Charging across Europe

[Gomev]

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I've applied to go, crazy I know, a third trip in one year, but hey, places to see, challenges to meet!

It would add the Netherlands to my list, maybe Poland as its 90kms from Berlin and if the weather was perfect, 750 miles back . . . hmmm, in one go? maybe, maybe not!

To spend time chatting with nerds who don't get bored of my EV & renewables talk would be brilliant and Octopus too. I've been with Octopus since July 2019 and went on Go soon after.

I never share my referral code, maybe I should start or is that too pretentious?

Octopus Energy

Octopus customers pay less: Cheaper than price-cap prices, rewards for using less when the grid is stressed, and smart tariff savings for your home, car or battery

share.octopus.energy

Bit like what 3 words eh!

PS

2025 adventure already booked!
2026 & 2027 in advanced planning

Good luck for being selected, sounds like a great trip.

Full info here

Join us on the Octobahn: an epic EV road trip to Berlin

Octopus Energy Electric Vehicle road trip from London to Berlin for the Energy Tech Summit. A convoy of tech legends where Octopus Energy customers can apply to join the trip.

octopus.energy

 

[EVsince2016]

Good luck for being selected, sounds like a great trip.

Full info here

Join us on the Octobahn: an epic EV road trip to Berlin

Octopus Energy Electric Vehicle road trip from London to Berlin for the Energy Tech Summit. A convoy of tech legends where Octopus Energy customers can apply to join the trip.

octopus.energy

Haha, not been selected yet, shall find out later this week.

 

[EVsince2016]

Seems this will be a well led trip. I've been chatting to the trip leader AgilePhil that's on Twitter (maybe not one on here? and Sarah, plus other prospective adventurers! I hope that the crazy weather further south & east doesn't impact on whoever goes!

I've just added loads of photos from my recent trips to the Electroverse app. Did all of the latest trip but only first pictures on trips earlier in the year as there were none shown. I think it's not right to add any older than that as one I visited in January seems to have moved / changed!

 

[EVsince2016]

Just been looking at some figures.

My regular trip across Northern Spain is about 400 miles +/- 5.

Google maps says it should take 6 hours at an average 67 mph (that's pushing it) but I do know someone who did it in 5 hours!! Reality is, you need 2 breaks totalling at least of 1 hour minimum, so reality with traffic is 7.5 hours if you push it.

My LEAF couldn't do this trip on one day. It averaged 8h45m driving at an average of 48 mph PLUS 3 to 6 hours of charging at 6 stops making a total time of 12 to 15 hours, plus an overnight necessary due to #rapidgate battery overheating. That's 2-3x as long excluding the night.
Energy used was 120 kWh

How has the MG5 been doing?

The driving bit has been 6.5 to 7 hours so a more realistic 60-65 mph average.
Charging has been an average of 2 hours giving a fastest time of 8.5 hours.
Energy used was 115 kWh

What effect did winter have?

Driving time was the same
Charging took 30 mins longer
Energy used was 120 kWh

Costs have been around - Diesel = £65, petrol = £95, electric = £45

The mountain passes & speeds killed the Petrol MPG!

Lovely data

 

[EVsince2016]

No trip to Berlin sadly

Still my trip next summer though

 

[EVsince2016]

Just noticed that I never wrote about my 2021 trip to Portugal in the LEAF.

Anyone interested?

 

[Rolfe]

Yes of course.

 

[EVsince2016]

I've been driving in Europe for a long time, starting quite young sharing the driving in my parents petrol cars on holidays. Imagine the insurance cost of that today! We did 8 trips to the Alps, Scandinavia, Netherlands and Germany including the old East Germany, about 12,000 miles abroad. I drove in 12 countries by the time I was 21 and 16 not much later. My dad was already an avid traveller covering much of Europe in the 1950s & 60s including Yugoslavia.

It took me until my 3rd car to have one fit to go on these adventures, a Discovery. In my 3rd & 4th diesel cars I travelled to France, Belgium, Germany & popped into Switzerland at least a dozen times. Diesel was so cheap abroad then, half the cost of Petrol & short returns on Eurotunnel were as little as £9. I did around 6500 miles in 6 countries.

I then had a break of a few years due to family reasons.

Finally, in 2008 I was back travelling, this time to family in Portugal. Mostly by ferry, once touring around Europe each way. Just 4 trips, but I drove around 6750 miles in 7 countries.

My last legacy car was a Vauxhall Vectra diesel. It only did one thing well and that was long haul motorway driving, so it excelled on my Portugal trip and holds the time record. Apart from that it was awful, always breaking down and having appalling MPG nowhere near advertised. The DPF kept blocking, it stank and had a negative effect on my health. Bit of a let down after such reliable Astra estates of which I had 3.

