Driving EV around Europe

drprox on 23/10/2023 - 21:01
Last edited 24/10/2023 - 09:27 by 1 other user

Hi all, my family are planning a Europe trip, predominantly a clockwise loop from Germany>Austria>Italy>France>Belgium for next year. We will be hiring a car to keep ourselves mobile. I've been looking at options in this regard and whilst the local Hertz seem horribly reviewed Sixt look much better, they also have VERY cheap EV options (vs ICE counterparts).

We will be staying almost exclusively in Airbnb so it had me wondering how feasible this trip might be in an EV. Whilst most of our drive days are fairly modest we will no doubt need to 'top up' on route at times. Hoping someone in the community may have done similar or even simple hired a car in Europe and had some idea of how practical this might be based on observations on the ground of charging infrastructure.

I've checked a few websites/apps and there does seem to be plenty…I am mindful this will be a thing that would require some management but my wife and I are somewhat excited about the prospect of trying out an EV for a month while there! Keen to hear any thoughts at all!

Oh on the cars it looks like the options would be pov spec MG4 or pov spec Atto 3.

Travel Electric Vehicle Europe

Comments

  • Brick Tamland on 23/10/2023 - 21:09
    +9

    Take the train instead, it will be easier

    • drprox on 23/10/2023 - 21:22
      -1

      Not my question and no it won't. However, if an EV is too high risk I'll just grab a regular vehicle.

      • Stewardo on 23/10/2023 - 21:42
        +5

        I hired from Sixt recently, the EVs were cheaper however I went for petrol, there are plenty of places to charge the EV around, I don’t think it’s a risk, it’s just how long you want to spend waiting for it to charge as the airbnbs are less likely to have a garage to charge overnight.
        Plenty of charging stations around it’s just the waiting time.

        • drprox on 24/10/2023 - 09:27

          Thanks mate :) appreciate the insight

          • urahara on 24/10/2023 - 10:18

            @drprox: Tesla > BYD > MG
            Tesla has better charging rate if chargers supports it, but cost wise if they are costlier to hire then skip them. (3% per min 170kwh max for m3/y)
            BYD are pretty decent as well (90kwh max, i.e almost 1.5% each min)
            Dunno about MG
            Check charging infra on plugshare

            • Bypass on 24/10/2023 - 23:55

              @urahara:

              Nissan Leaf

              I got a Nissan Leaf from Hertz Denmark and it was terrible, couldn't get 200km out of a charge. I spent a couple hours a day charging it.

  • Mechz on 23/10/2023 - 21:38
    +9

    Do you really want the hassle of an EV to possibly get in the way of a great road trip?

    • jv on 23/10/2023 - 23:02
      -3

      want the hassle of an EV to possibly get in the way of a great road trip?

      Definitely not…

  • elgrande on 23/10/2023 - 21:54
    +2

    If you want to spend your holiday worrying about battery usage, just take one charging cable to share amoungst the family. It will be just as fun but without the risk of stopping at the side of the road.

  • sumyungguy on 23/10/2023 - 22:01
    +2

    If you're planning on enjoying the speed-unlimited sections of German autobahn check the impact on the range of your chosen EV. You may need to charge more frequently in this part of Europe.

    • mskeggs on 23/10/2023 - 22:11
      +8

      I always wanted to drive on the autobahn till I did. I even rented a manual car cause I thought it would be more fun. While the roads are beautiful, and safe for 200km/h+ i found I was the dangerous one unaccustomed to driving on the right, using a manual for the first time in years and having to concentrate mightily on the signs in a foreign language and a rental car with unfamiliar safety features beeping and shuddering if I stuffed up.
      It was very humbling for somebody who feels like a car is a second skin at home!
      I pulled my head in and drove like a grandmother!

      • Mechz on 23/10/2023 - 23:38
        +1

        Yeah the manual was your mistake. Auto makes the swap quite easy.

        • boomramada on 24/10/2023 - 08:19

          It's not that easy in peak time, simply they don't have an auto in stock. Driving the manual car in an autobahn isn't the issue, but in the Swiss Alps handbrake as a peddle was fun.

