Using an EV in mainland Europe

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Sometime ago we decided that this summer we would drive down to Spain for a round of golf at Peralada, where we used to play a few years ago when we had a holiday home not far away in France. A friend of mine recommended an app called ABRP (a better router planner) that is good for planning journeys in an EV (many thanks Jeremy). A week before the trip (henceforth known as “The Grand Tour”), we researched online how to charge an EV in France …

It is not straightforward, as you cannot just tap your credit/debit card at the charger as you do in the UK. Instead, you need to use prepaid cards or apps to use the chargers. We also learned that IONITY has the biggest network of supercharges (outside Tesla), and also the best apps for finding where the chargers are, in addition to ABRP which is pretty good. These are some of the apps I have:


  • Tesla. Needed to use the Tesla chargers.
  • ZapMap. A good charger-finding app for the UK, not much use on the continent.
  • IONITY. The app needed for their chargers, although it turns out that ChargeMyHundai is cheaper!
  • ChargeMyHyundai. We found this app for new Hyundai owners, that gives a year's free membership  to IONITY and a preferential rate.
  • ChargeMap. Another charge-finding app.
  • Open Charge Map. You're getting the idea now. This one is better than most, as it tries to show all charges, who owns them and how you have to pay! But it is not complete.
  • IZIVIA. This is an app and card that you buy (€15 I think) for use across France. They do not understand that some postal codes are not all numeric! The card did not arrive before we left!
  • ShellRecharge. Looks like a good app. It has most of the chargers that we seemed to be interested in. It also has a payment card that arrived promptly after ordering.
  • KiWhi. This is not an app, but just a website with a top-up payment card. They claim to cover 90% of the charges in France. The card cost €19, and did arrive very quickly. 
  • Total EV. Again, not an app, but a website. You cannot link a bank card on the site, but instead you enter the details at charge time which is a bit tedious.
And for Spain 
  • Wenea. This app claims to have wide coverage of chargers in Spain, but I could not link a bank card to the app. I contacted the helpdesk who were very helpful, and after several failed attempts they eventually told me I could call them when at charger and they would start it for me! We'll see!
  • RecargaPublic. This is the Iberdrola app for use with their chargers.
As my friend Bob said, “it’s the Wild West” - and he was just talking about The UK!

UPDATE
I just found that I need another app in Spain to use the etecnic chargers. It is called “EV charge” and it looks like this on the App Store:


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