How to travel by electric car: a practical guide to long trips

Updated 6 October 2026 · Figures calculated with the evrouteplan simulator

A long trip in an electric car goes well when you know three things before leaving: how many kilometres your car will really do, where you will stop to charge and how long you will be stopped. This guide explains what changes those three figures and how to use them to your advantage, with numbers from real cars.

1. Real range is not the data-sheet range

The WLTP range is useful for comparing cars, but it is measured over a cycle with a lot of town driving and low speeds. On the motorway the air holds the car back much more and consumption rises. An example: the BYD Sealion 7 Excellence has 91.3 kWh usable and 502 km WLTP; at a steady 120 km/h, on the flat, at 20 °C and with no wind, the simulator gives it about 369 km on a full battery. At −5 °C it drops to about 331 km.

And nobody drives from 100 % to 0 %. The usual thing is to charge between 10 % and 70–80 %, where charging is fast: at 120 km/h that is about 236 km between stops. That is the number that really matters when planning.

2. Speed: the lever that moves the most

Consumption grows with the square of speed, because the air is almost all that holds a car back on the motorway. These are the figures for the BYD Sealion 7 Excellence, calculated from its measured constant-speed consumption (flat, 20 °C, no wind):

“Km between stops” is the distance it covers with a charge from 10 to 74 %, the stop the simulator considers best on a 150 kW charger. “Time per 100 km” adds the driving and the time to charge the energy used in those 100 km, including 5 minutes per stop to park, plug in, pay and pull out.

With this car, which charges fast, driving at 130 instead of 110 gets you there sooner (about 7 minutes less every 100 km), although it uses more: you lose about 41 km of range.

But driving faster does not get you there sooner with every car, or not by as much: it depends on how fast yours charges. What you gain on the road you spend again at the charger, because you use more energy and have to put it back. If your car charges fast, it pays off; if it charges slowly, it barely does, and there comes a point where going faster forces one more stop and the gain shrinks a lot or disappears. An example with the full simulator, on a theoretical 500 km trip on flat motorway with 150 kW chargers every 40 km: going from 100 to 120 km/h saves an Audi A6 e-tron (accepts up to 270 kW; 1 stop) about 47 minutes, but a Leapmotor T03 (accepts 30 kW; 6 stops) only about 25 minutes. That is why the simulator shows you, for your car and your route, the total time at each speed: so you can see where it stops paying off.

Speed is also a tool: dropping to 100–110 km/h on the last stretch is the easiest way to reach a charger that is a bit further than you thought, or to skip a stop.

3. Cold and heat

In the cold the car spends energy on heating and the air is denser, so it holds the car back more. The simulator counts climate control as power used the whole time: about 2.0 kW at 0 °C and 2.5 kW at −5 °C (between 18 and 24 °C there is no climate load; in the heat, about 0.9 kW at 35 °C). These are declared assumptions of the model, not measurements of each car. For the same Sealion 7 at 120 km/h:

Between 20 °C and −5 °C that is about 38 km less on a full battery. There is one more winter effect: a cold battery charges slowly. Many cars warm it up before arriving if you set the charger as the destination in their navigation. The simulator takes this into account at stops below 15 °C, with about 2.4 kWh to warm this battery at 0 °C (also a declared assumption).

What helps: leaving with the cabin already warm while the car is still plugged in at home, using seat and steering-wheel heating, which uses much less than heating the air, and keeping the tyre pressure right.

4. Wind

A headwind works like driving faster. At 120 km/h the Sealion 7 goes from 24.7 to 27.7 kWh/100 km with a 20 km/h headwind (12 % more) and drops to 22.2 with the same wind behind it (10 % less). Over a 200 km stretch that difference can mean one stop more or one stop less. That is why the simulator uses the wind forecast for each stretch of the route, at the time you will pass it.

5. Charging: the curve decides, not the charger

A 350 kW charger does not charge faster than a 150 kW one if your car does not accept more power. What decides the time is your car’s charging curve: the power it accepts at each battery percentage, which is high with the battery low and falls as it fills. Times from 10 to 80 % calculated with each car’s measured curve:

Look at the Alpine A290 GT: it accepts 100 kW, so it takes the same on a 150 kW charger as on a 350 kW one (31 min). On a 50 kW charger, on the other hand, the Sealion 7 goes from 28 to 81 minutes: choosing the right charger matters more than the car.

The last column is the key to travelling fast: short, frequent stops. Above a certain percentage charging is so slow that it pays to leave and stop again further on. The Audi Q4 e-tron 45, arriving with 10 % at a 150 kW charger, gets the most out of its stop by charging to 57 % in about 15 minutes, instead of the 29 minutes it would take to reach 80 %. The simulator works out that stop for each charger on your route, allowing for the fact that not all the energy the charger delivers reaches the battery (95 % is assumed).

6. The safety margin

A charger may be busy, broken or charge more slowly than it says. That is why it is worth arriving at each stop with a margin, usually between 10 and 20 %, and having a nearby alternative charger in mind. In evrouteplan you choose the minimum you want to arrive with at each stop and at your destination, and the plan always respects it: only if you set 15 % or less and the route cannot be done any other way does it suggest arriving below it at one specific charger, warning you and never below 6 %.

7. Checklist before you leave

• Simulate the route with your car, your speed and the forecast temperature, not with the data-sheet range.
• Leave with a high battery and, in winter, with the car still plugged in while you warm the cabin.
• Check you have the app or card for the charging networks on your route, and see whether the charger is free before you get there.
• Set the charger as the destination in the car’s navigation so it prepares the battery, if your model does this.
• Stop briefly and often: charge while the curve is still fast, then carry on.
• Have a plan B for each stop and arrive with a margin.

8. Plan your trip

The evrouteplan route planner does all these calculations with your car: pick the model, draw the route and it tells you where to stop, for how long and with what battery you reach each point, with the wind and temperature forecast for each stretch. It is free and you do not need to sign up. And if you are thinking of buying an electric car, the cost calculator tells you what it costs compared with a petrol or diesel one.

How the figures were calculated: with the evrouteplan simulator’s model in October 2026. The charging curves are those measured by evkx for each version; constant-speed consumption measured by evkx is only available for the BYD Sealion 7, which is why it is the example in the speed, cold and wind sections. The Audi A6 e-tron and Leapmotor T03 example is a theoretical trip calculated with the full simulator; the T03 has no measured charging curve and uses the simulator’s generic curve scaled to its maximum power. Climate control, battery preheating and charging efficiency are assumptions of the model, declared in the simulator itself. They are estimates: real consumption also depends on how you drive, the load, the condition of the car and the traffic.