Day 16: Dunkirk (France) → Cherbourg (France)
We woke up this morning for 07:30 breakfast – after just over five hours of sleep. We would have loved a lie in – but we still have 500 km today to drive across Normandy to reach the port of Cherbourg for our new ferry back to Dublin.
We step outside to our fully charged car – which will take out on IONITY charge today – helpful.
There are loads of armed French soldiers milling around this morning – mostly smoking cigarettes – they were staying at our hotel overnight and there were a lot of military vehicles parked around that we missed arriving so late in last night.
We pack away our Type 2 charging cable into our frunk for the last time.
And head west across Normandy towards Cherbourg – into a very wet morning.
That thankfully dries up between the heavy showers.
This is the Normandy of D-Day fame – with many of the beach code-words (Utah, Omaha, etc) on the sign-posts. Our very first road-trip – and our first time driving on the "wrong" side – in our then new 1.6L diesel Volvo S40 was exploring this part of France and visiting the WW2 sites.
With many long slopes downwards giving us some regen possibilities.
Our first charging stop is in the Somme – where we take on some energy. Our first time here – on our first trip to Norway – we sat on the "spare IONITY pedestal" placeholders and ate some pizza. It is good to see them expanding the existing stations to six pedestals.
It is also a bit surreal to see here as "just a convenient charging location" considering what happened here in 1916.
We follow a 911 for a while – easily keeping up with it – and it was interesting to see we had much faster acceleration – but eventually we left them away – uncomfortable with their high average speed among speed cameras.
Crossing over the The Pont de Normandie – the longest suspension bridge in France – at Le Havre.
Plugging in for our final charge on this road-trip.
Which was chaos. The station is located on a busy entrance that had a literal traffic jam into the motorway service station. The line of illegally parked cars also didn't help. We really wish that IONITY station designers and motorway service owners treated charging an EV like they do fuelling a car and less like "parking spots".
It would be easy to miss getting a charge here due to layout and the lack of a reasonable place to queue.
We waited in the "spare" space but when the charger beside us freed up – it was tricky enough to move into that space against the traffic jam. Another Irish reg car pulled in beside us with the same problem - when a charger freed up we helped them by standing in the line of traffic to block it and allow them to reverse into the charging space.
Nobody getting petrol has to do this shit.
We stopped in for a quick bite into a car park that had many cute Citroen Ami's in it – our first time seeing them in person.
Arriving at Cherbourg for our ferry with plenty of time. The satellite view of the port reminding us of an aircraft carrier.
Driving up the ramp to board.
And up a tight ramp within the ships car deck. We're so glad here of the ability to raise up our car using its air suspension.
And squeeze in among our fellow passengers – heading to our cabin – the last one available for an 18 hour crossing and an 18 hour sleep!
The days charging stats
| Location | Start SOC % | End SOC % | kWh added | Cost | Duration | Ambient Temp | Battery Temp | Charger Type | Network |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IONITY Somme | 35% | 75% | 32.97 | €10.88 | 22 mins | 22 | 41 | DC 350 kW | IONITY |
| IONITY Giberville Noord | 13% | 88% | 66.57 | €21.97 | 23 mins | 24 | 42 | DC 350 kW | IONITY |
Today we did 521 km over 8:18 hours, with an average speed of 64 km/h, consuming 26.8 kWh/100km.
