⚡️ 4.000 km Roadtrip with Camping in a Tesla Model Y ⛺️🇫🇷🇮🇹

Presented by Jowua

Jowua is a leading provider of Tesla accessories, and fanatical about the electric revolution happening with cars.

Optimize your Tesla ownership and driving experience today by ordering via the link (code automatically redeemed and displayed at checkout) or with code ‘ELECTRICAVENUE’ to get 5% off all products at Jowua.

Hey, Julius here with a special post this time.

I’d like to share some personal notes from my recent electric road trip through France 🇫🇷 & Italy 🇮🇹. I covered a total of 4,000 km in a Tesla Model Y, including several nights of in-car camping 🚙⛺. And to keep it crisp, I will focus on the electric vehicle user experience, the charging journey, and Tesla’s camping mode 🏕️ Teaser - It’s fantastic & every EV should have a camp mode 😉.

The Route - Why you do NOT need to plan your charging stops in France 🇫🇷 and Italy 🇮🇹 🗺️

While most people don’t want to worry about charging, I feel some excitement when the time comes to pre-check my route for some nice charging spots. Is it necessary to meticulously plan charging stops when traveling through France and the northern parts of Italy? Definitely not and that’s the first good news I want to share.

🛣️ 3.963 km was the final (calculated) mileage on the Tesla Model Y.

Unfortunately, I forgot to reset the trip meter at the start of our journey, which is why I need to add roughly 491 km to the measured 3.472 km that started to count from Freiburg in 🇩🇪 :

Overall, the route started from Munich, was divided into 4 segments and completed over 20 days:

1. Segment: Southern part of Germany visiting Pionix in Bad Schönborn and family in Freiburg 👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 

2. Segment: From Freiburg to Lacanau & Biscarrosse on the Atlantic coast for some surfing 🌊🏄‍♂️

3. Segment: Switching from the Atlantic coast to the Mediterranean Sea with smaller drives and stops along the coast starting from Leucate (great kite-surfing!). Also made time to enjoy nice cities like Montpellier and Nice along the Côte d’Azur 😎

4. Segment: Crossing to Italy and driving up to Valpolicella for a beautiful wedding. Followed by nature + sports in the northern part of Lake Garda 🥾⛰️

As teased in the introduction, charging was as easy (and even boring) as it can get. In recent years the charging infrastructure across Western Europe has seen tremendous growth. Especially France’s infrastructure has seen a significant uptake in coverage by DC fast-charging networks like Total, IONITY, Electra, Fastned, and of course Tesla.

Tesla’s native app and vehicle navigation generate charging routes that rely 100% on Tesla Superchargers. Hence, I saw my opportunity to compete with the automotive system and optimize our route to be even better (= more efficient, less charging stops). Guess who won? → Neither the system nor I; the human bodies (4 people) need a biobreak stop before the Model Y’s LR 81 kWh battery (400km autobahn range) needed charging 🚻 (longest rides on the 1st & 2nd segment to 🇫🇷).

So we ended up looking for suitable charging stops to make the best use of our not-so-planned stops and to do some “snack charging”. While Tesla’s native navigation is great for routing via Tesla’s stations, it does not have properly updated static data about 3rd party charging networks. Convincing your co-drivers to wait for another 100 km to stop at a Tesla charging station is not always an option (and I like to check out other charging networks 😊). We primarily used the following tools to find proper rest stops with nice charging stations.

📱Apps that I like to use:

• Chargemap: Coming from France, they have the best in class POI data coverage including stations that are not open for e-roaming like destination chargers. Also, the user reviews can be really helpful to know if charging will work or not, before you arrive.

• PUMP: Shoutout to Helmut & the team for building hands-down the best EV routing app out there.

• ChargeNow: “Eat your own dog food” 😉 - If you want to have a single charging card that you know is going to work at all public charging stations across Europe - then I can recommend the ChargeNow B2C MSP service by DCS.

• Google Maps: Slowly but surely Google is not only providing best-in-class maps and routing, but also real-time availability data about charging stations.

Electric Vehicle Charging 🪫→ 🔋

Slow charging (AC) is hell 😈 & fast charging (DC) is heaven 😍

💭 While fast charging along the route is critical, I initially thought that we would do less fast charging than we ended up doing. My hypothesis was that we could rely widely on Inner-City and Destination slow charging while the vehicle is parked. Turns out, I was wrong and primarily there were two reasons for this: Charging Anxiety and Price. More on that later, because we’ll first cover fast charging, including - no surprise - a great number of Tesla Supercharger stops 😁.

Fast Charging along the route 🛣️

Tesla: Not only does Tesla produce well-thought-out electric vehicles, but they also provide their own charging infrastructure (the Supercharger Network) with easy-to-use integration.

💚 What I liked about charging at Tesla:

• Tesla’s routing guides you to the best-suitable Supercharging stations. It also considers that the Model Y LR can charge up to 250kW and therefore recommends preferably V3 Superchargers. Additionally, based on the routing data, the mobile App and vehicle tell you when the vehicle has charged enough to continue the trip and make it to the next stop safely.

