Taycan ski trip - UK to the Alps

[taycan_ct]

Hello and welcome to our first big proper continental European road trip in our March 2023 [MY23] Taycan 4S Cross Turismo. The car is fitted with 21-Inch Cross Turismo Design wheels, a panoramic roof, and we swapped the regular 265/35/21 and 305/30/21 Pirelli P-Zero Elect NF0 summer tyres for Michelin Pilot Alpin 5s in the same sizes, Annoyingly, there weren’t any Porsche-rated Continental WinterContact TS860s’ available, unless from a dodgy website, so we had to go for the Michelins. All of these options will obviously impact the range on the vehicle. It was tricky to decide the tyre pressures we’d run with the majority of the journey only at half-load with two passengers and luggage, then the run from Geneva to the resort and back being with four, and also with the PCM not able to set the recommended pressures with 21” winter tyres, only summers or all-seasons, we opted to select the all-season option, with it being the closest to our actual tyres…but did not strictly follow it. And went with 2.8 front 2.9 rear.

We went from Leeds to Les Arcs 1800 in the French Alps, with a stop in Geneva to pick up two other passengers and begin the journey with an indicated 212 miles range from 98%, giving a full range of 217 miles and predicted mi/kWh of 2.6. Within the first 20 minutes of the journey, we had been diverted off of the M1 twice, and quickly realised our mistake of using the M1, laden with lane hoggers, variable speed limits, roadworks and average speed checks, and instead crossed over to the A1M at J32 near Rotherham, frustratingly having to go northbound for 4 miles until connecting, further reducing our range.

Our first stop was at Moto services in Sawtry, where there were plenty of empty bays for the Gridserve 360kW chargers.

24 minutes later, after arriving with 13% battery SOC we were up to 85% with a peak charge rate of 248 kWh, we were ready to hit the road again for a 2 hours 30 minute stint, listening to The Ashes, to Holiday Inn Express at the Eurotunnel in Folkestone.

We arrived at the hotel with 10% SOC and were surprised to find some Tesla Superchargers in the car park, we weren’t planning on charging at the hotel and instead would have boarded our 7am train and charged up at 300kW Allego chargers whilst eating breakfast at Cité Europe, a large shopping centre complex in Coquelles, very close to the Eurotunnel. But instead decided to ‘overnight’ charge to 100% at the Superchargers, but by the time we were ready to fall asleep, the car had already charged! And showed 100% SOC with an indicated 192 miles of range, showing our efficiency had expectedly dropped to 2.3 mi/kWh.

Sponsored

 

[taycan_ct]

We seamlessly boarded a busy, but not overcrowded, Eurotunnel train at 7 in the morning filled with plenty of UK cars that were heading into the continent for Christmas. We were ready to embark on our 500-mile journey to Geneva with 92% SOC, and 176 miles of range.

After plenty of potholes, average speed cameras and lane hoggers in the UK, driving in France was a breath of fresh air we had needed, especially with the glassy roads and high-level of lane discipline. After just 1 hour 10 minutes and 80 miles of driving, we stopped at IONITY Aire de Baralle just outside of Arras. The Taycan’s Plug & Charge worked fabulously, but we’d fallen victim to the PCM’s habit of doing shorter distances and charging for shorter, whereas we preferred to stop for longer but do longer stints of 2-2 hours 30 minutes.

After 1 hour 30 minutes, we arrived at the legendary, partly-abandoned former F1 street circuit known as the ‘Temple of Speed’ in the 50s and 60s, of Reims-Gueux. It hosted some of the most famous names in motorsport such as Fangio, Jim Clark and Stirling Moss.

Unfortunately, we simply didn’t have time to stop off in Reims and see its famous UNESCO gothic cathedral and also the Musee de la Reddition (Museum of the Surrender), where the first surrender of the Third Reich was signed, which led to the end of the war in Europe a day later on May 8th, 1945.

20 minutes south, we reached a 300kW TotalEnergies HPC at Aire de Champagne Sud and enjoyed a Paul sandwich lunch, charging from 14-98%.

It’s worth noting that the higher charging price was ultimately due to our own decision. We chose to charge at this particular charger without using the Porsche Charging Card, as we expected to stay plugged in for longer and charging without the card would have been cheaper by avoiding a blocking tariff. In reality, we were a little quicker than anticipated, which made the session slightly more expensive overall — though only by around 8 pence!

IONITY chargers weren’t available every stop, especially when the filtered ‘IONITY preferred’ route set on the mobile My Porsche app, was reset by the car’s onboard computer, deleting the planned stops in favour of a ‘faster route’ with any charger operator it wanted - meaning we had to override this many times, or even cancel it altogether and use A Better Route Planner and Waze. However, we were left very satisfied with the charge rates at non-IONITY chargers throughout the trip.

