Q: Can you offer advice on what\u2019s needed to take an EV across France this summer, in terms of charging station map apps you\u2019d recommend, whether all stations take contactless card payments or require accounts and which subscription scheme is best for these sort of trips (Ionity, WeCharge, ChargeMaps etc). <\/b>\u2013 MT, Co Kildare<\/p>\n
A:<\/b> With summer heading our way, and the school holidays looming, this seems like a great time to answer this question.<\/p>\n
The good news is that France<\/a> is great for electric car<\/a> driving. Not only are charging points \u2013 especially high-speed DC chargers \u2013 plentiful, but you\u2019re also in a country which uses a lot of nuclear, wind, and solar energy, so a lot of your charging will be of the carbon-neutral variety.<\/p>\n It\u2019s only a year now since we drove the entire way across France, from Strasbourg to Cherbourg, in a BMW i5 Touring and you can read more about that here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Part of what you\u2019ll need to take with you depends, to an extent, on which EV you\u2019ve bought. Many new electric cars will come with a car-company-branded charge card, which can give you easy access to a multiplicity of chargers across France and the rest of Europe.<\/p>\n Looking back at our little adventure with the BMW i5, the BMW-branded charging card that came with the car worked in every charging station we visited. So, your first port of call should be to make sure you know which chargers your supplied card will work with.<\/p>\n While most, if not all, chargers will have a tap-and-pay option for using a credit or debit card, it is worth checking out the car-company-supplied option, because there are usually discounts on the cost of charging included with that.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t have one of those cards, don\u2019t worry, all is not lost. The two charging apps I\u2019d recommend for France are Ionity and Total Energies. On our cross-country trip, there seemed to be either an Ionity or Total fast-charging station at every motorway service station we visited, and usually with at least six fast charging points in operation, often 12 or even 16.<\/p>\n Both Ionity and Total offer monthly subscriptions which get you access to discounted charging, down to about 50c per kWh which is a lot more palatable than the pay-as-you-go rate of 78c per kWh.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re going to be covering big distances \u2013 and France is of course a very big country \u2013 then it would be at least worth signing up for both of these services for the month when you\u2019re travelling, as you\u2019ll quickly make back the monthly fee in reduced charging costs.<\/p>\n Total Energies also covers slower chargers located at kerbsides and in car parks, so that\u2019s definitely an app worth having.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a good idea to download ZapMap too, which will help you find whatever chargers are in your area. However, ZapMap is crowdsourced, so it can be out of date or just plain wrong sometimes.<\/p>\n One thing to be aware of is that French autoroutes have a higher speed limit than Irish motorways \u2013 130km\/h instead of 120km\/h \u2013 so if you want to cruise at that speed, your electric consumption will be a little higher than it normally is in Irish conditions.<\/p>\n When you\u2019re planning your ferry trip, we\u2019d recommend Irish Ferries<\/a>, as the MV WB Yeats that does the run between Dublin<\/a> and Cherbourg has (limited, there are only three, supplied by PodPoint) on-board charging points for EVs that can be booked ahead of time. They only run at 3.7kW, but given that it\u2019s an 18-hour crossing, you can get some decent charging done in that time.<\/p>\n You\u2019ll also want to make sure that your roadside assistance cover is still in place, and it\u2019s worth checking that it covers call-outs for EVs with a flat battery. Somewhat surprisingly, not all do, and while it\u2019s unlikely that you\u2019ll run out of juice on the road, it\u2019s always best to be prepared for the worst-case scenario.<\/p>\n Finally, make sure you have someone in the passenger seat to deal with toll booths. Honestly, it\u2019s such a pain reaching across from a right-hand drive car.<\/p>\n Beyond that, enjoy. France is one of the best countries for a driving holiday, as long as you are aware of the speed limits (many main roads are down to 80km\/h, and the Gendarmerie are unforgiving at the best of times).<\/p>\n Oh, and if you happen to be passing Le Mans, do not miss the chance to pop into the excellent museum of the famed 24-hour race. It\u2019s a belter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Q: Can you offer advice on what\u2019s needed to take an EV across France this summer, in terms…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[1305,2000,299,13746,36,13747,1229],"class_list":{"0":"post-21355","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-electric-vehicles","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-evs-qanda","12":"tag-france","13":"tag-irish-ferries","14":"tag-motors"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114340744649586602","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}