Some of you may remember a previous journey to Chamonix in January 2022 which I wrote about here. It was near the beginning of our electric vehicle (EV) experiences and there seemed to be much to share.
Since then, we’ve swapped out our Hyundai EV rental from Onto, now in administration and bought a Tesla, Model Y.
The Onto news occurred towards the end of last year when Legal and General (best known for insurance) decided to pull the plug on any further investment. The administrators point towards residual values of cars falling in their fleet and interest rates rising as the primary causes. I expect customer demand was also softer than a Mr Whippy ice cream as the grip on disposable income tightened.
We tend to top up the Tesla at the Eurotunnel especially if there’s time for a delicious veggie burger from Leon. A typical first French stop south on the A26 is the Aire d’Urvillers service station near Saint Quentin. If you need a supermarket and an alternative food outlet, I’d stop short of saying restaurant, the big shopping centre at Saint Quentin also offers fast Tesla charging, a few miles before the services.
I highlighted the Tesla charge points with envious eyes in my last post. They seemed to be everywhere. Large banks of them, mostly empty, while we scrambled around for a charge point for the Hyundai, shared with every other EV-manufactured vehicle with no charging network to call their own.
In the photo above, the red-circled empty platform (top right) was the only charge point for all EVs excluding Tesla, which we desperately needed on one occasion with the Hyundai.
I think the bank of Teslas must have been one of the first to be installed in France, a decision taken by the authorities before larger numbers graced their highways because they couldn’t be located any further away from the toilets and a hot cuppa. As you can see, Mrs H. was taking no chances and decided to take water with her because the walk was so long
The one charge point provided by Total Energie (that old concrete base) has been replaced with a 4-bay upgrade much closer to the facilities. These are the biggest changes we’ve seen in the last two years with other networks starting to catch Tesla up. Many more service stations in northern France now have EV charging facilities, making range anxiety a thing of the past for most.
There is still one big advantage for a Tesla driver that hasn’t changed; the ability to navigate using the car’s in-built system. The route automatically includes charging stops as part of the journey. And because the car and payment card are registered, it really is plug-and-play. The half dozen apps I still have on my phone haven’t been touched since the Hyundai went. I think I keep them just in case, for that moment when I might need an alternative. I’m still waiting.
While it’s possible to do the whole journey in a day, we often stop overnight because we leave London later in the afternoon.
I’ve had many a tussle with these trickle chargers at the Golden Tulip, only succeeding once, maybe twice in the past to connect successfully. They make perfect sense. Park, plugin, eat, sleep, you and the car are fully charged, ready to go in the morning. The hotel has nothing to do with this network, now owned by Shell, so if there is an issue, the reception staff politely shrug and ask whether you’ll be booking in for breakfast.
Frustrating as failing to charge can be, Shell’s price also had me looking for options. Slower chargers should be cheaper, but Shell insists on charging the same premium as faster alternatives. I know I’m behaving irrationally here. I’m irritated by an oil giant ripping me off a few cents per kilowatt while still destroying our planet, feigning that they are genuinely invested. I ought to be looking at the price of the hotel room, €140 with breakfast (for two) if I really want to tighten my belt which I don’t. It’s the principle and I like the hotel.
Choice is a wonderful thing. 15 minutes away is another Tesla network, conveniently situated next to a Novotel and the motorway. Now, rather than fiddle and get ripped off by Shell, we charge here first before stopping the night at the Golden Tulip.
Hotels are an obvious place to install charging points. Most have been slow to do this and many like the Golden Tulip have still got it wrong. Hotels need to think about convenience and what the EV driver needs. So much easier to include a flat €10 fee on the hotel bill removing the need for digital handshakes with cards and apps to access their precious electricity. The irritation grows when you’ve been standing in the cold for 10 minutes, fingers now cold trying to unlock the stupid device.
The Heliopic Hotel in Chamonix charges all cars a flat rate of €10 per day for underground parking. If you pre-book one of their three EV spots, the electricity is a bonus included in the price. As a friend pointed out parked in the same subterranean spot, he was subsidising my electricity. Thank you very much. That’s more like it.
Chamonix is a popular destination because of easy access from Geneva airport and the motorway network which stops on the edge of the town turning away at the last minute toward the Mont Blanc tunnel and Italy. Although not a big town, the number of charging points has been growing steadily with many public car parks now having dedicated bays. Is it a reflection of a growth in all-year-round tourism attracting more EVs than usual? Teslas are becoming as common here as they are in London.
How many charging stops depends on the season, summers do get you further but not as much as taking your foot off. The next day we stopped once more before plugging in at our chalet, 660 miles later, three stops and about two full charges.