Notes from a Small Roadtrip - UK to Norway via Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden

2022 Model 3 Long Range.
3,800 Miles
866kWh
236 Wh/Mi
3 weeks

Charging
In general I plan in advance and try to organise AC charging - my preference is just to plug in overnight rather than have to spend time sat at a supercharger.

German

• Used AC on the outward leg
• Public Chargers were plentiful, and activated via Electroverse without any drama
• ~€0.40/kWh
• EV Adoption seemed lower than the UK, public chargers seemed to work well, bays were available, and I never saw one ICEd
• One Tesla destination charger didn’t work - they’ve decided to charge €30 for a charge (fine), but used the RCD trip to enforce this, and the switch has worn out (nearby public came to the rescue)
• One airbnb charger only provided 8a (nearby public, again, came to the rescue)
• Used DC much more on the leg back.- SuCs along autobahns seemed to meet expectations

Sweden

• Hadn’t really focused on Sweden - the wife wanted to go over the bridge
• Only used superchargers, which all worked as expected

Norway

• Apps were a problem. They don’t seem to have signed up for roaming networks (except the recharge network), none have credit card readers, and each network have their own app
  • App experience varied, but for the most part required a bit of translation to get them to work
• AC Chargers (hotels, airbnbs) were generally unreliable.
  • Hotel listed as Tesla destination charger looked at me like I had 3 heads when I asked where the EV charger was. I think at this stage we might as well forget about destination chargers… The program was good initially, but it’s just not been maintained. (How do I even report that the charger is gone to get it delisted?)
  • Carparks seemed to have AC chargers (but struggled to find listings for them). Most were underground and seemed to need app activation :/
  • Didn’t find any great apps for listing chargers. Largely used electroverse and chargemap.
• DC Networks seemed well maintained and worked well
  • In particular, most supermarkets seemed to have a decent number of rapids
    • A short supermarket run for the next couple of days, and come back to an 80+% charge
  • Even fairly rural roadside hotels seemed to have a MER station with a couple of rapids
  • Most petrol stations seemed to have Kempower units
  • Publics seemed to be around £0.35-40/kWh. SuCs more like £0.25-30.
• Lots of parking was paid, Easypark app was quite common, and some street charging bays were on the same app. (The only AC charger which we actually got working in the whole country)

Denmark

• AC charging at a hotel with 10 “clever” chargers was a clusterfuck, roaming RFIDs didn’t work, weren’t setup for app activation, no spare RFID card at reception. Reception apologetic, Clever support were useless
• SuCs to the rescue!

Netherlands

• SuCs are about €0.25/kWh. Domestic is €0.40 and ACs are €0.5 or so. We used the SuCs…

Route highlights

• Hamberg Miniatur Wunderland
• Norway
  • Vest-Telemark Museum Eidsborg (Lovely little museum, 1-2 hours with a variety of history, Stave Church - free AC chargers.)
  • The great outdoors, Voss to Flam to Lom to Nordfjordeid - just so so pretty
  • Stavanger Museums - Norwegian Petroleum Museum, Canning Museum
• Aarhus: Den Gamle By

Travel Tips:

• August was a good time to go, the norwegians tend to holiday June-July. Weather was, much like the UK over August, variable. Jetstream was all over the place this summer…
• The NOK is pretty weak at the moment, and we felt that things were generally reasonable value in Norway. Of course, you still want to buy alcohol and/or chocolate before you leave germany
• Mix of Hotels and Airbnbs - everything worked largely as expected, Norway in particular has a lot of reasonably priced accommodation on airbnb
• We took a small (9l) car fridge/freezer with us, which we largely used overnight for freezer blocks. It helped a lot keeping food for the road trip
• We went out via the denmark-sweden bridge, and back via the kristiansand ferry (The faster catamaran). Worked fine, the bridges were considerably more expensive than I had realised (still cheaper than the ferry, but only just)
• We took out a tolltickets box for scandinavia, as the wife really hates pay barriers (My ability to park too far away from the machine for her to use them, but close enough to stop her opening her door! ). In reality it only helped for the denmark bridges, and it looks like there were cheaper options in hindsight (Norway has a lot of toll roads, but it’s all ANPR)
• On the way back, the Eurotunnel Flexipass is expensive, but means you can just hop on the next train whenever you’re done with France (For us, that’s when France has no cheese left!)

