also how they used the natural light in the back.

You can also go up on the flat roof of this church and have a first-class view of Kaunas. I can only recommend it to everyone, you can't put it into pictures.

In the evening, the topic of smart charging was on the agenda. We had a nice hotel, but there were no charging places there. But it wasn't too bad either, there are many charging stations all over the city and most of them are even free of charge. Together with Pauli I went to try one 500 m away. And then successfully charged my smart there.

.. noticeable in Kaunas, but ultimately in all of Poland and Lithuania: there are a relatively large number of vehicles imported from the USA. In Kaunas, it felt like every second Tesla is an US import and 30-50% of all premium vehicles are US imports. They are bought there as accident vehicles, prepared and then back on the streets. Germany wouldn't register them anymore, but here they still drive. It is similar with European premium vehicles; very few in Lithuania are likely to have a national chassis number.

Day 7

That was another little excursion. This time to the capital of Lithuania, Vilnius is almost exactly 100 km from Kaunas and accordingly it was a nice short day trip. From Kaunas, fully charged, it went on the highway, I had planned to recharge a bit on the way. Not necessarily because I needed to, but because I was curious.

In fact, I found the first foreign charging station that was defective. But it wasn't a problem, 10 km further was the next one. But the US BMW i3 was exciting here. The professionals among you can already see what's happening here:

.. you see correctly: Since the i3 comes from the USA, it has the Combo1 connector, not the Combo2 connector. That's CCS with type 1, instead of CCS with type 2. The adapter here is a purely mechanical adapter, electrically Combo1 and Combo2 are the same, the only difference is when it comes to AC charging, Combo1 is 1-phase, Combo3 can also do 3-phase.

If he wanted, he could swap the Combo1 socket for a Combo2 socket. Incidentally, this also works with the US smarties. It doesn't even have to be coded.

The other station on the route was again a charging station sponsored by the EU, including a playground and toilet. Unfortunately I missed taking a picture.

After that, my parents literally drove behind me, which we use to take a few photos of my smart on the street.

Then a quick photo stop at the town sign:

.. and a few more in the city:

You can already see in the two photos that the contrast between the different districts around the outside is big. And in the end, that applies to Poland as well as Lithuania, even if it doesn't always come across like that in my photos.

Once there, we went up to the castle and we enjoyed the view of the city:

In this photo is more of the modern part of the city. In our back it was the rather the older part, but it was also greener. There is something for everyone.

But then we were chased away by a thunderstorm and so we went back to kaunas. What I found exciting, in Lithuania and Poland, there are a lot of trolleybus in the cities. In Vilnius there are also some still in use, which probably belong in the museum, they work together with the much newer trolleybuses. But still the same manufacturer: Solaris

In Vilnius I used the charging app, which is probably the best in Lithuania: Elinta Charge

They have a very intuitive app. You start the charging process on of the charging station, then plug in the cable and it automatically detects which side you have plugged in.

But if you first plug it in and then want to start, the station does not know where the cable belongs and can no longer unlock it .. thankfully the driver of the Chevrolet Volt next door had discussed the case with the hotline for me in the local language, so that I got my cable back. (Yes, Chevrolet Volt, another US import, in Europa we get them as Opel Ampera)

Tomorrow I will return to Berlin, Friday evening in Berlin, Thursday evening somewhere east of Warsaw. My parents will say a few more days in Lithuania.

Day 8

Today it was quite relaxed again. The well-known route back to Warsaw, but then a little further to the west. And instead of going down towards southern Germany, now to eastern Germany. We now know that GreenWay is reliable and it is awesome. I also noticed (only now ) that I can switch the app to English. Now I have an account at GreenWay and can use it to activate the charging stations. This way, the kWh only costs € 0.28 instead of € 0.61. I should have noticed earlier.

.. actually exciting that GreenWay can operate the Efatec columns reliably, while the E.ON just doesn't get them reliably working in Germany.

Also had great weather.

For long distances I have now decided to drive with 101 km / h, if the roof open, so not only does the range remain the same compared to the closed ride, it is also much more pleasant with the wind. Even while still having the windows up at 101 km / h. When I cruise through the Black Forest, I set the limiter to 90 km / h, simply because faster in cabrio mode dosen't cruising.

And last but not least, a GreenWay charging station right at the hotel. I think it's super cool.

Funfact:

While the ready2 app has a network connection in Litaunia and Poland, the smart EQ control app only works in Poland. Reason for that should be, that both got a seperate control module. But still, it's a bit strange from e developer point of view.

