In the French blogosphere a real adventure has been taking place a week ago with “La Chaine EV” & weelyke undertaking a new #eCanonnball record beating trip from Portugal to Norway. Since I’m not convinced the story reached much beyond the French speaking areas of the world, I wanted to introduce you to an English speaking audience, so please, go ahead Jean-Cristophe, tell us a short background story on LCE and this trip in particular! All the way “up north” ;-) How did you plan your charging stops, did you let the vehicle choose, ABRP, other apps? I’ve seen a lot of Google maps running o ..read more

Written by my buddy @gaugericus after I dropped him off at SIXT Munich: My anticipated journey in and around Bavaria in a booked Fiat 500e quickly turned into an unexpected ordeal when Sixt offered me a "free upgrade" to the BYD Atto3. An electric vehicle from China that's supposed to shock the market. Little did I know that this so-called upgrade would be fraught with quirks and disappointments. From the moment I stepped into the Atto3, its driving behavior set the tone for the entire experience. The incessant beeping for the slightest action was nothing short of infuriating. While I eventua ..read more

Let The Games Begin! Is what somebody at the Stuttgart HQ must’ve thought when they decided to send some emails on a late Saturday night. Everything is about to change if you’re a Mercedes electric vehicle driver somewhere in Europe! The basics For many years Mercedes has offered one of the best “heavy EV traveler packages” of any competing mobility company in Europe. The only flaw I could find was that you had to sign up for a year, so the “monthly” costs were actually times twelve minimum. Mercedes was able to offer one of the best packages around by working with DCS in the background, known ..read more

Welcome back to my new series! Today we're following Hugo Bos on his way to Spain. Just days ago he embarked on a ride with his IONIQ5 to Dénia, where he will take the ferry to Ibiza. A Better Routeplanner recommend him to take a small detour, I thought it would be fun to visit the brand-new LIDL shown below... Only he was one day early, the red carpet was rolled out 24 hours later. Thanks to Sébastien Krimm, we know that Hugo would've been better off 24 hours later(!) Nowadays, Lille is not the Charging Desert it once was, and nearby Hugo encountered a LIDL with a single "120 kW charger". In ..read more

Another month, another Tesla pricing update for Europe! As discovered earlier this weekend by “Tesla_Adri” (who else!) Tesla had been cooking on a new price mechanism for European Superchargers. Time Based Supercharging prices Active since midnight, when topping up your electric vehicle at the Public Supercharging locations around Europe pricing will depend on when you start your charging session. Between 4PM and 8PM peak pricing is active in most countries: Tesla??Public Supercharger Pricing Update! PEAK tariff 4PM-8PM ?? €0,75/kWh (0,54) ?? €0,84/kWh (0,72) ?? €0,78/kWh (0,66) ?? €0,85/kWh ..read more

This is the work of Leon Zippel, be sure to follow him on Twitter. If German is your native language, the original story was published here. I translated the article with permission. The blog is based on facts & figures from Germany. Many people are asking themselves these days where we will get the electricity for electric cars in the future. How much electricity do we need for 100% electric cars, and where will it come from in the end? I would like to discuss this in the following. The country needs new technologies As a society, we have set ourselves the goal of decarbonising all sector ..read more

Never before have I tried the BerlinChallenge in one year with all these brand new EV’s. After the BMW iX3 (under seven hours!) and the VW ID.3 (just over) it’s time for the new #chargingmonster: The IONIQ5. (Project 45 edition, AWD, big wheels and so on). Background of the #BerlinChallenge For those of you not familiar with the electricfelix #BerlinChallenge, it all started with a Jaguar ride back in 2018. I had been driving to Berlin for years and years with many luxurious diesel powered vehicles, inviting BlaBlaCar-passengers to survive the rental fees. Newspaper Trouw (NL) wrote about it ..read more

In The Old Days of e-mobility (I mean, two years ago) cheap or sometimes even free fast charging wasn’t very unusual in Europe. I remember Telekom & Maingau, offering rates of 2 or 5 cent/minute at 50kW and up (of course there weren’t that many “and up” back then). Fast Forward to 2022 The tables have turned. E-mobility is growing up. Fast charging is everywhere (in a country like Germany). And it can be expensive, depending on your vehicle, charging card and point of view. What I mean is, if you have solar at home, Fastned might feel like a crazy expense. Maybe you live around the corner ..read more

I’m testing them all: racing the Taycan home from Berlin and driving a rental ID.3 to Berlin using exclusively free fast charging. About time for the first test of 2022! This winter, Citroën offered a winter tyre equipped ë-C4, and I was just planning a ride from Amsterdam to Stockholm! Out of the ordinary road trip Many times when using rental vehicles, I end up doing a bit of a “squeezed” holiday ride, shooting some video halfway and booking a week because that’s usually the most cost-effective option. Not so this time. I’m picking up my partner nearby Lund, where her parents settled this ye ..read more

For years I’ve been testing vehicles and (fast) chargers between Amsterdam and Berlin. The rapid growth especially of High Power Charging networks around Germany has been astounding. I still love to drive right on the limit (of battery SoC) and unlock the best charging curves, but this time we’re trying a new strategy. Driving the Volkswagen ID.3 to Berlin for free Can it be done, in 2021? If you just want the raw data, dive right into our Polarsteps adventure. No cheating: which means we’re not even starting with a (paid) full battery. I do not have a home charger as most people in Amsterdam ..read more