Five days, 3000 miles, temperatures down to -11ºC, and a roof tent on top that makes the car about as aerodynamic as a brick. For an electric vehicle relying on public chargers along unfamiliar roads, it sounds like a recipe for disaster. Cold weather is notoriously brutal on EV range, with sub-zero temperatures capable of shaving as much as 100 miles off the claimed figure.
Those were the thoughts running through our heads at the Channel Tunnel terminal in Folkestone, standing next to a Frozen Blue Porsche Macan 4S hooked up to an Ionity charger. The question hanging in the air: would this work at all?
Planning stops in a cold-weather EV
The Macan 4S is officially capable of 376 miles between stops, but the car’s own range estimator was showing 220 miles at a relatively mild 8ºC. The plan was to head north through France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and into Sweden, with the temperature only set to drop further.
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The first surprise came quickly. This wasn’t painful. In a convoy that included a petrol-powered Porsche 911, the driver of the combustion car never once complained about waiting for the electric SUV to catch up. Speeds were capped at 70mph because of the roof tents on both cars, but a charging stop every three hours turned out to be no real inconvenience.
The Porsche navigation system deserves much of the credit. You set a destination, tell it how much charge you want to arrive with, and it calculates where to stop and for how long. For each charging stop, it shows how many points are free and when they were last used. The battery pre-conditions itself ahead of each stop, and the fastest charge rate we saw hit 272kW — slightly above the theoretical maximum. Ten minutes later, we were back on the road.
There’s a reasonable chance this level of polish becomes the norm across the industry rather than a Porsche exclusive. Mercedes-Benz already offers a similar charging ecosystem, and the underlying technology is spreading. The real question is whether the charging networks themselves can keep up with what the cars can now do.
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Europe’s charging network versus the UK’s
Denmark passed quickly, including the impressive Great Belt and Oresund bridges. The Macan’s range held around 210 miles, and we stopped roughly every 180 miles with room to spare. As we pushed into southern Sweden, the navigation would occasionally adjust its chosen stops based on real-time energy usage, and because we’d set it to use only chargers covered by the Porsche Charging Service (PCS), the rates stayed favorable.
Europe’s charging infrastructure itself was a revelation. Chargers sit at regular intervals along trunk routes, and speeds are impressive.
Ice, winter tyres, and the final stretch
As we left the main roads near Malung, the temperature dropped to -11ºC and the surface turned to ice. Average speed eased to 40mph. Ridges formed by repeated freezing and thawing gave the Macan’s air suspension a workout, and the weight of the batteries made long downhill sections a lesson in restraint — let gravity get ahead and the car feels like it might swap ends.
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The Michelin winter tyres found grip in surprising places, and we arrived at a frozen lake near the ski resort of Sälsätern with all four corners intact. The resort has several 200kW chargers right next to restaurants, so recharging the car and the driver happened simultaneously.
The petrol 911 can certainly go further between stops. But the Macan EV made 3000 miles of winter driving feel almost routine. The electric future isn’t perfect, but it’s not going to be the hassle we fear it could be — at least not everywhere charging is done as well as it is in Europe.
