Martin J travelled from West Yorkshire to Finistère, Brittany and back in his KIA EV6 GT-Line AWD 77.4kW 2021.
Introducing your road trip
From West Yorkshire to Finistère. This was our third European road trip with the EV6, following vacations to Elba, Italy, and to Galicia, Spain, which I’ve also delivered for Electric Road.
We used Brittany Ferries’ Portsmouth to Saint Malo service for both legs of the trip. Our holiday was a touring one, exploring cultural associations between Brittany and Wales, but we based ourselves in the small town of Plomodiern in Finistère.
In total we covered 1,230 miles.
Planning & preparation
In contrast to previous continental road trips, and reflecting the improving provision of charge points in the UK and France, I did the bare minimum of planning for this trip.
Through the Kia Charge app I discovered that there was a 120kW charger in Plomodiern, which would enable the return leg to start with a full (90%) charge, and I reckoned that a charging stop near Portsmouth and one in Brittany in each direction should suffice; plus one or two stops depending on the number of day trips we made during our week away.
Charging
On the outbound leg, I charged at InstaVolt’s huge new super-hub just off the A34 at Winchester. This opened in the spring, and until the end of August there’s a discounted rate of 54p/kWh and a free coffee for Electroverse users at the on-site Starbucks. This added 54kWh, costing £27.90 and took 20 minutes. There are 44 x 160kW chargers here; only 6 were in use on the Friday afternoon we visited. The hub is fantastic, but it needs better sign-posting from the A34…and more loos!
Stop 2 was a quick top-up to 90% at the IONITY station at Plouër-sur-Rance, just outside Saint Malo.
On arrival in Plomodiern, I used one of the two 120kW Powerdot chargers to charge back up to 90%. I hadn’t heard of Powerdot before this trip, but it’s accessible through the Kia Charge app. During the week of touring, we came past the IONITY location at Le Faou on the N165 near Brest, and topped back up to 90% (28kW, 16 minutes).
It was disappointing to discover as we set off back home that the Powerdot chargers at Plomodiern were dead. There was a time when this would have been a major headache, but in 2025 it just meant a short drive to the next town (Chateaulin, a lovely riverside community) where the Intermarche supermarket had a 150kW Bump charger (on Electroverse, so no problem).
Another stop at IONITY Plouër-sur-Rance on our way back to St Malo gave us just enough range to make it home, but we did an 8 minute top-up at InstaVolt, Winchester, to be on the safe side, which was just as well as there was a lengthy diversion due to Sunday evening road works on the A34.
Did you encounter any great driving roads on your road trip? If so, where were they and why were they great?
Driving in most European countries these days makes you realise how bad the state of our roads are after a decade-and-a-half of local authority budgets being squeezed. So driving on smooth, well-maintained tarmac is always a pleasure.
The D785 from Commana to Pleyben was a particularly enjoyable road, with sweeping curves and a gentle climb over the moorland of central Brittany.
KIA EV6
Our EV6 is now over 3 years old, and it remains a great long-distance cruiser for trips such as this. In its recently updated form, it still offers a combination of style, driving pleasure, practicality and technology that few, if any newer EVs, can match. Once again, the fast charging afforded by its 800V architecture meant that charging time simply wasn’t an issue.
Road trip conclusion
It’s 2025, and taking an EV on a long road trip really isn’t a big deal any more. Just a modicum of planning will usually suffice for most destinations in western Europe.
See other Road Trip Reports here