          • Mechz on 24/10/2023 - 09:02

            @boomramada: You need to book well in advance. I always lock these things in 9 or more months out.

            And if you get a larger car they will often always be auto.

      • boomramada on 24/10/2023 - 02:10
        +1

        You driving at 200 clicks and black SUVs over taking you like you doing 60? 🤣🤣

        I did witness a car crash in autobahn, debris everywhere like a air crash 😬

  • mskeggs on 23/10/2023 - 22:04
    +4

    We did a similar trip at Xmas, and I was surprised that there were charging places very commonly. Easily two or three times as common as Australia.
    That said, I am in two minds about renting an electric vehicle, just because the hassle of registering apps to handle payment in in foreign countries is often an afterthought.
    For example, public transit apps to pay for trains and buses often required an SMS auth code, or sometimes just failed with some international banking cards.
    And sometimes the English translation of the screens preference didn’t filter through to the payment screen, so all of a sudden it switched to Slovak or whatever when it got to the auth screen.
    These type of hiccups are routine when you travel, and can be overcome when you deal with a person and can offer cash, but if all you have is a screen on a machine it adds stress! I certainly spent some time puzzling out screens with google translate working on the images.

    I’d say it is all something you can deal with, just be aware it might add some hassle.

  • Eupdark on 23/10/2023 - 22:04
    +1

    If going to france, look into Renault euro drive instead. It’s much cheaper as it works like a lease instead of rental and is designed for tourists doing similar to your trip. You can get an ICE this way and all the insurances etc are included.

    You may be able to pick up in Germany, but the scheme is administered by france, and you can organise it through an agency in Australia.

    We used them to do a loop of france, Italy, Croatia, Greece and was a game changer compared to leasing local cars and/or using flights and public transport. Highly recommended. Cost around $60 aud per day but might be more expensive now.

    • mskeggs on 23/10/2023 - 22:18

      I don’t know if they still do the program, but there was a similar thing run by Renault years ago where you rented the car for a month, then at the end they shipped it to Australia and you bought it as a second hand small volume import. The rental cost came off the price, and the taxes for a new car as well, so it resulted in, for example, a $40000 Peugeot being $28000 when you took delivery in Australia.
      I suspect it was all about avoiding car tariffs, which are much lower now, so maybe it doesn’t exist anymore.

    • Mechz on 23/10/2023 - 23:40

      I did that but with Citroen.

      My mistake was thinking the car would be reasonably fast on the autobahn. 195 is quite dull after 5 minutes.

  • Caped Baldy on 23/10/2023 - 22:22

    Have you ever driven and charged an EV before?

    There's a bit of a learning curve and range anxiety is very real.

    • jv on 23/10/2023 - 22:58
      -1

      There's a bit of a learning curve and range anxiety is very real.

      Yeah, I've seen some youtube videos where they get the '+' and '-' the wrong way around…

  • mskeggs on 23/10/2023 - 22:31
    +3

    My only other tip is if you are planning to stay in cities often, consider trains instead of a car for the journeys that you can.
    Cars are a burden in Euro cities, costly to park, costly to fuel, costly to rent.
    Train fares can be costly, but there is often cheap options if you plan ahead or buy a weekly or multi-day ticket.
    We scheduled our similar holiday in two parts, with several short trains (and a few longs, including a magnificent sleeper) then a single flight to link up another set of short journeys. An Uber or local equivalent was always at hand, and most cities had very easily accessible bus/train/tram travel.
    The flexibility to split up our group to go to different places, and the freedom of not having to find a bed for a car was very good.
    Our car trips where we had to drive because the destination was wilderness or off the usual track were OK, but the view from the window of the trains as we relaxed were better.

    • Brick Tamland on 23/10/2023 - 22:58
      +6

      I think OP was not keen on trains. I made the same suggestion. Honestly, the trains around Europe are an amazing way to travel. I travelled around Europe solely on trains and it got me everywhere with ease.

    • Mechz on 23/10/2023 - 23:41
      +2

      Dragging luggage around sucks more than paying for parking etc.

