Charging in Samarkand, Uzbekistan

Like Bukhara, Samarkand used to be an important city for traders between Europe and China. Different rulers build remarkable buildings during different centuries in Samarkand. Thanks to a continues renovation since the Russians came to Uzbekistan, tourists in Samarkand can now marvel at impressive buildings.

Did our charging cause a electricity outlet?

We stayed at a small, family owned hotel, a bit outside of the main attraction area. The car was parked in their garage and at first, we tried charging on a Schuko. The electricity fluctuation was, again, too large, so charging stopped shortly after it started. After this happened the second time, Benedikt found the fuse box of the house. Of course, they had three-phase electricity ;-). He connected the cables of our “open adapter” and we started to charge with 16 amperes. After setting everything up, he returned to me in the hotel-room and then it made “click” and there was a power outage. Uuuuups, was it us?!? We were already expecting to have a major discussion to explain that we can also charge with less amperes and so on. But, the blackout wasn’t our fault. The whole city was out of power. Since the generator was turned on only few minutes after the outage started, this seems to happen quite frequently in Samarkand. We continued charging the following day (only with 10 amperes, to be on the safe side), when power was back.

Just being tourists

Our current rhythm of stopping at a city for 2 days, feels good to us. That way, we also had in Samarkand a whole day to wonder from sight to sight. We hated the terrible price discrimination in Iran for touristic sights (tourists pay about 8-times more than Iranians), but in Samarkand it was even higher. As a tourist, you are supposed to pay 13-times the prices an Uzbek is paying. At least, that price is still almost half of the entry fees one needed to pay in Iran (Iran: 5 USD for every sight – Uzbekistan: 3 USD for largest sight in town). The sight we payed it for (Registan) was absolutely stunning and definitely worth that money.

Last thing to mention is that we were one more time extremely lucky with finding an excellent restaurant in Samarkand. We were guests at a beautiful and delicious restaurant in Bukhara. At both restaurants, we didn’t pay much more than 10€ (for a three-course dinner). Going to restaurants in Uzbekistan has been a blast so far 😉.

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
connection to fuse-box 220 volt 3 * 10 amperes  7 kW  50 kWh

Charging in Mary and visiting ancient Merv, Turkmenistan

Mary

It was possible to charge the Tesla at the hotel in Mary. There was a three-phase connection outside the building and we just had to connect our open wires to the fuses.

 

Merv

Mary is an oasis city in the Karakum Desert. It was an important place of shelter and trade on the historical Silk Road. The city followed the streams of the Murghab river. The current city Mary exits only since about 150 years. 5 older cities with traces of village life as far back as the 3rd millennium BC. Not much is left of the older cities. The area where they used to be is now known as Merv. One can still visit the city walls and some buildings today. The areal is huge and one can imagine that Merv was in the 12th century for a short time the largest city of the world.

We visited the ancient town after a night in Mary. It was impressive, even though the sun burned down and it was terribly hot. After this visit we drove 200 km on bad roads from Mary to Turkmenabat. Benedikt had to pay close attention to the road to not drive into one of the many, deep potholes.

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
 connection to fuse box  220 volt  3 * 12 amperes  7 kW  45 kWh

Charging in Tehran, Iran

Setting up a meeting in Tehran

The evening in Qom (see this post) Mohammad from Tehran wrote us an email that he really wants to meet us and see the Tesla. He is such a big Tesla fan and it would just mean to world to him to meet us. We didn’t mind fulfilling his wish, since we would pass Tehran anyways on our way up north. Although, after having shown the car to a countless amount of people, the excitement on our side has gone a bit. Since a meeting is usually most fruitful, if both sides fully enjoy it, Benedikt asked Mohammad, if he can provide us with three-phase electricity. That way we could charge the car and show it to him meanwhile. A fully-charged car would also allow us to go straight to the Elbrus mountains and camp outside (otherwise we would have needed to stay in a city one more night to charge the car at a hotel or somewhere else). After having spent 11 nights “indoors” we felt ready for a night in the car.