• The Tesla navigation also considers the real-time charger status (free/available) and recommends you change the charging stop if it forecasts high utilization at your estimated arrival time:

  

  Tesla Vehicle - Utilization Forecast

• The authentication procedure (Tesla’s version of Autocharge) where you plug in the vehicle and charging starts automatically is extremely reliable and fast (~6s), which I gained trust in quickly. Billing of the charging session runs via your credit card saved in the Tesla account.

• Pricing is really attractive compared to most other charge point operators and is transparently shown in the vehicle and the mobile app. Plus: The 29th of August was the 10th anniversary of the Supercharger network, which was celebrated with a “Free charging” promotion that we used twice. 😍 (for the nerdy readers: Tesla implemented the free charging by reporting 0 kWh of energy being delivered to the user account.)

❌ What I did not like so much about charging at Tesla:

• The locations were mostly a short drive away from the highway routes. In France and Italy, this means that you need to get off the highway including a quick stop to pay the toll fee. Adding the drive to the location results in a 5+/-minute detour compared to chargers at dedicated on-highway rest stops.

• Except for a trash bin you can’t expect any amenities at most of the Supercharger locations. Most of the locations we stopped at in France were located at the back of a Hotel parking lot. However, the Hotel’s staff did allow drivers to use the restroom and if the Hotel bar was open, you could get a coffee.

Why other Charge Point Operators don’t need to hide 🤩: Most of the 3rd party charging network locations were relatively new and utilization seemed very low. I really appreciated that charge point operators started building canopies, covering the chargers from rain and sun. Many are also installing lights and video cameras to make the charging experience at night feel less dark and more secure. The one operator that stood out was Electra. Besides using a sleek design for the Alpitronic Hyperchargers and a matching canopy, there was also a price board when entering the stations displaying the ad-hoc price via credit card:

Additionally, Electra App users have the possibility to make a charger reservation. I’m personally, not a big fan of this feature - but Electra is the first operator that seems to have thought about the end-to-end user journey of offering reservations. There was a status display that was visible from the car and indicated if a charging stall was free or reserved for other users (video about Electra’s App reservation by Felix Hamer).

Fast Charging Efficiency 📝😮: Thankfully, Tesla presents to EV drivers data about the ongoing charging session (see screenshot) including the energy charged with two values:

1. The electric vehicle battery’s charged energy: 43 kWh

   (presumably) this value is measured directly at the vehicle battery - visible on the top left square.

2. The energy delivered from the charging station: 47.756 kWh

   As this value is only displayed when charging at a Tesla charging station, I assume this shows the energy measured through the meter in the charging station itself - visible on the right lower corner square.

This allows us to calculate the energy losses, which account for roughly 11% or 4.756 kWh. Multiplying this with the energy price of 0,44 € / kWh, I paid a total of 5.20 € in this charging session for energy losses. I am not an expert in this field, but I think the majority of the losses are attributed to the charging station because there is no energy conversion within the vehicle.

📣 Drop me a message or hit reply if you know more about energy losses in EV charging: [email protected]

Ad-Hoc Payment via Credit Card Terminal done wrong? 💳: On the way back at the charger across from the Tesla Supercharger Brennerpass I observed a BMW driver struggling with an ad-hoc payment terminal. These 3rd party stations are only accessible via credit card payment terminal (not via e-roaming). The user needs to select the charging station and then the connector number -which is barely visible from the terminal (see picture and video below). Personally, I was a bit surprised by the approach of the charge point operator, as I expected configurations with a dedicated payment terminal only at a location with multiple AC charging stations. At DC fast charging stations the payment terminals are usually integrated into each individual charger. Anyway, who builds two AC charging stations (not visible in the picture) at a highway station? Seems like the one “in charge” doesn’t have much experience driving an electric car 🤓.

Inner-City Charging 🌆

Within cities, the charging infrastructure was a bit of a gambling game, which I would describe in three phases:

1. Charger Real-Time Availability: “Hmm there is a charger - let’s stop by and see if it is really available to charge” 

   If you can imagine it, it has happened” There are a multitude of reasons why a charger is blocked and you will not be able to charge. To name a few:

   1. Charger blocked by combustion - or even worse - electric vehicles not charging → Where is the EV etiquette? 🤬

   2. Charger is only accessible for car-sharing vehicles, but displayed in map services and charging apps → Is data quality still not a priority for charging networks? 😒

   3. Trash bins or other stuff blocking the charger → Why don’t operators care about their chargers being ready to be utilized? 🤨

2. Charger User Interface: “Yeah, the charger is available - let’s see if we get it working..”

   Especially legacy charger user interfaces are by far from being intuitive. My personal record was 10 minutes to get it working at this lovely station (see picture below). It started with there being no indication of where to hold the RFID card and for how long - 20 seconds until the signal was sent & received. What followed was an overly complicated process with a chargeport door that needed to be opened and closed via dedicated buttons. Another highlight was that I checked the QR code to view instructions as I struggled with the RFID card; only to find out that the website was in French only. 😵‍💫

   

   Nice, France - Charger by Schneider Electric

   Municipalities were not the only ones forcing one to take a seat at the roulette table: Off-street parking garages started to equip their garages with AC chargers. However, they forgot to enable a cellular network connection when requiring a QR code to be scanned… or putting up any signs to ease finding the chargers. 🤯

3. Costs for charging: “Yeah, the charger is working - let’s set our a bet - a.k.a. what are we going to pay for the charging?”

