*Since writing this, I learned that Cam received an email from Plugsurfing on 29 November that required us to take action in order for our fob to keep working. The email was not read until February 😬 Ooops!! Details! 😆
**See all of our charging data & notes in an Excel file on the blog home page.
We started our longest driving day of the trip at 7:30 am before the sun was up. We had been fortunate to be able to charge overnight at our hotel (Hôtel Première Classe Bourg En Bresse), but the car battery was only at 71% in the morning despite having been charging for about 14 hours. Another EV was also charging at the same building, so we expect that this was the reason we did not wake up to a fully charged battery.
We decided to drain the battery down fairly low for our first driving segment as recommended by the Chargemap app instead of stopping to charge around 40-50% as had been our comfort zone for most of the three month rental, due to not being able to rely on chargers working easily for us.
Charge attempt 1: ✅ Our Plugsurfing fob did not work for us at the awesome V-GAS FRAGNES charging station, and neither did our Amex. Card #2, a MasterCard did the trick. We charged for 49 minutes from ~22-85% using a 200 kW DC fast charger with a CCS (Type 2 combo) connector.
The V-GAS station is under construction, but has a lot of cool features. There is a large solar farm right behind the station, so we know that this charge was zero emissions! The location also has natural gas filling stations and hydrogen stations are being set up. There is a walking path right beside the station to pass the time productively which we did for a little while after a snack. Unfortunately the bathrooms are accessible only by pass card (perhaps frequent users like truckers and bus drivers can access the building).
Charge attempt 2: ⚠️Our luck started to go south at our next stop, Aire de Maison Dieu. Our fob worked to get the AVIA charging station going, but the station crashed after a few minutes of charging (screen went black). We did not call the help line to see if they could restart it. We were left with ~44% of battery charge, so we wanted to find another fast charger fairly close by.
Charge attempt 3: ❌ We headed to a fast charger just outside an A6 toll booth station, but it was in use (at the start of a charge). We didn’t have enough charge to go the next closest fast charger, so we had to find a Level 2 charger. (These are more common, but take 2 or 3 hours to charge, so are not practical for long driving days).
Charge attempt 4 ✅ At the Sauvigny-le-Bois charger our fob didn’t work again. The freshmile app got the charger going. We charged for 26:37 (min:sec) to add 2.77 kWh to our battery. This charge was free (presumably the commune pays). The bright side of this pit stop was discovering the local chateau and getting in another little walk.
The maximum power output from this type of Level 2 charger (Sdey) is 7 kW. The connector was a Type 2. I’m not sure why the freshmile app indicates that this connector is called a Type E with a max power capacity of 4 kW, because as you can see on the graph, we did peak just under 7 kW. Off we went to the closest fast charger again.
Charge attempt 5: ❌ After taking a chance on an aire sign that indicated an EV charger was present (under construction, not operational yet), we continued on to our destination (per Chargemap app) for the 4th charge of the day in Venoy.
Charge attempt 6: ✅ Venoy has a free access fast charger. Sweet. Again, our fob didn’t work, obviously we have problem to sort out with Plugsurfing. It took 3 tries with the freshmile app to get it going, but at least we didn’t have to make a phone call (customer service has always been able to get us charging for free when we call, but it takes about 20+ minutes to go through their process).
We charged from 23-96% in 46:10 (min:sec) consuming 33.01 kWh. The max power for this charger is 50 kW. We used the CCS (Type 2 combo) connector. A CHAdeMO connector is also available here. You can see in the graph below that the power drawn drops dramatically when the battery has reached ~80/85% full. We kept charging because it was free and we had the time.
Charge attempt 7: ✅ Our fifth & final charge of the journey was at the Aire de la Couline. Our fob didn’t work again. The Total app seemed to be working fine, but we ran into a credit card issue. As our cards are Canadian, we are sometimes asked for a verification code when doing an online transaction that is sent to our cell # (for our MasterCard, our Amex sends it to email so this is easier). The phone number must be Canadian, so we have a family member’s number on file. With the time difference etc., we cannot always get ahold of them when necessary. To get charging, we called the help line and got 30 minutes for free.
We arrived at our destination with a 37% charged battery. Thankfully, our hotel had a regular outlet available to use, which is the most reliable, convenient and cost effective way for us to charge (overnight). Next stop, Disneyland!
Carbon conscious COVID dodging family travel 