Traveling by electric car no longer surprises anyone. Especially if it’s a long-range model that can easily cover 300–400 km. However, besides range and the availability of charging stations, there are still issues related to starting charging sessions and paying for them, and that’s where an unpleasant surprise may await you in a foreign country. Even if you seemingly prepared in advance and even thought through backup options. And the hero of our story went and undertook his first serious long-distance trip in an electric car.

He decided to do without gas stations

First, a bit about the vehicle. Evgeny says his 2018 Tesla 3 Dual Motor Long Range is standard, without tuning or modifications. True, it didn’t have the factory retrofit, which meant only slow charging. After the owner bought the necessary board for 450 rubles, the Tesla can now charge at fast stations. Since it’s an American car, the port is NACS standard, so an adapter is used to connect a CCS2 connector. For the trip, he also took along a Type2–NACS cable and a portable charger for a household outlet, which expanded the options for power sources.

“I’ve had this car since January,” says Evgeny. “Before this trip, the longest drive was to Osipovichi, and it was a real stress. I arrived in that town, and there were only a few charging stations there—and all of them were occupied. I couldn’t wait, so I had to drive on, and then look for somewhere to top up so I could get home. In short, all my Tesla trips were within Minsk and its surroundings.”

So how did Evgeny, with that background, decide on a trip to Georgia?

“Actually, the idea was for my friends and me to get into our beloved Nivas and drive them. That’s how we periodically travel to different countries. I already talked about such a trip to Georgia last year.”

We settled on dates. In the end, the guys went, but I couldn’t because of work. I decided I’d set off after them a week later, but in reality I only managed to leave after a week and a half. And by that time I already knew there could be problems with refueling in Russia: the guys had run into situations where some gas stations had no gasoline, at others it was noticeably more expensive than usual, or there were queues.

Besides, Evgeny admits that driving the Niva no longer made much sense: by that point his friends had already had their fill of off-roading, and going off alone to seek adventure in unfamiliar wild places wasn't the best idea. In the end, despite having the option to take another car with an internal combustion engine, it was decided to go on the trip in a Tesla.

"I thought I had nothing to lose. If anything, I'd turn around and switch to a gasoline car. Especially since I had prepared in advance: I studied everything, installed the apps, linked my card (almost all services accepted Belkart without issue). In short, nothing seemed to portend problems.

Russia: a "call a friend" is inevitable

"I left Minsk and charged up in Mogilev," Evgeny continues. "I thought about topping up in Krichev as well, but everything there turned out to be occupied. I decided to drive to Zhukovka, which is already in Bryansk Oblast.

"I arrive, and there's no signal. I have a Russian SIM card, but now, when you return to the country after a break, a cooling mode kicks in: you have to enter a CAPTCHA. It's primitive, but completing the task is impossible—it keeps giving an error.

"Plan B was to go home and switch to a gasoline car. But there was also Plan C—a call to a friend.

"Acquaintances who live in Moscow had also installed all these apps the day before, linked their Russian cards, and would start a session when I called. Once the cooling mode ended and I had mobile internet, I was able to charge on my own.

On the internet you can read that Russian charging stations have Wi-Fi you can connect to in order to use the app. But Evgeny, citing his personal experience, says that during the entire trip he saw only two stations that could be connected to, and even then via Bluetooth. And there the procedure for starting a charging session was slightly different.

"In theory, my Tesla can do 400 km, but in practice I was counting on a 300 km range—I didn't want to take risks. Besides, I was traveling with a child. If he wanted a snack, we'd stop. Naturally, in places where there was charging. The battery charges quickly up to 80%.

The interviewee notes that he didn't see any queues at charging stations in Russia; usually they were completely empty. The only car he came across at a charging post was a Tesla with Belarusian plates.

And so, with periodic stops, including in Pyatigorsk and Vladikavkaz, they made it to Georgia.

Georgia: better in the mountains!

Going to Georgia for the sea is, in my opinion, not a great idea, because the sea is not the cleanest, and besides, there are few sandy beaches there. You need to go there for the mountains and parks. Then you see that Georgia is beautiful and green, with mountains and rivers, and everywhere you look it’s a delight to the eye,” notes Evgeny.

“But when it comes to electric cars, mountains mean consumption. You go uphill — the car ‘gobbles up’ around 40 kWh; you go downhill — the battery starts to recharge. Not by much, but still.”

Just came down from the mountains — bang! I try to avoid all the potholes, but this time I punctured two tires on one side at once. I called a tow truck, and we went on it to Natakhtari. It turns out that locals there buy used tires from Europe in bulk. I got to talking with one man. He said that just the day before he had brought 1,500 tires from Germany. I put on a good pair, and we drove on.

