Charging across Europe

[EVsince2016]

Now for the day I've waited my whole life for! Top of the bucket list!

Driving the Stelvio pass, 2300m climb up the east face of the mountain, 48 hairpins of increasing steepness, tightness and closeness. This was the view of the road from 3200 metres up! The only ski slopes open in August too.

The pass was supposed to open in late May but heavy snow, floods & landslides delayed to opening to late June.

We decided to stop just in on the Umbrail pass at the Swiss border before we left but the road was blocked at the border by Wolves pestering for food from tourists, so we got less in than expected,

Down the other side of the Stelvio is endless tunnels & 38 hairpins. As we had gone up early going up, coming down the west side there were endless bikes. motorbikes & racers going up the other way. Looney overtaking.

I departed the summit at 71%. 100 kms later I still had 71% charge, no energy required at all. The charge actually peaked at 80% on the way down.

We stopped off at Tirano for lunch to watch the Bernina Express running down the streets & ate pizza.

We finally stopped at a Tesla charger at the top of Lake Como. Tricky one to find as it was well hidden. 50 p/kw wasn't too bad & it topped us up for our week parked up near Lake Como.

Arriving at Varenna for the car ferry is an experience of utter chaos, mayhem & raised emotions. I expected it but watched many in meltdown unable to cope with Italian organisation which whilst appearing chaotic is actually very organised and thoughtfully done.

 

[EVsince2016]

For our return trip we started on a quiet early ferry over Lake Como and up the mountains past Lake Lugano onto the Gotthard motorway north.

I exited the motorway for the Gotthard South Tesla charger but police at the exit challenged us (as so many hop off to beat the tunnel queues). Reason accepted we went off to charge. 49 p/kw saving 17 p/kw. Great self service café in the Hotel too. They seem to be quite common in the Alps.

As I'm sure you'd guessed by now, I wasn't doing the boring tunnel under the Alps!

Pass 1 was the Gotthard at 2108m - simple modern road, lots of tunnels. Well into the clouds.

Pass 2 was the Furka at 2431m. This only reopened after winter snow in late July and all the businesses had shut. Spectacular road, narrow & twisty with the most breath-taking views you could imagine. Most of the year traffic uses a shuttle train via the tunnel as this road only opens 2-3 months a year. The train used to go over too, but had to be dismantled every winter & rebuilt each spring. A steam train operates on part of the old line.

Pass 3 as you descend the Furka, you see the Grimsel waiting for you, topping 2165m. Luckily the north side of this pass is all tunnels & avalanche shelters so once you twist your way up its an easyish drive down. We had lunch at the summit too!

Dropping down from the 11C of the summit things hotted up reaching 37C for our next charger. Guessing when to stop with all the ups & downs was a challenge to say the least. I chose a Socar charger in a motorway layby. In Switzerland every service station and motorway layby has chargers. So easy!!

From here it was busy motorways into France for another Tesla charger, 27 p/kw cheaper than others.

We finished off in Strasbourg, a most beautiful Germanic French city.

 

[Rolfe]

That is AMAZING.

 

[rjhfandclf]

Fully agreed ... makes me jealous. Haven't been that direction for over 40 years - not the same route by far, but the Alpine and around scenery is certainly beautiful, and the driving exhilarating, to say the least. In a heavy old steering motor, the hairpins can be exhausting though!

 

[Rolfe]

I've done Germany and into the Jungfrau region of Switzerland in a Fiesta!

 

[Archev]

My best adventure in Europe was Dusseldorf airport to Spa for the 1999 F1 race where my wife and I were instrumental in willing David Coulthard’s car to a win. He did a good job mind ???????

 

[rjhfandclf]

He did a good job mind

... and still does! Always good sound value to listen to - even in this modern version of F1!

 

[Archev]

... and still does! Always good sound value to listen to - even in this modern version of F1!

Aye he’s forgotten more about driving than I ever knew ?

 

[EVsince2016]

So to the last stage, 517 miles home from Strasbourg!

By this point, I'd given up on ABRPs ability to navigate a route and had adopted Electroverse! More on that later.

After an early start I headed off north with a first stop at an Engie unit at 51 p/kWh using Electroverse. This one was actually over a bridge on the opposite carriageway as the northbound ones were being upgraded. Note the canopy & petrol station style price display are becoming the norm.

Into Belgium near Arlon I left the motorway for a cheaper Tesla unit at 43 p/kWh saving about 18p/kWh. Bit of a faff due to access & roadworks but a nice self service café in the hotel.