130 miles later, we stopped at IONITY Langres Perrogney, where we found all the chargers were empty and switched off with only an electrician in an IONITY branded VW ID. Buzz was present - working on the on-site substation? (beige building). We managed to somewhat communicate with a mixture of broken French and hand signals and understood that they’d be up and running again in 20-25 minutes.

At this point, we were contemplating going to the other side of the services, but as there was no bridge to link them together, it meant we’d have to drive over there via the autoroute and various exits, but after around 10 minutes, one of the units next to us was powered on and ready to use. The Taycan and charger quickly communicated via Plug & Charge and upon arrival back to the car, we were pleasantly surprised to find a French Kemora Grey Audi RS E-Tron GT sharing the unit with us. This was our first (and last) J1 platform Taycan/E-Tron GT we’d see on our trip in France/Switzerland. We charged from around 13% SOC to 95% in 33 minutes, but the 10 minute wait for the chargers to be switched back on had cost us quite dearly. Not to mention the E-Tron GT halving our charge rate, meaning we’d averaged 125kW during the session.

A quick thumbs up to the Audi driver later we were hit with heavy fog on the A31 towards Dijon crossing into Bourgogne (Burgundy).

We decided to give the PCM another chance for the last stint into Geneva, where it took us on the N5, that historically connected Paris to Italy as a Napoleonic imperial road, and is also popular on the Tour de France, crossing the spectacular Jura mountain range, but unfortunately it was too late to see any of it, as night had already fallen.

The Taycan’s swivelling headlights and automatic high-beam function performed flawlessly, keeping the road and the limestone cliff faces clearly visible. It was refreshing to experience a break from France’s smooth but monotonous autoroutes, and the car showcased its extraordinary dynamics - transitioning effortlessly from a relaxed grand tourer to an engaging sports car on the twisty mountain roads, even with winter tyres fitted.

We found ‘Sport’ mode to be the perfect match with its more weighted steering and rear wheel biased set up, and accompanied it with the electric sport sound.

We followed the Route de France, Route de Nyon and Route Blanche instead of heading on the D1005/Col de la Faucille towards Dole, and arrived at the Porsche Charging Lounge in Nyon, Switzerland.

 

[taycan_ct]

PORSCHE CHARGING LOUNGE NYON

A QR-code given to us on the My Porsche App opened the automatic gates, welcoming us with four 400kW chargers and an empty, heated lounge all to ourselves, with a coffee and vending machine, books, toy cars, toilets etc.

The Taycan charged from 16-54% SOC in just 8 minutes, leaving us with plenty of range to get to the hotel in Geneva.

We had left very pleased and impressed by the experience, especially having never been to one before as there aren’t any in the UK! We'd highly recommend stopping by if you're passing through, even if your car doesn't need charging.

 

[gnr3312]

This is an awesome trip report. But did you drive from the UK to France or load up the Taycan onto the rail and then to France?

 

[taycan_ct]

This is an awesome trip report. But did you drive from the UK to France or load up the Taycan onto the rail and then to France?

Much appreciated, we drove from Northern England to the South East and got the Eurotunnel train (LeShuttle now). This takes around 20-25 minutes at 100mph which goes from Folkestone (UK) to Calais (FR).

 

[gnr3312]

What driving mode do you recommend for curvy, hilly roads? We don’t have mountains in the Texas Hill Country but we have superb driving roads with plenty of tight curves, switchbacks, ups and downs.

 

[taycan_ct]

What driving mode do you recommend for curvy, hilly roads? We don’t have mountains in the Texas Hill Country but we have superb driving roads with plenty of tight curves, switchbacks, ups and downs.

We found ‘Sport’ mode to be the perfect match with its more weighted steering and rear wheel biased set up, and accompanied it with the electric sport sound. Recuperation ON is necessary to keep the car from 'rolling away' and also of course puts energy back into the battery pack.

 

[taycan_ct]

We awoke relaxed and ready for the day ahead and enjoyed breakfast at a nice cafe beside the beautiful Lake Geneva. We set off on around 45% having decided not to charge at one of the two 22kW destination chargers the hotel’s underground parking offered despite having optioned the 22kW On-board AC charger, as we figured we’d all appreciate a stop for lunch during the 100 mile, 2 hours 30 minute drive to the ski resort. 30 minutes later we were stuck in stop start traffic on the A41 at the Saint-Martin Bellevue toll booth because of farmers blocking the lanes down to only one due to the potential impacts of the EU-Mercosur trade deal and the French government’s mandatory culling policy for cattle infected with Lumpy Skin Disease, and were sat for 20+ minutes.

