UK to Germany, then home via Bruges

[E500]

European road trips have been written up many times here already but there were a couple of points I thought might be useful to share, based on my recent (May 2026) experience.

This was only a short trip of around 1000 miles, to visit some friends in Germany and then come home, via Bruges. So I got to experience charging in 4 countries(!)

I knew I would be unable to use the Porsche navigation on this trip, due to the constant crashing bug. Unfortunately for me, my car was booked in for the update a week or so after I returned. As such, I thought I’d go with ABRP, using their Premium option to connect to the Porsche API and get real-time battery information from the car. I thought this would give me a decent proxy for the dysfunctional Porsche nav when it came to charge planning.

I got ABRP connected to my Porsche Connect account and did a couple of short trips near home to make sure it was all synced OK, and it actually worked really well. I had tried to use the Apple Maps EV integration recently and it would never reconnect properly, and stopped updating frequently, so I was expecting the same from ABRP. Thankfully I was proved wrong and ABRP worked really well throughout. There is a slight lag on the battery state updates from the car but it always seemed to sort itself out after 5mins or so and it was never enough to be meaningful.

There’s probably plenty written about ABRP that I don’t need to duplicate here, but I found the ability to provide preferred chargers really useful, as well as the ability to easily re-plan charging stops while in the middle of a route. Hopefully with an updated Porsche nav I won’t need to use ABRP again, but I would recommend it.

Anyway, planning done, UK sticker stuck on the car, European motorway telepass attached to windscreen and off we went. It felt a bit strange to not be taking the odd litre of oil or a spare coil pack… I did however subscribe to the Porsche Charging Service Plus, so I could use Ionity chargers in Europe at cheap rates. See summary below for total costs. Spoiler alert: I did the entire trip using only Ionity chargers (except a small charge at a hotel one night).

Home to Dover is about 100 miles so no worries about charging on the way, but we were about 20 mins ahead of schedule so I pulled off at Folkestone services for a quick go on the Ionity chargers there, just to save myself having to stop too soon once we got into France. I was the only one there and managed to get about 90kW for a few minutes to top up.

Obviously we’d chosen the absolute worst day to travel: first day of school holidays and a bank holiday weekend, so after getting to Dover at 5.30am we queued until about 8.45am when we finally managed to board a ferry. Not ours, obviously, that had left hours earlier.

Quick healthy breakfast in the lounge, a look at the massive queues off the A2, and at the white cliffs, then a quick snooze before France!

And then we hit the first problem.

Obviously I hadn’t read the manual and I’d stuck my telepass to the windscreen tucked away behind the rear-view mirror, where I’d always stick them. Forgetting that the Taycan has fancy insulated glass. I confidently rolled towards the first peage booth… And nothing happened. I have since _read_ the manual and realised I need to reposition the telepass to the hatched area of the windscreen. Lesson learned.

A short hop into Belgium and a stop for some electricity at an odd hotel near Hainault (not Essex). Decent chargers, and the hotel had a toilet and a vending machine to buy a bottle of water, so all good. Decent charging speeds too at a solid 150kW.

A then uneventful trip onwards to our destination in Germany, near Mainz. I made two more short stops for fuel at Ionity chargers, one at some random and slightly threatening industrial estate near Liege, and a second longer stop at Brohltal services in Germany. Brohltal had more Ionity chargers that, despite being fully occupied, gave the car 250kW and a McDonalds that gave me a double cheeseburger; so a thumbs up for Germany in the charging stakes.

We arrived at our apartment, a quick unpack and then it was out of the Taycan and into my taxi for the evening; my friend’s dad’s F11 M550d - which we didn’t get in the UK! A real reminder of just how good BMWs used to be…

The next day we went to a nearby castle for some sort of wine festival, the castle I think is owned by, or has a connection to, the Opel family. So there were a bunch of old Opels there which was cool.

