Jacou

Left Geneva (after discovering that what could only have been a pterodactyl had been nesting above the car overnight) with 163 miles of range. Some 120 miles short of making it to the villa in Montpellier, so a charge along the way would be needed.

About an hour or so into the journey we all needed wees as usual, so Laura found chargers at a Carrefour supermarket that wasn’t far off the motorway. That way we could combine wees and supply shopping for the villa while the car was charging. 45 mins or so later, the car was back to 100% with a range of 288 miles. We also took this time to buy some new microfibre cloths (a man can never have too many) which we then used to try and remove the pterodactyl dung from the car- no mean feat after it had baked on in the sun!

Unfortunately after this stop, the motorway got busy and the temperature touched 37 degrees.
The car’s sat nav suddenly diverted us off the motorway and by the looks of the gridlock on the motorway it did us a favour. The back roads ran parallel with the motorway and through towns for many miles and the red congestion on the map was a permanent fixture.

After a couple more hours of travel and having rejoined the motorway, the bladders were ready to be emptied and then refilled with ice cold drinks, even with the air conditioning on permanently you still get a bit sticky. The temperature for this leg had been sat at 40 degrees.

It makes sense to charge the car while you are having a break so Laura checked the sat nav as it shows all the chargers on the route, together with their speed and availability, so we chose the service station we wanted to use and pulled off.

Shock horror, the first charger I tried didn’t work, so I just used another charger instead. No dramas. The bays here are covered to create shade and guess what they use? Only blooming solar panels. How very modern and forward thinking.

We hit the road after about 15 mins for the final hours drive ending up with range of 85 miles and an average 2.6 m/kwh. This is obviously a low average and therefore the car is more thirsty, but I’m driving how I want to and the air con is working overtime. At no time did we suffer ‘range anxiety’ as chargers are literally everywhere.

I must admit I felt this drive today and was glad of the stops so I could stretch my legs and that. If I drove a petrol car, I would have still made these stops. None of these stops were due to having an electric car, it was down to the driver and his weak bladder which runs in the family.Read more