07/01/2026
We took our EV to France - what did we find…?
Firstly it was intended to learn and inform our guests - but also to see how easy it was for us and our future journeys. Ours is a VW ID.4 but this isn’t about the model as much as any EV experience… so what did we learn…?
- If your EV range is quoted as 350 miles in official measurement, expect 200 max at 100-110Kmh with the outside temp between -7 and -2C - it rose 10-15% with the temp back at 3-5C. In warmer times at 120Kmh I’d expect 250ish
- With 230 miles to do, charging en-route was essential for us
- We use Octopus Electricity and have their Electroverse card for remote charging (many suppliers offer similar EV solutions). That service was easy and excellent… at every charging station we found, simply plug in and scan the card. Control charging using your car app and off you go. Bills went to our octopus account - but you could also pay by credit/debit card at most of the chargers we found (most, not all!)
- Chargers were readily available - but it was winter… in peak summer periods, I’d expect a wait to find an available charger at motorway service stations, ports etc. we had one time we couldn’t get a spare charger at a supermarket - all 12 were in use on a Friday afternoon
- Finding a charger was simple. Both the VW and Electroverse apps show all the chargers on a map. Beware VWs took us to some which are in office/hotel car parks not available to the public. Electroverse only showed chargers available to their network charging.
- The quoted number of charging points at a location can be misleading. Not always, but some showed 8 points but there are two cables from each machine with only 4 parking spaces so there aren’t really 8 charging points you can use
- There are more and more charging points in France - most car parks, supermarkets, village centres now have some available. Even our little village of 1900 people has two in the village centre
- Costs varied from 80p KWh (at the port in UK) to 50-55 euro cents for fast charging at 30-40 Kw per hour, 30-35 euro cents for 22Kw - the lowest we found was 22 cents for 10Kw per hour. In context, our car fully charged is 80kw, so to charge 50% was usually an hour at the fastest chargers or 4 hours at the slowest 10Kw
- We don’t have a charging point at home in France. There’s little doubt that would be by far the most convenient method when your EV is standing still for hours. We may install one if we choose to take the car regularly.
Conclusions…?
- It’s easily doable - lots of access to recharge
- Suggest getting a charge card with whoever you choose - it’s easy with one
- To be cost effective, you’d charge at home with an EV contract
- You might wait for charging on busy roads in summer - but off autoroute, you can find more chargers
- It’s not as convenient as filling with petrol/diesel and off you go for another 500 miles
- Overall if you have charging sorted at home and want to take your EV to France, the solution is there, just costs a bit more for your recharge out and about
Just our experience, some of it opinion, some factual 🙂
