I drove an EV to France for a family holiday… we had to charge it every two hours – and it cost £50 a pop
AN ELECTRIC vehicle owner has told of the charging issues he faced while on a two-week road trip in France.
Paul Barker, managing editor at carwow, said he constantly experienced range anxiety while in his £123,000 BMW iX EV.
The motor expert embarked on a 14-day family holiday in France with the flash motor and was taught some home truths about using the battery-powered vehicle.
Finding enough charging points and one’s that worked were Paul’s biggest challenges he faced.
But the rate at which he had to charge up his vehicle, and the price it cost each time, were also unwelcome challenges.
Paul told the Daily Mail it was “an extra effort to work out how much you’re going to be paying to recharge an electric vehicle.”
He also described the charges of £50 just to charge an EV back up to 80 per cent were “eye-watering”.
As a result of having to constantly stop for charging, Paul conceded that driving a petrol or diesel car has the ability to shave significant time off the journey.
Keeping the speed down to around 65mph was also “frustrating” and upping it would have a “pretty devastating” impact on the range figure.
“The extra time to recharge is the key incentive to keep the speed down,” said Paul.
“For instance, a brief spurt up to the 80mph limit to make sure we made the ferry home had a pretty devastating impact on the range figure.
“In a petrol or diesel car you increase the speed and accept fuel efficiency will drop, but you’ll never notice the extra time at the pump. In an EV it could mean an extra half an hour stop.”
While there were some positives to take from the journey, Paul highlighted the imperfect system of taking an EV on a roadtrip for two weeks.
He said: “The system wasn’t perfect, charging point failure is annoying, and chargers not delivering what is promised is almost worse.
“Plugging in, using the facilities and then finding electricity dribbling in at a pathetic rate is a little rage-inducing 12 hours into a journey.”
But overall, he said he was “surprised by how easy” the trip was, adding that he would have been required to stop every two to three hours for bathroom breaks regardless of the need to charge the EV.
He continued: “Personally it’s another key milestone on my EV ownership journey.
“I’d now happily go across France without even stopping to properly plan the trip, and I’d be interested rather than trepidatious to explore further afield too.”
Elsewhere, one EV driver has slammed the UK’s worst service station saying there’s not enough charging points for non-Tesla drivers and there’s no space to queue.
Hartshead Moor East has been voted the least popular motorway services out of 120 analysed, according to a survey of more than 30,000 visitors by watchdog Transport Focus.
Another EV owner has shared her top tips on driving an electric car for first time buyers so they don’t get caught out.
She especially highlighted that a lot of potential EV buyers will suffer from “range anxiety”.