Renault only wants to sell electric cars in Europe by 2030 – Image and sound – News

I drove to southern Spain this summer with an EV. 2500km, 2600km back (shunned Paris on the way back, what a recognized one). My experience is:

You never have to/need to fully charge. You have to charge as much until you can reach the next charging point in your route. The car navigation already does that for me. The result is that you have to load somewhere between 15 and 25 minutes. Usually that is every 2 hours.

With children in the car, this is also the time to stretch your legs and go to the toilet. Sometimes you also want to have a drink, but if you do, you will be at the charging station longer than necessary. In my case, 3/4 of the charging sessions were done before I was ready to go.

Charging is fastest when your battery is between 10 and 15% to about 60%, after which the charging speed decreases. So if you already have enough with 65% of your battery to reach your next charging point, you are fastest if you leave immediately and do not wait any longer to fully charge. That’s pretty pointless, it takes a lot of time.

I’ve done this trip before, last year with an EV. My conclusion: I think it took me 3 to 4 hours longer than with an ICE. However, due to the consistent breaks I arrived at my destination a lot more rested.

I also used to drive at night, but research has shown that it is very unwise and quite dangerous. After alcohol and drugs, fatigue (especially people who drive at night) is the cause of many accidents. You can imagine why driving during the night (when your body is screaming to sleep), with little traffic on the road (boring) is not very wise. I’d rather arrive at my destination a little later than never

Oh, before I forget. The trip had gone so well because of the excellent network of the well-known brand chargers . That’s sublime. As far as I’m concerned, other suppliers can do a lot of work on that. All the problems I had with fast charging (up to 3 times) were with the “other” providers of fast chargers.

Yes, driving an EV is different than driving an ICE. You get used to that pretty quickly, I’ve noticed.

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