I have great respect for the electric car pioneers who went down to Europe ten years ago. It must have been exciting to arrive at the town's only charging station and find that it was out of order. That makes good stories. Many of the stories are still out there online and can scare people away. A lot has happened in the last year alone. Everyone can travel with an electric car in Europe, although not entirely without challenges. It may be a good idea to prepare in advance.

Convenient with large charging stations

We are a husband and wife with a dog who recently went by electric car to our little house not far from Perpignan in France. Although we drive a Tesla, the post is not only about Tesla. Large parts of Tesla's charging network can now also serve other car brands. If you have the opportunity, you should register your car in the Tesla app. Not because it is necessary, but because it is convenient to know that you can arrive at charging stations with over 20 terminals. You rarely have to wait - and if so, hardly more than 5-10 minutes. Other players, such as IONITY, have a good spread, but there are fewer terminals at each location.

Preparations

Apps are an important part of the preparations. It is not as easy to arrange such things when you are standing in front of a charging terminal in a foreign country. If you have the "right" charging chip, you can get through the whole of Europe with one chip or one app. The Electric Vehicle Association and NAF have such chips. I have a chip from Recharge (Fortum Charge & Go) which also covers IONITY and many - to me - completely unknown charging operators in Germany, France and Spain. Not only are the main roads covered, but I can charge locally in our little town too. But just to be safe, you should have multiple options in case the payment solution for one app is down. IONITY and E.ON are good alternatives for the whole of Europe.

If you depend on a well-developed charging network, it is also important to have mapped the travel routes – not just one route, but also be prepared for alternative routes. Our main route went through Hamburg, Hannover and Frankfurt. If we had chosen to drive via Luxembourg to France, the distance between the charging stations would have been greater. No problem for today's electric cars, but I fear that large distances between charging stations create charging queues during the holiday season. By checking the charging map for various operators, you can quickly find the driving routes with the best coverage.

Ferry or Sweden?

Part of the planning is finding out which ferry to take, or whether to drive through Sweden. With the Kielfergen, you start in Germany and can drive across the country in one day, provided you have the time and money to spend almost a day on the boat. DFDS from Oslo arrives in Fredrikshavn around midnight and then you either have to take in an accommodation or bet that the driver has had enough sleep during the voyage. The Larvik-Fredrikshavn ferry departs at 08.00 and 12.00 and arrives after approx. 4 hours. The advantage of ferries is that you don't have to spend as many hours in the car.

Sweden

We chose to drive through Sweden. Do you live in Oslo and start at 8, you can arrive in Southern Denmark at approximately the same time as you would have arrived with the boat that leaves Larvik at 12. Our reason for driving was that we would feel bound by having a "mammadalt" dog on the boat. Also, it feels liberating not to be bound by departure times either. The trip through Sweden went well. We loaded up in Kungälv, but took the lunch break in Falkenberg. Our next stop was Löddeköpinge in Scania. It was very busy at the Tesla station there and you could only charge up to 80%. To make sure we got to the last stop of the day, we chose to top up at E.On right next door while eating ice cream.
 
Sweden has good charging networks near service centers with easy access from the E6. The charging terminals were clearly visible.

Denmark

Did you know that AutoPass tags also work on the Øresund Bridge and the Storebælt Bridge? We have a toll subscription without a tag, but on the occasion of the trip over the Danish bridges we had found an old AutoPass tag. I optimistically held it up to the windscreen in front of the barrier in the "Biz field" to the Øresund Bridge - but the barrier would not budge. A nice guard came to our rescue and scanned the code on the chip - and found that it was blocked. Fortunately, we were able to pay on the spot and didn't have to back up to choose another hatch - which the cars behind us probably appreciated.
 
My wife revealed that crossing the Øresund Bridge had been on her "bucket list" for a long time. The bridge is a fantastic piece of construction, but the main road through Zealand and Funen is, in return, terribly boring. The only thing we saw was the road. What the world looked like behind the bushes, we could only guess by studying the map on the screen.

Germany

After spending the night at Comwell Middelfart, we entered Germany. We hadn't booked a hotel in advance, but I had set my sights on a hotel in Herbolzheim just before Freiburg. When we arrived there in the evening, the hotel was unfortunately full. In the last week of the holiday season in Germany, many were out on the same errand. What were we supposed to do? Drive on, or try to find another hotel?
 
The main roads in Germany are well developed with rest areas and service points, where you can also charge from local - and unknown to me - charging stations, but the large Tesla charging stations are located in places without service facilities. This meant that we stopped more times than we strictly needed - once to charge and once to eat, drink and stretch our legs. If I had wanted, I could have charged at almost all the stations that were located at the service points with the code tag from Recharge, but I noticed that these chargers were widely used by other car brands, so I thought to myself that "you who have a Tesla, can well charge in a quieter place”. What's more, the electricity is cheapest at Tesla. Back home, we will probably make more use of local electricity companies.

Driving at night

With holiday time and full hotels in the border area between Switzerland, Germany and France, we found that we might as well drive on into nocturnal France. Driving at night has several advantages. There are fewer cars - and a greater proportion of steady drivers, so that you can drive efficiently on cruise control. Driving on French motorways costs money. The trip from Mulhouse to the exit just before the border with Spain cost us €80 (NOK 925) but is worth every penny. Not just offers Vinci Autoroutes the best roads, but also good night-time service offers where you can relax before driving on. At night, I think it is important to take breaks at least once an hour to feel the body whether it is safe to continue driving.

In France, as in Germany, you rarely find Tesla chargers at the 24-hour rest areas. In France, we experienced finding brand new chargers in rather secluded places. In the darkness of the night, they became even more secluded, because in many places the street lights are switched off after midnight. A couple of times we had to take detours, and soon found out that when maneuvering in tight urban areas, you have to drive at a snail's pace so that the navigation system has time to update itself. It's an advantage to have two - one to drive and one to scout for hidden charging stations. It's almost like a game - Find the charging station!

toilets

Toilets are important welfare when you are on the road. We were disappointed by the McDonalds along the main thoroughfare. Bad food and wretched sanitary conditions throughout Europe. When we chose a McDonalds restaurant a couple of km outside the motorway system, the quality increased considerably. We are also left with the impression that organized rest areas with joint service offers (Serways and Vinci) generally have good sanitary conditions.

Beware of heat wave

In Europe, there is now a heat wave. This can result in shorter ranges, although we didn't notice anything about that since we had the ventilation system on right from the start in Denmark - also for the dog when he had to be alone in the car. A negative experience was that the windscreen cracked a few hours after we arrived. Perhaps it was not very smart to park a car with a cooled compartment in the scorching sun when the thermometer approached 40 degrees.
 
A positive experience is that the charging chip from Recharge (Fortum Charge & Go) works at the local charging stations here.

Power Dot is available in Spain, France and Belgium, but can be used with a charging chip from Recharge

Nice to have charging options nearby.

See