Charging in rural France

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 Today we decided to try and use a charger located in Sorede, the village where we used to have a second home. This is the charger:


The first thing to notice is that you need your own cable. This is very common with AC charges, especially the low power ones. We found this charger using the Shell Recharge app, but I wanted to see if the KiWhi Pass card would operate it, and it did! After tapping the card, it unlocked the door (just below the green light) and I was able to plug in … and nothing happened! What the very helpful instructions don't tell you is that you must shut the door in order to start the charger … and it locks the door to protect your cable.


You can see above that the door has brushes on the bottom to allow it to close. It was Rose that thought to try closing the door, so kudos to her. When you close the door the green light turns blue and the electricity flows!


The back is open because I stowed my charging cable under the floor, and I had to empty some baggage in order to access it! The charger managed just over 10kW, so not very powerful, but better than nothing! We stopped charging after 5 minutes (using the Hyundai app), and after a couple of minutes the charger unlocked the door and we could remove the cable. We then repeated the process, but this time using the Shell Recharge card, which also worked just fine.

The costs were as follows:

  • KiWhi: 4 minutes charge, 0.61kWh, costing €0.88 which is €1.44/kWh!
  • Shell Recharge: 6 minutes charge, 0.83kWh, costing €0.26 which is 0.31/kWh.

The KiWhi Pass card charges you €0.70 for the privilege of using it, so it is not very economic for short charges! But if you are stuck and need the electricity, the cost is not really an issue.

So this was a success! So far I would say that the Shell Recharge app and card have been very useful, and I recommend registering with them if you plan to travel in France.


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