France - electric car

[Holidayhavanas]

Hello, we are booked to go to Dordogne in August travelling from south east England. DH wants to swap our family car for an electric one. I’m worried about the time it will add on to the trip and the hassle. Anyone have experience of doing a long trip in France with an EV in summer - from previous experience service stations are so busy, I can imagine there being long queues to recharge . Would love to hear from anyone who has travelled in an EV or knows someone who has. Thank you!

We live in France and have an EV. The charging network is now pretty good on main roads and autoroutes with lots of fast chargers. In the countryside there are also good numbers of chargers, but generally slower. If you download the Chargemap app and plan a route, you can see exactly what is available. You can put in your car and it will calculate range and charging stops. I wouldn't want to travelling on the big weekends for holiday departures and returns, but apart from that it should be fine. It is worth looking at destination chargers, some rental sites now have a box to tick for on site charging.

@HilaryThorpe thank you that’s really helpful.

I don't have an EV, but having travelled on French motorways on a holiday weekend recently there are lots of charging points and they were not busy. I heard on the news that France now has the second best network of charging points in Europe.

Have a look at Mr EV on YouTube. He has driven to Italy (via France) several times - is the playlist for the first one in 2019 and is the second trip in 2022.

A lot will depend on which EV you get. If you get a Tesla - job done, nothing to worry about (I don't drive a Tesla, I have a Kia e-Niro like the one in Mr EV's first trip to Italy and I love it). If you get a fairly high spec car with a big battery and a decent charging speed (the Niro is good on the first but a little slow by modern standards on the second) you should be fine but be prepared to have a few RFID cards with you and get familiar with the charging process first. If you get an early model Nissan Leaf, you'll be stopping to charge every 100 miles and having to find somewhere with the less popular Chademo chargers.

It shouldn't add too much time to your trip if you plan your charging stops around rest stops for food and loo breaks. I think it is inevitable it will add some hassle compared to having a petrol car. If you're going to do it, I would make sure you get the car no later than early July and do at least one long trip in the UK in it first.

I drove from London to Paris a few months ago and had to stop once to charge. There were plenty of available fast chargers at the motorway services.

Friends back from a recent trip. Found it a bit difficult- charging points not working in some places so queues for those that were and they said something about a card that was needed for some chargers - not sure what this was. Careful planning needed it seems.

We drove to the vendée last year - no issues at all and doing the same this year.

Where are you crossing?

Definitely get the Chargemap card and app. We used the chargers recommended on their route planner and had no issues with the reliability or the availability.