Roads

• Germany had very clear road layouts and was easy driving
• Norway tends to be slower, pretty roads with a moderately low speed limit; you’ll find that your batteries go further.
• Netherlands has a very high driver workload, there seem to be cycle lanes everywhere and it’s very much on you to know who has right of way. The Dutch cycles are super confident and just expect you to stop when it’s their right of way. Obviously that’s not unreasonable, but I haven’t thought to research their road rules much in advance. Worthwhile doing…

Supercharger of the trip

• Neumünster - Decent set of v3s 4 minutes off the autobahn, big high quality supermarket (EDEKA) for you to grab food before crossing the border

 

[spdpsba]

2022 Model 3 Long Range.
3,800 Miles
866kWh
236 Wh/Mi
3 weeks

View attachment 976727

Charging
In general I plan in advance and try to organise AC charging - my preference is just to plug in overnight rather than have to spend time sat at a supercharger.

German

• Used AC on the outward leg
• Public Chargers were plentiful, and activated via Electroverse without any drama
• ~€0.40/kWh
• EV Adoption seemed lower than the UK, public chargers seemed to work well, bays were available, and I never saw one ICEd
• One Tesla destination charger didn’t work - they’ve decided to charge €30 for a charge (fine), but used the RCD trip to enforce this, and the switch has worn out (nearby public came to the rescue)
• One airbnb charger only provided 8a (nearby public, again, came to the rescue)
• Used DC much more on the leg back.- SuCs along autobahns seemed to meet expectations

Sweden

• Hadn’t really focused on Sweden - the wife wanted to go over the bridge
• Only used superchargers, which all worked as expected

Norway

• Apps were a problem. They don’t seem to have signed up for roaming networks (except the recharge network), none have credit card readers, and each network have their own app
  • App experience varied, but for the most part required a bit of translation to get them to work
• AC Chargers (hotels, airbnbs) were generally unreliable.
  • Hotel listed as Tesla destination charger looked at me like I had 3 heads when I asked where the EV charger was. I think at this stage we might as well forget about destination chargers… The program was good initially, but it’s just not been maintained. (How do I even report that the charger is gone to get it delisted?)
  • Carparks seemed to have AC chargers (but struggled to find listings for them). Most were underground and seemed to need app activation :/
  • Didn’t find any great apps for listing chargers. Largely used electroverse and chargemap.
• DC Networks seemed well maintained and worked well
  • In particular, most supermarkets seemed to have a decent number of rapids
    • A short supermarket run for the next couple of days, and come back to an 80+% charge
  • Even fairly rural roadside hotels seemed to have a MER station with a couple of rapids
  • Most petrol stations seemed to have Kempower units
  • Publics seemed to be around £0.35-40/kWh. SuCs more like £0.25-30.
• Lots of parking was paid, Easypark app was quite common, and some street charging bays were on the same app. (The only AC charger which we actually got working in the whole country)

Denmark

• AC charging at a hotel with 10 “clever” chargers was a clusterfuck, roaming RFIDs didn’t work, weren’t setup for app activation, no spare RFID card at reception. Reception apologetic, Clever support were useless
• SuCs to the rescue!

Netherlands

• SuCs are about €0.25/kWh. Domestic is €0.40 and ACs are €0.5 or so. We used the SuCs…

Route highlights

• Hamberg Miniatur Wunderland
• Norway
  • Vest-Telemark Museum Eidsborg (Lovely little museum, 1-2 hours with a variety of history, Stave Church - free AC chargers.)
  • The great outdoors, Voss to Flam to Lom to Nordfjordeid - just so so pretty
  • Stavanger Museums - Norwegian Petroleum Museum, Canning Museum
• Aarhus: Den Gamle By

Travel Tips:

• August was a good time to go, the norwegians tend to holiday June-July. Weather was, much like the UK over August, variable. Jetstream was all over the place this summer…
• The NOK is pretty weak at the moment, and we felt that things were generally reasonable value in Norway. Of course, you still want to buy alcohol and/or chocolate before you leave germany
• Mix of Hotels and Airbnbs - everything worked largely as expected, Norway in particular has a lot of reasonably priced accommodation on airbnb
• We took a small (9l) car fridge/freezer with us, which we largely used overnight for freezer blocks. It helped a lot keeping food for the road trip
• We went out via the denmark-sweden bridge, and back via the kristiansand ferry (The faster catamaran). Worked fine, the bridges were considerably more expensive than I had realised (still cheaper than the ferry, but only just)
• We took out a tolltickets box for scandinavia, as the wife really hates pay barriers (My ability to park too far away from the machine for her to use them, but close enough to stop her opening her door! ). In reality it only helped for the denmark bridges, and it looks like there were cheaper options in hindsight (Norway has a lot of toll roads, but it’s all ANPR)
• On the way back, the Eurotunnel Flexipass is expensive, but means you can just hop on the next train whenever you’re done with France (For us, that’s when France has no cheese left!)

Roads

• Germany had very clear road layouts and was easy driving
• Norway tends to be slower, pretty roads with a moderately low speed limit; you’ll find that your batteries go further.
• Netherlands has a very high driver workload, there seem to be cycle lanes everywhere and it’s very much on you to know who has right of way. The Dutch cycles are super confident and just expect you to stop when it’s their right of way. Obviously that’s not unreasonable, but I haven’t thought to research their road rules much in advance. Worthwhile doing…

Supercharger of the trip

• Neumünster - Decent set of v3s 4 minutes off the autobahn, big high quality supermarket (EDEKA) for you to grab food before crossing the border

It is really informative and very useful for other forum members. Keep this going. When I found one of the Destination charger not working in a hotel I just reported it to them and they fixed it the next day. But if something is removed I guess the establishment has a right to inform their customers - don’t know whether you had a chance to check with them prior to booking. I normally check with them regarding destination chargers and then decide whether it is worth booking if there are none.

 

[Medved_77]

Did a lot of that route in July, including the same crossing from/to Kristiansand/Hirtshals.

Also went to Miniatur Wunderland as we had 2 nights in Hamburg. The VR experience was very entertaining but my favourite bit was watching the Airbus A300-600ST (Beluga) take off

 

[kelvin 660]

Maybe you should try this app to find chargers in Norway, etc...

ChargeFinder - Charging stations for electric cars (EV)

Find charging stations with a simple search or browse the map. Real-time availability, pricing, and other useful information for 100 000+ EV chargers.

chargefinder.com

 

[thewishy]

Maybe you should try this app to find chargers in Norway, etc...

ChargeFinder - Charging stations for electric cars (EV)

Find charging stations with a simple search or browse the map. Real-time availability, pricing, and other useful information for 100 000+ EV chargers.

chargefinder.com

That seems to find a number of the chargers I saw on foot and thought "Oh, wish I'd know about that" (Mostly easypark in Stavanger, would have been convenient to charge and cheaper than the underground carparks)

Useful for future reference

 

[pdk42]

I did almost the same trip last Aug. I agree on the Norway charging observations. Despite massive EV adoption, the charging infrastructure, although extensive, is quite fragmented with multiple apps and pay cards. I gave up trying to use non Tesla chargers as a result.

 

[yessuz]

I did almost the same trip last Aug. I agree on the Norway charging observations. Despite massive EV adoption, the charging infrastructure, although extensive, is quite fragmented with multiple apps and pay cards. I gave up trying to use non Tesla chargers as a result.

but this applies to slow AC chargers, correct?

as I read, DC chargers are everywhere

 

[pdk42]

but this applies to slow AC chargers, correct?

as I read, DC chargers are everywhere

I had problems with both. I tried two high speed chargers and neither accepted simple tap and go card payments. The only non subscription options on offer were card payment via web page (failed because it wanted a Norwegian mobile number), or payment by phone bill (failed for similar reasons).