Another day or two of non-car related activities then it was time to pack up and head to Dusseldorf to have dinner with some friends, a night’s sleep then drive onwards to Bruges.

Another stop at good old Brohltal heading in the other direction, no double cheeseburger this time but another juicy 250kW charge for the car with all chargers in use as before. Impressed with Brohltal as a place to stop for a charge!

And a short jaunt from Brohltal into Dusseldorf. ABRP will occasionally ask you to take photos of chargers, or to comment on the facilities while you’re sat there charging. I’m not sure why it asked me this on a slip road off the motorway coming into Dusseldorf(!)

Not much to say about Dusseldorf on this trip. Went out for a nice dinner. Stayed in a generic hotel (NH Dusseldorf City) which had a good car park, but was in a rather insalubrious part of town. Still, it was fine for a night and somewhere to park the car. Didn't see any chargers though.

The next day was on to Bruges. The German motorways were quite busy so no high speed fun that day, but I did manage to have the cruise set to 210 for a decent stretch until close to the Dutch border. It was quite funny to get into Holland, slow down to 100kmh for their speed limits, then instinctively resume the cruise control which I still had set to 210…

Another short charging stop at Sevenum in Holland. Ionity again, and good speeds again. I’d recommend this charging stop: there’s a decent restaurant/cafe/services thing here, as well as decent toilets. We didn’t stop long enough for any of that, this was just a quick top up to get us to somewhere we could have lunch.

Which was this, at first slightly confusing, place in Belgium. It’s a big homeware store, like a habitat or something. I only stopped here because it was another Ionity setup, but as we drove in we noticed it had a rooftop restaurant. So we plugged in the car and went to have some lunch.

I’d only planned to charge to 80% or so, but the chargers were so good that by the time we’d eaten our food it was already nearing 100% (I was slightly surprised you can’t stop it charging from the app…).

On to the Dukes Palace in Bruges where I was due to abandon my wife at a conference and make my own way home the next day. A very stressful drive through central Bruges, dodging tourists and cyclists, (thanks satnav, there was a better way I discovered on my way out the next morning…) led to a very good car park, with some decent charging points. I had a bit of a palaver getting it to actually charge - the unit I’d connected the car to turned out to be broken so I had a lot of running back and forth with one of the receptionists - but we got there in the end and it let me top up the car overnight before I drove back to the UK the following day. Not as cheap as the Ionity chargers with the Porsche plan however! (Bloke in right of shot had just reversed his rather nice M3 Touring into the wall )

When in Rome… No self respecting Brit can pass up a fresh Stella. Or 3.

The Stella helped me to recover my strength after the arduous drive, so I had a wander round Bruges and stopped at a little corner bar for some further light refreshment (you can't be too careful in the foreign heat), where this chap arrived to meet his mates. Very cool!

The next morning, an uneventful drive back to Calais led me to a much quieter ferry port. Straight through to the queue, a bit of a wait to board but all on time.

Having availed myself of the hotel’s electricity overnight, to 90% charge, I had thought I would just about make it from Bruges to home without needing a fuel stop. However the nav apps were showing a lot of congestion around Dartford (plus ca change) so I figured I’d give it a quick squirt of power at the Village Hotel just outside Maidstone, at the M20/A2 roundabout thing, which it turns out has another great Ionity setup. Not as fast as the Germans but it was decent enough for a short stop.

Made it home with plenty of range to spare! I didn’t really need to have stopped in the end.

I do a lot of long distance European driving but this was my first long trip in the Taycan and I was really impressed with it, faulty Porsche nav aside.

It’s not quite as relaxing as a nice old V8 E class, but I think that’s largely down to the GTS seats. The ride is really good and it's nice and quiet, once you get off the appalling UK roads and onto nice smooth European motorways. It was also super impressive on the autobahns. Being an EV I expected it to give up after about 100mph but that’s not the case. So much so that I suspect the previous owner of my car had the 155mph limiter removed, because if it is still there it certainly doesn’t work. Or has a fair margin of error in it. High speed does smash through the electricity though, as you'd expect.

