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Road Trip; Charging in Europe - please advise.

6K views 18 replies 16 participants last post by  TeslaDriver 
#1 ·
I am planning a road trip from Yorkshire to Oslo via overnight Ferry from Hull to Rotterdam.

Visiting Amsterdam, Copenhagen and staying in Oslo. The plan is to enjoy the scenery and take a couple of boat rides.

Can any one advise on the charging cards that will b essential? Or point me to a thread with this info please?

Gotta get up now, meeting in Southampton later today. Looking forward to a charge at the Milton Keynes Coachway...
 
#3 ·
I would go for it. Charging infrastructure in The Netherlands, Germany and Denmark is above par. Maybe not always the full 100kW, but definitely faster than 50kW. And with FastNed and Ionity, you have sufficient coverage to make it from Rotterdam to Oslo easily.
My experience so far is that New Motion has great coverage and includes FastNed, Ionity, Alego, etc. As backup, I bring along RFID cards from Maingau/Einfachstromladen and Telekom Ladestrom/Get Charge.

The only thing that could hold you back is the pricing. Fastned for example charges 0,59 euro per kWh. This is almost twice the price of the type 2 chargers that normally cost around 0,30 per kWh in The Netherlands with New Motion. This might make your trip more expensive that you thought...
 
#4 ·
I use my Maingau card for all my Fastned charging while I use my NewMotion card for all Ionity charging. You do not need an RFID card for Fastned nor Ionity you can pay with creditcard via an account set-up in the respective apps.

From arrival in Rotterdam to Amsterdam is approx 105km (almost all highways mostly 100km/h), if you stay overnight you might be able to charge AC if not then approx 90km from Amsterdam on your way to Germany there is a Ionity station near Apeldoorn. So if you get on the Ferry with 80% SoC you should be able to go from Rotterdam Port via Amsterdam to that Ionity station.
 
#5 ·
Try Plugsurfing - works great with Ionity, as well as Fortum (large provider in Sweden and Norway). It seems to work with Fastned (Netherlands) as well, although I've never tried that.

On Ionity I get 90 kW max decreasing to approximately 50 kW when the SOC reaches 80%, and they have corridors from Hamburg to Oslo with a good charger coverage along the highways.

Tip: Unless you really want to just get here as fast as possible, driving on smaller, more scenic roads along the coast will make the trip a lot more pleasant than just staying on the highway.
 
#6 ·
Snoerd said:
I would go for it. Charging infrastructure in The Netherlands, Germany and Denmark is above par. Maybe not always the full 100kW, but definitely faster than 50kW. And with FastNed and Ionity, you have sufficient coverage to make it from Rotterdam to Oslo easily.
My experience so far is that New Motion has great coverage and includes FastNed, Ionity, Alego, etc. As backup, I bring along RFID cards from Maingau/Einfachstromladen and Telekom Ladestrom/Get Charge.

The only thing that could hold you back is the pricing. Fastned for example charges 0,59 euro per kWh. This is almost twice the price of the type 2 chargers that normally cost around 0,30 per kWh in The Netherlands with New Motion. This might make your trip more expensive that you thought...
Agree with Snoerd. Go for it. Infrastructure on your route is OKE. When planning your trip, take in to account 50kW chargers. Lucky if you get 83-84 kw

With regard to the price: yes, Fastned is a bit pricy, but on the other hand, we have to support these companies, as they are the ones who supply us with the infrastructure and thus range we need. They need to have a positive business-case, else we all will have a "stay-cation" in stead of a "vacation" or we return to the ICE-age.
When charging at home most of the time, we will not get broke when charging every now and then at Fastned / Ionity etc.
 
#7 ·
Hi patkinson1966,

Having done a very similar trip in April, the charger cards you will need in Europe are 'Plugsurfing' and 'Chargemap' and once you arrive in Norway you are best to download the 'Bilkraft app' and also make sure and get your car approved as electric by 'AutoPASS' for the tolls and in country ferry's. Other apps which I found useful was 'Fastned' and 'Plugshare'. I travelled from the UK by ferry to Dunkirk, visiting France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Norway, and then through Denmark on the return trip to the UK. In general the charging network was better than the UK.
 
