ë-C4 Nordic Adventure
I’m testing them all: racing the Taycan home from Berlin and driving a rental ID.3 to Berlin using exclusively free fast charging. About time for the first test of 2022!
This winter, Citroën offered a winter tyre equipped ë-C4, and I was just planning a ride from Amsterdam to Stockholm!
Out of the ordinary road trip
Many times when using rental vehicles, I end up doing a bit of a “squeezed” holiday ride, shooting some video halfway and booking a week because that’s usually the most cost-effective option. Not so this time. I’m picking up my partner nearby Lund, where her parents settled this year. Driving up is a nearly 1000 km trip, and final goal Stockholm isn’t that close from Lund either!
Since I’m leaving Amsterdam just after Christmas, it’s pretty much guaranteed to be winter weather and indeed I reach a snowy Denmark, I’m driving through the rain & wind.
Driving winter tires, in bad weather, it’s going to be a bit of a challenging tour. Perfect!
During the ride, I’m swerving from being happy with the small (and relatively fast charging) battery and that way getting to do so many useful tests of charging infrastructure. But then my girlfriend joins in Sweden and of course I now have to let go of some nerdiness, and it should just be a comfortable ride.
Riding electric takes a bit more preparation compared to just filling up sometimes at a petrol station here and there. With the right tools and planning, it can be a lot of fun, though!
IONITY Aabenraa, about 30 km into DK coming from Hamburg.
Before the start (time for some tech)
I recommend any driver of an electric vehicle with open access OBD port (like the PSA vehicles, e-20(0)8, Mokka, this C4 and so on) to make use of this opportunity. It’s easy to install a dongle like my PowerCruiseControl version. Be aware that for all PSA vehicles, you need a converter for the dongle (the red one is the converter, the white one is the original dongle).
PowerCruiseControl, without it, this tour would’ve been difficult!
Unfortunately, many electric vehicles still don’t give easy access to your (battery) statistics on the dashboard. Supposedly I guess they don’t want to make things difficult for “end users”, but instead they are creating fuzzy software that makes it hard to figure out what’s actually going on (with the battery, consumption, and so on). PowerCruiseControl tells me that when fully charged there is 40kWh usable battery available from the get-go. Now that’s useful data!
Comfort
This ë-C4 (Shine edition) seems to have it all!
Heated seats: check.
Heated steering wheel: check.
Pre-heating through the app: check.
Heated glass: check!
But then I find this button to my left: massage seats. And I will never forget driving a vehicle some years ago that gave the driver a massage seat, but not the passenger. Not the case in this Citroën: by the end of our trip, my girlfriend and I have become hooked on the massage seats.
One truly noticeable difference with for example the e-2008 I drove recently: this steering wheel is incredibly light to use. Whether that fits your style is up to you, but it’s impressive and adds to the luxury vibes.
Another feature: the plush seats. Wow, I can confidently say after driving 3500+ km in two weeks that my back is happy!
Oh, I almost forgot to mention the HUD! While slightly less premium since the glass is popping up when you start the engine, has a nice robotic vibe to it, I have to say.
Only disappointment: we didn’t get the panorama roof, which is a personal favorite!
Time to get into the charging!
Charged excitement
Covering the distance as I’ve done it in the past weeks you’ll believe I’ve been fast charging on a (nearly) daily basis, which I like to describe as fun and the ë-C4 plays a big role because of its capabilities.
Would you believe who’s charging the fastest in this picture?
IONITY Norrköping
If you have been following the tour on Polarsteps you already know the answer. It was far from the only time the ë-C4 turned out to be quite the champ at the fast charger, it’s also fun that thanks to the small battery, it’s easy to arrive with (very) low State of Charge % (SoC). Whether that makes you (un)comfortable is impossible for me to decide. Maybe I should offer low state of charge training. What do you think?
Nordic infrastructure
It was earlier that day I ran into ‘Swedish Lunch Syndrome’ nearby Mjölby on our way to Stockholm.
I thought it would be smart to have a snack somewhere and do some charging at the same time.
First try: mAx (local fast food chain in Sweden, many veggie options). They have an EOn 50kW….in use.
Second try: Burger King. They have a MER 50kW….in use.
Third try: Pizza Hut. They have an InCharge 50kW…in use.
Fourth try: McDonald’s. They have a Recharge (Fortum) 50kW…in use.
Just look at the photos. If you want to make your passengers in the car unhappy during a hungry moment, I recommend you follow in my footsteps… If restaurants and charging companies don’t step up their game, it’s going to be a tough one, 2022.
I might write one or more blogs about this charged lunch disaster, that depends on the things that will happen and others that get announced this year around Europe. I’ll add one more thing, though: all these fast chargers were found by me driving around the parking lots at crawling speeds.
None of these chargers were announced by any signs whatsoever. What does that tell you?
Spending some days in Stockholm
Most days we didn’t use the car, but of course, I had to take some pictures when we did.
Norrmalm, Stockholm, 30th of December 2021. More pictures on Polarsteps.
Kungliga Operan, Stockholm.
Sweden loves shining some light into the Darkness.
Nordic infrastructure part two
My experience left me a bit concerned. This was IONITY Gränna (in between Göteborg & Stockholm), when we arrived an EQS left the slot we are using here. You might think this station can handle more vehicles, but it cannot. This white light is false. The charger is not working. This station is running at full capacity, and let me tell you another thing you might not have expected: we are again charging the fastest. An EV6 arrived before we were done…
It feels like we got lucky, which is nice for us, but what does it mean for the next holiday weekend over here?
Thanks to some Swedish insider advice, we took the scenic route from Göteborg to Stockholm in the first week of 2022. This led us to some of the newest infrastructure of Sweden. Allego Mariestad.
East of Karlskoga is where we found IONITY, Allego is north of Skövde!
But before we made it there, we visited one of the biggest IONITY stations of Sweden. This time we were not charging the fastest! But also, not the slowest!
Just a winter day with lots of slush. IONITY Örebro.
Allego Mariestad
This year Allego will hopefully open up some more Swedish stations because they will be needed! It was even rumoured to be a drive-through station up next. Well, I’m ready for it!
Small YouTube impression of Allego Mariestad:
The Road to Home
Before you know it, the holidays are over, and it was time to head back to Amsterdam from Lund. It is a nearly 1000 km ride, but this time I’m not alone. (I tested eco mode on the way to Lund, as recommended to me on Polarsteps. Unfortunately the heating (PTC heater) powers down significantly and that means even with my jacket on and freezing cold outside, it was hard to keep enjoying the ride, consumption dropped dramatically though).
Nearby Bremen, Fastned had just opened before I went on this tour! I arrived with just an e-tron there, minutes later it was nearly a full house!
As always you can click through the full travel log, every charger I’ve seen on this ride is in there.
Thanks Citroën Nederland! What a trip!
The full travel log, here.