Travel to The French Alps

[greeiig]

Hi, I've just returned from our trip to the Alps in our MG5 SR. Lots to report back about charging, and I'm happy to share the spreadsheet I made for charging stops.

First of all, do get a Chargemap account and card.
Register for an account with Ionity and Fastened, and Instavolt in the UK (they have a charger near the EuroTunnel UK side).
My car is still in France due to a bad charge at the Calais EuroTunnel terminal, one other MG owner has had a bad charge there too. Avoid charging there is my advice, there are Ionity chargers nearby to the terminal and they were reliable (but expensive) - but that is far better than being stuck in Calais for several days, and your car still stuck in France.

I was wondering how you'd got on. That must have been one bad charge alright. Hope you are being looked after now..

 

[JCFlippen]

Hi, I've just returned from our trip to the Alps in our MG5 SR. Lots to report back about charging, and I'm happy to share the spreadsheet I made for charging stops.

First of all, do get a Chargemap account and card.
Register for an account with Ionity and Fastened, and Instavolt in the UK (they have a charger near the EuroTunnel UK side).
My car is still in France due to a bad charge at the Calais EuroTunnel terminal, one other MG owner has had a bad charge there too. Avoid charging there is my advice, there are Ionity chargers nearby to the terminal and they were reliable (but expensive) - but that is far better than being stuck in Calais for several days, and your car still stuck in France.

Good to hear you are back and ok. Look forward to future MG analysis and rectification of the fault caused by the charger.

 

[smokie]

I now have no firm plans following cancellation of a European road trip booked for April but would be really interested to see your spreadsheet please, and hear more of your experiences when you have time.

Pioneers are always useful to the rest of us!!

 

[EVsince2016]

I'll be driving my MG5 to Portugal via France this summer. Perhaps I need to blog on it!

 

[smokie]

I think you should

 

[EVsince2016]

I think you should

My longest 1 day trip will be over 1000 kms in 3 countries!

 

[NickG]

Hi, I've just returned from our trip to the Alps in our MG5 SR. Lots to report back about charging, and I'm happy to share the spreadsheet I made for charging stops.

First of all, do get a Chargemap account and card.
Register for an account with Ionity and Fastened, and Instavolt in the UK (they have a charger near the EuroTunnel UK side).
My car is still in France due to a bad charge at the Calais EuroTunnel terminal, one other MG owner has had a bad charge there too. Avoid charging there is my advice, there are Ionity chargers nearby to the terminal and they were reliable (but expensive) - but that is far better than being stuck in Calais for several days, and your car still stuck in France.

 

[NickG]

Hi, I'd be keen to view your spreadsheet please, thinking of doing a similar trip when the TDF is on in July. Thanks, Nick

 

[Padaung]

Hi, I'd be keen to view your spreadsheet please, thinking of doing a similar trip when the TDF is on in July. Thanks, Nick

Hi Nick,

Here is the spreadsheet I made. It was modified as the trip went on, so bits wer hacked in at various times - main consequence is that some info isn't as clear as it could be.

Hope it is of use to you in some capacity though.

 

[PatriickHC]

Zap Map equivalent for France

Hi Everyone, We are at the start of planning our first foreign EV road-trip! The plan is the do a family skiiing trip to the Franch Alps in February. Total distance from our home to the destination is 810 miles. We have an MG 5 EV (standard range model, which is realistically 190miles/full...

www.mgevs.com

Hi, I’m New to EV and I am about to order a MG 5 LR. I have had a look at the Zavi pre payment card for frame and it asks which car that you are using whilst registering for the card.
Thé MG 5 is not listed please can some one advise.
Many thanks .
Patrick.

 

[Padaung]

Hi, I’m New to EV and I am about to order a MG 5 LR. I have had a look at the Zavi pre payment card for frame and it asks which car that you are using whilst registering for the card.
Thé MG 5 is not listed please can some one advise.
Many thanks .
Patrick.

