2022 Model 3 Long Range.
3,800 Miles
866kWh
236 Wh/Mi
3 weeks
Charging
In general I plan in advance and try to organise AC charging - my preference is just to plug in overnight rather than have to spend time sat at a supercharger.
German
Sweden
Norway
Denmark
Netherlands
Route highlights
Travel Tips:
Roads
Supercharger of the trip
3,800 Miles
866kWh
236 Wh/Mi
3 weeks
Charging
In general I plan in advance and try to organise AC charging - my preference is just to plug in overnight rather than have to spend time sat at a supercharger.
German
- Used AC on the outward leg
- Public Chargers were plentiful, and activated via Electroverse without any drama
- ~€0.40/kWh
- EV Adoption seemed lower than the UK, public chargers seemed to work well, bays were available, and I never saw one ICEd
- One Tesla destination charger didn’t work - they’ve decided to charge €30 for a charge (fine), but used the RCD trip to enforce this, and the switch has worn out (nearby public came to the rescue)
- One airbnb charger only provided 8a (nearby public, again, came to the rescue)
- Used DC much more on the leg back.- SuCs along autobahns seemed to meet expectations
Sweden
- Hadn’t really focused on Sweden - the wife wanted to go over the bridge
- Only used superchargers, which all worked as expected
Norway
- Apps were a problem. They don’t seem to have signed up for roaming networks (except the recharge network), none have credit card readers, and each network have their own app
- App experience varied, but for the most part required a bit of translation to get them to work
- AC Chargers (hotels, airbnbs) were generally unreliable.
- Hotel listed as Tesla destination charger looked at me like I had 3 heads when I asked where the EV charger was. I think at this stage we might as well forget about destination chargers… The program was good initially, but it’s just not been maintained. (How do I even report that the charger is gone to get it delisted?)
- Carparks seemed to have AC chargers (but struggled to find listings for them). Most were underground and seemed to need app activation :/
- Didn’t find any great apps for listing chargers. Largely used electroverse and chargemap.
- DC Networks seemed well maintained and worked well
- In particular, most supermarkets seemed to have a decent number of rapids
- A short supermarket run for the next couple of days, and come back to an 80+% charge
- Even fairly rural roadside hotels seemed to have a MER station with a couple of rapids
- Most petrol stations seemed to have Kempower units
- Publics seemed to be around £0.35-40/kWh. SuCs more like £0.25-30.
- In particular, most supermarkets seemed to have a decent number of rapids
- Lots of parking was paid, Easypark app was quite common, and some street charging bays were on the same app. (The only AC charger which we actually got working in the whole country)
Denmark
- AC charging at a hotel with 10 “clever” chargers was a clusterfuck, roaming RFIDs didn’t work, weren’t setup for app activation, no spare RFID card at reception. Reception apologetic, Clever support were useless
- SuCs to the rescue!
Netherlands
- SuCs are about €0.25/kWh. Domestic is €0.40 and ACs are €0.5 or so. We used the SuCs…
Route highlights
- Hamberg Miniatur Wunderland
- Norway
- Vest-Telemark Museum Eidsborg (Lovely little museum, 1-2 hours with a variety of history, Stave Church - free AC chargers.)
- The great outdoors, Voss to Flam to Lom to Nordfjordeid - just so so pretty
- Stavanger Museums - Norwegian Petroleum Museum, Canning Museum
- Aarhus: Den Gamle By
Travel Tips:
- August was a good time to go, the norwegians tend to holiday June-July. Weather was, much like the UK over August, variable. Jetstream was all over the place this summer…
- The NOK is pretty weak at the moment, and we felt that things were generally reasonable value in Norway. Of course, you still want to buy alcohol and/or chocolate before you leave germany
- Mix of Hotels and Airbnbs - everything worked largely as expected, Norway in particular has a lot of reasonably priced accommodation on airbnb
- We took a small (9l) car fridge/freezer with us, which we largely used overnight for freezer blocks. It helped a lot keeping food for the road trip
- We went out via the denmark-sweden bridge, and back via the kristiansand ferry (The faster catamaran). Worked fine, the bridges were considerably more expensive than I had realised (still cheaper than the ferry, but only just)
- We took out a tolltickets box for scandinavia, as the wife really hates pay barriers (My ability to park too far away from the machine for her to use them, but close enough to stop her opening her door! ). In reality it only helped for the denmark bridges, and it looks like there were cheaper options in hindsight (Norway has a lot of toll roads, but it’s all ANPR)
- On the way back, the Eurotunnel Flexipass is expensive, but means you can just hop on the next train whenever you’re done with France (For us, that’s when France has no cheese left!)
Roads
- Germany had very clear road layouts and was easy driving
- Norway tends to be slower, pretty roads with a moderately low speed limit; you’ll find that your batteries go further.
- Netherlands has a very high driver workload, there seem to be cycle lanes everywhere and it’s very much on you to know who has right of way. The Dutch cycles are super confident and just expect you to stop when it’s their right of way. Obviously that’s not unreasonable, but I haven’t thought to research their road rules much in advance. Worthwhile doing…
Supercharger of the trip
- Neumünster - Decent set of v3s 4 minutes off the autobahn, big high quality supermarket (EDEKA) for you to grab food before crossing the border