Naa, I won't drive as much as I did with the old one. But still, after about 6 months, it has already got 10.000 km.

.. and still: That's way less than what I did with the old one. 😅

Day 9

430 km from the hotel in Poland to Berlin. With beautiful weather and without any problems. I can now justifiably say that I haven't had any total charging station breakdowns abroad, that's really great. Only the one station, which I wanted to use for the sake of completeness anyway and then just charged 10 km further down the road.

So it started in the most beautiful sunshine and as I already new, the route is peppered with several toll stations. In the end it was roughly 25 € for the 250 km of toll stations.

I used the great weather to drive open again and really enjoyed it.

In the afternoon I closed it again because it got too warm with > 30 ° C in the blazing sun. Then again the air conditioning to 21 ° C. Arrived in Germany was a charging stop in an industrial area near the motorway and within walking distance of a Mercedes dealer that also sells smarties. I actually wanted to stroll a bit in the showroom and see if they might have a solarflare Edition there.

Instead, they looked at me a little aghast, no new is smart here .. just a new one outside at the wallbox. Whether I want to look at a bit of dusty used ones outside? I have no idea how I came up with the idea that you could look at new cars in the showroom.

.. after this disappointment I realized that the construction site of Tesla's plant in Germany is now 1: 1 on my route. So stopped by there. Is a huge construction site, but unfortunately has no viewing platform. I had almost expected, for the children and the kids (like me).

And finally arrived at the hotel. With EnBW charging station in the yard.

Today I'm going to Formula E with a friend and because it's the last season and therefore the last two races with Audi, we're for Audi. They just drove great races every season and it's a real shame that they are leaving. Especially since they were a founding member.

Day 10

What a day, what a race, that's what motorsport has to be like and experience has shown that tomorrow should be even better.

It all started with a test drive of the Mercedes EQA, simply because we had the chance to. Pre-production car, finally an electric platform. In itself absolutely okay, but of course not a fortwo

Then we went to the site and Audi intends to leave with style. Personally, I found this vehicle line-up in particular cool:

.. 7 seasons, 7 different stickers, now interpreted on the Audi etron GT. As someone who was actually there every season (except Corona), it was really great to see.

And then it finally the race:

As announced, we were for Audi, more precisely Di Grassi, since he is an original driver. Has been there since season 1 and drove awesome races, great shows. Together with Daniel Abt, although unfortunately he is already no longer there. And as it should be, Di Grassi fought his way from 3rd place to 1st place, lost it again and then got it back and defended it. My warmest congratulations.

.. yeah, and Mercedes drove very badly, they haven't been in for that long and in my opinion they are rather half-hearted. By the way, as long as quick Nick drove, I was for him, so since season 1.

After the race we cruised around a bit. Passed the new BER airport, it looks great.

.. should I wash my smart?

And another Easter egg:

Did you know that I drove to Formula E in my 3.7 kW smart ED, back in 2017? Was a road trip in great weather and one way was only took 3 days. Had a good friend and two folding chairs with me. About 200 km a day, charged once overnight at the hotel and then recharged another 100% in around 5 hours on the way. Even I won't do that anymore, once that's enough.

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Day 11

What a second race, wow. But first our test drive that day, the EQV.

.. not that we would want to buy one, but when you have the opportunity to drive it. Why not? Nice car, but just huge. But in contrast to SUVs, there is also a lot of space inside, not just a rolling waste of space. If I had children or needed something with a lot of space, I would want something like that instead of an SUV.

But now to the race:

An accident right away from the start line, the race was interrupted and then when the race started again, a BMW bissed his breaking point and slid over all four tieres past our grandstand. Meanwhile, there was a tough fight for places and Mercedes finally won both titles. Audi meanwhile was unfortunately anything but lucky and Di Grassi even received a drive-through penalty.

That was an extremely emotional race, especially in the stands. Real racing, wonderful. And there's nothing like experiencing something like that on site instead of on TV. That's why I come to Berlin every year. At some point to Paris too.

Since my friend has never driven smart, let alone eSmart, we changed that on the weekend. On Saturday and Sunday I sat in my passenger seat almost all the time. He parked the smart into this huge parking space and was (nevertheless ) enthusiastic about how easy it was with the smart. Usually he drives Renault Zoe and Model 3.

In the evening I met a user of this forum for dinner. It was super cool and a great way to end the vacation.