Q: Can you offer advice on what’s needed to take an EV across France this summer, in terms of charging station map apps you’d recommend, whether all stations take contactless card payments or require accounts and which subscription scheme is best for these sort of trips (Ionity, WeCharge, ChargeMaps etc). – MT, Co Kildare
A: With summer heading our way, and the school holidays looming, this seems like a great time to answer this question.
The good news is that France is great for electric car driving. Not only are charging points – especially high-speed DC chargers – plentiful, but you’re also in a country which uses a lot of nuclear, wind, and solar energy, so a lot of your charging will be of the carbon-neutral variety.
It’s only a year now since we drove the entire way across France, from Strasbourg to Cherbourg, in a BMW i5 Touring and you can read more about that here.
Part of what you’ll need to take with you depends, to an extent, on which EV you’ve bought. Many new electric cars will come with a car-company-branded charge card, which can give you easy access to a multiplicity of chargers across France and the rest of Europe.
Looking back at our little adventure with the BMW i5, the BMW-branded charging card that came with the car worked in every charging station we visited. So, your first port of call should be to make sure you know which chargers your supplied card will work with.
While most, if not all, chargers will have a tap-and-pay option for using a credit or debit card, it is worth checking out the car-company-supplied option, because there are usually discounts on the cost of charging included with that.
If you don’t have one of those cards, don’t worry, all is not lost. The two charging apps I’d recommend for France are Ionity and Total Energies. On our cross-country trip, there seemed to be either an Ionity or Total fast-charging station at every motorway service station we visited, and usually with at least six fast charging points in operation, often 12 or even 16.
Both Ionity and Total offer monthly subscriptions which get you access to discounted charging, down to about 50c per kWh which is a lot more palatable than the pay-as-you-go rate of 78c per kWh.
If you’re going to be covering big distances – and France is of course a very big country – then it would be at least worth signing up for both of these services for the month when you’re travelling, as you’ll quickly make back the monthly fee in reduced charging costs.
Total Energies also covers slower chargers located at kerbsides and in car parks, so that’s definitely an app worth having.
It’s a good idea to download ZapMap too, which will help you find whatever chargers are in your area. However, ZapMap is crowdsourced, so it can be out of date or just plain wrong sometimes.
One thing to be aware of is that French autoroutes have a higher speed limit than Irish motorways – 130km/h instead of 120km/h – so if you want to cruise at that speed, your electric consumption will be a little higher than it normally is in Irish conditions.
When you’re planning your ferry trip, we’d recommend Irish Ferries, as the MV WB Yeats that does the run between Dublin and Cherbourg has (limited, there are only three, supplied by PodPoint) on-board charging points for EVs that can be booked ahead of time. They only run at 3.7kW, but given that it’s an 18-hour crossing, you can get some decent charging done in that time.
You’ll also want to make sure that your roadside assistance cover is still in place, and it’s worth checking that it covers call-outs for EVs with a flat battery. Somewhat surprisingly, not all do, and while it’s unlikely that you’ll run out of juice on the road, it’s always best to be prepared for the worst-case scenario.
Finally, make sure you have someone in the passenger seat to deal with toll booths. Honestly, it’s such a pain reaching across from a right-hand drive car.
Beyond that, enjoy. France is one of the best countries for a driving holiday, as long as you are aware of the speed limits (many main roads are down to 80km/h, and the Gendarmerie are unforgiving at the best of times).
Oh, and if you happen to be passing Le Mans, do not miss the chance to pop into the excellent museum of the famed 24-hour race. It’s a belter.
