Setting out today on my longest expedition in an electric car across France - from Normandy to Angers to Ile d'Oleron to Tarn et Garonne to Tours and back to Normandy in 6 days. About 1,500 k's, keeping off autoroutes. My Renault Zoe has 300k's battery range. Nerve-racking.
Wracking
Just waiting for the last 1% of battery and off we go 
Picnic beside the Mayenne, about 70k's short of Angers. Plenty of battery left in Zoe. First 30k's seemed to be mostly downhill.
Made it to Angers. Having a drink near the cathedral. Car charging. Journey fine. Plenty of battery to spare.
Time to look back in Angers. Only came here so I could make that joke.
Time to look back in Angers. Only came here so I could make that joke.
Made it to Angers. Having a drink near the cathedral. Car is charging. Journey was fine. Time to look back in Angers. Only came here to make that joke.
Car charged to 100% from 48% or in mileage terms from 160k's to 318k's. Time 2hrs 25 mins. Cost: 0.22 euros, 22 centimes or about 17 pence.
Setting out from Angers towards Ile d'oleron, 270 k's with 318k's of battery. Hope we don't go down so low as the beautiful river Loire, seen here near Brain sur Authion.
Here's better picture
Topping up battery in lovely Saumur. Note château on horizon.
Lunch. Salade Saumuroise. Different filling in each big mushroom. Snail, goat cheese and rillette. Delicious
Arrived safely in the Ile d’Oleron (like a flat, green Orkney island off the coast of France with vineyards, supermarkets and 10,000 cars). Staying with friends living in a former winery. 1/4
Plenty of battery left after recharging in Saumur. Bizarrely, Zoe charged to 406K’s, when she is supposed to be max 300k’s. The heat maybe? 2/4
Don’t think the battery charged properly for my 0.22 centimes the night before. This recharge cost Euros 2.86 for 13 Kwh’s and 140 extra k’s. Add one Euro for charging at home in Normandy and the fuel cost of the 500k’s plus journey is E4.08 – with 130k’s left in the battery. 3/4
And imagine my surprise when I reached Ile d’Oleron and found this card tucked under Zoe’s windscreen wiper. I thought it was a parking fine at first. No… It’s a message from unnamed followers in Saumur who saw an earlier tweet. Thank you. 4/4
On the road again. After 2 days on Ile d’Oléron, we’re off to Périgueux in the Dordogne 220k’s away. Our Zoe’s battery has charged to 382k’s – another heat bonus above a theoretical 300k max. We used our friends’ mains, slow but free to us and only 60 centimes or so for them.
1/3
1/3
Ile d’Oléron, winter population 30,000, has around 400,000 people in a normal August but more this year because so many French people have taken hols at home. Imagine 100,000 cars on an island 30 kilometres long and 12 k’s wide. 2/3
Oléron has sandy beaches, salt marshes and pine forests and many square kilometres of densely packed holiday homes, camp-sites and "hotels de pleines aires" (posh camp-sites). Here is the famous Fort Boyard, just offshore, the stage for France’s most popular TV game show. 3/3
Made it in 4hrs on small roads to Périgueux in Dordogne. This is 220k's but took 266k's of battery life. Partly because of long queues to leave the Ile d'Oleron. Partly because of a beautiful climb in the rain from sea-level through the Cognac vineyards and into the Périgord.
Car charged to 99% or 341k's. Variations are puzzling but it's not so hot today. Anyway that's plenty for the last stage of our outward journey, 220k's from Périgueux to Saint Antonin de Nobleval in Lot et Garonne. Just met Mark, a local Twitter user who came to wish us godspeed
Not a mosque but the extraordinary cathedral at Périgueux.
*Tarn et Garonne not Lot et Garonne
(Delayed tweet) Lunch. Salade du Causse at Lavercantiere, a village on the Dordogne and Lot border. British tourists nearby discussing the possibility of a flight to the Channel to beat the quarantine deadline at 4am. Their decision: nah, stuff it.
We've reached our destination, the lovely medieval town of Saint Antonin Nobleval in Tarn and Garonne - 950k's from Normandy (including side-trips and errors) and not a metre of motorway/autoroute. Here is Zoe resting in our friends' garage.
