For our summer holiday this year my family decided to take a road trip through Spain down to Andalusia. Originally we planned to drive from the UK but due to time constraints we ended up flying to Madrid. TLDR;
We drove 2,769km across central and South East Spain this summer. The experience of the road trip itself was fine, being armed with several RFID cards and a decent amount of experience of EV road tripping.
Charging in more rural places across a 2 week villa stay was more challenging, due to sparsely distributed rapid chargers. There were plenty of 7kw and below charging points, but they were often ICE’d or out of service.
In terms of cost, the rental itself was £680 for 3 weeks, and we spent roughly £185 on charging, working out at 11p/mile. Background
We rented a Ford Mustang Mach-e well in advance through Europcar. I was considering buying one this year to replace our e-Niro, so it seemed a perfect opportunity to get an extended test drive.
As ever, the EV rental pickup experience was not great. At the rental desk they were surprised we wanted an EV, and tried to upgrade us to a hybrid Audi. It’s just as well we were experienced as we weren’t given any information about charging.
Our rental car had fairly low mileage, but was covered in large dents and scratches. I hadn’t driven a Mach-e before but I quickly found out the reason for the dents — the last driver had left it on “Untamed” mode, which gives an insane amount of instant torque, certainly too much for new drivers to the car, let alone new drivers to EVs.
I had to dive through a bunch of touchscreen menus to change the drive mode to Normal, so I suspect other renters hadn’t even known it was possible to tone down the accelerator pedal. Route Overview of stops on our trip
Our plan was to drive from Madrid down to near Zahara de la Sierra in Andalusia, stay there for 2 weeks, and then drive back via Valencia. Madrid — Consuegra (136km) Press enter or click to view image in full size At Don Quixote’s windmills in Consuegra
Our first leg was easy; we left the Novotel Madrid Campo de las Naciones with 100% charge after charging overnight in their underground car park, meaning we didn’t have to stop en route to Consuegra.
This cost €15 for the parking, and we had to ask at the reception for an adapter we needed to plug in the (type 1) charger, which required a €10 deposit. Consuegra — Cordoba (270km)
From the literal desert and figurative charging desert of Consuegra we drove down to Cordoba. We left Consuegra with probably about 60% charge — I don’t know the exact model of Mach-e we had but its full range was reported as around 330km.
I tried to avoid using Tesla chargers wherever possible (because, well, Elon Musk), so my planned charging stop was a Wenea 100kw charger at Hotel La Perdiz. This did not go well as neither charger engaged with the car —I got a flashing red light of doom from the car and this seemed to become a pattern with the Mach-e.
My backup plan was to use the nearest Tesla charger, so I hastily punched that into ABRP.
Or I thought I did – it turned out we sped past it and on to a rather bizarre IONITY location on an industrial estate just outside Jaén. It delivered 25kwh in 15 mins and then decided to stop working. I tried again a few times but the car disconnected each time.
But the charger had at least given us enough for our onward journey so we went on our way. Cordoba — El Jaral (203km)
As hoped on arrival in Cordoba we were able to use the single EV charger in our hotel’s underground car park (Hotel Macià Alfaros). So for €15 we were able to get around 80kwh overnight to 100% which was great.
The exit from the underground car park was less great, in that the S-bend you had to exit through really wasn’t built with a car the width or length of a Mach-e. After probably the most stressful and tightest driving situation I’ve ever been in, we got out without even a tiny scratch — thankful for the front-camera in the car. (Incidentally if you ever park here I recommend speaking to reception and exiting through the entrance!)
For the drive itself we didn’t need to charge, but given our final destination seemed to be a bit of a charging desert we wanted to get in a fast charge as close as possible. This took us to a Tesla supercharger just outside Osuna — a huge, deserted motorway service station with more than a hint of Twin Peaks about it. Press enter or click to view image in full size Wonderful display in the restaurant by the Tesla Supercharger location outside Osuna
From there we went on to our destination via Ronda and grabbed some food and a free charge from Lidl. El Jaral & around
Our villa was up in the mountains, luckily not down too many narrow winding roads, and had a stunning view across to Zahara de la Sierra. Press enter or click to view image in full size Arrival at El Jaral
We got by on the residual charge and another shopping trip to Lidl for the first week. Become a member
Week two started with a road trip around the area, stopping at the Enel X Way charger in Grazalema for 2 hours (21kWh charged through Kia Charge RFID card for €8).
The next day we did a 275km round trip to a beach just south of Cadiz. This was a rather frustrating experience as the Electroverse app directed us to an impressive-sounding charging hub with 24 chargers up to 188kw. When we arrived it quickly became clear that not a single charger existed at the location!