I'd always wanted an EV, loved the Tesla Roadster capabilities and was waiting for them to be affordable. Driving on the M4, I noticed increasing numbers of EVs. So fed up was I of garages & repair bills, one day I just went to a Nissan garage & ordered a 30kWh Gen 1 LEAF.

It arrived in June 2016 (hence EV since 2016). Absolutely loved it. Ugly as hell, but wow a great car. I did 28k miles in this car, but range was terrible & chargers availability dreadful but free!

In 2019 I got a LEAF gen 2 40kWh and I was ready to travel. My plan was to do a trial visit to France in April 2020. All booked, but a little bug stopped it happening. Instead my trail run was to Snowdonia in 2019.

Then soon after the Corri-dor charging network was shut down in France leaving the country devoid of a rapid charging network. Apparently some chargers blew up and the cost of renewal wasn't viable so they closed the business. Izivia took over the remnants of the working chargers & viable sites.

My only option was to go via a ferry to Spain but Spain had so few chargers in 2019-20 that I could only use 7kW chargers or 3 pin plugs to do 400 miles in a car with a 140 mile range and even then I'd have to go an extra 50 miles around the coast to get there.

I needed to travel!

 

[Rolfe]

Wow!

 

[EVsince2016]

In 2020 I only managed 1 overseas trip, . . . . . to the IOW haha and had Shanklin beach to ourselves, 28C, full sun, tea 80p, lunch £5 and a last ride on the 1938 stock. South coast beaches were rammed, result!

It was now early 2021 and lockdown 2, the bug strikes back when I found that new chargers across Northern Spain that made the trip possible.

Flying wasn't possible in practical terms, going via France was too risky and had no rapid chargers anymore. Brittany Ferries promised that if Spain closed they'd go to Porto instead, result!

So I booked ferries & accommodation, managed to get the jabs done in time, booked pre tests, filled in many forms for travel.

Ouch those forms & jabs weren't cheap.

Out was to be via ferry to Bilbao with a stay at Vitoria-Gasteiz to Portugal & back via a stay in Leon & ferry from Santander home.

I had to get a Miio card for Portugal, Electromaps & Easycharger for Spain plus the Via-Verde motorway tag for Portugal. My Chargemap RFID only worked in France then, New Motion in the north of Europe and Electroverse was a future dream.

Thunderbird were go!

 

[EVsince2016]

in 2021 on day 1, we drove to Portsmouth to use the new Instavolt chargers at the ferry terminal. One was in use, the second free. To plug in the back of the car stuck out into the road, but it was contactless VISA so easy to use & in those days 40p/kWh. 34% added before checking in.

On the other side we drove just down to Vitoria-Gasteiz where the hotel had proper 7kW chargers. FREE to use too, but via a fussy borrow a card scheme.

It was a business hotel and we booked a room with a kitchen, which was turned off & we'd have to pay an extra 70 euros to use. Ridiculous! 55% added for free though and got there & ready to go for just £4.85.

A lovely garden city, really nice actually but everyone was so grumpy, at the hotel & in bars & cafes.

 

[EVsince2016]

So next was the epic 400 mile trip across Spain, in not only an EV, but a LEAF during Covid with the awful Spanish charging network of the time. Oh dear, what could go wrong?

I chose to stop early at a pair of WENEA chargers, well at 28%. App worked, but neither would charge my car. Then WENEA called ME to ask if I needed any help. Yes please!. They tried everything but the rapids wouldn't work. T2 yes adding 3%, that's it. I wasted a whole hour for 3%.

OK, so off to Easycharger 10 mins away. Offline. Hmm

OK, there's an Iberdrola 10 mins away. Arrived to find a Spanish EV on and not charging. Unplugged it and tried mine. RFID not working, Iberdrola app not working. Grrr, then the Spanish driver came back & had a hissy fit. Another hour wasted.

OK, 10 mins away there's an EnelX charger at the Nissan garage . . . It was functional, none of my RFID cards worked on it and to register you had to wait 24 hours to be accepted. WTF!!!!

Nissan were utterly useless having no idea how it worked & not having any card to activate it either, so they offered us a T2 charge for free.

2 hours later and now 4pm and 124 miles in, we left. Palencia strikes!

