Charging in France and Belgium

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SinglePointSafety
Posts: 123
Joined: Sat Aug 28, 2021 1:22 pm

Post by SinglePointSafety »

Thought I'd give a brief report of a trip 2 weeks ago, to France (Arras), Belgium (Leuven and Bruges). The short version for the TL:DR folk - charging was totally painless

Eurotunnel: both chargers available, charging was free, didn't have much time to top up before our train was called
First charge in France at Holiday Inn car park in Coquelles, 8 Ionity chargers IIRC, all available, used our Octopus electric juice card. Would be good place to get lunch I'd guess....
2nd charge at Aire de Rely on A26 toll motorway, 7 Ionity chargers, all available (seeing a pattern here?), services for food/toilets
3rd short charge at Thiepval (Type 2 connector - remember to bring your cable!), EJ card used, 13 kW, got useful charge whilst we visited the war memorial and had a cake in the excellent Cottage Genevieve
4th charge at Ionity just E of Mons on the E19/E42, 3 Ionity and 3 Last Mile Solutions (50 kW), the latter are cheaper. And this time, there was one other car! (Audi etron) Ionity charging. Both chargers accessible using EJ card. Useful services again for food/toilets
5th charge back at Ionity, Coquelles, before hitting Carrefour in Cite Europe. One other car charging, so had a "sorry about Brexit etc" discussion with a thoroughly nice and knowledgeable French guy with a Kia eNiro, whose English was as good as my French, so communication was stilted at times but overall fine

Things I've learned from my experience (and other's):

Don't ever rely on the Eurotunnel chargers, they're often occupied or broken or... Sod's law says (like me) you get offered an earlier train. But..... Note that the Folkestone superchargers are now open to non-Tesla
Don't rely on chargers in car parks: they're usually (a) impossible to find because of poor signing (b) occupied and/or ICEd (c) might need a parking card to activate eg the Interparking Pcard (which I have and works OK for parking, didn't try charging with it)
Ionity chargers have been universally brilliant (available, working, fast) but you pay for the privilege, 79 cents per kWhr. And the services require payment to use the toilets, some need coins, others will take contactless
Surprising number of Type 2 chargers around, so really really don't forget your charging cable

Now planning another - longer trip - think I've got over my charging anxiety in the EU (so far)
id3 Max 2021

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