In Bayeux now trouble with electric vehicle & charging

There's an app for that-chargepoint.
I have on my I-phone here in the U.S. put in Bayeux Fr, and several options popped up.
Down load it on your phone and one worry can go away.

No, it’s s not that common here in France to have 100% electric cars yet. Glad you found a solution and someone has given you an app.

Google maps shows EV chargers. I don’t have an EV so can’t comment on how accurate it is.

I drive a 2021 Chevy Bolt EV at home. But I would NEVER rent an electric car during vacation. There are too many problems and unknowns HERE (like who Walmart's new charging vendor is, do any of the eight charging stations work today, and are any of them blocked by buffoons with ICE cars?)

I've hugged as many trees and whales as the next guy, but EVs are not the way to go on vacation in a distant place. When my sister rented a place on Cape Cod (a "charging desert"), I bought a #10 gauge extension cord to run the dryer outlet (against the rental rules ... ) across to a driveway window, to recharge with my portable EVSE at a very slow rate, even at 30 Amps.

To those reading this post: Do not jump at the chance to rent an EV the next time you are in Europe.

Good luck. The issue you’re running into is one reason I wouldn’t rent an all electric vehicle. We had a hybrid in Germany/France last year and it worked fine. We didn’t see a plethora of charging points in small towns off the beaten path and only one of our lodgings had one.

100% electric vehicles are not really "fairly common" in France. It's currently 2.5% of all vehicles.

There are 110,000 charging terminals in 40,000 charging stations throughout the national territory, but also dozens of subscription cards which are sometimes not compatible with each other.
Charging stations that accept credit cards were only around 15% at the end of 2023

Did Europcar tell you that electric cars were fairly common in France? We have had previous reports of agencies trying to persuade customers to agree to them.

We had a hybrid car in Denmark two years ago. We assumed the rental here in France was going to be the same. NO! It's 100% electric, unfortunately there were no other options. Europcar staff at CDG did not provide any info into how difficult it was going to be to charge etc. The other issue is that our phone does not work so while apps are helpful we cannot download any apps.So chargemap which I found to tell us where EV charging spots are located is useless for us at the moment. And the charging station at our hotel you need to download an app to use to then charge. We've considered going to Europcar en route to Mont St. Michel to see if we can switch cars to a gas car. This is not ideal and I would really urge people to not get stuck with a 100% EV like we did.

I sympathise with the phone problems. I’d advise you to call your provider while you are on wifi and get this sorted as a priority as it will help with the car issue.

I have had similar problems with my phone not working in Europe since Brexit and have had to put in calls to sort it out. Both times it involved going into settings and changing some things and putting in a code. I hate it though and it frustrates me how complicated it is.

Only electric at CDG! That sounds weird. Or, you assumed electric meant hybrid. But it doesn’t.

Yes, I’ve turned cars in and rented another at a small agency. However, I was renting Europcar cars via AutoEurope.

You need to go buy a vacation sim card from Orange or Free so you have one working phone.

it seems to me that if you fixed the phone problem then other things would be much easier. we need to rely upon them these days. I know I do.

Jen, not to be annoying, but have you turned on international roaming on your phone ? (I know this is probably the first thing you tried, but sometimes people don't think of it --sorry if it is a useless suggestion).

I am sorry that all of this is such a pain.

Great suggestion Kim. I had it off in Italy for two days and thought my phone was broken. I stumbled on the solution, so yes, settings and mobile service and roaming.

Well darn I was hoping it was am easy fix like that.

When you reserved the car, you say you assumed a hybrid but that was incorrect, but was it the only option, or could you have reserved a gas guzzler? In other words, could you have reserved an ICE car, or was the EV the only option available when you reserved it?

My point being I would be really unhappy if I had reserved an ICE and the only car available at the rental counter was EV...

Annie at Join us in France has an EV and loves it and def recommends us visitors NOT rent an EV, but this is some of her advise:

https://joinusinfrance.com/transcript/465/#Types_of_Electric_Car_Chargers

Annie Sargent: If you’re going to rent a plug in hybrid or full electric when you visit France, you need to make sure that the place you sleep at night has a dedicated charger for your car. Preferably a borne. That’s a Level 2 charger. I only have a Level 1 charger at my house, but it’s more than enough for daily use.

[00:54:29] But if I was going to take a long road trip every day, I would need to upgrade to a Level 2 charger. Now, if this business of Level 1, Level 2 makes zero sense to you, it means that you’re not in the electric charging world, and doing it in France is really not ideal, but if you understand, great.

[00:54:48] You should email whatever accommodations you’re going to book and ask them what type of charger they have. If they tell you they can provide a domestic plug, or a green up plug, that’s Level 1 charging. Level 1 charging in France delivers maximum three kilowatt hours. So that’s three kilowatt per hour.

[00:55:09] Some of these plugs can only deliver 1.6 Kilowatt per hour safely, and you cannot rely on that if you’re taking road trips. Like I said, Level 1 is fine for everyday use, but not for road trips. Some accommodations will have Level 2 charging. That’s called a borne, and it can deliver up to 7 Kilowatt per hour. That makes road trips easier and it’s what I like to get when I’m traveling.

[00:55:38] On Booking.Com you can filter on whether or not the place has somewhere for electric cars to charge, I still email them to ask exactly what they mean, because the devil’s in the detail.

