Advice regarding driving to France and Switzerland

[philnewmerc]

Picking up that earlier comment that it’s EVs driving at the speed limit, I’m not convinced that it’s EVs that have slowed us down. As an old buffed who still accelerates away from the lights, my impression is that people are simply driving slower for fuel economy and speeding points.

Check it out when you’re next out. Is it really Tesla’s who are really slowing traffic, or is it speed cameras and people saving money in Fords and Renaults?

I am slightly tongue in cheek here, but generally there might be, at a guesstimate, 40% ICE cars in the slow waiting for Godot lane, 50% in the middle hogging lane and 10% in the fast stylish lane, so that's 40:50:10 ratio. But for EVs the ratio seems to be about 90:10:0 (with the odd Taycan/E-tron outlier). But this is on my very long runs N-S and S-N. Around the SE and M25 I see far more EVs in the 'fast lane' but that's because every lane is slow down there imho. Round the doors there are loads of EVs now, but as I go out onto the A1 or A19 they just disappear until I get closer to the civilised south again.

 

[philnewmerc]

The new Harry's Garage vid on the Tesla Model 3 was encouraging (from a 5-10 years from now perspective). Anything with a 0-60 sub 6 seconds feels pretty quick to me (with <5 secs scary-quick) and with 250 mile range that's enough too. And because most people have no taste and will want a Model X/Y SUV-stylee-blobbymobile maybe they'll be cheaper too?

 

[SpikyMikey]

I agree.....I see loads of ICE cars in between the trucks in the slow lane doing between 50 and 60. It started when the fuel went up to silly pence per litre a while back......and I thing people who care about this stuff have realised that you can make quite an improvement on your MPG by dropping from 70 to 80 down to 50 to 60....which you can......and they have just carried on driving like that. Probably a few tree huggers amongst them to Id guess. On my car its about 5 mpg better........but I'm starting with an economical car....wont be the same gains with a more powerful petrol.....but lots of the cars in the truck lane are normal 2.0l type family cars.

I mooch about at 68mph on the motorway quite a lot these days; trying to making progress in lanes 3/4 can get tedious after a while. The interesting result of this being that I have noticed it can sometime have a sobering effect on Audi/RR/BMW/Merc person rapidly approaching from behind at a great rate of knots. In the rearview mirror you can see the thought process (in those alert enough to have sufficient situational awareness);
"Clean and shiny silver 3 Series estate doing 68 in lane 1, driven by a bloke with a short haircut........best slow down"

 

[markjay]

I think we need to differentiate between tight penny-pinching [enter the UK regional character or foreign ethnicity of your choice] holding everyone up while trying to save money on fuel or electricity, and those who drive their EV slowly due to range anxiety.

The latter is relevant to the the thread's title - I had no range concerns when driving at (an indicated speed of) 120kmh in France once I realised that there were plenty of high-speed chargers along the route.

There's nothing we can do about the stingy types... but a good charging network along our motorways will help with keeping EVs moving at the same speed as everyone else.

 

[BTB 500]

I mooch about at 68mph on the motorway quite a lot these days; trying to making progress in lanes 3/4 can get tedious after a while.

A lot of our motorway driving is 'off peak' (e.g. early mornings at weekends) when the roads are quite quiet. Obviously doing 71 mph would be illegal and highly dangerous so I'd never personally go that fast, except in Europe of course where 75-80 mph miraculously becomes legal and perfectly safe. But anyway my mate Dave generally sets his cruise control for 77 here, knowing that his actual speed is 2-3 mph lower and comfortably below the FPN enforcement threshold of 79 mph. He also reports that he is overtaken by ICEs at that speed but almost never EVs (most of which are easily spotted by the green stripe on the number plate). This would likely be because they already have 9 points from using the vast performance of their cars on other roads, so the drivers are being super careful. Not because they're desperately trying to save energy to make it to the next charger. No siree Bob, no way. According to Dave, anyway.

 

[BTB 500]

There's nothing we can do about the stingy types... but a good charging network along our motorways will help with keeping EVs moving at the same speed as everyone else.

100%

And improving technology will hopefully increase range anyway.

 

[BTB 500]

I really wouldn’t worry too much about there only being 780 high speed charging sites compared to 8,500 fuel forecourts then.

I don't. As mentioned it was a recent government report that identified this as one of the factors that was preventing more widespread adoption of BEVs in the UK.

This came up in the context of @markjay 's good experience in France with loads of public high speed chargers on the main routes.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

I mooch about at 68mph on the motorway quite a lot these days; trying to making progress in lanes 3/4 can get tedious after a while. The interesting result of this being that I have noticed it can sometime have a sobering effect on Audi/RR/BMW/Merc person rapidly approaching from behind at a great rate of knots. In the rearview mirror you can see the thought process (in those alert enough to have sufficient situational awareness);
"Clean and shiny silver 3 Series estate doing 68 in lane 1, driven by a bloke with a short haircut........best slow down"

“Evening, All!”

“In a hurry, Sir?”