 

[yessuz]

I had problems with both. I tried two high speed chargers and neither accepted simple tap and go card payments. The only non subscription options on offer were card payment via web page (failed because it wanted a Norwegian mobile number), or payment by phone bill (failed for similar reasons).

it is very interesting, as from Bjorn's videos I have had an impression that this is more or less not existant issue in Norway

 

[thewishy]

Apps and general access were a problem on both AC and DC. There is a lot of fragmentation, no roaming networks like electroverse.
I tried 1 dc charger (Eviny) which involved an app install, registration partly in Norwegian and a credit card. It was a pain in the bottom, and I just stuck with superchargers from there onwards. (cheaper anyway)

If you've signed up to all the apps and are local, of course it doesn't look like a problem on YouTube, but it's a lot of faf and supercharger are mostly plentiful.

Observation is DC rapids were everywhere and looked fresh, modern and online. If you faf around with the app for 5+ mins

 

[D Good]

I must ask, how are you getting 236 Wh/mile? I average around 300-310 at 80mph and 250 at 60mph in my LR. Then again, I did put stickier tires on it (Michelin pilot sport all season 4s) at 30k miles.

 

[yessuz]

I must ask, how are you getting 236 Wh/mile? I average around 300-310 at 80mph and 250 at 60mph in my LR. Then again, I did put stickier tires on it (Michelin pilot sport all season 4s) at 30k miles.

i have bolded this for you...

When I drive to work, I keep 70 mph speed limit (72 mph on autopilot). over 150 mile journey it is about 230 wh/mile.

When drove in france this summer, kept 130 at 130 speed limit. which is 80 mph - overall consumption was ~300 wh/mile.

here's your answer.

 

[thewishy]

I did mention that Norway was kind on efficiency. It's an 80 kph (~50) limit for most of countryside, speed fines are high and I can't be arsed with dealing with the police, let alone Norwegian! Plus to be honest that feels about right in terms of speed...
Netherlands also has a general 100kph limit on their motorway. That was exceedingly tedious.

For the German autobahns I mostly stuck to 130 (where traffic permitted), it was a long driving day back, and there wasn't much point wearing myself out driving fast. Plus I would be stopping more. (I did have a few blasts of course... Just not the majority of it)

It's mostly just about what speed you do, and to a lesser extent smooth driving

 

[MovingSouth]

There is a lot of fragmentation, no roaming networks like electroverse.

But Electroverse shows an extensive network of available chargers in Norway and all the other countries on the route. Shell Recharge looks to have fewer in Norway, but still a reasonable number on the main routes. Is there a problem using either?

 

[thewishy]

Recharge network was the only network with decent coverages and reasonable prices in the area of norway I went round. There is also some ionity, but didn't seem to the in the right spots. (Basically they overlap quite a lot with the supercharger provision). Recharge network seemed to focus more on petrol station type locations, which aren't ideal places to spend extended periods of time (Some units are 50kw, but the 200kw units will be based on 800v, so expect half of that)
Eon and Shell wanted insane money, and aren't particularly common int he rural areas. Mer and Eviny were very common and were located in supermarket carparks, ie places you'd want to spend half an hour anyway.

Norway is a big country, so it looks like there is better coverage than there actually is once you work out the routes. Obviously this is based on one trip, but the fragmentation and lack of easy payment options at chargers was frustrating.

 

[jontie]

Hi
We also had a fantastic 3-week road trip to Norway in May-June 2023, travelling via Holland, Germany, Denmark, including Belgium and France on the return. Here is more info to share.

In our case, we were able to use superchargers exclusively (to 80/85% SoC in our 2021 M3LR). Our planning consisted of identifying supercharger locations from the Tesla web site, visualising them on Google Maps/Street View and dropping pins on our My Maps itinerary. We registered with Bilkraft and Fortum Charge apps as a backup but never needed to use public chargers. Superchargers worked every time, tariffs lower than UK everywhere.

We reduced the driving distance by integrating overnight sea crossings: Stena Harwich to Hook of Holland, DFDS Copenhagen to Oslo (brilliant morning arrival through Oslofjord), Hurtigruten Trondheim to Bergen (impressive afternoon arrival in Bergen) and Holland Norway Lines Kristiansand to Emden (since gone bankrupt!).

