Requirements for driving in France…

[Scandinavian]

Only really felt a little twitchy once as there’s a bit of an IONITY dead spot Northbound from Reims to Calais (by this point we were on somewhat of a mission to be IONITY wherever possible) so we charged to 99% at Champfleury at the E. Leclerc Hypermarche and then set off to IONITY at Coquelles Holiday Inn

Great to hear about your experience driving in France! And yes the infra structure is good if not excellent along the main road networks. Up towards Alsace, north eastern part of France is a bit sparse, but several new stations coming. If you plan on another trip in future, it will be useful to check out Lidl chargers. They have installed many and I think ChargePoint is the operator. If you get their card the fee is only 0.25 Euro!

There is also a very nice Fastned between Reims and Calais! Nice station under a roof and not out in the open.

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[MrB]

Thanks very much! After this experience we’ll be heading into France a lot with the Taycan as it’s simply so straightforward.

We were a bit obtuse in our insistence on trying to hop from IONITY to IONITY exclusively and it worked rather well even so and I had not one ounce of range anxiety, really. With all the other excellent options in play as well next time, I can’t see why you’d travel any other way!

 

[Dabz]

Great to read this - we're planning our first trip to France in the Taycan next May but assuming we'll get hooked based on reading these reviews and expecting to go back frequently

 

[anonymouse]

Well... being french, I'll try to be useful here.

a fabulous summary. May I just add two minor additions:
1. Yellow vest needs to be inside the passenger compartment not in the boot or frunk
2. Coming from the UK, you must have plates (or sticker) which says UK and not GB. You can have places made up which show this if you prefer that to a sticker, but make sure you follow the guidelines very carefully (eg no Europe roundel). As an aside, if you visit Spain then they ALSO require a UK sticker even if you have “UK” plates. No idea why.

 

[Sidicks]

Thanks very much! After this experience we’ll be heading into France a lot with the Taycan as it’s simply so straightforward.

We were a bit obtuse in our insistence on trying to hop from IONITY to IONITY exclusively and it worked rather well even so and I had not one ounce of range anxiety, really. With all the other excellent options in play as well next time, I can’t see why you’d travel any other way!

That was our approach which worked well, although we did use a Fastned charger at one point when it made sense to do so.

 

[jonjon808]

Thread resurrection, but as it is summer and I'm planning my own route down towards the south west of France.....

IECharge networks seems pretty good from a planning perspective. 320KW chargers and 25c per kWh. Better than Ionity for us?

 

[Gru]

Thread resurrection, but as it is summer and I'm planning my own route down towards the south west of France.....

IECharge networks seems pretty good from a planning perspective. 320KW chargers and 25c per kWh. Better than Ionity for us?

never tried them. indeed a bit cheaper than Ionity.
drawback is that they aren’t located on the highways :
- it’ll require a detour
- and most likely no toilet/food store

 

[Donar]

We go on a 1.100km road trip from NL to France (Ardèche) tomorrow. A bit afraid that the superchargers will be very busy, but w’ll see.

Is it mandatory to keep the yellow jackets inside the passenger compartment? I read it was an advise but could not find this is mandatory.

I just put the route into the navigation with the first charging station as waypoint. From there I will decide at that charging station what my next charger will be. I did already some homework and have a list of favorites with me. When I just put in this first stop, the Navi was still showing that I would arrive with -100% instead of my SoC at arrival at the charger. Is there any way to change this setting in the main view? I’m not interested in arrival SoC at destination, but at next charger.

 

[allroadusa]

Is it mandatory to keep the yellow jackets inside the passenger compartment? I read it was an advise but could not find this is mandatory.

Indeed. The logic is you have to wear the jacket before exiting the car when on the roadside.

 

[Donar]

Indeed. The logic is you have to wear the jacket before exiting the car when on the roadside.

I get the logic, but never realized that it was that strict.

But no issue, I will put them under each floor mat.