Hi, the Chargemap card I used had this issue too. In the end I just set it to a different car that had a similar range as mine (would be wise to check that the car you select uses the same charger fitting as yours too, just to be in the safe side).

 

[Padaung]

For those planning a long trip I have made this range calculator based on the info I collated on my journey to the Alps. The bit that caught me out was not considering that a number of stints woukld ideally have been on just 60% of a charge (80-20%). Also, we found the ambient weather temperature had a much greater affect on range that the load the car carried.

 

[FearNaught]

Hi Nick,

Here is the spreadsheet I made. It was modified as the trip went on, so bits wer hacked in at various times - main consequence is that some info isn't as clear as it could be.

Hope it is of use to you in some capacity though.

That’s excellent. What resort did you go to?

 

[Padaung]

That’s excellent. What resort did you go to?

We went to Morzine (French Alps). Had a great time there

 

[greeiig]

We went to Morzine (French Alps). Had a great time there

I'm off to Les Carroz on Saturday. 70 miles to Eurotunnel, then 350 miles to Dijon for the night. Then 200 miles the next day to Les Carroz.
I have a roofbox and a car full of wife and 3 kids.

My thoughts are: get to Folkstone for breakfast and do a top-up charge. Can then hopefully just do one long charging stop on way to Dijon - but with a back-up just in case.
The hotel in Dijon has chargers outside, so I hoping I could almost make it all the way the next day, but a cheeky stop before heading up the mountain might be prudent.

I've done a bit of prep by reading these threads - what could possibly go wrong?!

Any wise thoughts most welcome..

 

[Padaung]

Hi @greeiig

Here you go, some thoughts Your timing is fortunate, I'm at home recouperating from Covid so had the time to write this all down at last!

1. Use a charging spot where there is more than one charging unit installed. This is not so much to avoid queuing but to have a backup in case a unit is not working. We had multiple charge stops where a nuit was not working. Thankfully we mostly chose sites with more than one charger, but on two occassions we had to drive off to find another location, which leads me to my next point...

2. Your car won't go as far as you're used to. Don't forget that at the rapid chargers you'll only be topping up to 80-85% (some won't charge past that, and if they do the charge rate drops significantly). We found arriving at a charge station with less than 10% charge remaining very uncomfortable, your views may vary on that. However, I'd recommend trying to schedule stops for when your car reaches 15-20%

3. Your car will use a lot more enegry going up the mountains, and a lot less coming down. We thankfully 'overcharged' on the way there (at our last charge before getting to our destination) based on the distance we had to travel, and we are glad we did because the height gain used up the 'overcharge'. On the way down we used far less charge so we changed our charging pattern a bit - we missed out the first charge stop as it was really unnecessary, but we wouldn't have reached the next one we had planned. We stopped for 5 mins to look for a mid-point and did a small top up at that one to get us to the 2nd charge point we'd already planned.

4. The stretch northbound between Laon and Calais has very few motorway charge points. Be wary of that. This is wehere we came unstuck. We left Laon (where we stayed overnight) with a full charge. We wer unlucky in that we were battling the Storm Eunice (Feb 2022) winds which would have affected our range, so we arrived in Calais with much less charge than anticipated. We realised we were going to be cutting it fine, but couldn't find a convenient chargepoint en route.

5. ChargeMap doesn't offer a simple way (that I found) to send the co-ordinates of a chargepoint to Google Maps. On one occassion I typed in the location as written in the app, but Google took me a mile away and this location required a significant re-route to get back round to the chargepoint.

6. ChargeMap shows chargepoints that aren't in use yet. It shows them once construction has started.

7. Many of the French motorway signs show if electric charging is available at a service station (but not all), but a lot of the stops are for Tesla drivers only. So don't rely on the motorway signs alone.

8. You may find the attached range calculator useful. I made it after our trip to France. You mention you are using a roof box, and from my experience last summer with ours fitted, whilst it affected the range it wasn't as significant as driving in lower temperatures. Cold weather (6degC or lower) really is brutal on battery efficiency.
NOTE: the figures for roof box use are entirely estimates by me, the % reduction in range is purely a guess by me at this stage.
NOTE: the figures for non-roof bix use are accurate imo. And I've now shared this spreadsheet with others and a few people have reported back it has been (mostly) accurate for them too (obviously driving styles, load carried and condtions will always be viariables).

