The vacation season is just around the corner. If you, like many others, have bought an electric car in the last few months, this will also be your first long-distance test. And for many, it’s also the first time you’ll be relying exclusively on public charging points for a longer period of time. To make sure you have a relaxed vacation with your electric car, you should definitely follow these tips.

You can find more tips specifically for vacations with children here.

You need a charging card, possibly 2-3 for your vacation with the electric car

Many charging stations also support direct payment by credit or debit card, but I would not rely exclusively on this for the following reasons:

• Direct payment or “ad-hoc charging” is not yet possible at all charging stations, so you cannot rely on it working.
  
• The prices are often significantly higher than the prices you pay with a charging card. Especially if the charging station is operated by the same provider as the charging card, charging is usually cheaper with a charging card. See also the Nextmove article with an overview (section “Playing to the strengths of your own charging network”)
  
• With many providers, the payment process is very cumbersome. Especially if no card terminal is installed. Then you have to scan a QR code and, in the worst case, end up on a website where you have to enter all your address details. And the last thing you want on vacation is to stand in front of a charging station for 10 minutes and laboriously enter your billing details on a website. And possibly even in a foreign language.

Which charging card is the right one?

So you need a charging card for your vacation with an electric car. This makes starting a charging process simple and convenient in most cases. And, unlike an app, it can also be used when the internet is poor or not available at all. Hold the card to it, plug in the cable and off you go. But which charging card is the right one? I recommend at least two cards:

• The first card should be one with low prices. You can find a current selection of charging tariffs (as of July 2024) in this article. Ionity currently offers a fairly low tariff, but this is only valid at its own charging stations. Experience shows that Ionity charging parks are also in high demand during vacation periods, so EWE-Go could currently be an interesting alternative.
  
• Only if the first charging card doesn’t work do you switch to the second charging card. This is one that does not necessarily have the best price, but the widest possible coverage, including abroad. EnBW and Shell-Recharge, for example, are known for their very good coverage.
  
• Depending on which country you are traveling to, it may make sense to get another charging card with good coverage in the destination region.

Please note that it usually takes 3-6 working days to send the charging cards after you have registered. So order your cards in good time before your vacation. There are many charging cards without a basic monthly fee, so it is advisable to always have 1-2 cards in your car anyway.

Register in the Tesla app!

Tesla has now opened up over 90% of its Supercharger network locations to other car brands. In addition to the good locations with usually very many charging points (often 20-40 charging points), Tesla is currently also attractive in terms of price, as many other providers such as EnBW have recently increased their prices significantly.

Practice charging at public charging stations!

This tip is primarily aimed at people who have previously only charged at their home wallbox. There’s nothing worse than standing at the fast charger with your electric car during your first charging break on vacation and finding that charging doesn’t work for some reason. Practice helps. Practicing once beforehand can help a lot.

There are fast-charging stations and “slow-charging stations” – know the difference!

Familiarize yourself with the difference between fast charging (DC charging) and “slow charging” (AC charging). With the former, the charging process takes 20-40 minutes depending on the car, with the latter it usually takes several hours, similar to the wallbox at home. Rule of thumb: fast chargers always have the cable firmly attached to the column and the thick plug! We have a separate article on this on our website.

Familiarize yourself with the route and charging options in advance!

There are several ways to plan the charging breaks in advance:

• Many electric cars automatically plan charging stops if you enter a destination that is further away than the current range. However, this works better or worse depending on the car; sometimes relatively inconvenient locations are suggested because that is exactly where the battery is at 10% charge. Often neither the size nor the quality of the location is taken into account, and personal preferences such as restaurants or certain fast food chains are not included in the planning. Too many charging stops are also often planned, as the software plays it safe. In addition, you may prefer to do the initial planning at home on the sofa rather than getting into the car.
  
• Automatic planning apps: These work in a similar way to the car navigation systems mentioned above and automatically plan charging breaks based on the vehicle data. The best known of these are A better Routeplanner and Pump. The latter offers a nicer user interface and usually also better results, but is unfortunately only available for iOS.
  
• Our own ChargingTime app takes a different approach. All charging parks along the route are displayed here so that you can select them yourself based on personal preferences such as restaurants, shopping facilities, but also charging park size, operator and occupancy status.
  
• With the ChargingTime planning assistant, you can find out very quickly how many charging stops are required and can then adjust the exact stops afterwards or during the journey. To get an initial overview, we recommend looking at the route with the settings 150kW and 8 charging points. In the meantime, many routes are already very well developed with such larger charging parks. However, if there are larger empty sections, we recommend reducing the minimum number to 4. This gives you a very good feeling of where the route is well developed with charging parks and where you need to plan ahead a little more carefully because, for example, there is a longer section without charging parks.