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

The new Harry's Garage vid on the Tesla Model 3 was encouraging (from a 5-10 years from now perspective). Anything with a 0-60 sub 6 seconds feels pretty quick to me (with <5 secs scary-quick) and with 250 mile range that's enough too. And because most people have no taste and will want a Model X/Y SUV-stylee-blobbymobile maybe they'll be cheaper too?

For sure they’ll be cheaper ….

But you forgot to mention Harry’s overall conclusion on the Tesla ….

(Beyond “better than their first attempt”)

 

[markjay]

Interestingly, the local police in the village have a Jaguar i-Pace, you have to wonder what made them choose this particular British car that is not known for it's reliability (or practicality). Perhaps they got a good deal on a bunch of them?

EDIT: Found this online (from 2019):

Première en Suisse romande pour la police intercommunale de Crans-Montana

La police de Crans-Montana est la première en Suisse romande à disposer d’un véhicule d’intervention 100 % électrique.

www.lenouvelliste.ch

 

[SpikyMikey]

“Evening, All!”

“In a hurry, Sir?”

"Nick Nick"!

 

[philnewmerc]

For sure they’ll be cheaper ….

But you forgot to mention Harry’s overall conclusion on the Tesla ….

(Beyond “better than their first attempt”)

Not a natural 'driver's car'. Just very very good at being an EV. Fair enough.
I'm just thinking my hunger for stupidly inefficient cars might have subsided by then (i.e. 10 years from now). But if not it will be an EQS/Taycan and a house with a drive... might even go full uPVC portico like a proper EV driver

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Interestingly, the local police in the village have a Jaguar i-Pace, you have to wonder what made them choose this particular British car that is not known for it's reliability (or practicality). Perhaps they got a good deal on a bunch of them?

EDIT: Found this online (from 2019):

Première en Suisse romande pour la police intercommunale de Crans-Montana

La police de Crans-Montana est la première en Suisse romande à disposer d’un véhicule d’intervention 100 % électrique.

www.lenouvelliste.ch

Prince Charles made the same mistake.

Didn’t keep it long. A handful of months.

Not up to the task

 

[markjay]

Prince Charles made the same mistake.

Didn’t keep it long. A handful of months.

Not up to the task

View attachment 155980

Well the local cops over here apparently bought theirs in 2019... and still run it today. Perhaps they just got lucky.

 

[SpikyMikey]

Well the local cops over here apparently bought theirs in 2019... and still run it today. Perhaps they just got lucky.

Perhaps Swiss electricity is higher quality than the stuff we get over here: the EV equivalent of running your ICE car on V-Power.

 

[Neiltodd]

I think we need to differentiate between tight penny-pinching [enter the UK regional character or foreign ethnicity of your choice] holding everyone up while trying to save money on fuel or electricity, and those who drive their EV slowly due to range anxiety.

The latter is relevant to the the thread's title - I had no range concerns when driving at (an indicated speed of) 120kmh in France once I realised that there were plenty of high-speed chargers along the route.

There's nothing we can do about the stingy types... but a good charging network along our motorways will help with keeping EVs moving at the same speed as everyone else.

Would your range anxiety be different for example driving to Austria via the autobahns at 130mph as a good number of people I know do (their comments are even at 130mph there is always someone trying to get past them)

 

[markjay]

Would your range anxiety be different for example driving to Austria via the autobahns at 130mph as a good number of people I know do (their comments are even at 130mph there is always someone trying to get past them)

The speed limit in France is 130 kmh, I just didn't want to drive that fast (not related to the fact that I was driving an EV), and so I drove at 120 mph using the adaptive cruise control.

If I had a reason to try and maximise the range between charging stops, then I would have driven slower. The display on the dash shows the energy consumption (same as mpg display on an ICE car's trip computer), and so it's easy to adjust your speed to optimise range and progress.

I don't know what's the charging network is like in Austria, but if it's as good as France's and Switzerland's than I would just drive at whatever speed I'm comfortable with and wouldn't worry about range.

I am aware that getting stranded without fuel is not as bad as getting stranded without charge, but ultimately both are inconvenient and undesirable. The reason that ICE drivers don't get range anxiety is mainly because there are plenty of petrol stations everywhere, and not because they don't mind walking a couple of miles with a 10L fuel can.... As long as there are sufficient fast chargers along the route, EV drivers need not have range anxiety, at any speed.

 

[StMarks]

The speed limit in France is 130 kmh, I just didn't want to drive that fast (not related to the fact that I was driving an EV), and so I drove at 120 mph using the adaptive cruise control.

By my calculations, that ^ would put you cruising at around 193kph, which is over 60% above their 130 limit. Risky, even for you mate.!

 

[markjay]

By my calculations, that ^ would put you cruising at around 193kph, which is over 60% above their 130 limit. Risky, even for you mate.!

True

No worries, the car is limited by software to 115mph....

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

By my calculations, that ^ would put you cruising at around 193kph, which is over 60% above their 130 limit. Risky, even for you mate.!

When I saw his cheeky 120mph, it was the tyres on his 2.4 tonne EV that were worrying me....