[00:55:51] It’s not the same at all, having a 7k charger, versus a 1.6k plug , right? And that’s, both of those are Level 1.

[00:55:59] Many towns and villages in France have Level 2 chargers because of the full electric Renault Zoé which launched in December 2012. We have a lot of car chargers in small towns that were really made for the Renault Zoé. And they typically deliver 22k per hour, which is still Level 2, but a fast Level 2, right?

[00:56:24] But, unlike a hotel or B&B where the charge is included in the price of your stay, or perhaps they have a little surcharge, but whatever, you can pay that with your credit card, when you charge on a public charging station, well, you’re going to have to pay for your charge and that’s where it’s still complicated.

[00:56:44] It’s getting easier and easier all the time. I’m seeing more and more contactless methods of payment. But it’s not everywhere. And it’s especially in the small villages where it gets complicated because these are old chargers. Sometimes it’s so old, you can’t even read the screen anymore.

[00:57:01] And so if you have an RFID card to launch the charge, like I have one of those, I have several of those. Well, there’s always one that will work. But if you’re not from around here, you have no reason to have all these cards with you. And so the chances of you launching an old charger that’s been there from 10 plus years for the Renault Zoé network is not great. I can get them to work almost 100% of the time, but I’m used to them.

And more:
Annie Sargent: Another thing that works very, very well, and she asked if there was an app or something. Yes, there is an app. It’s called ChargeMap. It’s an app where you can look for chargers and they will even tell you how well these chargers are working.

[00:57:40] So it has a check in system. So whenever I charge using my ChargeMap card, it will just say, oh, somebody is charging right now or somebody charged two hours ago or three hours ago. And chances are, if it worked two hours ago, it’s still working, it’s going to be working when you get there. So it’s very reassuring.

[00:57:59] I think it’s 20 euros to open the account and to get the card. The question is, are they going to send you a card outside of Europe and are they going to let you pay with a credit card rather than a direct link to your bank account, which is how we French people do it. That’s a very French thing, we use wire payments all the time. And so to us, it’s not strange, but to Americans, it’s like, you what? You give them access directly to your bank account? Well, yes, it’s better because then there are no credit card fees and we prefer that.

[00:58:33] That’s why it’s still a bit of a problem. Now, the day when all of these chargers take credit cards or even better, contactless payments, then happiness all around. And it is changing really, really quickly. So don’t worry. By the time car rental agencies are mostly offering electric cars, this will all have changed.

[00:59:00] They install new chargers and they upgrade chargers all the time. I’m going to give you a link to a map that’s kept by an enthusiast, electric car enthusiast, Denis Schoelins, and you can find it at tinyurl.com/stationVE so after tinyurl.com/ STATIONSVE and VE is véhicule électrique so station véhicule électrique. And he keeps this map up to date. He does a really, really good job with it. And that one shows you all the big chargers, so your Ionity, your Electromaps, your Allégo.

[00:59:51] By now, there are charging stations everywhere in France, even tiny villages sometimes have a PowerDot station by the grocery store. And that’s really nice because these PowerDot stations are fast chargers, so DC fast chargers and you should know that electric vehicles, the battery runs on direct current, but what we have at home is alternative current, whether it’s in U.S. or in France.

[01:00:19] And so, installing a direct current charger in a supermarket parking lot is more involved than a alternative current charger. But it’s also much faster because it’s DC to DC, your card knows exactly what to do with this power.

[01:00:36] There’s nothing in between. It goes much faster. So things are changing fast. It’s going to get to the point where every supermarket in France is going to have a DC fast charger, which is wonderful because then you can just go shopping and plug in while you do your shopping. Almost every gas station on freeways has a DC fast charger in France.

[01:01:00] Not all of them work reliably though, and not all of them are easy to launch either. So, to summarize, if you’re going to get a hybrid car, then please plug it in at night. Wherever you sleep, you plug in your hybrid car. What’s the point of a hybrid if you don’t plug it in? Because they don’t charge themselves, you know?

[01:01:23] If you’re just charging the battery with gas, you’re getting a poor driving experience, it’s not worth it. So if you’re going to get a plug in hybrid, make sure whatever accommodations you select have chargers. And if you’re going to get a full electric car, make sure you understand how it works because it’s getting easier and easier.
[01:01:45] It’s changing very fast, but I’d hate for you to get stuck somewhere where like, I can’t charge.

My understanding is that you need an app for each different brand of charging station you intend to use. And you have to add funds or a payment method to each app. I'm in the camp of "no way when I'm supposed to be on vacation."

Thanks all for your sharing of advice or commiserating with me! We left Bayeux en route to Amboise and needed to charge. Went to a Europcar location in Le Mans along the way hoping to change the vehicle but it was more of an office not a rental facility so we could not exchange for another car. They let us charge the car for free. After 1 hour it only went up a small %.

So for anyone that may find themselves in this situation look for a Carrefour (large grocery type store) as we have found that those stores have chargers you can pay by credit card with. We used GPS to find one in Le Mans after wasting an hour at Europcar with their slow charger. Carrefour to the rescue!

We are now in Amboise at Chateau de Perreux and have free charging here. We've actually seen a lot more charging stations in the Loire than in our time in Normandy. We are headed to Paris tomorrow to return the car and flying to Nice for a brief stay on the South of France.....but will be making sure the next vehicle is not 100% electric!