      • Brick Tamland on 24/10/2023 - 09:10

        It's not so much paying for parking but finding parking and dealing with some of the frankly crazy traffic in some areas like Italy. Driving is stressful whereas the train is relaxing. Happy to drag some luggage to avoid stuffing around with a car.

        • Mechz on 24/10/2023 - 10:48

          Horses for courses but I find the opposite.

          Italy, yes traffic is bad in areas.

          Having done over 10,000ks in the EU over the years I just enjoy taking detours which you can't do on trains.

          • drprox on 24/10/2023 - 10:59
            +1

            @Mechz: Yep I feel like the time I'll be spending in the French pyranees would be particularly tricky with trains (I highly doubt they exist where I'm heading haha).

  • jv on 23/10/2023 - 22:57

    Driving EV around Europe

    Eddie Vanhalen?

    Why?

    • Muzeeb on 24/10/2023 - 00:29
      +1

      Not on this occasion.

      It's actually Eddie Van Halen

      Just like all of his signature guitar gear.

      • jv on 24/10/2023 - 00:53
        +2

        It's actually Eddie Van Halen

        Oh, I'll let him know before it's too late…

  • boomramada on 24/10/2023 - 00:19
    +1

    If you worried about the environment, just stay home.

    • Hardlyworkin on 24/10/2023 - 06:06

      Ok boomer

      • boomramada on 24/10/2023 - 07:57

        Carbon Footprint
        Driving (1 pax) > Flying > Driving (4 pax) > Train > Staying home.
        Don't stay up, have a nice day :)

    • pegaxs on 24/10/2023 - 07:59

      Jesus Christ… not everyone wants an EV because of the environment. I own an EV and I don’t give a shit about the environment. It certainly wasn’t a governing factor in my decision to buy an EV.

      • boomramada on 24/10/2023 - 08:03
        -2

        Jesus Christ, you in your holiday, you really want to add the extra complexity of looking for charging stations? waiting time or parking or posting treads and asking ppl questions?

        EV saves the environment, yeah, cheaper to run yeah, but staying home is also cheaper and saves the environment.

        trying out an EV for a month

        I have no objections, do it here?

        staying almost exclusively in airbnb

        Probably won't even have overnight charging. Instead of asking us, probably worth asking them if they have overnight charging facilities.

      • drprox on 24/10/2023 - 09:06
        +1

        Cheers mate, actually not my motivation. I'm genuinely curious, not in a rush on my trip and it is considerably cheaper to hire! Any environmental benefits are great but secondary this time.

  • bargaino on 24/10/2023 - 01:32

    I rented a Renault diesel car. Four point something litres per 100km, and 1000km from a tank, so no range anxiety. Did 5,000km for a pittance :-)

    It would be fun to drive an EV for a while, but the challenges of the logistics of charging may wear thin after a week.

  • jackary on 24/10/2023 - 06:32
    +4

    Currently in Europe (similar countries) and also using Airbnb. Forget charging infrastructure - You’ll find that parking will be difficult in most, if not all of these places. People catch the train for a reason.

    But you know best…

    • drprox on 24/10/2023 - 09:08
      +1

      Unsure I claimed to know best but appreciate the feedback. Whislt I didn't detail it I'm basically avoiding all major European cities (I'll train to a couple as not going to try parking there and I've been to many previously) so don't have any big parking issues, all my Airbnb's have garages or parking spots :)

  • Cohey on 24/10/2023 - 07:39
    +1

    Just did a week roadtrip in the Dolomites. Hertz free upgraded us to a PHEV. That battery stayed near empty the whole time..TBF found an EV charging station at a carousel we used for a hike and couldn't figure it out/saw it after the hike.

    Having a car to explore the regions are amazing, you can access so much more rather than be limited by public transport is your family are into things like hiking, small towns etc. City to city travel I imagine would be an average experience in a car though.

    I would go with a PHEV just in case if your deadset on an EV.

    • drprox on 24/10/2023 - 09:09

      Thanks for the thoughts mate, boy I wish I had time to do the dolomites! They look incredible.

