Charging in Moscow, Russia

Posted on by eexplorer
Moscow and its traffic

Moscow is huge, really huge.  With 13.2 million residents, it’s supposed to be the largest city on the European continent. Traffic is crazy in Moscow. The craziness is incomparable to Tehran (see this post), but traffic congestions are a major issue in Moscow. If you want to go anywhere, better take the Metro, because otherwise you might stand for a long time in one of the many traffic jams.

We left the Tesla parked for 3 days in front of our Airbnb house. The apartment that we rented was well situated and we could use the Metro to get in the city-center or even almost walk there.

Just being tourist

We spent one day at the Kremlin, but I got soon enough of all those tourists that heavily occupy the sights and the area around them. The other day we visited the Jewish Museum of Moscow. We learned a lot – not only about the Jewish, but also the Russian history. It was absolutely worth visiting the museum.

Moscow Tesla Club

There are about 300 Teslas in Russia. Many of them were resold by the Moscow Tesla Club. Tesla is not officially present in Russia yet. A team around Igor and Alexey established a great store around Tesla and Electric Vehicles (the team also distributes EV worldwide), as well as their own “service center”. One could feel the enthusiasm everyone had at the Moscow Tesla Club. We loved talking to Igor and exchanging stories of our journey and experiences with EVs together.

After a while being a Belgium couple appeared in the store. They traveled to Moscow by Tesla as well (they took a more direct root than we did, though). It was fantastic seeing another frunk, stuffed with cables and adapters. Sharing charging stories and other nerdy EV-talk was fun. It is special to us, if we aren’t the one who explain how everything works and what kind of UFO we travel with, but if the other side understands and can even give us advice.

First Supercharger since 3.5 month!

The Moscow Tesla Club helped to set up a Supercharger close to Moscow’s city border. Of course, it’s situated at a very posh golf club. We wouldn’t be the average Tesla driver in Russia. Usually a Tesla owner in Russia owns also 5 other expensive cars and has no idea where else to spend its money… anyways, we’re super excited to see for charging booths (3 European and 1 American – a combination of these charging facilities doesn’t exist anywhere else on the world).

We plugged in and the wires that weren’t exposed to anything more than 22kW for almost 4 months took the 90kW that this Superchager provided, very well. It will take us three to four more weeks until we’ll reach the next supercharger in Poland. We love the convenience of supercharging a lot (especially while travelling). I guess our journey really taught us to appreciate this comfort way more actively.

outlet/socket Volt Ampere kW kWh
Supercharger 88 kW 60 kWh

Charging in Almaty, Kazakhstan

Posted on by eexplorer
Enjoying Askar’s hospitality

Like in Bishkek, we also had in Almaty the privilege to be welcomed by members of the Tesla-family. Askar, himself an owner of a Tesla Model S and X, invited us to stay for 3 days in an entire house (three-floors with garden). The house was on the same road as his office building. Askar installed at his office different chargers. One of them a super nice 32 amperes wall-box. It was such a pleasure charging there! We were super grateful for meeting him and for all his hospitality. It really makes us happy to meet people like Askar on our journey.

Tesla meeting at Shymbulak

Electric vehicles don’t have many advantages in Almaty. But one of them is that you can drive up a hill to a skiing resort (Shymbulak), where no other cars are allowed (everyone else must go up to the village with a cable car). Together with Daniyar and Sanzhar, other Tesla owners of Almaty, we spent an afternoon on that hill and enjoyed lunch. Later that evening we had fun at a local brewery (that is owned by another Tesla driver). Almaty is a soviet city, but many parks and trees make the city very welcoming. We were surprised on the many super expensive cars we saw in the city. This together with the scenic view of the Tian Shan mountains made us feel like being in Zurich 😉. Even though we were only 300 km away from the Chinese border.

Supercharger in Almaty

At the above-mentioned Tesla meeting in the mountain restaurant, Sanzhar, one of the craziest Tesla drivers (he took this video of a swimming Tesla) told us about a “supercharger” in Almaty. In fact, the charger isn’t that “super”, since it offers only 10 amperes and has an American plug. That means, we can’t even use it. But, it was still fun checking it out.

Almaty was a welcoming city and we enjoyed having an entire house to ourselves. We didn’t really wanted to leave, but we knew, that new adventures were waiting for us.

outlet/socket Volt Ampere kW kWh
wallbox 210-230 volt 3 * 32 amperes 22 kW 70 kWh

Charging in Split, Croatia

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A deserted supercharger in Split was our last supercharger for the upcoming 3 months. We were enjoying the sun in front of the hotel that is right behind the supercharger. It felt strange leaving the security and easiness of the Tesla Supercharger. From now on, every single charging will be a challenge. Sometimes easier to solve, sometimes harder.

We left the supercharger area with 100% in our car. This would bring us until Sarajevo in Bosnia & Herzegovina. That evening, we would make it only to Mostar though.