Chargers for EV cars in France

My boring old car, it is a mercedes e 280 estate it has a big tank and does 950km+ if chock full of daughters and stuff, up to 1200 km on one tank if it is just me in it, motorway practically all the way of course, which helps.

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And will keep running for galactic mileage :laughing:

Interesting article just come out…

Good article and shows up how slow fast charger adoption is. From the routes I looked at via the planner app leaving autoroutes to go to a charging station was too necessary. On the A10 north of Tours there is a new bank of reasonable fast chargers and I do get updates of new chargers but France is huge so adding 10 new fast chargers wont make a jot of difference.
From people’s posts on here its obvious not just range anxiety (mostly unfounded for normal car use) but too much hasdle for leaving journeys to go to a charger.

The charging network is growing and most phone apps/ cars plan your route via the available chargers. My bigger concern would be the after sales back up if buying a Chinese car?

I’ve found Google Maps pretty good and if the aerial images are up to date you can easily confirm the presence of the charger if the spaces has been painted up! HTH

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But the aerial photos are not up to date. Chargemap and A Better Route Planner give great information which is up to date including in use or broken as users supply information.

Why? Unless you are importing it yourself you’ll be buying via a dealer? As the Chinese make just about everything it would be pretty remiss of the manufacturer to leave out after sales. Bearing in mind some of the Chinese manufacturers dwarf the western car manufacturers.

I think the tide has to turn on buying anything from a totalitarian regime that ignores international law, persecutes minority groups and uses forced labour in its factories as well as having an immoral attitude to the world and its resources.
Consequently, I wouldn’t trust a Chinese warranty as they seem too ready to reneague on agreements and make hostile threats to others when confronted.
I think it is our moral duty to question where the things we buy come from and what the consequences are of buying them.

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That wasn’t your original comment but yes, on the humanitarian front I completely agree. We also have the Japanese and their whale and shark slaughter to contend with.

I try to use my spending for ethical ends, and boycott some countries - notably Israel, where there is an organised international campaign (the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement) much like the boycott of South Africa which probably helped end apartheid there.
But with China it’s not so easy, simply because so much is now made in China, especially leading-edge technology. Mobile phones, for example, are famously almost all made in China. You can choose a western brand - but the manufacture, or at least some of the components, will in reality almost certainly be Chinese.

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I agree on Israel, especially produce from the occupied territories but as you say, China has so successfully cornered the manufacturing market it’s difficult to find alternatives.

For the last twenty years I’ve watched with amazement as US corporations (including the one I worked for) have given away intellectual capital to China in order to drive down costs and drive up quarterly earnings per share. Short-termism driven by executive share options.

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Wondered whether your MB 280e estate is petrol or diesel as I only get about 500+ klm on my petrol one?

Diesel, (I didn’t know they did a petrol version :blush:) I just looked up MB 280e and the pictures don’t look like my car at all. Mine looks like this only dirty
20210318_183753

Yours is an E280, not a 280E. E on then back of a Mercs used to indicate fuel injection, then they moved to the “A” Class, “C” Class, “E” Class model numbers. Now “E” on the back indicates hybrid. So the ancestors of my car were the 190E, then the “C” class and now it’s a C350e. Clear as mud, eh :roll_eyes:

Just to add to the confusion, when the move to the “classes” was made the number on the back, which used to represent engine size… didn’t anymore. So my Merc 320SL had a 3.2ltr. motor, my C350e has a two litre one. Most current 2XX Mercs have 1.8ltr engines, I think. The number now just indicates the power, which is pretty well unrelated to capacity these days.

That is what I said originally, e280, it is written on the back of it after all so I’m unlikely to get it wrong :grin:. Nigel put the e after the 280. It claims to have a 3.2 litre engine, at least I think so, it says it is 3222cc

Yes, I think Nigel was thinking of the older model.