#8 ·
Thanks! That's all excellent advice...

Planning to go scenic route with no sense of urgency. Had positive experience with Fastned at their Sunderland site; got my @evthankyou there!

Charged for first time today at Milton Keynes on the Polar array and spoke with the team commissioning the four 350kW Ionity chargers... so Fastned and Ionity look like good options

Registering with Ionity right now to see if I can try the Ionity boxes tomorrow!

Update: it must be me, it's not clear how to get a charge with Ionity... Messaged them via Twitter.
 
#9 ·
Hi Patkinson1966 ,

You can use any RIFD card , I used NewMotion .
Or you can use the Ionity app .
Both methods work after registration and choosing a payment method ( I use PayPal) .
I' ve tried Ionity chargers in Belgium , they are a bless for us EV drivers 👍.
All the best ,
Jan

P.S : So you have used the polar chargers until now ? They work fine ?
Will have a go with Fastned in the near future .
 
#10 ·
Ditto to Albion's comments
The Ionity chargers are great and made such a difference to our trip to the south of France in April, we were charging from about 20% to 100% in a little over an hour and all for the flat rate fee of 8eu :D
Just register a payment method online and then its pretty straightforward on site
NB I registered a British credit card as my payment, if you do so make sure you tell your bank about your trip abroad
I forgot and kept getting the card frozen by the bank fraud team , really frustrating!
 
#11 ·
malcolm said:
Ditto to Albion's comments
The Ionity chargers are great and made such a difference to our trip to the south of France in April, we were charging from about 20% to 100% in a little over an hour and all for the flat rate fee of 8eu :D
Just register a payment method online and then its pretty straightforward on site
NB I registered a British credit card as my payment, if you do so make sure you tell your bank about your trip abroad
I forgot and kept getting the card frozen by the bank fraud team , really frustrating!
When you say South of France it is actually the south west because today there is no Ionity charger between Paris and Nice going south east . Several are under construction . I called Ionity yesterday but could not get any useful information .
 
#13 ·
John32 said:
About 8 are in construction towards Nice. So in a couple of weeks, the situation will be different!
May be , we are already mid June and time is running out since it takes more than 80 days in average to open a station .
Besides It cannot be more than 300 km between two stations
 
#15 ·
It's a great shame the one near Reims is useless for anyone heading from Calais to the South East on A26. It is not accessible in either direction without a huge diversion. Unfortunate and strange choice of location.
 
#16 ·
Yes as emgf pointed out my trip was to the south west which does seem to have been favoured by Ionity , I was only intending to praise the charging stations that I had used, not to pretend that any other trip through France was easy, and to recommend any trip keeping near Ionity or other FAST chargers
I am still waiting on the stations that would make my trip to the alps achievable
 
#17 ·
Chickened out! Just hired an ICE car for the upcoming trip Calais - Dortmund. Was very tempted to take the I-pace but reading latest posts on Allego/Luminus chargers it appears there are still issues, and not many alternatives around Ghent and Eindhoven where I would need a charge....
 
#18 ·
DougTheMac said:
It's a great shame the one near Reims is useless for anyone heading from Calais to the South East on A26. It is not accessible in either direction without a huge diversion. Unfortunate and strange choice of location.
Getting dino Juice around Rheims from the A26 is also a problem. You seem to end up going back the way you came.
With the Ionity charger it is on the A4 going towards Paris. All roads lead to Paris don't they....?

It is certainly a PITA to use.
Once you are fully charged and back on the A4 a good side trip is to leave the A4 at exit 23 and take the D951 south to Sezanne (via Epernay) and then the D373 and D619 to Troyes where you can pick up the A26 again. This is one of the best biking roads in that part of France or was until the national speed limit was reduced to 80kph.
I ridden that a few times rather than spend the whole day on the Autoroute. There is also a supermarket (With a cafe) right by the exit from the Motorway.
 
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