Petrol in France was typically significantly dearer than in the UK. On motorways it was often well over 2 euros per litre, and I never saw it less than about €1.65. The equivalent in pounds would be well over £1.80 and never below £1.45. Currently it is £1.32 at my local garage.
By contrast, electric car charging was a bargain. Here in the UK you will rarely find a public charger at under 60p per kWh, and a high speed charger is likely to be around 89p - I've never looked on motorways, but I suspect they may be even higher. Note that to be cheaper than petrol, electricity needs to be under around 45p/kWh.
The cheapest we found in France (Lidl) was 39c (34p) for a high speed charger and even on a motorway, where petrol was over €2 I found a high speed charger at under 50c (44p). You can pay, say 65c (57p) elsewhere, but nothing approaching UK pricing.
Then there's the matter of availability. I rarely need to use public chargers in the UK as I have a plug-in hybrid and can charge at home, but my first attempt at trying out chargers on a break in Cornwall was painful, and a second attempt recently was just as bad.
The railway station charger I tried to use last time had disappeared entirely as the car park it was in was temporarily closed. The Shell Recharge I used last time had also vanished while the filling station was rebuilt. I did find on a map an alleged 16 chargers on a Hayle business park. When I got there, I could only find four. Of these, three were in disabled bays and the fourth was inaccessible because a (diesel) van had parked across it.
I did again use the National Trust chargers at Killerton (I was disappointed how few NT sites have chargers), but that is now significantly more expensive, and the first charger I tried didn't work, needing a move to a second one.
Getting a decent network in place, with effective pricing, is an absolute essential if we are to move away from fossil fuels. We don't seem even to be trying.
This has been a Green Heretic production. See all my Green Heretic articles here.
Image by Unsplash+ Community from Unsplash+.
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