Charging Electric Audi in Netherlands

[PostladyPat]

Hi all - having pre holiday anxiety that I wont be able to easily charge my electric Audi abroad. I dont want to take our smaller petrol car but looking for reassurance that I dont need a special adaptor and that charge points are plentiful. Has anyone taken their car to Netherlands? Thank you

We took our electric car there earlier this year. Plenty of chargers (I think the plugs are standard everywhere anyway) but you need to create an online account to use them which was a bit annoying (a new account for every company providing the chargers). Also not all of them worked and we had to call their helplines a couple times. Basically just don’t wait till your battery is nearly dead in case you need to drive to another charger. But there are lots of them and we were fine in the end.

I had a look on Zapmap for my dad (who lives in the Netherlands but has never charged his car away from home). The country appears to be absolutely awash with chargers.

It sounds as if you've not charged your car much away from home in the UK? @ohmysense 's description sounds right for the experience of public charging anywhere - some possible hassles if the charge point doesn't use contactless, plan ahead, don't expect every charger to be working.

Your Audi uses CCS, which is the very common type of charging port, I would download the ChargeMap or Plugshare apps to be able to see which chargers are where.

I would look for Fastned chargers - this is a big charging network and seems pretty good.

You may already know this, but don't charge your car above 80% on a public charger; EVs charge very slowly above 80% so you'll be sat there for ages and blocking a charger someone else might want to use. I occasionally do it if I'm at a place where there are lots of chargers not in use and I'm still finishing lunch or whatever.

I've got to take mine into the charging desert that is North Wales at the weekend, so would far rather be going to the Netherlands! Best of luck.

@tribpot you’re right, that was our first long trip using the EV, and in the UK we usually charge at home. We did find that there were way more charging points available in the continental Europe vs in the UK on the way back

We drive to the Netherlands last year in a diesel, but my electric car was due shortly after we got home, so I was very aware if public chargers., they're were loads, on our campsite, in the super ether, in the park and ride car park..,

Thank you all some great suggestions