Charging in Tehran (once more)

Mohammad found three-phase electricity right next to his home. It was in a former factory that hasn’t been used for a long time. The outlets, unfortunately, were super old and we didn’t have the correct adapter. In Iran, we probably already charged more often with a self-fixed solution than with a proper outlet and adapters. We were happy to find a fuse-box in one of the buildings. Unfortunately, we couldn’t disconnect the fuses. That means, Benedikt had to attach our wires with the connection being under high voltage. That can be a bit dangerous… Benedikt calls it “an operation on the open heart”. Luckily everything went well and we started charging with 32 amperes on all phases!

The car was fully charged after about 2 hours (we spend the waiting time at Mohammad’s house). The only dangerous moment with everything being under voltage occurred when Benedikt was disconnecting our wires from the fuse box. While doing so, our neutral connection disconnected from its supposed connection unintentionally. If this neutral connection would have touched one of the phases, our NRGkick could have been ruined. As the NRGkick is still working, we were lucky, I guess.

In busy evening traffic, we left Teheran. In the valley before the PASS after that a decline towards the Caspian Sea starts, we found a quite spot to spend the night.

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
 Connection to fuse-box  220 volt  3*32 amperes  22 kW  about 30

Charging in Qom, Iran

Arriving to Qom

After a night without much sleep in the awful hostel of Naein (see this post), we spend a few hours on the road, direction north. It was hot outside (up to 42 degrees Celsius), matching to the desert like nature, we were passing through.

In the afternoon, we reached Qom. Qom is considered holy by Shiʿa Islam, as it is the site of the shrine of Fatema Mæ’sume, sister a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. The city is the largest center for Shiʿa scholarship in the world, and is a significant destination of pilgrimage. Neither Benedikt nor I were excited to visit the city, but the Tesla needed energy.

Electricity at the hotel’s basement

Remembering our “tragedy” in Zanjan (see this post), I was already expecting not much help from the first hotel that we approached. I enjoyed it so much to be proven wrong. The receptionist offered us tea while we were waiting for the answer of the electrician. A little bit later Benedikt drove the car via elevator in the basement of the hotel. There he set up a charging connection with the connections hanging on a wooden board. It seemed like they just waited there for us to connect. The hotel’s electrician helped.

We enjoyed a rest at the. The next morning, the elevator luckily lifted the Tesla up out of the basement again (I wasn’t so sure about that – the Tesla weighs 2.3 tons). With a fully charged car we continued our journey towards north – destination the east shore of Tehran.

 

 

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
 connection with three-phase wires  220 volt  3*32 amperes possible

3*6 amperes used

 4 kw  50

Charging in Isfahan, Iran

Besides the hotel offers in Kashan (see this post), we received many, many more messages after our ask for three-phase electricity on Instagram. Most people who messaged us either told us what touristic places to visit or they asked when they can see us.

In fact, our number 1 problem always is, how to charge the car. After that we need to find a place to sleep and eat. Sometimes the order and priority is different ;-). Only after those three problems (and sometimes additional ones like laundry, grocery shopping and so on) are solved, we start thinking about what sights to see or whom to meet.

Soheil in Isfahan was the only one who clearly understood what our problem is (the need for a place to charge the Tesla). He offered us three-phase electricity in his father’s factory.

Charging #1

Of course, we didn’t know what to expect when we drove to the industrial town of Isfahan. But the surprises couldn’t have been bigger. We were welcomed by Soheil, his mother and his sister, Mehrnoush, as well as one of his friends, Ali. Soheil and Ali were very curious about the car. Benedikt spend the afternoon talking to them and explaining. I spend the same time with Mehrnoush and her mom, wonderful people, who it was so great talking to. We all share the same interest in mountaineering. Especially the dad of the family, who unfortunately died last fall and who we would have loved to meet, was a great climber and hiker. He started in the 1980s a company for everything climbers need out of metal (carabiners, pitons, crampons, ice picks…) and other metal products (tea pots).

 

While we were chatting, and visiting the factory, the Tesla was charging on a stable three-phase outlet (Montenegro style) with 32 amperes and 22 kW.

It was really a great afternoon we spend together with the Samavatis. We just couldn’t refuse an invitation from the family to stay at their place overnight and have dinner together. This kind of hospitality is just amazing and we had a wonderful time at their apartment.

Meeting our fans

I was sick the third day in Isfahan (probably eat/drank something wrong). Due to that Benedikt had to go to a meeting of our “fans” by himself. We set up this meeting since many people waned to meet us (and see the car). We didn’t want them all at our hotel. About 25 to 30 people showed up for this meeting. Like any Tesla-newbie Benedikt could easily entertain them with the soundless car, suspension control, the car key, frunk and so on.

