Renting EV/hybrid outside of Paris

I'd never rent an EV in a foreign country. (Chevy Bolt EV owner, 2.5 years.) Are you aware of how un-seamless/un-frictionless it is for non-Teslas to get charged on the road?

Yup, just watch some Youtube videos about car people and magazine writers in Europe who purposely rent EVs.

Also realize that car rental outfits generally only promise a certain class of car, not a certain car. And sometimes they don't even have the class you want, so you have to agree to up or down.

Hertz rented me a hybrid in Nimes for a few days last month. I hadn't asked for one, hadn't expected an automatic shift either. It was a Cupra, a Spanish car that was quite comfortable but bigger than I liked. I spent about $25 on gas for about 200 kilometers in towns, N-roads, and the autoroute. I noticed charging stations at the autoroute service area (aire) where I got the gas.

You might want to consult with Auto Europe about the best way to be sure of getting a hybrid or EV. They combine good prices with excellent customer service.

Thanks Dick. Haven't looked at AutoEurope yet. We'll probably do the hybrid route. We've done a lot of driving in the US with our car and at times it can be annoying, but only occasionally. We're not familiar with ranges of some of the EVs in France, so the only car I'd rent would be a Tesla, and they rent them out of Paris.

The electric charging network has expanded massively over the past 2 years, so you can virtually ignore any reports before that date. There is a map (not comprehensive) here.

https://chargemap.com/map

We were given a Hyundai Tucson hybrid for our 24 day Black Forest/Alsace trip earlier this year. Only one of our lodgings had a charging station and there were very few in the rural areas where we travelled. Some small towns did have charging stations in municipal lots. A hybrid was fine, but I wouldn’t have wanted an entirely EV vehicle for where we travelled.

They gave us a hybrid in Ireland last year. I drive one at home and loved the savings on fuel. I would never take an electric car that would be dependent on charging it. In my opinion that is too risky and I don’t want to be inconvenienced with having to track down a charger and then wait for it to charge up. I think it would be unrealistic to expect your lodging to have a charging station. In July I went to Houston with a friend and she had inadvertently rented an electric car. When she realized it she switched to a gas car. Good thing because even the Hilton Hotel where we stayed didn’t have anywhere to charge the car.

I guess this is a teaching moment for me about EVs. If you're unfamiliar with charging and the hassle or not, the charging network in the US is massive. The Tesla network is the most reliable and others not as much. Destination chargers at hotels and resorts are very convenient and not always available. If people start asking for them while booking, I'm sure they'll be more readily available. We've traveled to Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia, from California more than once. We've had a couple of nervous outings because of the lack of availability in likely places of Vernal Utah and Northern Montana (1 hotel had 2 destination chargers) and their fast charger in town was down. Northern Montana we squeaked by, and if we'd been more thoughtful about it, we could have charged at a friend's house in a regular outlet to pick a few miles. We also don't travel on HWY 50 because of the lack of chargers, yet that is about to change. You can also charge at RV parks, although you might have to pay for an RV spot. We have 4 charging apps on our phones and of course our car also maps chargers for us. Our favorite app besides Tesla is Plugshare https://www.plugshare.com/. It's a worldwide crowdsourced charging app that is sometimes is more up to date than the Tesla app.

Thank you Simon for sharing your charging map! EV charging is evolving exponentially.

I don't know about the other regions, but regarding the Dordogne I would think twice before taking the risk of going there with an EV. It is a rural region very poorly equipped with charging points for a variety of demographic reasons, standard of living of residents,
many small villages, many elderly people without a driving license or with old cars, a small minority of whom bought an small EV to go shopping twice a week and recharge it at night at home.

Consequently, the Dordogne currently has 1 public charging station for 2,200 inhabitants, most of these stations are located in medium or large towns.

Thank you Jolui. I saw that in the Dordogne, so it's likely we will get a hybrid if we can. That's the biggest hole in our trip.

And since we're on the subject, a few articles lately in the WSJ about people who were rented EVs without their knowledge and without any warning and ... well let's just say, they were not happy renters.

You still need to watch out for the gas vs. diesel scenario in Europe as well. Trust but verify.

Totally phred!