We drove across the tumbleweed roads to our next stop was south of Leon at an EDP unit. Nobody there and it worked. We did a dance actually, they must have thought we were crazy or something! 70% added for £9.52

Boosted by this success we headed for the hills and successfully found and charged at a critical Easy-charger in the mountains. 44% for £4.94

The battery was now seriously hot, off the scale in the car & charging was at just 25 kw/h. I took to coasting down hills to cool it off.

Our final charger was at Lidl in Chaves on Miio just 34% added and at under 10 kw/h. Roast battery for dinner eh!

After here I coasted down every hill, gently powered up hills with the battery temperature gauge on max. Took hours to cool of to charge arriving at just 12%.

15.5 hours for 400 miles, 8:45 driving, 6:45 charging.107.5 kws, £19.46

Never again!

 

[EVsince2016]

During our stay in Portugal, we had free T2 charging available. You'd have thought covid wasn't a thing there, masks on elbows, the only thing was a jab pass to get into a restaurant, UK one's weren't valid but did they care? nope!

We did several trips.

A trip north into some nice towns, used a Lidl charger at Pont da Lima, but then some drunk in a suicide car (one you don't need a license to drive) bumped the side of my car. Bits fell off his car, he didn't stop but no damage to mine. Heyho!

A trip south and up into the mountains. Charger 1 in Porto was dead, charger2 at Q8 worked but it was right next to no smoking signs and the petrol vents. Arghh! Used it both ways, it didn't blow up and is still there. Up in these remote mountains the satnav didn't work and we needed paper maps & road signs to navigate. As the roads are remote, narrow with big unguarded drops and in a fire zone, exciting at least.

Miio was faultless, app & RFID worked as noted on post 1 on this thread.

 

[Rolfe]

Some of that sounds proper hair-raising. Did you ever actually run out of charge?

 

[EVsince2016]

Some of that sounds proper hair-raising. Did you ever actually run out of charge?

Nope, plans A, B, C, D & E were only used in Palencia!

 

[Rolfe]

I'm finding it's not an issue when I'm touring around or going somewhere in not too much of a rush. I could imagine that these sort of charging setbacks would be enough to drive you to drink if you were actually in a hurry though.

 

[EVsince2016]

I'm finding it's not an issue when I'm touring around or going somewhere in not too much of a rush. I could imagine that these sort of charging setbacks would be enough to drive you to drink if you were actually in a hurry though.

To say I was frustrated was an understatement, Efficiviley my 1st attempt to charge abroad failed in Palencia, not once but 4x and that was supposed to be the easy bit! Remember 4pm, 275m to go and 3 remote isolated chargers!

 

[Rolfe]

Pioneering spirit required!

 

[EVsince2016]

Return day 1

So, to return again multiple covid tests were required, booked & paid for at the duly appointed time. Being Portugal, we were asked if we wanted a positive or negative result. We said negative, so a quick dab was done. Apparently a more thorough version was available if you'd prefer to get a positive result! Bending not breaking the rules lol.

On the way back we used the same 3 rapid chargers, Lidl at Chaves (55%) on Miio app, Easy Charger on their app in the mountains (57%) and the EDP charger (39%) south of Leon on Electromaps. Charging rates were 45 kw/h, then 35 kw/h and finally 17 kw/h. As the EDP also charged per minute we abandoned it early. No pics as family are all in the way, I didn't do charger only pics for blogging then! Too much to think about

We stayed in Leon, so just 245 miles in and in reality, the LEAF wouldn't have made it in one go!

Leon is a beautiful city, clean, friendly and very welcoming with plenty to see, very historic too with a walled city & huge Cathedral.

The hotel had a chargeable 3kw charger.

77kw used costing £22, not bad!

 

[EVsince2016]

Return day 2

We left Leon early to make an Easycharger using their app on the A67 north to Santander. These are now Zunder owned and this unit not longer works. 62% added for £5. Again family in the way for a pic!

We travelled over the 1000m summit into Santander where an ADF unit was placed outside of the station. No signs, no directions on how to reach it so I drove in the no entry over a pavement & turned around. Even when there I couldn't find how to reach it! Activated on Electromaps and noisy but 31% slowly added to get me home from Portsmouth.

In the LEAF

The return trip was 145 kWs (versus 141 going out)
Cost was £29.85 versus £24.31 going out.
mile/kwh was 3.36 versus 3.67 going out
8h39 driving back versus 8h45 going out
3h10 charging back versus 6h45 going out
11h49 total time back versus 15h30 out

The MG5 each way by comparison: -

Energy used = 100-120 kWs
mile/kWh = 3.5-4.0
Driving = 6h30 to 7h00
Charging = 1h48-2h30
Time = 8h30-9h30

Cost = £46 (summer) to £60 (winter),