After a search we found a relatively close 100kw Wenea charger down a random residential road which worked great. This was the first time we went below 20% charge, and given how close we were to a big city it was surprising how few fast chargers there were.
Other than that in week two we found the lack of fast chargers (or even very many destination chargers) around where we were staying a bit frustrating. In Ronda we found that the chargers in La Concepción car park worked well with the Shell RFID card, but were well below the 9kw advertised. We had a hugely frustrating experience in another car park near there, wasting 30 minutes trying to get a charger to work in the blazing heat before being told by the attendant that none of them worked!
Thankfully our hosts at our villa allowed us to charge using a home AC plug, which the Mach-e had in its frunk. We used this a little during the second week just to get us by without having to drive anywhere specifically just to charge. El Jaral — Almeria (362km)
By comparison with the rural mountains, the return journey was simple. On this leg we only needed one 45min stop at a Tesla Supercharger (58kWh) to get us to our destination.
We arrived at our hotel and found an available Enel X Way charger just outside, so we got a good 57kWh out of that overnight and were ready for our trip to Cartagena the next day with 100%. Almeria — Mar Menor (233km)
After an uneventful drive from Almeria (no charging stops), we arrived at the somewhat post-apocalyptic landscape of Occidental Mar Menor. Clearly we hadn’t done our research on hotels for this stop, because Mar Menor is famously an ecological disaster zone. Press enter or click to view image in full size Occidental Mar Menor hotel — a surreal, otherworldly experience
We parked on the street so didn’t take advantage of the EV chargers that were on offer in the Occidental’s underground car park. Mar Menor — Valencia (293km) Press enter or click to view image in full size Nice trip up the coast with a charge stop next to a McDonald’s
Not charging overnight meant that we had to find a rapid charger en route to the next stop in Valencia. We found an Ionity charger a 30min drive from the hotel — this was easily the worst charging experience we had the whole trip.
There were a bank of six 350kw chargers, but each one we tried, repeatedly disconnected after a few minutes, with the car reporting a fault with the charger. Other drivers including a Kia EV6 and Tesla pulled up and charged seemingly without issue.
Another Mustang Mach-e driver pulled up and also had issues. She was entirely new to EVs — the Mustang was foisted upon her by a car rental company with no help offered on how to charge the car.
She was having the same issues as us, but didn’t have any RFID cards, so was getting hit by a €30 pre-authorization charge every time she reconnected the car.
She was on the phone to Ionity who just suggested swapping chargers, which also didn’t really work for her, they all failed.
I suggested she try creating an account on the Tesla app and going to the nearest supercharger, at least that way she’d get a fast, reliable charge without the heavy pre-authorization fees. The problem was there weren’t any very near at all, and she just wanted to top up the car while her young family waited in the holiday place they were staying in. Valencia — Aranjuez (348km) Press enter or click to view image in full size
We used the underground car park of the Primus Valencia hotel and got a full overnight charge from one of the 2 charging points there.
The next leg was a long drive, but unremarkable for the most part. The Tesla charging stop was fine. Aranjuez — Madrid (62km)
We stayed at another Occidental, which was again rather run-down, and again we parked on the street overnight.
Arriving back at Europcar in the morning, we had roughly 18% charge left. Incidentally, the Mach-e has a very panicked noise and light show up when you hit around 20%, which happened to us twice over the trip.
Europcar did a good job on returning the car and did not try to get any extra fees by finding phantom scratches on the car. Summary
Overall it was a great trip with probably a total of 2 hours of frustration over the 3 weeks at various out of service charging points.
There was definitely a bit of anxiety about getting a full charge when we were staying up in the mountains, due to a 90min drive to the nearest rapid chargers.
Otherwise it was an enjoyable road trip; it seems Andalusia’s charging infrastructure clearly has a lot to catch up with France and the UK, and even my experience of Mallorca in 2022.
As for the Mustang Mach-e, it was ok to drive, quite spacious inside and a good looking car, we got quite a few head turns in some of the more rural villages.
But to me it seemed a bit of a silly car — the fake engine sounds on acceleration and lack of decent EV-specific info when driving or charging the car were frustrating. It’s kind of an EV that seems a bit embarrassed or unsure whether to fully embrace the electric part of itself.
Also it seemed that the Mach-e was a lot more temperamental with charging than my experiences with other EVs. Several times we had issues with chargers that other cars did not, and meeting another Mach-e driver with the same issues as us only reinforced that impression.