Also it was absolutely no issue to do a trip like this in an EV, vs a petrol car - as I'm sure anyone reading this on Taycan Forum knows. Lunch stops need a bit more thought than with a petrol, so you can tie them up with a charge stop, but actual charging isn't an issue at all. I don't think we ever stopped for more than 15mins, apart from that longer lunch stop on the way to Bruges.


Total figures:

1129 miles

380.75kW charged

£126.70 in fuel

258km/h top speed


From those figures, the efficiency works out at 2.97mi/kWh. Which seems unexpectedly high given some of the autobahn driving. The trip in the Porsche app puts it at more like 2.8, from a quick scan.


tl;dr trip summary:

* Taycan is great on the autobahns; fast, comfortable and quiet. Hammers the battery though!
* Don’t put your telepass / toll badge outside the hatched area on the windscreen
* ABRP works really well as a Porsche nav alternative
* You can easily do long distance European trips using only Ionity chargers for not a lot of money with the Porsche charging subscription
* Decent lunch stops need a bit of forward planning as a lot of chargers aren't in nice places!

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[Jasper4S]

Great looking car. I love the Sport Design package with carbon in combination with your exterior color (is it Berry or a PTS?)

What do you mean with the hatched area for the toll badge? I use the toll badge too, but never had any issues with the placement. I just hold it in my hand when passing through a toll point, and store it afterwards.

Edit: For lunch stops I recommend going to Fastned locations. For quick charging stops just go to Ionity.

 

[E500]

Great looking car. I love the Sport Design package with carbon in combination with your exterior color (is it Berry or a PTS?)

What do you mean with the hatched area for the toll badge? I use the toll badge too, but never had any issues with the placement. I just hold it in my hand when passing through a toll point, and store it afterwards.

Edit: For lunch stops I recommend going to Fastned locations. For quick charging stops just go to Ionity.

Thanks, it's 'cherry metallic' which I really like.

Re: windscreen, I understand (from the manual) that if you have the insulated glass windscreen, which I do, then toll badges won't be able to be detected unless you place them in the area around the rear view mirror. You can see the 'hatched' area that I am referring to, in the photo of me waiting for the boat at Calais, towards the end of the post. I usually just hold it in my hand too, as I move between cars a lot, but thought I'd stick it to the windscreen properly this time - big mistake

Good tip re: lunch stops! I avoided Fastned because of the cost relative to Ionity, but I'm back in Europe in a few weeks so might try them next time.

 

[gnr3312]

I love these trip reports, thank you. Qq, is it a requirement to attach a UK sticker while driving in Europe? And is the opposite required as well?

 

[E500]

I love these trip reports, thank you. Qq, is it a requirement to attach a UK sticker while driving in Europe? And is the opposite required as well?

You have to display your country code somehow. It doesn't have to be the big sticker, you can get registration plates that have them on the side, but I like the old-school-ness of the big stickers...

Most European countries have them as part of their license plates now, so it's rare to see a 'DE' or 'FR' sticker on the back of a car in the UK but yeah, in theory it's a requirement. I think it's an international thing, not just Europe, isn't it?

In reality it's hardly enforced. Maybe if you got stopped by the police for something else, or they wanted an excuse to pull you over. I always see plenty of UK cars without any sort of 'UK' identifier on them when I'm driving in Europe.

 

[Flying ace]

What do you do while you're in that ferry queue for 3 hours? Are you allowed to leave the car unattended?

 

[E500]

What do you do while you're in that ferry queue for 3 hours? Are you allowed to leave the car unattended?

No, just had to sit there really. You are moving but very slowly. Sort of a sit still for 5 mins then move 1 car length, sit still for 5 mins, move 1 car length… People get out and stretch their legs, run to the toilets while their wife / husband / partner / friend moves the car but there’s not really anywhere to go anyway.

