Anyone got an electric car in France?

Just out of interest, whats the approximate cost/kw at a public charging point?

Ahemā€¦itā€™s kWh = kilowatt hour.

Itā€™s incredibly variable, & some charge by time not power.

Lidl in Vire (14500) charges 0,275ā‚¬/kWh & now has rapids as well as regular & slow.

Today (12/09/2022) the Instavolt chargers at Portsmouth port are Ā£0,66/kWhā€¦! They are very reliable though :blush:

We bought a 2nd hand Renault Zoe a couple of months ago, (now our sole car), horrified at the escalating fuel prices. It costs us about 6ā‚¬ to charge it at home using the cheap overnight rates (for a 7kw charger). 99% of our journeys are v local so the EVs km charging range suits us down to the ground. I may have to visit the UK for a memorial service soon, and I just admit to being quite apprehensive about the preplanning required to ensure I can charge en route over the 450km. Bizarrely we have to lease the battery for that era (2018) of Zoe, so we pay a monthly charge and have to stay within an overall cap of 65,000 km over 4 years - or face additional costs. I assume this is not something that is now a feature of either new Zoeā€™s or other EVs.

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Thatā€™s a relief, every cloud and all that :wink:

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Who has the MG brand been whored out to now?

The brand was bought by a Chinese firm - a recent review I watched said they were pretty good.

MG are probably now making more cars under the Chinese brand than they have ever made in UK. It would be interesting to know if this is the case.

Hmmmm really donā€™t want to be renting a battery. Your fill cost is exactly what wed worked out so thanks for that. We also have some solar panels so weekends and Wednesday should get free charging as well.

Try Abetterrouteplanner. App from play store, enter the vehicle details and it will plan the route including charge stops. Look at the chargers and pre order any RFID tags required. (That part is the over complicated and uneccessary part of EV ownership for longer journeys and should be scrapped with the simple use of a credit or debit card.

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I suspect that is about to change and life will become easier. Heading east towards Toulouse along the A62 last week we were aware that the service stations are being completely revamped and including whole ranks of charging points. I canā€™t believe ours is the only motorway where this is happening.

?? Weā€™ve not yet gone on a journey long enough to need to charge, but will do in autumn. Iā€™m aware that we may have to sign up to something to be able to use charging points, so simple explanation of system in France would be helpful.

Precisely my point. European electricity price rises are blamed on ā€œthe ridiculous linkingā€ which is in part correct and also part government propaganda (yes, even your government does this, for the reasons I mentioned, viz UK carbon stats. ) If you want to educate yourself on how wholesale electricity prices are disproportionately affected by marginal swings in demand and supply, Peter Zeihan recently put out a video explaining that. A year ago the price low was ā‚¬85/MWh and a recent price peak was ā‚¬850. Last week Strasbourg electric lost ā‚¬60m having to buy in, at a price of ā‚¬500/Mwh, power it had mistakenly oversold, to avoid defaulting on the contract. Electric power is a product with close to zero shelf life and huge production cost differences between constant (nuclear) and peak (thermal) supply. Now with up to a third of Franceā€™s NPPs currently out of action, your EV is not going to help keep electricity prices down, for yourself or for the rest of us who need it for other uses and who donā€™t think itā€™s time to treat ourselves to a new vehicle.

Electric producers need to investment more in new technology such as sand batteries.

or mechanical batteries:

or pumped hydro schemes:

Scotland's largest ever hydro project.

I didnā€™t say it would.

However, EVs can be driven using power from a very wide range of sources, some very low cost. Using solar to trickle charge here at home covers our daily/local driving needs.

That cannot be said for an ICE vehicle which can only be driven by lining the already overstuffed pockets of the oil barons.

P.S. Regardless of how dirty the source of power is for an EV it still produces less CO2 over itā€™s lifetime than a vehicle using fossil fuel. That includes manufacturing it.

P.P.S. Having said that we need to have less cars in the world, regardless of type.

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Absolutely there are things that need to be done. But talking quantity we are not even close to what is needed. I said ā€œclose to zeroā€ and not zero because some storage is possible e.g. hydro electric power being used to pump water back up in off-peak moments. The real price issue is not primarily the increased price of gas in itself, but the fact that increased demand can only be supplied by thermal which is much more expensive, as nuclear is working flat out already with reduced plant currently on line. And this is largely what determines the consumer price, as Texans found out during their big freeze in February 2021 with four-figure utility bills. So you may not like ICEs but fossil fuel is still most likely what is powering your car (much less efficiently because of grid loss etc) even if you drive an EV. But good luck with the trickle charging.

In some places in the world that would true but even that is changing. Roughly 42% of the UK supply gets powered by renewables for a lot of the time but it has only been down to the Gov and their rich pals who failed to grasp the need to transition so most of the time 48% of the supply is from gas fired power stations. We should all be generating our own, its certainly where I will be going. In France they have their NPP down for servicing but have pledged to have them up and running soon in time for winter.

I live in France which has a very green grid, so your assumption is wrong. Sadly that does mean factoring in nuclear :roll_eyes:

I also have a home fast charger which gets used on overnight cheap rate kWhs when the need arises.

Regarding your snipe at trickle chargingā€¦ Thereā€™s nothing wrong with charging at 2,3kW. Using a trickle charge overnight gives a lot of people their daily driving range.

Donā€™t forget, most cars are idle for over 90% of their lives.

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Not enough charging points, too many complications with cards and prices, found one free point in large Auchan, one for Tesla, one other, always in use. Should be in public car parks and service stations, my kms are limited to 230 so each venture out is a little stressful if going far.

Do you have an electric car?

Should charging points be free or is that just no cost? This will continue to be an issue just as it would if we cut tbe nimber of petrol stations it is not the tech problem its the Govā€™s problem.
One man, Mr Elon Musk has shown just how useless governments are throught the developed world, so much so he had even opened up his network of chargers to non Tesla owners. Useless tossers running governments for the benefit of the oil industry.
Rant over for this evening. :grinning:

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aaah there it is one man, how should be this so? worse than any others?