MINI Cooper Electric 2022 – Road trip report: Southend to the South of France

Pete & his wife drove from Southend to the South of France in his MINI Cooper Electric 32.6kWh 2022.

Introducing your road trip

From Southend to Port Grimaud, near St Tropez, South of France. This trip was to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary and we went for three and a half weeks!

Planning & preparation

I used Electroverse maps to list every motorway services with chargers. I then used Google Maps to list the distance between each of them. The list will include whose chargers are there and how many are on-site. As a Mini has a fairly low range this gives me a guide to how low I’m willing to risk.

Charging

The drive down was over two days. I charged before the Eurotunnel at the Channel Gateway services, then used 11 more chargers over the next two days. Sometimes a quick top-up and sometimes longer, but mostly between 20 and 30 minutes.

I primarily used TotalEnergies & IONITY but also used Engie, Allego, Shell and ChargePoint. The total cost for 2,200 miles was £260 and all done using my Electroverse card. Engie and Allego were the better chargers. I did have quite a lot of problems with IONITY and TotalEnergies chargers, some would not charge and some would stop after a few minutes.

Two years ago I didn’t have any trouble but they don’t seem to be well-maintained anymore, especially the older 50kWh chargers. There were also problems with chargers being ‘ICE’d’, it was hot and the French have many chargers under canopies. I also had to queue this trip as there were a lot more electric cars in France this time.

Did you encounter any great driving roads on your road trip?

Yes, the D141 from Cassis to La Ciotat. A great drive on a mountain road with sea views. Also, we came home via Grenoble on the D1075 from Sisteron through the Alps, it was a really pleasant drive through the mountains.

The MINI Cooper Electric

It’s the third trip we’ve done to the South of France in the Mini. The Mini is great to drive on the French motorways, very comfortable and practical for two people. Mostly done at 80mph with the cruise control on! The only downside is the range especially when driving at speed, but as long as you plan well it’s not a problem.

Road trip conclusion

Another successful trip but more stressful this time given the lack of reliability of the chargers and more queuing than previously. Not sure if I would do the same trip again until either they increased the number of chargers considerably or I buy a car with a much better range. We have a trip to the west coast of France planned, so we will see how that goes first!