The Grand Tour: Day 1

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I am writing from the Kyriad hotel in Beauvais; first stopover on the Grand Tour to France and Spain.

We stopped at the Stop24 services on the M20 to use the IONITY chargers there. I used the ChargeMyHyundai app which gives us lucky Hyundai owners a year's free membership of IONITY and a preferential charging rate. All went very smoothly.

In France we decided to be very conservative, at least at first, to avoid any stress! Our first stop was at the Aire de la Baie de Somme. There are 4 IONITY superchargers here (350kW), and Tesla chargers. All the IONITY chargers were busy, so I thought I’d try a Tesla. But despite the press announcements that all Tesla chargers in France and Belgium are open to non-Tesla drivers, theTesla app told me there where no chargers nearby! So I parked up in the IONITY bays and the guy currently using one of them told me he would be done in 2 minutes, and so he was. Just as at Stop24, all went well with the ChargeMyHyundai app, but curiously when the charge got to 80% the charge could only manage 4kW (normally it goes down to about 40kW as the battery fills up - see my post about charging and capacity). By this time (about 10 minutes charging) someone came along so I yielded the charger to them (one of the 4 IONITY chargers was out of service). 

I used the car's sat nav to tell me about chargers near my destination, and it showed a Total EV point very nearby, so we set it as a waypoint, and off we went. Despite a hiccup with the utterly useless Garmin sat nav that is built in to the car, we duly arrived at the Total EV chargers. There were two of them giving 150kW. Total do not have an app, just a web site, which I had registered with before travelling. But aside from a few failed attempts with entering the payment details it went smoothly enough. Whilst there, a small queue built up for the chargers!

This is what ABRP tells me for tomorrow:





Comments

  1. AnonymousMay 28, 2022 at 5:18 PM

    How’s the range anxiety? Asking as I see you’re keeping your intervals relatively short. Are you letting the car do most of the ‘driving’? You’re braver that I was on my first long (400 mile) trip - I had the comfort of the Tesla network but the curse of the phantom-braking Autopilot… Hope you are finding the car itself a relaxing long distance conveyance. Best wishes for successful vacation. Jeremy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. IanMay 29, 2022 at 10:01 PM

      Yes, we are being a bit conservative; it’s a combination of range anxiety and recharge uncertainty! As we gain experience, both of these are diminishing. I will write a separate post about the car (yes, I let it drive as much as is practical).

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