We found route planning more challenging than we are used to in France, particularly for roads like Sognefjellet and Trollstigen which close in winter and snow is not cleared until late May. ABRP was the workhorse for estimating range/likely charge stops but we found the Norway Road Authority site www.vegvesen.no/trafikk to be really useful for detailed planning. It gives good time estimates, shows road closures and has cameras to visualise actual conditions.

It is worth getting a toll tag for Norway (we used Fremtind Service to register online). Your car is registered to the tag and there is extra discount for EVs on toll roads and internal ferry crossings.

We had unexpectedly good weather and I have a light right foot. For our 2,225 miles we averaged 4.4 mls/kWh on 508kWh used from the Tesla metrics, though with 523kWh actually delivered from chargers so 4.25mls/kWh net.

We had a great example of the benefits of regen. En route from Bismo supercharger to Geiranger we stopped at Dalsnibba viewing point 1500m at 63% SoC, the Tesla estimating 71% SoC for arrival at Geiranger at sea level below. The Tesla was spot on with approx. 6kWh regenerated in the 16km descent, no braking. The bad news was that I told my wife I would eat my hat if the car estimate was correct!

 

[WannabeOwner]

The bad news was that I told my wife I would eat my hat if the car estimate was correct!

Photo - or it didn't happen !!

 

[thewishy]

We reduced the driving distance by integrating overnight sea crossings: Stena Harwich to Hook of Holland, DFDS Copenhagen to Oslo (brilliant morning arrival through Oslofjord), Hurtigruten Trondheim to Bergen (impressive afternoon arrival in Bergen) and Holland Norway Lines Kristiansand to Emden (since gone bankrupt!).

We said we'd consider ferries if we ever did it again. A day driving constantly between Denmark and the Netherlands was a bit much, and Malmo to past Oslo was also quite a day. But the Holland Norway line has gone bankrupt, and most of the routes I looked at were moderately expensive and didn't save time, just driving. Overall I'd probably have taken the Holland Line if we did the trip a second time, although also possible we'd fly to Tromso and see if we could rent a Tesla, as the north is very very pretty as well....

We found route planning more challenging than we are used to in France, particularly for roads like Sognefjellet and Trollstigen which close in winter and snow is not cleared until late May. ABRP was the workhorse for estimating range/likely charge stops but we found the Norway Road Authority site www.vegvesen.no/trafikk to be really useful for detailed planning. It gives good time estimates, shows road closures and has cameras to visualise actual conditions.

Didn't have to worry too much in the summer, main difficulty was working out a sane route with places to stop, and trying to get as much prettiness as time allowed.

We had a great example of the benefits of regen. En route from Bismo supercharger to Geiranger we stopped at Dalsnibba viewing point 1500m at 63% SoC, the Tesla estimating 71% SoC for arrival at Geiranger at sea level below. The Tesla was spot on with approx. 6kWh regenerated in the 16km descent, no braking. The bad news was that I told my wife I would eat my hat if the car estimate was correct!

Yes, also noticed this. A lot of "Hang on, so I need to drive for 2 hours now, and I'm going to arrive with more juice in the battery than I have now". I've seen similar in a few places with large hills, but only (Eg I arrive in 10 minutes with +2-3%), but rarely on this sort of scale! (Looking at the map, it was actually the same viewpoint, but it happened quite a few locations!)

 

[WannabeOwner]

"Hang on, so I need to drive for 2 hours now, and I'm going to arrive with more juice in the battery than I have now"

When I've done that in the Alps, in the Winter (starting at the top of the hill with a cold battery) the battery could not maintain temperature to allow regen so, after a bit, regen was "zero" and I was on friction brakes I had been granny-charging all night until departure, so that was definitely not enough to warm the battery (enough).

 

[jontie]

Photo - or it didn't happen !!

There was discussion but the hat is still intact and the wife still travels with me in the Tesla! More seriously, our Norway trip reinforced how speed (with temperature) is such a significant factor on efficiency. We drive to southern France 2-3 times per year and rarely cruise at the full 130kph that the autoroutes allow.