Volkswagen ID.3 Forum

Morning all,

Planning my first road trip to France (Disneyland Paris) for later this year and when it comes to charging locations for France I have no idea where to start

Someone please help me!

We are not long back from France, and whilst I can not give you specifics, the country seemed pretty well catered for on the charge point front. Google maps may be of help? Sounds like a good trip ahead, enjoy.

I just drove across France (not the section you'll be in, however) and had no problems. WeCharge coverage is good. I recommend planning your route ahead of time using A Better Route Planner, that way you'll know all your charge stops before you even set off. Make sure you set ABRP for the correct departure SoC, and set the charger arrival SoCs to your comfort level (I like 30%, which is honestly a bit conservative). Aim for charging stations with live data, and you'll find you've got no range anxiety.

If you set it up with Android Auto/Apple Carplay and an OBD dongle, you'll find it works even better. I feel like I'm turning into a bit of a walking ABRP advertisement after my recent journey from Spain to Finland, but it really did make a world of difference.

As above. ABRP will sort you out pre-planning wise. Not sure I'd rely on it yet for actual navigation against the likes of Waze or Google Maps.

I retrospectively planned my trips to the Lakes from Blackpool that I did over the weekend, just out of curiousity and it got the percentages absolutely bang on.

If you get yourself a ODB dongle it'll provide real time data into the planning.

Enjoy the trip!

I have been doing a bit of research recently for a potential similar trip in autumn (to just south of Paris). The WeConnectID app shows lots of locations and you can filter on what works with the wecharge card. I think you could do the trip using these alone. There is a recently built Ionity site at St Witz just near Charles de Gaulle airport which might be very useful.
I have also got an Octopus Electric Juice card as it's free and seems to cover a few other networks that Wecharge doesn't. That would give you more options and obviously has its own app and map again.

I’ve just done a trip to south of Germany.
Looking around Paris, Ionity via the WeCharge card, should easily cover your needs.
1. Download the Ionity app
2. Use the directions on it to find the charging station, via Google or Apple maps. It is very accurate in terms of specific location.
3. Maidstone Ionity, located on a service station forecourt, is fine nearing tunnel.
4. Coquelles Ionity, located at a Holiday Inn, is very good just the other side of the tunnel.
5. Saint Witz ionity, just north of Paris, is 160 miles from Coquelles. Probably all you need.
6. You will need the large adhesive UK car sticker, magnetic does not work.
7. You will need your VC5 log book and insurance papers with you.
8. Obviously you can change ‘units’ on the settings menu and which side of road driving.
Enjoy!

SDH7 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 21, 2022 6:16 am If you get yourself a ODB dongle it'll provide real time data into the planning.

Not to mention a realtime "drainage graph" as you're on your journey, which at least in my setup was on the Android device display, with the maps and realtime charger availability on the car display. The drainage graph was a real boost to confidence, since it let me see throughout my journey that the predicted consumption was indeed bang on.

Awesome, thank you all.. given me an idea of where to start.

Very much looking forward to this roadtrip!

The Chargemap app does for mainland Europe what Zap Map does for the UK. France is covered with '22kW' chargers but these only provide 11kW for an ID3, and most need some local account and RFID card. Increasingly they are connected to WeCharge though, but still not fast. IONITY works well, and we've found that the Shell Recharge app/card gives access to most chargers on the continent.