   

   A picture can tell more than a thousand words → This was the price board for parking, but even charging was priced similarly complex, with thresholds after X minutes. I don’t want to do math with a calculator to forecast what I will pay for the charging session. 🤓

Destination Charging 🛎️:

Lastly, destination charging turned out not to be available broadly or being exceptionally inconvenient. Funnily, one hotel receptionist told us that there were no chargers at this location - only to find out later that there were 10 AC chargers in the parking lot. Another time, the hotel asked for a 20€ session fee for their charger and recommended we use the Tesla Supercharger located at the hotel’s parking lot (in 🇫🇷 the Tesla supercharger was priced incredibly affordable at 0,29 € / kWh which is why it was cheaper in most cases to use the Supercharger → but you need to get out to repark the car in order to avoid blocking fees).

Before the trip, I expected to use the camping sockets at campsites to recharge the vehicle from time to time. While it did work to recharge the Tesla, most of the time the available amperage was limited to just 6A. During the night we could usually get about 10 kWh of energy. This was enough to keep the vehicle’s state of charge roughly constant when we drew energy for the camping mode (more on this later). Kindly, all campsites provided us with the CEE adapter* and the energy for free.

Camping in a Tesla Model Y ⛺️🚙

We used the Model Y to camp for five nights on a mixture of campsites and parking lots where camping is tolerated. During camping, we were only two people and that’s also the maximum number of people that can sleep in the car comfortably. Here is a brief summary of our experiences and some recommendations:

😍 Why is the Model Y perfect for camping?

• Camp Mode 🌡️: Activated via the App or Vehicle, the car’s temperature can be set. Thereby, the temperature within the vehicle is kept constant while air humidity is regulated for a nice and relaxing sleeping atmosphere.

• Mattress 🛏️: In the Model Y the rear seat can be folded down almost flat and allows people up to a size of ~185cm (6'1) to comfortably lie down in the car. We tried to park the car slightly sloping to the front to create a flat surface. To make a comfortable sleeping area, I ordered a memory foam mattress which is custom cut for the Model Y*.

  

  Tesla Model Y - Memory Foam Mattress

• Shades 🌌: To create some privacy and darkness in the car, we used sunshades for the windows*. Those are also custom-made for the Model Y. The glass roof was left open as it created a nice headroom, and with a clear sky at night, the stars were visible. 💫 

• Storage 📦: When camping we traveled with luggage for two people, two kites, a kiteboard, and two surfboards; so plenty of stuff, but it was really easy to store everything in the car. Especially, the luggage compartment below the trunk was amazing and fitted all the kites plus a backup tent. The trunk in the front was amazing for storing the (wet) neoprenes and camping equipment (like a gas stove*) to have it available whenever needed. When sleeping we put the three boards below the car which were barely visible.

• Sentry Mode ⚡️📹: The only reason we kept the Tesla’s sentry mode on during the night and day was to recharge phones, a camera, and the freezer to keep food fresh (especially having a freezer* was really convenient!). With active sentry mode, the 12-volt outlets are constantly supplied with energy until the vehicle’s battery drops to 20% state of charge. Additionally, Laptops and other electronics running on USB-C can be recharged.

🤨 What do you need to be aware of when camping in the Model Y?

• Battery Drawing 🪫: During the night we used approximately 1 kWh per hour. The trip recording reported an average consumption of 17.4 kWh / 100 km (super efficient for such a big car!). This resulted in 45 - 50 km of range we consumed with camp + sentry mode during the night. However, the temperatures were rather ideal with a small difference between the out- and inside temperatures. Especially in a cold environment, I expect a much higher energy consumption.

• Central Screen 📺: Also during the night in camping mode the central screen (which can be used to simulate a campfire 🔥) did not turn down its brightness enough. The quick fix was to cover it with a pullover sweater.

Take-aways:

• On our trip spanning Germany, France, Italy, and Austria, we covered 4,000 km in a Tesla Model Y. 🚙

• Charging infrastructure, especially in France and Italy, has improved significantly, making planning less of a hassle. 🗺️

• While Tesla's Supercharger network and other 3rd party fast charging networks impressed, inner-city charging presented challenges, and destination charging options were limited.🔌 

• Camping in the Model Y was a pleasant surprise, with its camp mode, comfortable setup, and ample storage. ⛺️😊

The trip highlighted the growing feasibility and enjoyment of electric travel. Challenges remain, but the future of electric road trips looks promising. ⛺️😊

Safe travels on your electric adventures! ⚡🚗🌍

Julius

📣 Let me know if you liked this special post and leave some feedback ⬇️

Just a quick note – you might see some links around here marked with a little star (*). They're referral links, and when you click on them and make a purchase, we might earn a small commission. Don't worry, it won't cost you extra, and we only recommend stuff we genuinely like.

Your trust means the world to us, so if you have any questions about these links, just shout!