As you know, our van is a fully electric 2015 Nissan e-NV200 with a 24kWh battery pack, this was the only size battery available 7 years ago. We bought the van 2nd hand 6yrs ago in 2016 and converted it to a campervan.
The original 24kWh battery gave the van a range of 60-80 miles depending on driving style and road conditions. Despite the relatively low range it's not stopped us clocking up 63,000 miles including several long campervan trips around Europe as far as Slovenia, Hungry, several trips to Southern Spain and many to Northern Scotland. As we've proved and documented in this blog, the van with the original 24kWh battery is quite capable of long-distance travel provided this is done at a relaxed pace, and on the whole we’ve found public charging to be available and reliable even in more remote parts of continental Europe.
In 2018 Nissan introduced a 40kWh battery pack for the e-NV200 with almost double the energy capacity. Even though our original 24kWh battery pack is still very functional with currently 83% of its original capacity remaining, the prospect of upgrading our van to double its current range at a reasonable cost was very appealing. When the opportunity arose to obtain a 40kWh battery from a salvage vehicle, we decided to go ahead with the upgrade. I enlisted the help of an EV friendly local garage to help with the heavy lifting to do the physical swap then I did the electrical wiring work myself.
On 18th September 2021 I was involved in a mission to drive a 11.5-year-old 2010 Tesla Roadster with the original battery pack 848 miles across the entire lengths of the UK from Lands End to John O'Groats to prove that EV batteries can last a long time. The car managed the trip easily and did it in 21.5 hrs which is far faster than this car originally did the same trip back in 2011!
This particular Tesla Roadster is rather special to me, since it was the first EV I ever saw. Back in 2013 I attended a National Trust Hydro and ZeroCarbonWorld EV charge point launch event in Snowdonia, North Wales. I remember being blown away when Kevin told me the car had a range of about 200 miles! This experience sowed the seed from my enthusiasm in electric vehicles.
My partner Amy recently wrote an article for UKC about how to use trains to go on climbing trips. Here's a link to the original article. The article was based on the experiances Amy and I have had taking the train to climbing destinations all over Europe and even all the way to China! Here's a copy of the article:
Ihave done quite a few climbing trips by train in the last 10 years and find myself talking to people who are interested in it for different reasons, but who are unsure of practicalities and logistics. I thought I would write an article to share some of my top train tips and suggested trip ideas.
About to board the ICE 19 from Brussels to Cologne
This article was still in draft form in March, so I put it on hold (because who would want to be thinking about travelling in the middle of a pandemic?). However, 3 months later and I'm starting to hear people talking about their ideas for future trips, wanting to make plans they can dream about and look forward to. Across Europe restrictions are lifting, travel corridors are opening and train services are resuming. The European Commission has also proposed making 2021 the European Year of Rail, to support the delivery of its European Green Deal objectives in the transport field, and the European Council is supporting it. So maybe this is as good a time as any to be sharing a bit of train information and inspiration!
*Remember to check travel restrictions and COVID-19 regulations in each country you travel to/through before booking a trip and keep up-to-date while en route - the situation may have changed.
How I got into train travel and my motivations
My first international train journey in relation to a climbing trip was actually both for convenience and the pure glee of putting a whimsical idea into practice. I was planning how I would get home from Italy while my partner continued on his European van trip. We would be climbing in Finale Ligure and I saw on Google Maps that there was a local train station right on the coast. A bit of investigation showed me that I could go from Finale all the way to Bristol city centre by train! So a few months later, after a day's climbing and eating dinner on the beach, I strolled into the station, hopped on an evening train to Milan, caught a sleeper, woke up in Paris, took the Eurostar to London and was home in Bristol that afternoon. I had read my book, sorted out photos, chatted with a nice Italian family whom I was sharing the sleeper compartment with, slept, eaten a croissant from a French bakery, looked out the window and arrived back with my mind gently transitioned from holiday to home mode. It was an amazing journey and my partner had headed off to Céüse without me causing him any awkward airport detours.
For that trip environmental motives were far from my mind, if there had been an airport in Finale Ligure I probably would have flown. However, in recent years my attitude has changed as I have learned more about the impact my travel choices have. For those unaware of the carbon differences, here is a graph comparing the travel options between Manchester and Avignon, France (assuming you are not considering cycling with all your climbing gear!).
This post was written from the perspective of a Welshman travelling from Wales in the United Kingdom to mainland Europe.
Following on from my previous post in this series European EV Road Trip Part 1: RFID, Apps and Planning, this post will cover what EV charging cables and accessories we've used while travelling around Europe in an EV.
The first part of the post will cover what cables I would recommend for a normal EV car travelling in Europe, while the 2nd part of the post will cover the charging setup I use in our e-NV200 EV self-converted camper van.
European EV Charging Cables (AC)
The Short version (TLDR): No, special cables required!
Just use the normal (Type-2) EV charging cable that came with your EV, that will work on all public AC charging stations in Europe. DC Rapid charging doesn't require any cables since the cables are attached to the rapid charging unit.