Next was an Ionity unit at 56p/kWh on Electroverse. The MG5 wouldn't work on units 3 & 4 so I had to switch, a pain as it was busy. As you can see other cars did work on them, but not all apparently!

My final stop was at Eurotunnel Flexiplus. The Engie units CCS were out of action so I had to use a Tesla unit. As I had a very low charge I was there a while & had to hide from 2 arsy Tesla drivers who were waiting so again no photos.

After so many miles of pothole free roads & well managed roadworks, back into the UK for miles of 50 mph variable speed camera controlled roadworks & emergency road closures!

I'll post later on ABRP & costs etc.

 

[EVsince2016]

Charging.

I did 2202 miles and used 527 kWs and averaged 4.2 m/kW at a cost of £209 so 9.5 p/mile.

I did 17 rapid charges plus charges at 2 stays.

Cheapest charge was a Tesla at 34 p/kW which I used for 8 charges (34-50p/kW). This saved me 15-20 p/kW on average, totally around £35 saved overall.

Most expensive was Shell at 82p/kW and City Watt at 80p/kW.

All of the chargers were easy to use. 1 issue at Ionity where one unit didn't like the MG5 and one Engie unit with CCS failed.

Tesla chargers are in odd locations usually with a hotel to use for the break, other brands were on motorway services. In Germany chargers are in shopping centres and few on autobahn services. This is because 75% of service stations are owned by an anti-EV oil company who have used all imaginable techniques to block EV chargers.

Overall at local fuel prices I saved around £230 on fuel by using an EV.

Conclusion - no issues using an EV on this trip, no range anxiety, higher costs, extra time or anything really! Easier to drive an EV on mountain passes though!

 

[EVsince2016]

ABRP

I started on this trip hopeful that ABRP would work. Before I left I planned in each stage of the route in detail and subscribed for 1 month.

From Calais to Belgium, it worked fine and confidence grew. Accurate predictions & useful chargers.

From Belgium to Germany it started well, working across France but became troublesome in Germany but I stuck with it and when the Lidl charger at Triberg failed me another option was found.

During my stay in Germany I used it just to find a charger and that worked well.

I didn't use it driving from Germany to Austria & Italy, relying on Google maps.

Overall it worked OK, but if I stopped off plan it had a hissy fit that needed fixing or ignoring! OK, I could get around it. In Switzerland it refused to work at all in Android mode, just unplugged finding a charger.

Driving home it failed abysmally from Italy to France, hopeless routes, massive lagging, got lost, utterly useless so I switched to Electroverse - a dream in comparison.

I gave it a last chance driving home from France. It got the first stop OK, but then was utterly useless with wrong directions, wrong charge stops. I switched back to Electroverse which was 100% bang on.

Sorry ABRP, a fail.

 

[Rolfe]

That was the post I was waiting for. Thanks. I have been using ABRP to plan my charging stops in advance, with no subscription. I have noticed that it significantly underestimates the time taken to drive each leg, while not budgeting for the amount of charge that would be used by going that fast. I wondered if its real-time traffic facility might be better?

I have got used to using Google maps on Android Auto after noting which chargers look good for my route beforehand. If Google had charger information (I've only been able to find very rudimentary info, and it doesn't seem to display when you're driving) it would be a big step forward. However, I've only just downloaded the Electroverse offering and the first thing I noticed was that none of the open Tesla superchargers seem to show up. Any comment on that? Am I doing something wrong?

 

[EVsince2016]

That was the post I was waiting for. Thanks. I have been using ABRP to plan my charging stops in advance, with no subscription. I have noticed that it significantly underestimates the time taken to drive each leg, while not budgeting for the amount of charge that would be used by going that fast. I wondered if its real-time traffic facility might be better?

I have got used to using Google maps on Android Auto after noting which chargers look good for my route beforehand. If Google had charger information (I've only been able to find very rudimentary info, and it doesn't seem to display when you're driving) it would be a big step forward. However, I've only just downloaded the Electroverse offering and the first thing I noticed was that none of the open Tesla superchargers seem to show up. Any comment on that? Am I doing something wrong?

It was OK with time for me but over estimated energy used predicting 30% on arrival but I had 45%. I found that real time traffic was useless and barely did anything. It wanted to route me via Brussels despite appalling traffic when via Lille was nearly 1 h faster. My biggest bug bear was when I drove past a charger as I still had 50% & many more were ahead it counted as a charge and didn't look for the next charger. If I stopped for an extra break it counted it as a charge or totally reset the planning for the route from OK to useless.!

Electroverse, Electromaps & Chargemap do the planning then link you to Google maps / Android auto for navigation which is much better.