However, one electric shock. After spending Euros 4.68 on public and private charging up until today, I find we've been charged Euros 10.36 for a two hours and five minutes session on a public "borne" at Perigueux this morning. Similar sessions elsewhere cost E.2.86 and E.0.22.
Whole journey has still cost only Euros 15 for fuel but the variations in price at public charging points (bornes) are bizarre. I will challenge the fee and see what happens.
This may explain it. Some public bornes in France are clearly a ripoff for the unwary n(ie me).
Chargemap small print: "Rates vary enormously from one charging station to another.... Operators and communities have a wide variety of tariff policies..."
Chargemap small print: "Rates vary enormously from one charging station to another.... Operators and communities have a wide variety of tariff policies..."
"Some networks charge for time spent, others for energy consumed, others per visit. Some combine many of these criteria. Others charge by time interval (for example, per hour when charge started). Some charge more beyond a certain duration."
New movie: The Borne Swindle
New movie: The Borne Swindle
Day of rest for Zoe today. We're spending the day with our friends in the beautiful Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val in Tarn et Garonne. Heading back towards Normandy tomorrow.
On our way north again. Trying to reach the Loire tonight. Only 150k's left in Zoe's battery but 270k's to go. We have stopped at a supermarket south of Limoges with free charging. But it will take 2 h to a full battery and the only shop open sells spades and paint but not food.
I stupidly dropped my battery charging card in the spade shop. Would have been stranded without it. Young manager came out and found us in the car park. Pas gentil les français?
Made it to Saumur (again) with 30k's left in the battery. Raining. Hooray. Good dinner at Le Cristal. Still 220k's to home tomorrow.
Setting out from lovely Saumur on the Loire on the last leg of our electric voyage through France. Circa 1,700 kilomètres in 7 days after today's 220k's to Calvados. Car charged last night at public point from 9% to 100% or 310k's for E8.80. Will do proper summary when we arrive.
Our electric journey through deepest France is over. Covered 1,777 kilomètres, from Calvados to Calvados via the Atlantic coast and Occitanie. Home with 37k's left in the battery. Zoe very thirsty and already plugged in. Nothing tastes as good as home charging. Summary later
Summary…We completed our triangular 8-day journey from Normandy to Ile d’Oleron to Tarn et Garonne and back to Normandy in an electric Renault Zoe with a nominal battery range of 300 kilometres. Verdict: Exhausting, enthralling, maddening, nerve-racking. 1/9
Exhausting because driving a small electric car for long-distances is like marathon-running in flip-flops. Enthralling because we stayed off autoroutes and stumbled on beauties we had previously zoomed past (the Loire between Angers and Saumur; the Cognac vineyards). 2/9
Maddening because the system of public charging points in France is cheap but unpredictable. Some are very cheap; others are less so; others free. On our last stage we visited one town (Flers in Orne) where all three advertised “bornes” were dead. 3/9
Nerve-racking because the 300k’s range of a 2019 Zoe (they are now 400k’s) is an artistic aim, not a scientific certainty. Hills reduce the range; hot weather increases it. Drive faster than 90kph and the battery power melts alarmingly. Hence our aversion to autoroutes. 4/9
Cheap? We covered 1,777 k’s. Cost in electricity: Euros 26.54. Of this E24.44 for public charging points (ranging from E0.22 to E10.26). The rest – E 2.10 – is the estimated cost of 3 charges on house mains (ours and friends). We had 1 free recharge at a supermarket. 5/9
By my estimate, a similar trip would cost Euros 180 to 220 for petrol or diesel in France, depending on the size of car. On the other hand, the need to recharge meant that we spent two nights in hotels that we might othewise have avoided. Cost Euros 200. 6/9
On the other, other hand…We kept almost entirely to N and D (A and B) roads and only took an autoroute for a short distance south of Limoges where no proper south-north alternative exists The estimated saving in tolls: Euros 90. 7/9
Conclusion: A great pleasure and a great pain. A return to a slower, more civilised form of travel. You have to put up at wayside inns and find “food for the horse”. You suffer from a new 21st century psychosis - range-anxiety. 8/9
You discover that France has become a land of 60,000,000 people and 10,000,000 roundabouts. You get to see startling hilltop towns with names you never heard of. You also get to spend two hours in empty supermarket carparks.
Overall, we had a great time.
9/9
Overall, we had a great time.
9/9
