3sheds
Standard Member
Had a nice half term trip to Belgium this week in the MG5. Started off with a surprisingly traffic free run across the Dartford crossing and down to Folkestone on Monday. (Monday of half term seems the best day to travel) Incredibly one of the only two rapid chargers at Folkestone services was free when we arrived so able to get a 20 minute top up before heading over to Eurotunnel and going straight through customs and rolling onto the train.
As we struck out from Calais towards Bruges my wife found some rapid chargers on the outskirts of Veurne just over the Belgium border. They worked well with the electroverse RFID card and we were able to have an enjoyable 15 minute stroll into the picturesque market Square and a nice chat with the lady in the tourist information office. Without the need to charge we would have sped straight past this interesting and historic flanders town with it's magnificent medieval town hall and churches.
By this time it was mid afternoon and we headed towards Bruges to find some parking close to our hotel in the city centre. The main challenge at this point was not charging but the labyrinthine one-way system of Bruges city centre, with narrow streets shared with scores of bikes and buses. I tried several times to make the approach to the underground parking where I knew there were chargers but each time the one-way streets stopped me from reaching the destination and pushed me back to the ringroad! After the second attempt it was near 5pm and I managed to find an on-street space (with no charging) as day visitors must have been leaving.
That evening I enjoyed a well earned Belgian fries and beer looking out over the historic market square. The next morning I had to rise early to sneak the car the wrong way down a medieval alley into the car park! The car park, which was under the city library, was clean and spacious with lots of fast chargers that again worked fine with the electroverse app.
That afternoon we set off again to make a 100-mile trip across Belgium to vosserman Centre Parks in the East of the country near the Dutch border. This time the main inconvenience was traffic as any trip accross Belgium takes you on either the Antwerp or Brussels ring roads which always seem to be gridlocked. What should have been a 2 hour journey was delayed by an extra hour outside Antwerp. We stopped a couple of times at services on the A34 highway (see the map of our charging locations downloaded from electroverse). Each time the services were a little grotty but the rapid chargers worked well and gave us some extra energy in the battery in case we had any charging problems at Centre Parks. All worked well with the electroverse RFID card!
We arrived late at centre parks, unloaded the car and then I took the car with trepidation to the car park to see if any working chargers might still be free. Hearteningly, there were lots of EVs charging there and some had even made the trip from the UK, like us! I found a free space next to an unoccupied charger but no light was on. I scrambled in the darkness to find a post-it note with the word "Kapput" attached! Thankfully I was able to drive to another part of the car park with a dozen more chargers, and some were even available despite our late arrival time... and working! Again it worked no problem with the electroverse RFID card. (I'm not being paid by electroverse, honestly!)
The final stop in Belgium was Ghent on the way back. On the recommendation of our hotel, I planned to park in the underground parking, under the "Friday market" in the centre of town. This time the roads into the centre are much easier to navigate. The city is also very beautiful and somehow feels less touristy and more lived-in than Bruge. We got lucky and found a charger as soon as we arrived in the car park. There only seemed to be about a six in a busy carpark serving hundreds of shoppers and tourists. Electroverse RFID was our saviour again! I noticed another British tourist on the phone to technical support trying to get his charger working, but unfortunately I couldn't help him as my only advice was he should have got the electroverse RFID card!
The following morning with 100% charge we headed back to Calais. We had a quick 20 minute charge at the Eurotunnel terminal while we picked up some gifts and then rolled onto the train. (Last year when we came that way those same chargers hadn't worked).
On our way back to East Anglia I had planned to stop and charge at the Instavolt charger at McDonald's Tilbury shopping park and do some shopping at the same time. Usually Instavolt is very reliable but this time they let us down! All four chargers with black screens! I left the family to buy their lunch at McDonald's and drove to the nearby Tesco Extra to try to get some fast charging from the podpoint chargers there. What a fiasco! Three of the 5 chargers weren't working but the app only told me that after making me go through a long process of updating, confirming my details and 3 step authentication! That Tesco carpark must have had more than 300 spaces but only 2 working chargers? Surely they could do better?!?
So I had to head out of the shopping park and reccross two busy roundabouts to Tilbury services where I was able to get some rapid charge for 20 mins from a very good installation of around 12 Gridserve chargers.
All-in-all the charging situation has improved so much in the 4 years we've had an EV. I definitely recommend getting the electroverse RFID card if you take a road trip in Belgium. And I'm happy to report that the availability of chargers in Belgium seems really good, and somewhat more convenient than some parts of Essex!
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I has a similar easy run, being able to charge at both Folkstone and Calais inside the terminals. But there are only 8 tesla chargers and 4 or 5 of the other chargers at these locations. The other ones at Folkstone don't take credit cards at the moment. I used the Ionity chargers at Veurne, but several were faulty, all reported to Ionity so hopefully they are sorted. But for Bruges itself there is a handy FastNed charger (not the cheapest) 10mins out of the town and if you set up auto charging with FastNed before you go then all you do is plug in and it charges.
