We were planning to start our drive at 8:00 AM from our countryside residence near Sigulda. However as it happens it took 1 hour more for us to prep and as a result we left at 9:00 AM sharp. Leaving the car in the garage paid off and it showed a steady remaining 300km of range with -15C outside. The range proved to be very true throughout the first part of the trip. The plan was to get "behind" Warsaw or to be more specific on South side of the Warsaw when looking from us coming from North.

This was the day to get from behind Warszaw into Austria. The total planned km for the day were around 750km. The road conditions improved a lot and also the consumption dropped almost below 30kwh/100km. The day was almost uneventful for driving and charging part. We covered the mileage quite quickly and were just charging at every spot as planned.

This day had only a 170+ km drive ahead of us and we could really start "slow" as the goal was to get from Gmunden to Obertauern. 

Morning charge

The day also ended up to be "slow" as finding the "morning charge" turned out to be a challenge. First we found a charger which was not starting through BMW app, the second one turned out to be in a "closed" for Saturday LIDL parking... Only the 3rd one turned out to be "good enough" with 150KW of charge - but the car somehow either didn't have enough time to precondition the battery or just "glitched" and thus I ended up having charging speeds of 80KW and paying for "time".... 

Mountain driving

While I charged in the morning with an expected finish range of 100km, driving over mountain passes was creating some concerns as the consumption was peaking while going upwards quite a lot. However as the passes go both up and down, the increase in consumption going upwards was compensated by regeneration while going "downwards" and the remaining range at destination was varying between 80-110 km with actual remaining range being around 90km (the last 15km part was a steep climb).

Chains and "slow drivers"

Right before our finish, the road was going up from Untertauern to Obertauern. This was the part where it seemed a "mass panic" event was taking place about putting chains on the cars while the weather was not really so bad (this is me talking - coming from North where snow is a regular event every winter for 2-3 months). This resulted in a traffic jam at the places where the chains were being installed, but even worse, some drivers with the chains installed ended up crawling up at 20kmph, which at steeper sections seemed to create an unnecessary problem for my 2.5t vehicle with good winter tyres but too much torque. All was good and we finished just fine (just 20 min later than we could have had), but at some points it felt that if we would have to really "stop" we would have also to go for the chains just to be able to start back.

The conclusions for me are the following:

• EV driving is a bit slower, but the pace is quite nice if the EV can make at least 300km (you wouldn't try to get it to 0km range, thus you would go <=250km per one go)

• I really do enjoy the car and the way it drives and behaves. The only thing I was thinking about was the willingness to allow a bit more control for "rough" conditions where I would like an option to just "turn all the aides, including ESP" off and have the car power through some of snowy cases. However due to all the gadgets I had to rely on technology - BMW has this "Assisted start" option which allows to start with less torque in mud and snow, which seemed to help a bit

• Finding charging stations (when map says you have arrived) sometimes feels like a challenge. Overall UX improvement with more visible information about the charging station would be nice! Also on the stations themselves the overall process of starting charging can differ (at some you plug in cable first, at some you start charging before plugging in cable). Additionally identifying which outlet is which if there is more than 1 through BMW app is a real "guessing game" I would prefer to avoid.

• There are not so many charging stations (high speed) between Warsaw and Suwalki (north of Poland) yet...

• Preconditioning the battery for some reasons feels like a "random numbers" game. I don't really understand when the vehicle decides to precondition and when not (systematically using BMW built in navigation to set next charging stations).

• ABRP application has a long way to go to become good enough for usage. Both the indications where the charging stations are can be improved as well as integration with vehicle (reading actual charging state from the car instead of manually entering it at every planning start).

• The costs of driving electric with fast charging are close to high consumption ICE car (ranges between 10-20 EUR / 100KM). It can be improve if you have more time and perhaps plan more, but I was just in the mode of "hop in and drive"...