Charging #2

Before we left we went another time to Soheil and his family. Again, we had a great time together and the car charged up to 98%. This time, the cable/fuse didn’t really take the 32 amperes though. After about 1 hour charging, a fuse blew and the charging stopped. We only noticed at that point that the fuse was made for 25 amperes and the outlet for 16 amperes. It worked the first time to push 32 amperes through them, but after the fuse-blow we continued charging only with 20 amperes (on all three phases).

 

 

 

 

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
 Montenegro outlet  220 volt  3*32 amperes  22 kW  about 50
 Montenegro outlet  220 volt  3*20 amperes  16 kW  about 40

 

 

Charging in Kashan, Iran

Hotel offers – two extremes

We put a post on Instagram asking for help to charge our car with three-phase electricity between Tehran and Isfahan. That evening (Wednesday, 31st of May) we received 2 calls from hotels in Kashan.

The person on the first call wanted to sell us a room for 7.000.000 Rial (IRR). That is about 190€. The standard of Iranian hotels is in average quite low and so far, I didn’t see any hotel that was worth 190€/night. Somehow some people in the Iranian tourism industry didn’t understand yet, that tourists are neither dumb nor do they like to be fooled with. We experienced it several times, that we are asked a lot more (meaning up to 5 times more) to pay because we are foreign tourists. An other example are entrance fees of monuments. They always cost 200.000 IRR (5,50€) for non-persian speakers and 30.000 IRR (0,80€) for Iranians. I think this price discrimination is not only disproportional, but is also harming the Iranian tourism industry in the long term.

The second call we received this evening was another hotel manager, who was advertising his hotel and confirming that they have three-phase electricity. After a while Benedikt asked politely how much all of this will cost. He answered that it won’t cost anything for us. The owner of the hotel wants to give us a night for free, since she is a nature lover and appreciates that we are doing our journey with an electric vehicle. That is the other side of Iran. Some people are so generous and hospitable that we sometimes can’t believe that this is happening to us.

Beautiful renovated estate welcoming us for a night

We agreed with the hotel manager that we would arrive the next evening at his hotel. After we left in the afternoon Tehran and its traffic, the Tesla was nicely cruising along the high way towards Kashan. It was still very hot there (above 35 degrees Celsius). Kashan is almost in the Maranjab Desert and looks like a “desert town”. Small, one story high buildings out of loam are typical of Kashan. The hotel manager opened an old, unspectacular door when we pressed the doorbell to one of those loam buildings. Already the first sight into that old house was breath taking. Due to the hot climate, it is not build up in the air but two floors deep. On the ground or deepest story, there is a pictures inner courtyard with a squared pond in the middle. The whole building was renovated with so much care for detail that we almost felt like staying in a museum.

We spend a very calm and relaxing evening in the above-mentioned courtyard and enjoyed that the heat of the day slowly vanished. That evening we also met the lady, who owns the building and invited us. She herself is the architect who renovated the property. One could feel her love for good design and the nature. We were absolutely honored to be her guest.

Charging on a newly installed three-phase outlet

The hotel manager organized in the evening that an electrician would install a three-phase outlet at the fuse box that was right at the entrance door. In the morning, we charged the car from the newly installed plug for about two to three hours. Once more, we left an hotel with a fully charged car.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
 Montenegro outlet  220 volt  3*20 amperes  16 kW  about 50

 

 

Charging in Teheran, Iran

At least Benedikt and I don’t really mind high elevations. It didn’t affect us to sleep at 3000-meter elevation in the Elbrus mountains between the Caspian Sea and Tehran (not to be mixed up with mount Elbrus in Russia ;-)). The mountains are impressive and once more, we enjoyed the loneliness and quietness of a camping night.

Press conference, video take and photo session in Tehran

We arrived in Tehran from the north. Our hotel was in the north of the city and we didn’t have to go through Tehran traffic for too long. Traffic in Tehran is crazy. There are too many cars and everyone seems to not stick to the street lines. This leads to cars blocking each other’s way and just being way to close to each other. Benedikt is actually managing that kind of traffic really calmly and good. For me it is already enough to be the Co-pilot 😉.