Evgeny clarifies that he took out Georgian insurance online. He also downloaded the apps of local operators in advance. However, his first attempt to charge ended in fiasco.

“I arrive — there are a bunch of charging stations, but not one works. And the app is in Georgian, so I can’t understand what the problem is. I started asking local owners of electric cars who had come to charge why I couldn’t connect. They told me that the local operator was having an outage across all of Georgia. And sure enough, in the app all the chargers are showing red. I realize that with that kind of situation I won’t make it to Batumi, so I found a hotel on Booking and plugged into a 220V outlet there. Yes, I didn’t pump much into the battery overnight, but the next day the chargers were already working.”

Evgeny says that there are several charging station operators in Georgia. The cost is 0.65–0.68 lari ($0.25–0.26) per 1 kWh. The ratio of CCS2 and GB/T connectors, according to the narrator, is roughly equal.

“It’s very convenient that you can pay via Apple Pay, you don’t need to link your card to apps. Although Belarusian Visa and Mastercard cards do work anyway. And there are no queues. Only once did I have to wait, and only because a gasoline car had blocked one of the charging stations.”

Speaking of the local vehicle fleet, the interlocutor notes that there are a lot of hybrids in the country, in particular Toyota Prius, and among electric cars, the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y stand out.

— We rode around the mountains without much extreme. We met up with the guys who had left earlier. Their time was already running out, and I thought there was no point in staying in Georgia, let's try to move further — to Turkey. If it doesn't work out, we'll just come back, especially since everything here is already familiar.

Turkey: Knocking on Paradise's Door

— Oh, that was a real quest! — says Evgeny. — It's the same story as with the Georgian operators. To log into the app, you need a local phone number. You can't get in and see how it works until then. So until I crossed the border, I didn't know what awaited me.

Well, I entered the country, connected mobile internet, started opening apps — and found out I couldn't link any of my cards. So how do you charge?

The AI gave me an answer that at Shell gas stations near highways, supposedly you can pay directly with a card. In reality, everywhere I asked, people just shrugged their shoulders; no one had even heard of such an option.

The situation was a dead end. We drove to some point on the coast, and I don't know what to do. There won't be enough charge to get back to Georgia.

In the end, Evgeny simply waited for someone to come to charge, explained the situation, and asked the driver to start the session from his phone. The plan worked, and the local resident didn't even take money when the Belarusian offered to pay him in cash.

• It turned out that in every new country, I spent the first day solving charging issues.

By the end of the day, I had almost decided: we'll spend the night and go back to Georgia. And yet it seemed I had a backup plan. A friend works at a Georgian company and has a Georgian card. I asked him to give me access to that card, but it couldn't be linked either.

I read that some people create virtual wallets of Turkish banks and charge that way. I started looking into the topic. Until recently, this actually worked, but since spring of this year, almost all of these services (charging networks) have stopped working with virtual cards.

In short, I arrived at the hotel already in despair. I sat there going through all the cards in the apps, and somehow the Georgian card suddenly got linked. And that was it—after that, all charging issues disappeared, and I found myself in a true paradise for an electric car owner.

There are a lot of charging stations in Turkey. The distances between them hardly exceed 20 km, so they are everywhere. Even in the mountains, when you cross a pass, there's a charger in a small settlement. On motorways, the complexes are even more impressive than in Germany. You pull up and there's an Outlet, Subway, Burger King, petrol stations, electric chargers...

There are also Tesla Superchargers there. The cost of charging is around 12–13 Turkish lira ($0.25–0.30) at fast chargers. There are several main apps, and the operators have partnership agreements, so you can charge on one operator's network through another's app. The main standard is CCS2.

Turkey has many electric cars from a local manufacturer. Visually they resemble BYD models. They all have CCS2 charging ports, so the infrastructure is being tailored to this standard.

First we went to Cappadocia. As a natural phenomenon, this place is absolutely unique. In person it's even more beautiful than in photos and videos. Plus there are those hot air balloons that are constantly being launched. We literally went everywhere there and then headed to Istanbul.

This was the final point of our route. After Cappadocia, of course, you realize that yes, it's grand and has its own quirks, but it was still made by man, so it's a bit different. However, that didn't stop us from having a good time there. In the end, we spent four days in Istanbul, after which we set off on the return journey.

The return trip was much easier when it came to charging, since all the apps were already working and we knew where and how to go about it.

The entire trip lasted about four weeks, and the total route length exceeded 9,000 km. Evgeny ultimately considers the somewhat unexpected and at times frankly nerve-wracking experience of a long-distance trip in an electric car to be positive.

“Don't be afraid, you just have to get up and go,” he advises. And he doesn't hide that he's already thinking about new trips.