Freshly back from a well deserved ski holiday in the Austrian Alps it seemed like a good idea to list some interesting tips (in my humble opinion) on charging. It will be a bit of a longer post so for the experts, you can spend your time more wisely elsewhere??.
- Am I traveling with the crowd or not? Those typical "black" weekends in the summer when hundreds of thousands are leaving and coming back from southern Europe at the same time for example. Knowing this is important to decide to what extent you will trust the navigation of your vehicle. In my experience they do not always take the availability of the chargers into account very well when planning.
- Trust the car. If on the other hand you are smart and flexible enough to travel outside of the marriage and congestion records shattering days, you can rely on most vehicles to plan you a perfectly good route. Using the on board navigation also has the big advantage that the car will precondition the battery for you. This will lead to an optimal charging speed once you arrive.
- If you have to travel on busy days it pays to have a solid plan. My advice would be to go to A Better Routeplanner (https://abetterrouteplanner.com/) and play with the settings to reflect your situation (the vehicle, expected temperature, weight, etc...). There is also a nifty feature where you can indicate the number of chargers that have to be present on your stops. Just put 12 or maybe even 18 or 24 in there. This way you can be sure you know where the big charging stations are. Even with a queue, a spot will quickly open up.
- Think counter-intuitive. Remember that everyone uses the same GPS devices to get to the destination as fast as possible without really thinking about it. Maybe an alternative route is a bit slower but a lot less busy. A classic example is driving from Belgium to Austria or Southern Germany. A very small number of people take the route through the Ardennes and the Eiffel because there is about 50 km of highway missing. This route is actually shorter but also a bit slower. Guaranteed loneliness, even on the busiest days.
- More counter-intuitive thinking. Don't stress about leaving fully charged. That's what everyone does and as regions or cities start and end their holidays together, chances are that everyone driving the same type of vehicle will end up at the same charging location down the road. If you leave with 70% in the battery, you will ride a different wave.
- Know yourself and your passengers. Some people, like me, get bored very quickly. The first 10 minutes of charging are ok. You stretch your legs, get rid of the empty bottles and candy wrappers, go to the toilet,... But then the minutes start creeping by more slowly. For me shorter and more frequent stops are clearly less stressful. But everyone is different so it helps to discuss this before leaving.
- Cut your trip into pieces. It helps to plan your longer stops as interim destinations. McDonalds or Burger King is always the discussion in our house. Or maybe you hate fast food and want a stop to eat something decent, which can be very difficult to find. You should not let the car decide everything for you so it helps to make up your mind beforehand. Given that you will spend a bit more time here, your car will get a reboot without the waiting getting on your nerves. Most modern electric cars will be 80%+ full after a 30-45 minute stop. You and your wheels will be ready for a nice long stint afterwards.
- Know your vehicle. If you do happen to use your own route and navigate to the chargers that you have picked, there are two very important things to take into account. Make absolutely sure you navigate to the Point Of Interest (POI) of the charger. If the car doesn't know it is going to a charger it will not precondition, which can lengthen your stay considerably. There is always an icon of some sort to indicate the POI as a fast charger. Secondly, you need to know at which percentage your car stops preconditioning. Sometimes this is not clear and will take some trial and error to discover. Usually the cutoff point is around 10%. Slowing down a bit to reach the charging destination with that percentage, you will get the lost time back with faster charging.
- Think when ordering. The advantages of certain options are often overlooked by new electric car buyers. An optional 22 kw AC charger can be a real gift during road trips for example. Some of us don't want to get caught dead eating at a highway rest stop. Decent restaurants near fast chargers are difficult to find however. That's where a potent on board AC charger comes in. A nice 4 course meal quickly takes 2 hours if you are enjoying the holiday vibe. That is plenty to fill most cars up with 40-80% of juice at a normal on-street charger instead of half that with most standard equipment. The same plays out for short overnight stays at hotels. Arriving almost empty around midnight means you will not be fully charged when hitting the road at six in the morning for some vehicles out there.
- Remember the tires. One of the easiest ways to limit consumption on any vehicle is to make sure you inflate the tires to the maximum before leaving.
- Check your tariffs. All major charging network operators have subscription options. Especially on long trips getting a subscription, just for the month you are traveling in, really pays off. Let's say you are traversing France on your way to Spain. An Ionity subscription is only 6 € per month and the price per kwh is 0.20 € lower with the subscription (0.39 € vs 0.59 € in France when this was written). So after 30 kwh you have your money back and the rest of you trip is pure savings. Assuming 2000 km with 20 kwh per 100 km consumption, that is a cool 74 € you can spend on something else.
- It pays to compare. At the time of writing the Tesla membership prices for electricity were often significantly lower than other providers. This is also available for non Tesla drivers. An additional advantage is that the charging stations are on average much bigger than those of the competition. You are almost guaranteed to be quickly served. The downside is that they are often not on the highway which means you will lose some time getting there and back.
- It pays to compare some more. As electric vehicles become ever more popular, you can expect price fluctuations during the day. With congestion charging tariffs operators try to push those with flexibility towards the calmer times of the day. Not everyone is built for it, but if you can drive during (part of) the night you are guaranteed to have shorter queues and lower prices.
- Not all countries are equal. A lot of us know the typical queues at the gas station in Luxembourg. Well, for electricity there are also big differences between countries. France and Spain have very low prices, while the Benelux is seriously expensive for example. Being smart about that last stop before the border can pay off handsomely.
- Don't fully charge in the mountains. When on holiday in the mountains the reflex is often to charge up to 100% before heading back home or to the next destination. The problem with this strategy is that your car doesn't have any place left to put the energy when driving downhill. You lose "free" energy, you put extra strain on your brakes and it just doesn't drive as comfortably. Limit the charge to 80% or 90% and reap the profits of kinetic energy.
- Use a navigator. I would never advise someone to start playing around with the navigation while driving, but if you have a navigator next to you I would give them some work. Most apps can indicate how many chargers are occupied at a certain moment. If you check from time to time what the situation is at your destination, you can adapt your plans. Maybe go for an earlier stop, or drive a bit more slowly to get to one further down the road. There is nothing more productive to the holiday spirit than having a feeling of control.
- Try slow traveling. If you are up for it, the switch to electric might help you spice things up a bit. Why barrel down the highway all the time on a stressful run to your destination. Your holiday should start when you close your front door, no? Look for a B&B or hotel with a charging station along your route and take a few days extra. Or pick an off-highway strategy. In countries with toll roads this is easy, you just set "avoid toll" in the navigation and you will be guided across secondary networks. I guarantee you will appreciate the regions you used to race through much more deeply afterwards.
There you go, hope there were at least one or two useful ones in there. Enjoy your day!