  • drprox on 24/10/2023 - 09:10
    +1

    Thanks for the feedback all :) I'll likely stick to old tech on this one but was keen to get thoughts from others. I'm staying outside of major cities and have parking at all my accommodations so don't have some of the assumed challenges mentioned here. All the same getting 1000km or so to a tank on a long road trip is likely a winning move.

    • Brick Tamland on 24/10/2023 - 09:18

      Ah ok, sorry I didnt realise you were staying outside major cities. Forget the train then. If you are staying outside of major cities that may make the old petrol or diesel a better prospect.

    • GG57 on 24/10/2023 - 09:29

      Although you are staying outside of major cities, the number of places that are introducing bans on some types of vehicles in the town / city centres is growing. Should be ok if you research and plan ahead.

    • Trance N Dance on 24/10/2023 - 09:52
      +1

      The issue would be if your accommodation doesn't have decent charging infrastructure you'll be wasting a lot of time at public chargers. Range and charging isn't really a problem with recent EVs these days IF you have the ability to recharge up to 80-90% of your battery overnight. If you don't have this ability you might find that you'll have to spend an extra 60-90mins at public chargers each day. Considering you're on holidays, I wouldn't bother as that time lost is valuable tourist time.

      If you're doing more than 300km of driving each day then this point would almost be moot as you'll need to stop at a charger during the day anyway but if you're doing less than this, the idea would be to charge overnight so you don't waste usable time charging. (Of course destination chargers could change this as you can charge whilst doing whatever tourist thing you're doing and top up a little at each stop).

      • drprox on 24/10/2023 - 09:58

        Thanks for the thoughts here, sounds like I'd need to get a very good idea about each of my accommodation choices to make sure they would serve to top the car off most nights. Really we will be averaging more like 100km a day as it's approx 35 days of driving and 3500km. A few of these would be very long days which would absolutely require one or even two stops to charge. Plenty of sitting still too with a number of 5 days stops :)

        • Trance N Dance on 24/10/2023 - 10:10

          If the daily drives aren't that intensive as in under 100km/day, you might get away with charging by the regular GPOs as you'll probably average a 80% charge over 3-4 days. eg Use 25% but charge 15-20% overnight, then use 25% and charge 15-20% overnight so overall you're only using 5-10% of the battery each day or something like that. You'll have to do the calculations yourself based on which car you end up getting and its charge rate on a 10amp circuit.

          However this would still be a problem for when it drops low and range anxiety creeps in before you're able to do a decent charge or would mean spending a bit of your morning charging up for the full day's drive ahead.

          But if you have no access to any sort of overnight charging then road trips end up becoming a real pain as a lot of time is lost to charging.

          • drprox on 24/10/2023 - 10:27

            @Trance N Dance: Yep great points, I think odds are I'll end up with a VW golf which will do the job just fine and was basically the original plan

            • sumyungguy on 24/10/2023 - 11:11

              @drprox: You may need to return the car across the German border to save the international drop fee.

              • drprox on 24/10/2023 - 11:19

                @sumyungguy: Yep I actually was going to as it showed MUCH cheaper to do so :)

  • apple2016 on 24/10/2023 - 10:11
    +1

    Check the conditions on the rental. Last time I hired a car in germany , the insurance stated it would be void if I take the car to italy.

    • drprox on 24/10/2023 - 10:26

      Well that's an important one! Thanks!

  • Darayus on 24/10/2023 - 11:00
    +1

    Europe's fuel price is almost double then Australia's. So price wise EV is cheaper. If you are moving from city to city then public transport and train are the best options but if you are planning to spend more time away from city then your car is essential. Parking is a nightmare and expensive and if your car is towed away then another Euro 450 to recover your car.

    If you are travelling during summer then just keep in mind that there are similar EV users piling up to charge their cars and finally even if you find an EV station then there is every chance that the cable is vandalised.

  • vasya on 24/10/2023 - 12:22
    +1

    Guys, somewhat related question.
    I'm going to travel by EV car in Europe (France, Germany, Belgium, maybe Switzerland) in this December -January. Ideally I would prefer to have only high level plan where to go and be as flexible as possible to change our plans more or less as we wish (that's the point of travelling by car). This is especially given the concerns about charging the EV car mentioned above.

