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Yes! You can drive long journeys with an electric car. But only under certain conditions:
- Have an electric car with a battery of at least 55kWh for sufficient range on motorways (at legal speed).
- With a battery of more than 70kWh, this generally ensures a range of at least 300 km on motorways.
- Have a DC charger of at least 100kW (available as standard or optional).
- Have one or two valid badges/payment cards with several operators, including abroad, for fast charging points.
Then you can take breaks approximately every two hours to charge the car sufficiently in 30 minutes at fast charging points (minimum 100kW). Once the battery reaches 80%, the charging speed will slow down. It's not worth waiting any longer hoping for more than 90%, which will be counterproductive. You can then continue your journey with peace of mind.
Remember to run the air conditioning while charging to keep your passenger compartment at the right temperature. The electricity will be taken directly from the charging point and means avoiding having to draw down energy when you restart to lower or raise the temperature of your passenger compartment.
It is also important to plan a holiday location with charging points (even slow ones of 7.4kW or 11kW) for journeys with at least one stopover. They will be useful for charging at night or during the stay.
Don't forget to avoid problems by identifying fast charging points on the route and equipped motorway areas. There are specialist websites and applications for this. Your electric car's satnav also shows the available charging points. With a connected service, it is sometimes even possible to know their status (free, busy, out of service). In any case, you should avoid waiting until the last minute to recharge the car. It is better to plug in each time the vehicle is switched off as soon as possible, and to find a charging point as soon as the battery reaches 10%.