At the hotel, we met Tafazoli and Hosein, both working for an Iranian car magazine (asbe bokhar – horse power). We took wonderful pictures of the car with them and a video. On the second evening in Teheran, Tafazoli organized a meeting and press conference with BYD, a Chinese car manufacturer that is also producing electric vehicles (this article was published about the evening). Feeling the interest of so many people on our journey, our mission and our thoughts on EV is very special. Benedikt and I were overwhelmed with the kind and welcoming attitude towards us. It is very special to us to see pictures of our Tesla in a daily car magazine.

Tafazoli and his team got aware of us after a Instagram post of our charging experience in Zanjan by kish cars (see this post). Kish cars is followed by roughly 250.000 people. After Tafazoli and his team found out about us, they asked us, if we can meet in Tehran and take pictures/videos. It was a wonderful experience to do that and I am very glad we didn’t miss it.

Charging at the hotel

The hotel could offer us three-phase electricity. Charging the car right in front of the entrance door of a hotel is just so luxurious. We enjoyed staying in a good quality hotel and calming down from the adventures we had so far in Iran. Benedikt and I feel that sometimes it is just too much and we need less input from all sides. We should treat our selves more often with less action and more time to relax (and to write blog-posts 😉).

Charging in Gilan, Iran

Gileboom

Some hotels or guest houses seem like treasures that one is just happy to have found them. Gileboom on the coast of the Caspian Sea is one of them. A traditional house of the area in a beautiful yard is the guest house of Mahin and her family. Every second that we spend there, we just felt like being guests. Not ever before did we get better cared for.

Mahin managed that we could charge the Tesla at a neighbor’s construction side.

We spend an evening with wonderful food, great conversations (we enjoyed the company of three other travelers, as well as of Mahin’s family) and much laughter. The next morning, we postponed leaving further and further. Being at a nice place where you almost feel like home, is so precious.

Our host family poured water behind us, when we left. That is an Iranian custom to wish travelers a safe travel. What a need custom!

A night in the mountains

We drove about 3 hours to park the Tesla at the highest point between the Caspian Sea and Teheran. No one else was at the mountain pass at 3000 meters elevation. We enjoyed a quite evening. The following day we passed the Iranian skiing resorts, Dizin, that is with lifts up to 3600 meters altitude among the world’s 40 highest skiing resorts.

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
 CEE 4-pin  225 volt  3*26 amperes  18 kW  about 60

Charging in Maragheh, Iran

Maragheh

It seems that we were absolutely lucky in Maragheh. The first hotel that we approached (and also the only better sounding hotel – the supply of hotels in Iran is still much lower than in most other countries) could offer us three-phase electricity. The electrician of the house helped Benedikt to set up a connection right at the fuse box, where we could charge at a maximum of 32 amperes on all three phases (22kW). Overnight we charged 11 kW at 16 amperes and could leave the hotel with a 100% charged car.

The hotel’s employees and maybe even friends of them gathered the whole afternoon and evening around the Tesla. Since there is a strict restriction to import cars in Iran, it is very surprising for every Iranian to see a car like a Tesla. The Iranians often can’t stop taking pictures of themselves with our car.

 

 

 

 

 
The number of Instagram followers of the eexplorer-account has also dramatically risen since we entered Iran. Everyone shares and comments on Instagram their pictures of our Tesla. It is fun to observe this, especially from the distance (Benedikt is more patient with showing the car repeatedly to different people and surprising them with tons of cables in the front drunk (frunk)).

Takht-e Soleyman

 

 

 

 

 
We spend the evening in Maragheh searching for a restaurant and the morning after searching for hip-covering jackets for me. It is necessary for women to wear something like this in Iran. In the afternoon we left Maragheh to drive though the desert like hills to Takht-e Soleyman. It is a Zoroastrian fire temple built during the Sassanid period.

Since our Tesla is a fully functional camping car, we spent the night on a side road in the grassy hills on about 2600 meters’ elevation. We decided to do this more often, not only because hotels in Iran are, at least for foreigners, expensive ((60€-100€ for very basic accommodation), but also because we enjoy staying outside and not being the center of attention all the time.

