Tesla at 24 Heures du Mans

[PV4EV]

Congratulations on finally getting into a Roadster - no one deserves it more than you !

Excellent write up and great homage photo - that's the kinda thing I do to

At the Le Mans event, did you get accosted by a bloke in a blue Esprit Turbo? .. I was supposed to be going this year with him and a load of other Lotus nuts, but something else came up that was a tad important and I had to cancel :-(


What is the general countrywide charging infrastructure like in France? .. do they have Le Ecotricity .. or ZCW type organisations ?

 

[Larry93428]

What a great trip!
Thank you for sharing.
~Larry

 

[Elctrek]

that's on my bucket list... maybe not in the Tesla but the race for sure... Thanks for sharing your trip... looked like you had a great time...

 

[malcolm]

Great post David. And congratulations on your recent purchase.

 

[dpeilow]

Thanks all.

PV4EV - I didn't see any Lotus Esprits but plenty of Elise / Exige variants.

I would say that outside of Paris, in respect to EV charging France is about 18 months to 2 years behind the UK. There are several regional operators and the one in the Le Mans area (etotem : borne de charge pour vlectriques) seemed disinterested - it took 2 weeks to reply to my inquiry about getting a card, by which time I was there and charging in the camp site.

There is a big roll out going on with Auchan supermarkets and Nissan. They have said they will install 130 rapid chargers of the type that Ecotricity have rolled out. I wonder if this was delayed due to the problems we have seen with those units in the UK? Anyway, that is happening now and you need a card called KiWhi Pass to use them.

As I mentioned above, Novotel have several sites with free to use 32A charge points and I have asked Accor hotels if they can give me a complete list of locations that have it, as at the moment it's pot luck if you select a hotel on their web site and the EV icon pops up.

There is a nationwide network of municipal motorhome sites, many of which have 16A hookups. You can find these on AireCampingCar.com: All the Motorhome stopovers, throughout France

Renault and Nissan dealers can be accomodating with other makes of car too, but phone ahead and you will need the Type 3 cable to plug in there.

Of course, in Paris you are spoiled because you can plug a Roadster into the Autolib charging points if you have their card, of which there are thousands of points across the city.

 

[Mark77a]

Great Post David .. thanks for sharing (and all the useful info

 

[dpeilow]

Took the Roadster to Le Mans again this year. Unlike some other cars, it made the trip without stopping short.