    So my question - is it reasonable expecting to find some accommodation for a family of 4 without special requirements (besides 3 beds) a day in advance while traveling? Or booking accommodation in advance is essential and we should pre-plan our route?

    • sumyungguy on 24/10/2023 - 12:27

      If you're considering hotels, Novotel is one of the (few) chains that accommodates four guests in one room.

    • drprox on 24/10/2023 - 13:09
      +1

      This was our plan but then I realised I can book many airbnbs that are fully refundable the week prior.
      I realise I'll likely stick to the plan so that is the "downside" but was also worried about missing out on desirable accommodation even if I could find any.
      We are travelling early summer though so no doubt busier! Winter would be incredible in those countries you mentioned (I have fond memories of gluhwein at markets in Brussels at Xmas).

    • GG57 on 24/10/2023 - 13:21

      If it were me, I'd pre-book (and hopefully be able to cancel / re-plan at no cost). I'd also build in some contingency into the plans, and not try to cram too much travel into too short a time.
      Winter = not all accommodation options may be available / suitable.

  • Darayus on 25/10/2023 - 10:19

    I had a bad experience with Booking.com and Airbnb for accommodation in Europe. I had booked almost 6 months in advance and paid upfront, 2-3 months before the trip I got the message that the host had removed their accommodation from their platform and they were unable to accommodate us within the same price. Booking.com has offered us a hostel almost 20 km away from the original place and ABNB has asked for additional money or a refund for cancellation.

    I would strongly recommend booking with a proper hotel chain instead of going through an aggregator who dumps you at the last minute.

    • drprox on 25/10/2023 - 16:23

      That's very unfortunate but I'm certainly not worried about losing the approx 20 individual bookings I have all to properties being pulled from listing. I've had excellent experiences over a long period with Airbnb. I'd just book another place if one falls through and given I will have a car I can drive to anything.

  • vasya on 26/12/2023 - 18:44

    I'm doing very similar trip currently - France -> Germany -> Austria -> Germany -> Netherlands -> Belgium -> France

    Originally I booked Peugeot e2008, but in Hertz I realised that it has a very small trunk so had to upgrade. Hertz offered for the same price Skoda Octavia diesel and Tesla model 3 and given that I wanted to try EV I've chosen the Tesla.

    Overall experience is good (especially with all those cameras and detectors in the tight European streets), but given that we move a lot the charging part requires planning. After trying different charging options we mostly prefer to use Superchargers currently due to the speed of charging, lower price and the fact that the stations are easy accessible from highways.

    We are charging basically every 120-150 km to have some contingency in battery (given that it is relatively cold weather currently in Europe - according to tesla stats we use 177 Wt/km, but this is including our 200km/h test drive of German Autobahn and my wife making sauna within the car). As a result we have to synch our meals and shopping with those charges to minimize time wasting. Technically we can spend 5-15 minutes at the supercharger if we are OK to have more stops for charging (from 10-15% up to 50-70%), but we prefer longer 35-40 minutes session when we charge from 10-15% up to 95-100% but use the time for the stuff that we will have to do anyway. Superchargers price are in the range form Eur 0.31 in France to EUR 0.48 in Austria so far. I used an independent charger in Paris which costed EUR 0.69 (was as quick as supercharger but twice as dearer).

    In general the superchargers have plenty of charger stations, but we had already one occasion when it was full (near Frankfurt). The car actually suggested to consider another supercharger due to the all spots being full, but we had no other option as our battery was almost flat. We had to wait around 10 minutes before we got a spot. One negative thing in that case is that unlike Gas station when you can have a line of cars, those chargers are more like parking spots in a shopping mall, so if they are all busy and there is more than one car waiting for a spot then you might need to be agile. And I guess the more EV will be in use the bigger will be the issue.

    Originally I tried to search for AirBNb and hotels with EV charge, but there are not many options, so from the price and convenience perspective it makes not much sense.

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