Electroverse ( and others) has a setting for - only shows chargers you can use -or- ALL chargers, then Tesla shows up.

 

[Rolfe]

Thanks for that. I have the opposite problem with ABRP, in that it underestimates the time for a particular leg, but then even though I haven't been going as fast as its estimated time, I arrive at the charger with less than their estimate. And then of course what do you do if you encounter adverse weather as I did last week, and your intended charger turns out to be out of reach?

That carry-on about assuming you've charged when you haven't sounds a complete PITA.

I will investigate Electroverse further, because that linking to Google for navigation sounds much better. Mind you, I'm still at the stage of thinking that being able to say the name of a charger at my car and have the screen immediately re-route to that charger, is pretty much black magic.

ETA: I had a fiddle, and one problem I ran into was that if I didn't like its choice of charging stop and added my favoured choice as a waypoint, it stuck with its original choice of charger and simply gave me a non-charging stop at my own preferred charger. ABRP does this right - I can tell it which chargers I want, and it will calculate whether that is feasible and how long it will all take doing it my way. But maybe I'm doing something wrong.

 

[tkmaxx5]

I'm not a regular long journey maker, but I've found the easiest option for being on the road is having a reasonable idea of all the suitable charging spots (ie high power, multiple plugs etc) and then picking an appropriate one as the journey progresses depending on various factors (state of charge most obviously, but also grouchiness of the kids, hungriness of the adults, bathroom stops etc). Obviously fine if you are fairly fixed in your route but not so good if you end up off-course.

I flirted with WattsUp (bad name, reasonable app) as it sort of does the closest thing to what I think would be most useful in that it can give you (with some rudimentary filters) all the charging options close to or on a given route...but I didn't actually use this to navigate, preferring the google maps option of planning the next leg of the journey (either next anticipated charge stop, or destination, or whatever) and having an idea as I progressed where the charging options were along the way. I'm not sure if WattsUp can recalibrate as you go or if it just loses its mind.

Still think the tech has a way to go with some of this stuff, at least until the charging network matures some more.

 

[Rolfe]

What you describe is exactly what I'm doing at the moment. It's working pretty well, but it does take a bit of preparation if you don't know the road and don't want to find yourself sitting on the hard shoulder fiddling with ZapMap. What I'd really like is to be able to see chargers ahead of me and their current status on Google Maps while I'm navigating with AA, but I think we still have a way to go to get there.

Next time I'm going to write down the possibles before I set off. On the way south, when I realised there was no way my charge was going to hold out to Forton given the rain and the headwind, I fortunately had a good idea in my head of what was around there. I just said "Tebay Services" and Google obliged. But if I hadn't known, I would have had to make a stop to find alternative chargers nearer than Forton.

On my way north I knew where I was going, I'd even been there before. But I kept saying "Tesla Annerley" at AA, and it kept saying it had no idea where that was, and then trying to send me to a supercharger a long way away and actually behind me! So I stopped in an SOS layby and started to type. Discovered I should have been saying "Tesla Annesley". Silly me.

 

[DixieTGS]

I have noticed that it significantly underestimates the time taken to drive each leg, while not budgeting for the amount of charge that would be used by going that fast.

If you have recorded your times, mileages and consumption data (or just have a good rule of thumb for those values), you could try adjusting ABRP settings to match your driving style.

Choose one or more route legs that don't involve a stop.

Then go to the speed section in settings and set the max speed to your max speed or above.

Then do a plan for various values of the reference speed e.g. 90% or 110% until the time roughly matches reality.

Then adjust the reference consumption @65 until the energy used matches reality.

I haven't tried this, so it's just an idea and may be a wild goose chase, but possibly worth wasting 1/2 an hour on. And don't forget to record the current settings before you start in case it all goes pear shaped.

 

[Rolfe]

I think you're right, I'm just not sure all the effort is worth it. Especially given how many other variables there are, like wind speed and temperature, all needing an estimate.

 

[DixieTGS]

I agree about the effort.

A simpler version might be:
If you like to drive slower than 70 on the motorway set the max speed accordingly.
If you like to drive faster, set the max speed to that and the reference speed accordingly (e.g. 110% for 77).

ETA: Something was bugging me. You said underestimates the time, so the simple version wouldn't work (I think).

 

[Rolfe]

It always has me getting there significantly sooner than Google maps, and experience tells me that Google maps is spookily accurate about 95% of the time. I like to drive fast, but that doesn't mean I'll be driving that fast for the whole journey, if the motorway is congested or there's a 50 mph speed limit in force!