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Charging apps in Europe

2.4K views 7 replies 6 participants last post by  Gilles  
#1 ·
Hello everyone. In about three weeks, I will be taking my 2023 XC40 Recharge Twin on a long trip from Finland through to Central Europe and the Baltic States. This will be the first time the car goes outside of Finland, and I am looking for any advice regarding charging. More specifically -- which charging apps to install on my phone. I can use Ionity if I need to, but maybe there can be better prices with the local charging apps?

I will go through the following countries:
  • Sweden
  • Denmark
  • Germany
  • Switzerland
  • Austria
  • Czech Republic
  • Poland
  • Lithuania
  • Latvia
  • Estonia

Thank you in advance for your inputs.
 
#6 · (Edited)
The best rates, use Tesla's network with the special subscription which you can get from the app. It costs 12€ per month. You can cancel any time (so right after your trip). From the app, just select "Charge your non-Tesla".

If you don't have Tesla nearby, you can fall back to IONITY. They are expensive... but... if you use the Freshmile app, to charge on their network, you get very low per kWh rates plus a somewhat OK rate per minute... If you do charges up to 20 minutes, it's almost as cheap as Tesla's subscription price.

All these (Tesla, IONITY, and Freshmile) are present all over Europe... and will give you great rates and availability. Freshmile is free. But you need to get an NFC token from them to use the IONITY chargers. Can't do it from the app. You pay (not much) for the token.

You can also check out ChargePoint (which gives you great rates, in particular at LIDL charging stations). ChargePoint is free. But you can get a charging NFC card from them for a small fee - useful in machines that don't support app charging.

I drove (last 2 weeks) across France (where I live), Switzerland (did a Tesla recharge), Lichteinstein (went to recharge 10 minutes away in Austria), Austria, and Germany. Did all my recharges on Tesla. This summer I also drove across France to a place where there was no convenient Tesla charger, so used IONITY with the Freshmile app. All worked fine.