Martin J drove a 1,420-mile round trip to Galicia, Spain in his KIA EV6 GT-Line AWD 77.4kWh 2021.
Introducing your road trip
From Pontefract to Pontevedra (actually from near Pontefract in West Yorkshire to near Pontevedra in Galicia).
Following last year’s 2,400 mile road trip to Elba, this year we took the EV6 for a touring holiday of north western Spain, using the Brittany Ferries service from Portsmouth to Santander.
Total driving distance was 1,420 miles with relatively short stages westbound to O Grove on the beautiful Galician coast and a couple of longer drives back to Santander via Leon and the Picos de Europa.
Planning & preparation
For last year’s trip through the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, ABRP (A Better Route Planner) formed the basis of the charging plan. But with chargers thinner on the ground in north western Spain, I spent some time compiling a spreadsheet of as many chargers along our route as possible, using charger network maps, backed up with Google Maps.
I also downloaded the Chargemap app and purchased an RFID card, in case the KIA Charge card wasn’t recognised but in the end I didn’t need to use it.
There appear to be very few large charging hubs in north western Spain as yet, with most locations (Tesla excepted) having one or two chargers. I therefore anticipated queues, chargers out of order and the need for more frequent top ups.
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Charging
We need not have worried. The only chargers that didn’t work were in the UK and there were no queues. In fact, we saw far fewer EVs on the road in Spain than in the UK, though EV sales are now growing rapidly there. For comparison, 2023 BEV sales to the end of May were over 121,000 in the UK and to the end of June around 26,000 in Spain. Only once did we charge alongside another EV, a Dacia Spring, currently Europe’s least expensive EV and hopefully, coming to the UK soon.
Last year’s trip relied heavily on IONITY chargers, enabling us to take full advantage of the EV6’s 233kW charging speed. IONITY only have a handful of locations on north western Spain and only one was on our route. However, the Spanish network Zunder is rolling out ultra rapid chargers across the country with many of them offering 180kW. I downloaded the Zunder app before setting off but didn’t need it as Zunder’s newer chargers recognise KIACharge RFID cards.
Just like last time, charging stops generally coincided with coffee/loo stops. The longest was 40 minutes, at a 50kW Zunder charger in Santiago de Compostela. Most were 25 minutes or less. An underground parking garage in Oviedo had some EDP AC chargers, also compatible with KIA charge, which gave us a 30kWh boost while we explored the city. And our destination hotel in O Grove turned out to have two 3-phase 11kW chargers available for guests, enabling us to set off back east with 100% state of charge.
The only difficult moment when charging was at the new(ish) Shell Recharge hub at Newbury services on the A34. The first two chargers accepted my card, established communication with the car and then shut down. The third charger (fortunately it wasn’t busy) worked but refused my KIACharge card. Contactless credit card payment was accepted, thankfully, and our holiday could start.
In Spain, all chargers worked perfectly, with the exception of the sole IONITY charger. At first the charger accepted my KIA card but then reported an internal error. At the third attempt, it worked normally. IONITY chargers rarely if ever have canopies and this one had been sat baking in the Spanish sun. And that same sun made the touchscreen display almost illegible. Needless to say, the adjacent petrol pumps had full canopies. The lack of canopies at charging hubs is a major irritation: kudos to MFG for installing them at its new stations.
Overall, there were 10 charging sessions on this trip:
- Zunder 4 sessions (DC)
- Shell Recharge 2 sessions (DC)
- Wenea 1 session (DC)
- IONITY 1 session (DC)
- EDP 1 session (AC)
- Hotel 1 session (AC)
The total cost was £154, including electricity for charging back to 100% at home. My previous hybrid would have needed around £220 worth of petrol for this trip, so while public charging is becoming more expensive, this EV trip still showed a worthwhile saving.
Did you encounter any great driving roads on your road trip?
There was hardly a kilometre without great scenery on this road trip and Spanish motorways are both well-maintained and traffic-light outside major cities. But the highlight of the trip was the drive from Leon to Unquera through the Picos de Europa.
The N-621 across the 1,600-metre-high pass Puerto de San Glorio is spectacular, both for its views and for the driving experience. A narrow two-lane (with an uneven surface and some adverse cambers) full of bends and multiple alpine hairpins and very popular with motorcyclists. It’s both fun and somewhat scary in a right-hand-drive car. The EV6 handled it brilliantly. For a big EV, it has a remarkably nimble chassis with great body control and it seems to shrink around you on roads like this. My passengers told me to slow down however and often…
The KIA EV6
Once again the EV6 proved itself an outstanding cruiser over long distances with its spaciousness, compliant ride and refinement. And as noted above, it can play the hot hatch too on bendy roads. Despite a fair bit of motorway cruising at 120 km/h, it returned 3.9 miles/kWh for the entire trip, equivalent to a range of 300 miles per full charge.
And once again, we found the onboard sat nav to be the weakest link with some late or wrong directions and incomprehensible pronunciation of Spanish place names (it also mangles Welsh but then, so do most English people). KIA’s Highway Driving Assist was useful on quieter stretches of motorway.
Overall, this is an incredibly accomplished car. The anti-EV crowd like to say that EVs are too expensive but the EV6 has a level of ability, refinement and performance previously associated with cars such as the Lexus GS or Mercedes E-Class.
Road trip conclusion
Since this is my second, longish European road trip in the EV6, it’s hopefully apparent that I would indeed do it again. This trip did require more careful planning, as it was clear that the charging infrastructure in this part of Spain is still at an early stage and it will be interesting to see if it keeps pace with one of the steepest EV adoption curves in Europe.
In general, I’ve found that an EV is less stressful to drive than a conventional car on a long road trip, notwithstanding the need for a little more advance planning. And avoiding the stresses associated with air travel and car rental makes a continental road trip in your own EV a compelling vacation idea.
See other road trip reports here
