Travelling to France - Cable rental?

[farquois]

Next week, I'm am driving around Northern and Western France for two weeks with the family.

I understand I can use the three-pin (UK) charging cable supplied with the car, a UK to Europe adapter and a standard wall socket to charge the car.

I'm hoping there will be some charging points dotted around on our journey, so I'd like to be able to use these. I've heard many of these are without a cable (untethered) and you have to use Type1-Type2 cable.

I don't think I'm going to use have need to use the cable after this trip, so I was wondering whether there is anywhere to rent a Type1-Type2 cable?

 

[maby]

Never heard of anyone offering that, I'm afraid.

Be careful connecting the supplied box up using a continental adaptor - many of the little things sold in airport and dock lounges are not rated for the current that will be drawn and they all invert the live and negative connections - not sure what impact that could have on safety.

 

[jaapv]

Switching live and neutral will not make a difference. Unlike the UK adapters, most adapters for Schuko plugs are rated for 16 Amps, we do not have fused plugs on the continent. But make sure you do not use an adapter meant for sockets without earth connection. It will not fit the required Schuko socket and may have a lower amp rating.

 

[maby]

Switching live and neutral will not make a difference. Unlike the UK adapters, most adapters for Schuko plugs are rated for 16 Amps, we do not have fused plugs on the continent. But make sure you do not use an adapter meant for sockets without earth connection. It will not fit the required Schuko socket and may have a lower amp rating.

It's the suitability of the cheap Schuko-13A UK adaptors that I'm questioning - the things that are often offered in airport departure lounges do not give the impression of being able to comfortably carry 10A or more - they are really intended to let you plug in your laptop.

 

[Brownp16]

I have just returned from a month in Spain. I used a British extension cable with an adaptor as described above to charge up each day. I did find that one adapter did seem to overheat and appear a little 'burnt' around one of the pins after a while. I swapped adapters and the replacement was fine. The villa had a modern fuse system.
It worked fine on the whole.
Hope that helps
Phil

 

[maby]

If you are going to do this frequently, it probably makes sense to make up an adaptor by connecting a good quality Shuko plug to a similarly good 13A trailing socket with some good thick three core cable - no doubts about current carrying capacity and you can maintain the polarity correctly.

 

[jaapv]

You cannot maintain polarity as you will not know which side of the Schuko plug is up. You do not even know which way it is in the socket, unless you have one of these testing screwdrivers in your pocket. It does not matter a single bit either.

 

[maby]

You cannot maintain polarity as you will not know which side of the Schuko plug is up. You do not even know which way it is in the socket, unless you have one of these testing screwdrivers in your pocket. It does not matter a single bit either.

I thought they all had earth pins these days - the ones fitted to my French made boat certainly do!

It does matter from the safety point of view - RCD trip switches may not work reliably if the polarity is reversed and any failure of insulation is far more serious.

 

[jaapv]

Only in certain countries, like the French type E; in Germany and the Netherlands certainly not (type F). For universal use on the continent you need one with a (blind) pinhole, but in most places you will get away with the plain one.
The box on your PHEV charger is double insulated and thus theoretically rated for use without earth lead. Look for the double square symbol.
On the continent RCD switches are fitted centrally.

List of countries and plug type:

http://www.iec.ch/worldplugs/list_bylocation.htm

http://www.iec.ch/worldplugs/typeF.htm