The slowness is passport control / immigration / customs checks. So it gets badly backed up at busy periods.

I usually take the train under the sea instead of the boat over it, but it’s got ridiculously expensive (~£5-600) recently compared to the ferry (£2-300) which can also have some bad queues but at least the actual journey is fast. Train is 30 mins. Boat is 90-100mins

 

[Flying ace]

No, just had to sit there really. You are moving but very slowly. Sort of a sit still for 5 mins then move 1 car length, sit still for 5 mins, move 1 car length… People get out and stretch their legs, run to the toilets while their wife / husband / partner / friend moves the car but there’s not really anywhere to go anyway.

The slowness is passport control / immigration / customs checks. So it gets badly backed up at busy periods.

I usually take the train under the sea instead of the boat over it, but it’s got ridiculously expensive (~£5-600) recently compared to the ferry (£2-300) which can also have some bad queues but at least the actual journey is fast. Train is 30 mins. Boat is 90-100mins

Oh I see, that makes sense. Border crossings in the US are even jammed at US-Canada, though 3 hrs wait is more consistent with US-Mexico points. My last wait at US-Canada was like 30 minutes.

Is the UK entry also 3 hrs wait?

 

[E500]

Oh I see, that makes sense. Border crossings in the US are even jammed at US-Canada, though 3 hrs wait is more consistent with US-Mexico points. My last wait at US-Canada was like 30 minutes.

Is the UK entry also 3 hrs wait?

Nah it’s not usually anywhere near that bad. It’s only because we traveled out on one of the busiest days of the year: start of school holidays, weekend with a public holiday on the Monday. Unfortunately we had no option but normally I’d avoid a day like that.

It’s very dependent on timing. My return journey at midday midweek I sailed through, don’t think I had to wait more than 5 mins for immigration or customs checks.

 

[gamueller]

"Bruges is a shithole."

Sorry, couldn't stop myself! Saw Bruges while on a Viking river cruise and it's amazing! Thanks for the fantastic writeup.... .

 

[anonymouse]

Qq, is it a requirement to attach a UK sticker while driving in Europe?

The neatest approach is to have number plates with UK on them (there is an approved standard layout). However for Spain, Cyprus and Malta, for some weird reason, they require the oval UK sticker even if you have ”UK“ plates.

 

[anonymouse]

My return journey at midday midweek I sailed through, don’t think I had to wait more than 5 mins for immigration or customs checks.

Was the new EES process (everyone exits vehicle to have fingerprints scanned) in place when you travelled? Some of the airports are in such a mess with this terrible tech, I wonder what will happen in ferry/tunnel ports.

 

[E500]

Was the new EES process (everyone exits vehicle to have fingerprints scanned) in place when you travelled? Some of the airports are in such a mess with this terrible tech, I wonder what will happen in ferry/tunnel ports.

In theory, yes. In practice, I think they suspended it pretty early on, since it was so busy, as we didn't have our fingerprints or photos taken by the French passport control people.

That said, I've been in and out of Italy (by plane) three times since EES was introduced and had my fingerprints taken on entry and exit all three times, and a photo taken on entry the first time. So who knows how the data all syncs up, if at all.

 

[E500]

"Bruges is a shithole."

Sorry, couldn't stop myself! Saw Bruges while on a Viking river cruise and it's amazing! Thanks for the fantastic writeup.... .

It's a nice town, as long as you don't want to eat dinner after 8pm I discovered. I tried three restaurants, before settling with some tourist trap of a place for an average meal, and they all looked at me like I was insane asking to eat food at 8.30pm(!)

 

[SpicewoodT]

Fantastic trip report! I lived in Brussels in the early 2000s and loved taking day trips to Bruges and Spa. I would love to do so now in my Taycan and appreciate being able to do so vicariously through your report!

BTW - who else had to look up the definition of "palaver"?!?

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