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
 direct connection to fuse box  220 Volt  3*16 amperes  11  55 kWh

Charging in Zanjan, Iran

 Search for electricity part 1

After the night in the 1000-star hotel watching an impressive starry sky, we reached Zanjan with the car’s battery being at about 8%. We were lucky, that it was only 11 in the morning, since it would almost take us the whole day to arrange something to charge the Tesla…

At first, we approached the four hotels of the city. None of them had apparently three-phase electricity. The last and most expensive one told us they have three-phase electricity. But since it is at the back of the building and our extension cord isn’t long enough for us parking in the front and charging in the back of the building, we can’t charge at their hotel. It is supposed to be too dangerous to park the car at the back of the building, even during the day. Nothing could argue them out of this idea. Approximately three hours already passed since we entered the city and the display of the Tesla showed 7%. Not much more driving should be done, before we should find something to charge.

So far, we normally found help at hotels. Zanjan was different and therefore we had to start looking for three-phase electricity somewhere else. We approached the first car repair workshops. Since they didn’t have a lifting ramp they also did not have three-phase electricity. I started to get frustrated with only receiving rejections. We missed the hospitality of Iranians that everyone told us before.

Search for electricity part 2

Luckily, when we just wanted to leave to search for other workshops with three-phase electricity, Hahdy, a person speaking well English and working at a trading company next to the car workshops left the building next to the car workshops. He approached us and told us that he will help. Having someone to translate is really valuable. Hahdy told us, that we would just need to buy the right plug for Iran and then everything would be fine. Of course, it was not that easy… I waited at his company, while he and Benedikt approached the upcoming one or two hours 6 or 7 different electronic supply stores, all throughout the city, to find that plug. Even though Hahdy translated, there was a lot of cultural misunderstanding. The Tesla had at that time only 5% left in its battery.

The last electronic supply store where they found help, was right in the middle of Zanjan, in the crowded street leading to the main bazar. The shop owner wanted to sell Benedikt at first a CEE-16 plug, then an CEE-16 outlet (“Europeans need this kind of stuff…”) and only after Benedikt asked also a bit frustrated in the most direct way “just tell me that one thing, what kind of three-phase plugs/outlets do you use in Iran?” the owner showed him the plug that we already bought in Montenegro (see this post). What a surprise! The only difference to the Montengro plug is that the internal wirring of N (neutral/0) and PE (protective earth) are switched. Seems stange to us, but that’s how it is ;-).

Finally – three-phase electricity!


Benedikt and Hahdy parked the car at the opposite street side of the electronic supply store. The owner offered an extension cord with an open-end, where Benedikt connected our open adaptor. Before starting to charge, we always test with a phase detector if the neutral wire is the neutral and if the phases are also at the right position/have voltage on them (this is actually really important, so neither the NRGKick, nor the Tesla will get broken). It was hard to convince the electronic shop owner that this procedure is necessary. In the end, every confusion was solved and the car started charging with 16kw at 24 amperes on all three phases.

While all of this happened, I hung out at Hahdy’s trading company and chatted with the sales girls there. I never really understood, what they bought/sold, but it was interesting to get an insight in an average Iranian company.

Since the four hotels that we approached in the morning weren’t any great offers (high prices for little value), Benedikt and I decided to use the rest of the afternoon to walk 2-3 kilometers through the city to check out a hotel on the other side of town thatwe didn’t know about earlier and just discovered on maps.me. When we approached it, we saw that it was closed. With the day almost setting and us being already pretty tired, we took a taxi to the other side of town to go to the cheapest hotel that we checked out in the morning. Apparently that hotel couldn’t offer us any room any more. Somehow, it seems we shouldn’t be lucky in Zanjan. Since it was almost 9 p.m. we walked to the next alternative and got a room at a very basic hotel, where 70€ for the night seems overpriced. But we were just too exhausted to go any further.

Benedikt went to get the Tesla, that was charged at 95%. It was only due to our total exhaustion from a tiring day that he turned down several dinner invitations. The people at the electronic supply store and all neighboring stores where extremely friendly. They themselves where happy that our Tesla was in their street the whole day long. That day brought us famousness in Iran, since an Instagram page for cars with 250.000 followers posted a picture of our Tesla parked in the street before the bazar in Zanjan. The next 48 hours we were overwhelmed with messages and new Instagram followers. Benedikt and I are super happy about this and hope that even more people will help us find three phase electricity in Iran.

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
 Montengro outlet with swithed N & PE  220  3*24 amperes  16kW  70