Stay flexible on the move

The initial planning is usually only a basic framework for your vacation with the electric car. There are many situations that require you to react flexibly while driving. For example, many popular vacation routes to the south are so busy on vacation weekends that progress is much slower than at normal times. This has two effects: On the one hand, it takes much longer to get to your planned stop, so it may be necessary to take a break beforehand because you get hungry or need to go to the toilet, for example. On the other hand, the slower travel speed reduces fuel consumption and thus increases the range, so that you may get further than planned.

In order to remain flexible while driving, we have created the All chargers list view in the CarPlay version of our ChargingTime app. This gives you a quick overview of the nearest charging stations while driving, how far away they are and how many chargers are occupied or free. In the detailed view, you can also see the restaurants, cafés, etc. and can send the selected charging park to your navigation app as a stopover.

This way you can avoid overcrowded locations and always react flexibly to the situation. You can even go so far as to not plan any stops at all when you start your journey, but only decide on the way when either the remaining range is slowly getting shorter or your stomach is getting hungry.

How much time do I need to allow for charging breaks?

Most electric car models today can be recharged from 10% to 80% in 30 minutes at a fast charger. This includes the electric cars from Tesla, Mercedes, BMW, VW, Skoda and Audi. Faster are the 800V-based models such as the Porsche Taycan, Hyundai Ioniq 5 and 6 and Kia EV 6 and 9. These cars can do it in 20 minutes or less, which is usually much faster than a meal break.

If you are traveling with children, it will often take much longer. It usually takes 20 minutes just to order food for everyone, especially during the vacation season when the service stations are very busy.

I usually plan 50-60 minutes for a break with food when I’m on vacation with my family. By then the electric car is charged to 100% again. The other breaks are more dependent on the car, so I try to continue driving when the battery is charged to 80% again.

Speed costs range. Unfortunately, this is physics and there’s nothing you can do about it. Flat, streamlined cars are less affected than boxy SUVs, but the effect is always there. The brochure range of your car (WLTP range) always refers to a mixed driving mode of city, country and highway. If you drive exclusively on the highway, you will already have 20%-30% less range, unless you limit yourself to 100 km/h. Bicycle racks or roof boxes increase the effect.

That sounds a bit worse than it is: the average driver takes a break about every 250 km, even with a combustion engine. And most electric cars can easily manage that. For many e-car drivers, a speed of 120 km/h has proven to be a good compromise between range and speed. If you have a car with a large battery and high charging speed, such as the Porsche Taycan, Mercedes EQS or Tesla Model S, you can of course leave it running, at least as long as you are still driving in Germany. You often can’t drive that much faster abroad. But the next charging stop will be necessary sooner than at a slower speed.

How do I find charging stations for my electric car on vacation?

I recommend apps such as Mobility+ from EnBW, Shell Recharge or Moovility to check which charging options are available locally. Of course, it is important to have a charging option directly at or within walking distance of your accommodation. If this is not the case, you can of course also drive to the nearest fast chargers on site. This may involve unnecessary waiting times during the charging process. Unless you can combine this with shopping, for example. In this case, I recommend using the filter for shopping opportunities in the ChargingTime app.

How do I find accommodation with charging facilities for my electric car?

On booking.com there is an item “Charging station for electric vehicles” in the list of facilities. Select this so that only accommodation with charging facilities is displayed. Nevertheless, it is always advisable to call them beforehand. Find out how many charging facilities there are, whether they are very busy or whether you can make a reservation. Occasionally there are also hotels that list a Schuko socket as a charging option. You should therefore check whether it is actually a wallbox and how much kW charging power it can deliver. At least 11 kW should be available to fully charge the car safely overnight).

Do I need to take a charging cable with me and if so, which one?

Yes, you don’t need a charging cable at the fast charger, but to have the option of charging at a “normal” AC charging station on site, e.g. while strolling through town, you should have the Type 2 charging cable with you.

If you are going camping, you should also consider taking a charging cable with a household or, better still, camping CE plug. There is, for example, the Juice-Booster, which even comes in such a sturdy housing that it can be driven over. However, many campsites now prohibit the charging of electric vehicles at the camping power connections. It is best to find out beforehand whether and how you can charge your car there.

Have fun on vacation

With these tips, you should be prepared for the biggest pitfalls. Nothing stands in the way of a nice and relaxing vacation with your electric car! Do you like this article? Then feel free to recommend it and link it to your social media profiles!