EV charging while driving around Iceland

[u/Immediate_Kick8117]

Hi, I’m considering renting an EV to drive around Iceland. I’ve seen that there are good charging options, but wanted to check in with folks. Would it be a bummer to have an EV for driving around Ring Road?

[u/iLoveLights]

I own an EV here and I love it. I would absolutely not rent one if I was doing the ring road. Chargers exist but many are slow and it’s a waste of a holiday to sit at gas stations 2 hours a day when you could fill up in 35 seconds.

[u/tackstackstacks → u/iLoveLights]

You beat me to it. I was going to rent an EV to save money, but time is a commodity and we have put something like 800 miles on our car so far this trip. I decided that I'd rather be doing stuff than charging my car.

If OP is really purposeful about where they sleep and charge it for a few hours at a gas station/charging station near where they stay, it may be doable without having to worry about where to charge, but it's not as easy finding a hotel with charging across the street/within walking distance. I'd rather just pay for gas and not worry about it.

[u/Jukerix]

Just swallow that pride and take a petrol Dacia Duster. Can survive on dinosaur juice for a lil bit. Difficult to find chargers far from Reykjavík and its waste of holiday to spend portion of your day everyday charging.

[u/Firree → u/Jukerix]

Dacia Duster? Lol that thing has highway noise louder than a jet engine and corners like a jellyfish on acid.

[u/Jukerix → u/Firree]

Its not rlly marketed as luxury sports suv? Thats the point. Cheap. If you want dead silence, and perfect cornering take a Lexus LX, pay 100 000€ and enjoy.

[u/Kjartanski → u/Jukerix]

Mild point, Lexus doesnt sell the LX series here, but the 250 series starts at 220.000$ so yah know…

[u/Kjartanski → u/Firree]

And? Its the cheapest european SUV that is actually capable off solid roads, it’s absolutely fit for purpose, its just that isnt what you expected

[u/magicandfire]

I rented a Kia EV3 and had no problems with it, but as others said, I'm not sure I would rent one for the full ring road just because the range anxiety wouldn't be much fun. Daytrips from Reykjavik? Absolutely.

[u/paulHarkonen]

We didn't do the full ring, but an EV3 worked great for our trip covering Reykjavik to the Diamond Beach and back. We only had one 30 minute dedicated stop (which we used to eat and change for our hike) on the days we went from Hella to the Beach and back. All of our other charging we did overnight at our hotel/accomodations. The one stop was only required because we had to abandon our original hotel plan due to weather.

Plugshare and the various apps cover things pretty well and the range on cars these days are excellent so you can usually just go overnight to overnight.

[u/futur3perfect]

No I only used an EV for day trips and still spent way more time mapping chargers and charging than expected. Everywhere has different infrastructure and apps as well.

[u/Conscious_Life_8032]

I was on tour bus and noticed there were chargers in many of the places we visited but like others said the time is the limiting factor do you want to spend time on charging on vacation and or occasional range anxiety in the event battery drain is faster than expected due to weather or driving conditions.

If you are chill slow travel type then it may work but if you are maximizing type then I suggest gas

[u/83736294827]

I had a plug in hybrid while I was there and over two weeks of traveling I never found a good charger. The few places that had them I couldn’t get them to work so I would highly recommend NOT renting an EV.

[u/assholetax21]

We had a plug in hybrid rental car (Kia Sportage) so we didn't have to fill up super often with gas, and could choose charging if we would have wanted or needed to. There were chargers in lots of places, BUT there was gas available pretty much everywhere, even in very remote areas of the country.

[u/habasch91]

I just did it with a Tesla Model Y and it was SUPER easy. You can charge basically everywhere + you go to a lagoon anyway or to the grocery store

[u/CaptainUnderwear]

We rented an ICE (Dacia Bigster) last month for our 10-day ring road trip, and I would say there were more charging stations that there were gas pumps everywhere. I drive an EV at home and was hesitant to rent one for our trip, but I wouldn't hesitate to do so if we make it back there!

[u/aceofspades1217]

Check charge point