Charging in France

[donpolo88]

So I rented a car in Bordeaux MG5 from Europecar. I asked for tips for charging but was given a Shell recharge card and told if you don't want to use it just use your credit card. The Shell card needs a French phone number which it don't have to sent an authorisation code to create an account. So no luck there.

Took me forever to workout that I could use my smartphone and credit card to charge through Freemile.

So I walk away having set up the car and it's charging even if it says slow charging for some reason. When I returned after Bout 1.5 hours it has gone from 63 to 74% and had turned itself off!

I've reconnected authorising my credit card again but it's still showing slow charging. And last time it didn't give me a message like "It cannot operate when the vehicle is inactivated. Please start your vehicle first." On the car's dashboard.

The dashboard is showing -18A and 404V.

It's now 10.26 and the dashboard say it will be fully charged by 11.38.

Lastly the connector has a maximum capacity of 44 kW but the graph on the website for Freemile is showing about 8kW power and 2kWh energy.

Is this normal?

PS the the energy reading is now about 8kWh.

Also, not withstanding that the first time I tried to charge, it seemed to stop around 73% for some reason, is it normal to leave a car on a charger overnight or is that considered bad form?

And lastly, Freemile seems to want you to register that you have stopped charging in a sepate process not just disconnect. Is that the usual thing to do?

 

[DaveYearsley]

So I rented a car in Bordeaux MG5 from Europecar. I asked for tips for charging but was given a Shell recharge card and told if you don't want to use it just use your credit card. The Shell card needs a French phone number which it don't have to sent an authorisation code to create an account. So no luck there.

Took me forever to workout that I could use my smartphone and credit card to charge through Freemile.

So I walk away having set up the car and it's charging even if it says slow charging for some reason. When I returned after Bout 1.5 hours it has gone from 63 to 74% and had turned itself off!

I've reconnected authorising my credit card again but it's still showing slow charging. And last time it didn't give me a message like "It cannot operate when the vehicle is inactivated. Please start your vehicle first." On the car's dashboard.

The dashboard is showing -18A and 404V.

It's now 10.26 and the dashboard say it will be fully charged by 11.38.

Lastly the
Conector has a maximum capacity of 44 kW but the graph on the website for Freemile is showing about 8kw power and 2kw energy.

Is this normal?

Hi, a nightmare. Hired a MG4 EV in Nice. And went to Annot, 10 pm, to charge with eborn 22kW charger. The car and charger would not connect. Tried three times with one charger and once with the other side (which was working for another car). Credit card pending 200 Euros. Came back to campsite and connected to camp electricity using slow charger it worked after a pause. Stopped after a few minutes as seemed rude to continue - besides not enough cable to avoid our sleeping place. Drove back to Annot and tried again with Eborn charger this time it worked. But had to leave car overnight as charge speed seemed to be 2kW. Hope we can get back to Nice!

 

[Coulomb]

Lastly the connector has a maximum capacity of 44 kW but the graph on the website for Freemile is showing about 8kW power and 2kWh energy.

So that's presumably an AC "charger", meaning that it just connects to AC power and the charging happens with the on-board charger in the car. It will be limited to about 7 or 11 kW, depending on the model and where the car was sold. So yes, this is expected. Really you should try and find a rapid charger. These charge via a high power charger outside the car. It connects directly to the battery via the two large pins of the charging port.

The energy delivered starts at zero and increases as the charge progresses. After a quarter hour of charging at 8kW, 2kWh of energy will have been delivered.

 

[DaveYearsley]

So that's presumably an AC "charger", meaning that it just connects to AC power and the charging happens with the on-board charger in the car. It will be limited to about 7 or 11 kW, depending on the model and where the car was sold. So yes, this is expected. Really you should try and find a rapid charger. These charge via a high power charger outside the car. It connects directly to the battery via the two large pins of the charging port.

The energy delivered starts at zero and increases as the charge progresses. After a quarter hour of charging at 8kW, 2kWh of energy will have been delivered.

Hi
I was game to try a fast charger but an hour away. It seemed risky to travel into the mountains. My fifth attempt in Annot worked, the eborn app was great, I could monitor progress, in the morning it was 100% and the cost for 38kWh was 17.8 Euros. It was good to walk early morning and get the car .....

 

[SimonMG5]

We were in France last week. In my experience chargers that are advertised anything below 50kW are more more than likely going to give you are 3-4kW. We made sure to only use these when opportunity for a long / overnight charge and go to proper fast chargers otherwise. Only problem we had was 1 fast charger with very short cables which was not good for front charge point. Used electroverae app/RFID card otherwise.

 

[donpolo88]

Update. I now had three stations give me error messages. And one even gave an error message in the car while charging something like HV malfunction, please carefully park safely. I had fortunately got the charge to a about 45% on a 300kW machine but then stupidly thought I'd try a less powerful one at the station to see if it would charge a out the same speed. Then I got the error message. The car then would not start at all and then all the chargers in the station started show error messages and would not charge for other users. I called roadside assistance and was able to close down the car. If I tried to start, the dispys came on but nothing happened when I tried to select R or D. Then after waiting for 20 minutes I tried to start it again and it worked! I called roadside assistance and they said just move on, despite me saying maybe I should wait to see them. At my destination, I found another rapid charger but it also gave an error message, this time saying the car had sent it a message. In desperation I tried another less powerful option at the station and it worked! It took about 50 minutes to charge from 17% to 86% after which it said the last 14% would take 20minutes which I think is normal. This morning full of optimism, I went to a power dot station, connected and just got error messages on the normal plugs, and both options for the combo. The station was only a 22kW one. So much for new technology to save the world! Any suggestions?

 

[SimonMG5]

Sorry to hear you are having problems, can definitely be frustrating, especially if this is your first venture.

I can't help on the faults, I would try something like the Electroverse app as an alternative to getting charging going. I've had luck with that where sometimes errors using contactless cards. Only HV error I've seen is when not press brake hard enough when starting car up.

I have had issues on a charger where the advice was to lift the plug slightly upwards when plugged into car to make sure it earth's properly.

Just be aware that the MG5 limit is 80kW I think so any chargers above that won't have any benefit, but it's fairly common to not get the full power stated in any case.

 

[Paul Mason]

I am currently in France and not having any problems so far. Using Electroverse card, I have used Ionity, Izivia, Shell and Total. Bombing everywhere at 130kph and doing fine!