While 100% electric cars have accounted for almost 15% of new vehicle sales since the start of the year, more and more French people will be taking to the road for the summer holidays in these zero-emission models. But, for many, this switch to electric is a real adventure as the big outings approach.
Autonomy and recharging problems
For 71% of the French, the voiture is not adapted to the conduite sur autoroute, révèle une étude Viavoice pour le groupe Sanef*, which exploits 1807 km of autoroutes in France, mainly in Normandie, in the north and the east from France.
The same observation for long trips of more than 350 km to go on vacation: 78% of the French cannot imagine driving an electric car.
Logically, it is the lack of autonomy over long distances that those surveyed point out in the first place, with 75% of French people mentioning it between the brakes when going on vacation in an electric car. We find in second position, the loading time, mentioned by 65% and the difficulty of locating the appropriate terminals, by 56%.
More and more terminals, especially on motorways
Preconceived ideas about the electric car that today no longer necessarily make sense. Of course, it all depends on the vehicle. If we take a Dacia Spring, limited in autonomy, as in recharging time, necessarily the vacation outing promises to be a short trip in perspective.
But many models now have a range that can be considered sufficient for a long trip. Tesla models, of course, that can take advantage of the network of superchargers and ranges at the high end of the market. Or an MG4, whose price currently starts at 33,990 euros (without bonuses) for a version equipped with a large battery that offers 450 km of theoretical autonomy, therefore a priori at least 200 km on the highway, and a fast charge of 135 kW.
On the highway side, the network of charging stations has also become significantly denser in recent years.
“The Sanef group has installed 650 ultra-fast electric charging points (20 minutes on average) in all its service areas, that is, approximately every 50 km,” underlines the press release that includes the study.
The French Electricity Union (UFE), which brings together professionals in the sector, publishes a regularly updated map on its site, and it is estimated that 9 out of 10 motorway areas are already equipped.
*Methodology: 1001 interviews conducted online from March 31 to April 3, 2023 with a representative sample of the French mainland population aged 18 and over (quota method applied to the criteria of sex, age, occupation of the interviewees after of stratification by region and agglomeration category)
Source: BFM TV