9. Don't use the EvBox chargepoint at the Calais Eurotunnel terminal! 3 people I know of (myself included) have now had car problems after using it.

10. Pack an adjustable spanner just in case (read these threads)

Eurotunnel Nightmare Charge!!!! and a quick question!

Hi All, First of all Happy Christmas. Now for the warning.... BE VERY CAREFUL IF YOU ARE THINKING OF USING THE FREE RAPID CHARGER AT EUROTUNNEL I live in France and my wife and I decided to come back to the UK for the holidays. I am the proud owner of a 6 month old MG ZS EV and I have...

www.mgevs.com

Emergency - stranded in France

Hi all, Today we were at the Calais Euro Tunnel terminal and needed a small charge before boarding the train. Upon connecting the charger, no charge was made and after disconnecting the cable the car would not start. We have a MG 5 standard range. We get the following messages. Autohold fail...

www.mgevs.com

Hope that all helps in some capacity

 

[EVsince2016]

I'm off to Les Carroz on Saturday. 70 miles to Eurotunnel, then 350 miles to Dijon for the night. Then 200 miles the next day to Les Carroz.
I have a roofbox and a car full of wife and 3 kids.

My thoughts are: get to Folkstone for breakfast and do a top-up charge. Can then hopefully just do one long charging stop on way to Dijon - but with a back-up just in case.
The hotel in Dijon has chargers outside, so I hoping I could almost make it all the way the next day, but a cheeky stop before heading up the mountain might be prudent.

I've done a bit of prep by reading these threads - what could possibly go wrong?!

Any wise thoughts most welcome..

I took my LEAF to Portugal last summer, utterly bonkers idea amidst covid rules too!

My best advice is to prepare the best you can, allow enough time, expect issues on route and include the kids in the adventure. Carry drinks & spare snacks etc

My son did a dance each time we got a charger to work, especially after 3 in a row failures! We took a picture of each charger we used and then rated them online for a laugh. If you are daring & drift off piste you can find some interesting stops too!

At least in France Chargemap covers you I guess, but I was warned to expect long waits at some chargers this year.

Don't get stressed, just laugh it all off as a new learning experience, a bit hard after 4 hours in Palencia with no working rapids!

 

[EVsince2016]

3. Your car will use a lot more energy going up the mountains, and a lot less coming down. We thankfully 'overcharged' on the way there (at our last charge before getting to our destination) based on the distance we had to travel, and we are glad we did because the height gain used up the 'overcharge'. On the way down we used far less charge so we changed our charging pattern a bit - we missed out the first charge stop as it was really unnecessary, but we wouldn't have reached the next one we had planned. We stopped for 5 mins to look for a mid-point and did a small top up at that one to get us to the 2nd charge point we'd already planned.

If you used cycling for directions it give you the terrain & hence hill info!

 

[Padaung]

@EVsince2016 thanks for the terrain tip.

Your suggestions post also reminded me of something. Not all chargers have toilet and food facilities, so do bear that in mind!

 

[greeiig]

@Padaung - thanks so much.

5. ChargeMap doesn't offer a simple way (that I found) to send the co-ordinates of a chargepoint to Google Maps. On one occassion I typed in the location as written in the app, but Google took me a mile away and this location required a significant re-route to get back round to the chargepoint.

I downloaded the premium ABRP app and this looks great for navigation - allows me to share the route with Google Maps so I can use that too.
I'm thinking of using ABRP to sort the initial plan and then also search for chargepoints using ChargeMap when I get close..

9. Don't use the EvBox chargepoint at the Calais Eurotunnel terminal! 3 people I know of (myself included) have now had car problems after using it.

Don't worry - I followed that thread - what a nightmare that must have been!