At L’Automobile Magazine, long distances in an electric car don’t scare us. So, a few weeks following testing the cold resistance of the new “zero emission” Kia Niro, we have set ourselves a new challenge: to go and see, in collaboration with a member of the daily Le Figaro, the state of progress of infrastructures in Europe. Are the countries of the North far ahead and, on the contrary, are those of the South really behind? And what regarding the quality of the network in France in comparison? To find out more, we decided to cross the Old Continent from top to bottom at the wheel of a “general public” electric car. In this case a Renault Mégane E-Tech, equipped with a 60 kWh battery, which we collect in Oslo, the capital of Norway. With the aim of reaching Madrid, Spain, following crossing ten countries.
Off to Sweden
It is under a gray sky and a temperature barely above 0°C that the Mégane arrives at our hotel, just got off the ferry. It is 10:40 a.m., the battery is 93% charged and, with the odometer reset to zero – which resets the average consumption – the Renault promises 295 km of autonomy. Time for a few photos in the city center of this charming city created around the year 1000 and it’s time to hit the road for Sweden. First annoyance, the route planner is absent and it will only “wake up” a little later.
Fortunately, because it is essential for planning a long journey easily: when you enter your destination and the system understands that the autonomy is insufficient to get there, the Mégane offers you stops, estimating, taking into account your driving , at what percentage of battery you will arrive at the terminal and at what level it must be raised before hitting the road. And since two precautions are better than one, we monitor the recommendations of the Renault system with the Chargemap application, which lists the available terminals.
Terminals taken by storm
Two hours following departure, following crossing the Swedish border and 167 km traveled mainly on motorways limited to 110 km/h, hunger encourages us to anticipate the first recharge. In electric, you quickly learn to synchronize stops with meals to optimize time.
Alas, the fast terminal we are eyeing is busy and we are forced to fall back on a 50 kW socket, which charges all the more slowly as it is only 2°C. (batteries don’t like the cold, see here). After this half-hour break, the battery has only recovered from 30 to 58% and we already have to think regarding a 2nd stop.
In Sweden, the stations are not lacking. But those offering a power of at least 100 kW are not so numerous in the area… and suddenly they are taken by storm!
This is evidenced by our 2nd stop where, of the 8 sockets available, 4 are out of service and the other 4 are all occupied. With only 15% of battery available it is urgent to recharge. But we have to try three times before finding a terminal that is both fast and available! It’s an Ionity station and we need 50 minutes of patience to raise the stack from 10 to 90%.
Instructions in Swedish
Before reaching our hotel in Malmö around 10 p.m. – which we chose because it offers parking with a charging station – two more “electric” stops are necessary. And it’s the festival of complications: at 6:10 p.m., when we arrive at the station, all the sockets are occupied, except for one… which turns out to be broken. We have to wait 20 minutes before connecting to a terminal that only has an interface in Swedish – mine is very limited – but we manage. At 8:10 p.m., the Ionity station offers the choice of English. So much the better. But at the first take the car disconnects following a few minutes and we have to move the car to the next one to solve the problem. Problem with the terminal, with the network, with the car? Impossible to know, especially since another car then loads without problem at the place where we experienced the failure.
A little advice by the way: don’t forget to download the application offered with the electric cars. Because it allows you to monitor the state of the charge, which avoids many unpleasant surprises when you return from the service station – when there is one.
Suffice to say that this “Swedish experience” was very instructive. If the number of charging stations seems satisfactory, we were faced with many connection problems and unclear networks for non-Swedish speakers. Above all, this Nordic country is faced with a problem not yet present here: as the fleet of electric cars is already substantial, the terminals are overloaded.
See you tomorrow for the next stage, Germany, via Denmark.
