Camping trip naar de Camargue

[ErwinHayen]

Sorry mensen, in het engels.
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In search for a bit of sunshine, we decided to drive south till we found some….
This objective lead us and our Ampera to the French Camargue on a campsite near the village of Vauvert.
We didn’t really know what to expect taking the car on a +1000km trip… since Opel only advertises 500….
Not to worry, the car and we made it with flying colors, including Rakker, our Golden Retriever. We did notice some weird things though…, here goes.
The trip started early in the morning around 3:30am in Merksem. We immediately switched to gas (Hold mode). Near Arlon we filled up the tank, and a second time about 400 km further, somewhere in France. We stuck to the highway and “payage” (toll road) in France to reach our target as soon as possible, which we did around 4pm. About 12,5 hours of driving for 1050 km. On the highways we tried to stick to about 140km/h in France to avoid having our picture taken. (the Ampera’s odometer does exaggerate a bit…). This relative high speed amounted to an average consumption of 6,8 ltr. Not too bad I’d say! It clearly didn’t bother the car, it hardly warmed up the engine(s).
We were not tired when we arrived, giving credit to the car’s travel comfort.
We did notice that the consumption indicators on the central screen can only display 3 digits. Once we passed 999km we only got dashes (---). Opel clearly didn’t mean for people to drive more than 1000 km without completely recharging to reset the counters.
We stayed for 1 week on the campsite, and were perfectly capable to recharge our battery on the standard camping power outlet on 6 to 10amps. This meant that we didn’t have to refuel until the trip home. We did about 400km of local trips during our stay…, nice!
For the trip home, we decided to only use toll free roads. This meant about 40 km and 3 hours more with a lot less stops. Still not too tired after that long haul….
During this trip, we decided to combine driving electrical with gas. Using the electric engine and more so the power recuperation of the car, we managed no less than 147,8 km electrical WITHOUT RECHARGING. This brought our average gas consumption down to 5,8ltr for the return trip. Before we reached the first highway, in the Vosges, or after 800km of “nationales” we were at only 5,2 average….
All in all, the care proved again the validity of the concept, and more! Next to a great electrical and clean towncar, it is just as good for longer trips, including going camping with your partner and dog. This was the limit of its luggage capacity though; luckily our daughter isn’t interested anymore in taking long road trips with mom and dad.
To be completely honest, this was also the case with our B-class Mercedes…
That’s it for now, already looking forward to the next trip!