 

[jonjon808]

We go on a 1.100km road trip from NL to France (Ardèche) tomorrow. A bit afraid that the superchargers will be very busy, but w’ll see.

Is it mandatory to keep the yellow jackets inside the passenger compartment? I read it was an advise but could not find this is mandatory.

I just put the route into the navigation with the first charging station as waypoint. From there I will decide at that charging station what my next charger will be. I did already some homework and have a list of favorites with me. When I just put in this first stop, the Navi was still showing that I would arrive with -100% instead of my SoC at arrival at the charger. Is there any way to change this setting in the main view? I’m not interested in arrival SoC at destination, but at next charger.

- I have similar thoughts, so have been looking at chargers that might be 1-2Km off the autoroute, if I need them. I think that it is a good plan to have an idea of a fallback charger stop in case.

- I have read on a few sites that you need to have the high vis “easily accessible”, so not in the where they are now . Makes sense that you need to put them on as you get out of the car.

- Personally, I would not use the Porsche nav to plan the route. I do like using it in the car, but use ABRP as a way of identifying the route and charge stops, then save those locations as favourites in the Nav, kind of like you have. ABRP lets you play around with SOC that you want at the various way points, and pretty much every other metric or variable you could ever want.

 

[McgR]

We go on a 1.100km road trip from NL to France (Ardèche) tomorrow. A bit afraid that the superchargers will be very busy, but w’ll see.

Is it mandatory to keep the yellow jackets inside the passenger compartment? I read it was an advise but could not find this is mandatory.

I just put the route into the navigation with the first charging station as waypoint. From there I will decide at that charging station what my next charger will be. I did already some homework and have a list of favorites with me. When I just put in this first stop, the Navi was still showing that I would arrive with -100% instead of my SoC at arrival at the charger. Is there any way to change this setting in the main view? I’m not interested in arrival SoC at destination, but at next charger.

If PCM shows that your soc at arrival is -100 % it means that it not done calculating the route and charge stops yet. That happens sometimes. I think I saw a similar post on the Dutch Facebook today. Maybe a general problem today with the servers today. Usually it is solved after a couple of hours.

If you want to see the predicted Soc at arrival at each stop you can tap on the top right of the PCM main screen and it will show you the different stops on your route and the soc of arrival at each. It will change with your speed. Usually I arrive with more than initially predicted. Except in Germany. In this screen you can also change the order of the different stops or erase them.

another tip: you can enter your list of favourites in the app on your phone and save them as favourites and they show in PCM torrow. Just select charger on this location and it will show the specific charger. If you just navigate the address and not as a cgharfe stop it will not precondition.

if possible try to avoid charging around noon. Most busy time.

don’t trust the number of free chargers in pcm. Just go of the highway and check yourself. I have seen free ones with pcm showing all occupied and also the inverse.

have a nice trip !

 

[Gru]

a quick summary of the different networks and prices in France

more details (in french)

 

[RGBArgee]

Warning triangle, at least two self breath test devices for alcohol plus those fluorescent tabards…

on a personal note I wouldn’t want to drive the autoroutes without having an Emovis tag for the tolls, saves loads of time and fuss and allows RHD passengers to ‘sleep’ through the toll plazas…

You do not need the self breath test devices any more. Fortunately that idea stopped about 5 years ago. Some say you do but in true French style there’s no penalty for not having one! Triangle is in the front nearside hopefully - no lights required on modern cars either. We travel 5/6 times a year and max out on our summer 90 days. Hoping new Government will sort something out on that for my retirement or I may need to try for French passport! Worth getting the Amendes.fr App so you can pay any speeding fines easily.

 

[Donar]

I finished my 1.100km trip in 16 hours in total. Traffic was really bad in the afternoon last Saturday. We had one time 20m delay at a busy Fastned charger where I also could only get 150kW as the 300kW max was split over two cars. Therefor decided to change my last charge to a Tesla location with 20 stalls.

I only saw two other Taycans till now, way less than in NL. And already got quite some ??, always nice.

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