Taking the EV Route To The Alps

So after a break from our annual Alps cycling trip due to COVID, myself, some cycling friends and partners were once again heading back to Le Bourg-d'Oisans in the French Alps. This time however, I would be driving an Electric Vehicle - but just how straight forward was it going to be?

When I first got the car almost two years ago it was a while until I made my first long journey and whilst it was only about a 450 mile round trip in the UK I confess it wasn't straight forward and my stress levels were high! Fast forward to a few more longer trips and I was getting better at forward planning and trusting the route planned by my Audi's GPS that includes suggested charging stops. So, as our trip to France approached I felt much more comfortable and certainly much better prepared. I had planned our route with a stop over in Dijon on the way out, selecting an hotel with a charger and Reims on the way back for the same reason. For planning I had used both the Audi navigation and the Charge Map app so I felt pretty prepared. Add the fact that Mr Musk has now opened a number of the Tesla Super Charge network to non Tesla's all was going to be great right....

So with a fully charged battery we start the trip from home at 2:45 am. The car is fully loaded and we set off for the Eurotunnel. In total 13 of us will be in Bourg, two of our friends are setting off a few miles north of us at the same time. They will be in a BMW X5 3.0D M Sport and will be tracking their mileage and fuel costs to provide a comparison for this write up - thanks Nigel! We are not expecting any traffic so early but the M25 is closed near Enfield so we have to take a detour for a couple of junctions - good start!

We arrive in plenty of time for our train and decide not to take an earlier one to allow for a full charge at the Tesla station. This is the first time |I have used one and despite having set this all up before we left there was a bit of a faff with the app as it now wanted me to update my address and this took several attempts. Just as well it was sorted as the non Tesla charging on this side of the Channel is very poor.

Until now I haven't really charged much away from home but I am now learning that super chargers slow down once the car is around 80%, I think this is top prevent overheating and given I already know the journey is going to take longer due to more stops it isn't that much of an issue. Two of our stops for charging are going to happen anyway - the wait at the Eurotunnel terminal and the planned overnight stop in Dijon.

So we are now in France and I am yet to stop and charge - how is that all going to work out? With my Audi came an RFID charge card and due to my lack of public charging it still has some credit on it from the initial initiative provided when I got the car. I have read up on this and I believe it will work but still I have that on my mind so I decided to make an early stop after around 80 miles. We pull into the first Service Station - Aire de Baralle on the A26. This only has two superfast Ionity chargers, one is not working and the other is occupied, by and Ionity service vehicle!. After a 10 minute wait I am hooked up and charging, the card worked and after 27 minutes we are on our way again and my payment worries are gone.

The journey onto Dijon goes very well and we make two more short stops before reaching our hotel where we can charge again, or not as it turns out as there is no charger! Funnily enough there are 20 Tesla superchargers next to the hotel but these are not yet open to non -Tesla's, come on Elon open them all up! Our last charge before the overnight stop had been a bit of an insurance one that we didn't need to make, so we were OK for the morning. Not far down the Autoroute we pulled off to another Tesla station that we could use and as we find out they are easy to use and always have plenty of capacity. So, we push on to the Alps and make a final stop outside Grenoble. A little conversation with someone charging was needed as the chargers were not recognising RFID cards so we had to use the Ionity app to get going - my French has improved over this journey through necessity but a bit more on this later...

We are now in the Alps, I know the consumption is going to drop as we climb but it isn't far to go and we are soon meeting up with friends that have already arrived. Time to get my bike set up and a quick climb up the Col D'Ornon to make sure everything is working before everyone else arrives. I won't bore you with all the cycling bits but we are having a great time and as the car has been used a little by my wife I decide to go and charge the car in town. There are two charge points, a 50kwh which is occupied to I drive to a slow charger provided by eborn that requires me to tap my debit card to open up a cage so I can plug my own charge cable in and start charging. All is well so off I go for a walk in town before I return to go back to the faster charger. The process now is to tap my card which stops the charging and then asks for payment so that the cage opens again so I can take my cable out. It doesn't work so I try a few more times (about 20 times in reality) without success so I unplug the cable from my car in the hope this may change things - it doesn't!

I call the number on the charger to get the message that the number is not valid, I think I tried that another 10 times before I start to wonder how much a new cable would cost if I just left mine there. Given the cost of charging was only four Euro's I talk myself out of this route and ask a passer by if they would try their card for me and that works first time! I give the kind stranger a five euro note and he is concerned I have overpaid him! I assure him it is fine although my French was not good enough to say it was cheaper than leaving my cable there! Now I would have taken a photo of this station had it all worked out but given I had been trying to get away for an hour my mind was not focussed on this write up! With hindsight this was my only real issue and hey we all need to keep learning so I now have an eborn app with 20 euro's loaded on it for next time! When I get to the faster charger and I see eborn on the side I am little concerned but at this one I can use my RFID card so I top up and am soon returning to base

After an another amazing week of cycling and a few drives out to see some sights it is time to return home. The whole journey was very smooth both ways with no charging issues and virtually no traffic until we hit the UK. We are soon back home and cant wait to see family and pick up our dog from kennels!

My driving despite my intentions was not slower to conserve energy. We generally drove at the speed limit or just below and really didn't do anything different to previous trips other than a few extra short stops,but to be honest that made the journey easier overall. We used the more expensive Tesla chargers a few times due to convenience and didn't get charged for two charges, one Ionity and the hotel stop on the way back. I think the higher Tesla charges balanced the free charges so I believe this has been a decent test. Certainly the charging experience was excellent and here are the comparisons the the X5:

I love the Audi, the driving experience is amazing and the car is great inside. This has been by far the longest time I have spent in it but the Tesla charging network if it doesn't fully open up would tempt me their way (Just don't tell Elon please!)