Written by Raza Sikander, creator of EV Grids. Last updated 21 September 2026.
About 350 km on NH48, typically one DC stop for 300–450 km class cars starting at 90%, sometimes zero for long-range SUVs that keep speed sane. The useful planning question is not ‘can I?’ — it is ‘which stop still has a gun?’
Krishnagiri and Vellore-side charging is the usual belt. Reverse the names for Chennai → Bangalore; Krishnagiri still clogs on weekends.
Filter 50 kW+ and prefer multi-gun sites on EV Grids. If live counts show busy, take the backup 5–10 km along the same highway. Do not wait 40 minutes to save a theoretical ₹80.
Leave early. This corridor rewards dawn more than it rewards a 150 kW marketing sticker.
Tamil Nadu/Karnataka summer afternoons add Wh/km. If you commute this monthly, save a real efficiency number from the car and reuse it. The vehicle preset is a starting point.
If this is your first interstate EV trip, it is a better exam than Goa. Still select backups. Still start high. Then try Bangalore → Mysore as a warm-up the week before if you are nervous.
90% start, 20% reserve, 30% search threshold, CCS2 filter, 50 kW minimum if you hate slow guns. Recalibrate Wh/km after one commute-speed run on NH48. Compare Bangalore → Chennai with Chennai → Bangalore as separate plans if you are staying overnight — Sunday return traffic is not Saturday outbound.
Bangalore to Chennai on NH48 is about 350 km of industrial-and-expressway rhythm — Krishnagiri, Hosur approaches, Vellore belt — with more DC than a Konkan ghat and more heat than a January Delhi run. The failure mode is speed plus HVAC: 110 km/h in April with the cabin at 22°C will not match a 140 Wh/km city average.
Many 50 kWh-class cars can do this with one well-placed DC stop if they leave Bangalore above 85%. A 30 kWh-class or a Punch/Tiago-class pack should assume a stop and a backup in the same town. Do not skip the backup because the distance ‘looks like a tank of petrol’.
Weekend Chennai-bound traffic stacks at the usual plazas. A charger 800 m off the polyline with two CCS2 guns is the adult choice. EV Grids ranks detour along the drive, not a pin labelled Chennai that sits 12 km into the city before you have finished the highway.
Bangalore to Chennai on NH48 is about 350 km. Compact packs typically want one DC stop plus a backup; 70 kWh-class cars can often skip DC on a mild day if they start high. Heat and 105 km/h cruise decide more than the city names. April HVAC is not January HVAC.
Useful halt geography is the Hosur/Krishnagiri side after leaving Bangalore, then Krishnagiri–Vellore before Chennai’s western crawl. A charger labelled Chennai that sits 15 km past the highway in a basement is the wrong last stop if you still have NH48 to finish. EV Grids scores driving detour for this reason.
Weekend Chennai-bound lanes add clock time with HVAC on. That is energy. Enable adjust for conditions in peak summer. Charge while you eat, leave ~80%, confirm the pole tariff in the operator app. Networks on the card are descriptions, not affiliations.
350 km at 165 Wh/km is about 58 kWh. A 45 kWh pack starting at 90% with 20% reserve has roughly 31 kWh spendable — one planned DC stop is the expected Nexon-class day, two if you left at 60%. A 70 kWh SUV can often run this with a high start and no stop, and should still carry a backup pin because a plaza can still be closed.
Do not copy a friend’s ‘I did it without charging’ screenshot unless you have the same pack, start SOC, speed, and HVAC. Run your preset on the Bangalore → Chennai corridor page.
Once you have a logged Wh/km on Bangalore → Chennai, you have a template for similar heat-and-speed corridors. You do not have a template for ghats. Keep the numbers in the planner. Recalculate when start SOC is not 90%.
Hosur / Krishnagiri / Vellore remain the belts. City-centre Chennai or Bangalore malls remain the wrong last halt if NH48 is unfinished. Charge while you eat. Leave ~80%. Confirm the pole tariff. That is the whole repeatable script.
If a friend did this without charging, ask pack, start SOC, speed, and month before you copy them. Then ignore the story and run your preset on the corridor page anyway.
The road does not change length. The Wh/km does. Enable adjust for conditions in peak summer or type a higher number from a logged hot hour. A no-stop January SUV run is not evidence for a May Nexon run. Corridor page first, Plan now second.
Open the planner with cities and settings pre-filled for this guide.