Waze diverted us off of the A41 towards Aix-Les-Bains and Chambery after this, and instead past the beautiful Lake Annecy on the D1508.

We arrived in Albertville on around 12% SOC at our scheduled stop at a TotalEnergies 300kW HPC.

We overcharged to 99% SOC, but only because we had a long lunch - and actually this turned out to be very useful to us later..

Furthermore, us tactically not using the Porsche Charging Card saved us a sweet £2.46 - once again due to Porsche's time based tariff.

1 hour and 10 minutes later we arrived at the resort hotel, after a fabulous and spirited drive on the N90 despite many holiday makers from all over Europe. Past Bourg-St-Maurice and on the switchback pass to Arc 1800, where we saw four to five camouflaged facelift Renault Megane E-Techs cold-weather testing, with a black Scenic E-Tech following behind. (unfortunately no pictures so a spyshot from the internet will have to suffice)

The Taycan’s ability once again shone brightly, especially with its air suspension on the fairly bumpy pass, but we think the ride on winter tyres is more comfortable than ever.

 

[taycan_ct]

 

[anonymouse]

A good trip report that I hope will encourage others to forget worrying about range and just get out on those wonderful French autoroutes (which by the way are even better with ALC/Innodrive taking some of the load).

But may I make a strong recommendation for any newcomers reading this. DC chargers are a precious resource in many parts of the world, and we all have a responsibility to the community to keep our time on them short. Sitting there for an hour *may* be OK (and overnight is NOT ok), but if there are only a few stalls and they fill while you are having your nice long lunch and not paying attention, others could find themselves queuing or being unable to get to their destination. So the general rule should be charge to 80-90% which should get you in and out in 15 mins, and move the car when done; if you need more charge, keep a very close and continual eye out and be prepared to move your car as soon as the other stalls fill up. And overnight at hotels, use an AC (Type 2) charger - that‘s what they are for.

 

[Flying ace]

Very nice report. It's ironic that on road trips, when you take a lunch break, you tend to "overcharge". I even overcharge when simply using the restroom and buy a snack. In a trip with multiple charging stops, it's difficult to plan a charging stop after the 1st stop bc of this variability

 

[taycan_ct]

A good trip report that I hope will encourage others to forget worrying about range and just get out on those wonderful French autoroutes (which by the way are even better with ALC/Innodrive taking some of the load).

But may I make a strong recommendation for any newcomers reading this. DC chargers are a precious resource in many parts of the world, and we all have a responsibility to the community to keep our time on them short. Sitting there for an hour *may* be OK (and overnight is NOT ok), but if there are only a few stalls and they fill while you are having your nice long lunch and not paying attention, others could find themselves queuing or being unable to get to their destination. So the general rule should be charge to 80-90% which should get you in and out in 15 mins, and move the car when done; if you need more charge, keep a very close and continual eye out and be prepared to move your car as soon as the other stalls fill up. And overnight at hotels, use an AC (Type 2) charger - that‘s what they are for.

100% agree with the overall point but it’s important to note that it is hard not to overcharge in certain circumstances, especially with a car that charges so fast. I disagree with the overnight charge (or least in our circumstances). There are 12 Superchargers on site (no AC), and only 5–6 vehicles using them on the night, so congestion was not an issue. The hotel is right next to the Eurotunnel, where people often need to charge to 100% before heading into the continent. But yes, I see your point at a busy service station or similar.

 

[Flying ace]

this is an awesome European ski trip to the alps. I was first intro'd to this in the Top Gear race episodes (Aston & Ferrari 612), though it appears a common theme is waiting for the train and traffic. I don't envy the distance UK folks have to travel though. I'm also skiing this weekend, I live only 3.5 hrs from the mountains, so not as epic of a journey.

 

[gnr3312]

I don't envy the distance UK folks have to travel though.

How far is too far? Just curious as I compare travel in the states. I’ve done the Austin to Pensacola drive and it’s about 14 hr drive each way with traffic and a 1 hr lunch stop.

 

[taycan_ct]

this is an awesome European ski trip to the alps. I was first intro'd to this in the Top Gear race episodes (Aston & Ferrari 612), though it appears a common theme is waiting for the train and traffic. I don't envy the distance UK folks have to travel though. I'm also skiing this weekend, I live only 3.5 hrs from the mountains, so not as epic of a journey.

The kind words are very much appreciated. Yes, funnily enough we had some music from Top Gear playing on parts of the journey (more so while travelling back through the night). There’s something wonderfully road-trippy and almost space-age about a lot of that music, which is perfect for long distances. When travelling in such a luxurious GT car like the Taycan, the miles just roll by

Sponsored