David Martin drove from the South East of England to Portugal via France, Andorra & Spain in his MG5 EV LR 2021.
Introducing your road trip
We started in the SE of England and drove via the Eurotunnel to Rouen, France. The next day we drove south to near Millau for our first stay. We relied on IONITY and free charging at the stay. Our next stay was in the Pyrenees. We ventured high into 6 mountain passes in France, Spain & Andorra using various networks including FEDA in Andorra.
Next, we drove 625 miles to Portugal for a long stay, visiting many places. Finally we came home via the Santander Ferry. We found France an easy place to charge, IONITY was very good but costly. Andorra was only possible late on due to Electromaps gaining access to their chargers. Portugal is easy on the miio app/RFID card but Spain is a real pain. Zunder was the best, Electromaps good but WENEA a total fail.
We did 3,500 miles at 8p/mile and 4.0 miles per kW. Palencia failed us again!
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Planning & preparation
This was our second EV trip to Portugal but our first to France & Andorra. You must do plenty of planning for Spain but France, Portugal & Andorra were simple.
Chargemap & Octopus Juice pass are good for France, Miio covers all chargers in Portugal but Spain is a huge challenge. Much of Spain is covered by Electromaps. Zunder is excellent, easily the best to use but needs an app. WENEA failed us at every attempt as did Enel Juice pass. Repsol, AVIA & Iberdrola are only accessible by Electromaps as their own apps require a Spanish address/tax code.
You need to allow a few months to sort out RFID cards, getting your cards added, complications with a foreign address in Spain then it’s doable. Spain needs a plan A,B,C,D & E for each charge, I know!
Charging
IONITY are very easy to use, fast but costly without a manufacturer sub. I used Electric Juice from Octopus at £0.66 per kW. Chargemap would be cheaper is you consistently charge at a very high rate, say over 70kWh. You can rely on these.
For Portugal you need the Miio app & RFID. It’s the only one that allows a foreign address. By law, the card & app cover 100% of chargers in Portugal so charging is very simple. Portuguese chargers are fairly reliable & simple to use and many more are being installed. The only issues that I had was with McDonald’s chargers. The software didn’t allow enough time for my car to initiate a charge so I reported the issue.
If you stay at any accommodation that advertises an EV charger, expect it to be a standard socket & granny lead. You will need a HD EU adapted socket and I found that every single time a 10m extension lead was required.
In France, once off the IONITY safety net, most chargers are activated by Chargemap or Electromaps RFID cards. Many of these chargers are unreliable or quite tricky to activate. I used an ex CORRI-Door charger and it took many attempts to activate, then charged slowly.
Andorra was saved by the last minute acceptance of Electromaps token RFIDs. Before then it was impossible.
In Spain I found Zunder (Easy charger) the most reliable & cheapest network. It was a bit tricky to register as you need to e-mail to get a foreign address added but once done the plug & charge facility are very fast & cheap; this makes it the best.
Electromaps covers many chargers and is simple, it’s just the chargers are tricky! I am registered with WENEA & Enel JuicePass but have yet to get any of their chargers to activate! Repsol, AVIA & Iberdrola apps do not allow foreigners at all & customer service is non existent.
You must treat your trip as an adventure with enough time & back up plans, then you ‘ll be fine.
Did you encounter any great driving roads on your road trip? If so, where were they and why were they great?
The mountain passes in Spain/France en route to Andorra are stunning and great in an EV. The Millau to Albi road on the route of an old railway is brilliant too. Lots of narrow tunnels and several very interesting villages to visit. The A71-A75 across Millau is stunning, as is the A52 in Spain from Leon to Portugal. Rural inland Portugal has stunning roads but many are very twisty!
The MG5 EV
The MG5 was an absolute star throughout the trip, faultless to the end. In particular, I was amazed at its charging speed, we got up to 92.25 kW/h on IONITY & Zunder, outcharging some very expensive & much costlier EVs (to their amazement!). I also got 4.0 miles per kW despite high motorway speeds & mountain passes. That shocked me a bit as I consistently out did the expected range/performance and ended up cruising at full motorway speed all the time.
The sat nav that feels rubbish in the UK compared to Android Auto worked really well on long trips, quite a surprise as I ended up preferring it. It’s only fail was in the remote Portuguese mountains where it got itself lost as did the LEAF sat nav last year. Android Auto said no, due to poor signal/GPS so we had to use paper maps!
One failing, despite tinting the windows, is the fake leather seats. I ended up using a bath towel on the seat throughout for comfort reasons, as otherwise the sweating etc was too much. On the other side getting out after a 625 mile drive relaxed does show how easy it is to drive. I couldn’t drive an ICE car that far!
Road trip conclusion
The trip was a success with the car exceeding all expectations. Charge costs were less than half of fuel costs & the car performed very well. Apart from the repeat charger failures in Palencia it was a very enjoyable trip. Such an easy car to drive & live with. Last year we took the LEAF but just from Santander, but slow charging rates, battery overheating and less charge options made that trip tricky, that’s why I switched EVs.
I have already started next year’s trip and have planned for many more long adventures in the MG5!
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