Yes! Well, mostly. I rented an electric car (a Jeep Avenger) at Rome’s FCO airport in August 2025 and drove 3,000 kilometers in about 10 days. I usually drove in eco mode and used strong recuperative braking settings, but sometimes had fun in a sport mode.
Is it complicated?
Well, in general, it’s just a matter of plugging in a cable and activating the charging column via an app or a touchscreen. The EVolt Telegram bot is a bit more complicated but very cheap and has good support. In my experience, the native provider apps are horrible and shouldn’t be installed, while aggregator apps like Plugsurfing make everything simpler but charge a small fee.
What about prices?
When you rent a car, you often get a key fob or charging card that lets you charge at almost any station. DO NOT USE IT! The rate in my contract was €1.50 per kWh. For comparison, using an app like Octopus Electroverse, you can find chargers costing €0.50-€1.00 per kWh. Using the eVolt Telegram bot, you can charge for as low as €0.30 per kWh—5 times cheaper (though it only works on some stations and only with CCW2 chargers)!
I tried using the native provider apps, but they were so bad I usually couldn’t even complete the registration. I also charged directly with my credit card at some points, but that only tends to work at new, ultra-fast (150 kW+) charging stations.
Isn’t charging very slow?
Well, it depends. I fell into two different patterns:
- City Stops: I would stop in a city center and use a slow charger with the cable the rental company provided. This way, while I was enjoying free parking and exploring the city, my car slowly charged and was usually at 100% within a few hours.
- Highway Stops: Between long 3-4 hour drives, I stopped at fast-charging stations. I could charge my car from 20% to 80% in just 15-20 minutes while I stretched and planned my next move.
Both methods worked very well! The only problem was occasionally finding a broken or busy charger, which meant I had to drive for 5-10 minutes to find another one.
What about charging in hotels
I couldn’t find many hostels with a working charger. One AirBNB host asked to pay 1 euro per kWh and a minimum, another had a broken charger, third one just had a public charger nearby. Slow chargers are very cheap to install, hotels, do it!
So you didn’t have any problems?
Unfortunately, I did have a few. For the Telegram bot, the service in Italy is still in a test mode, so a lot of stations weren’t working correctly. I also found some stations that were broken or where access was illegally restricted.
At one point, I got a bit of range anxiety driving from Italy to Croatia and detoured onto a toll road just to reach a charger because I wasn’t confident enough in the car’s range estimation.
Do you recommend it?
Absolutely! An electric car is more fun and comfortable to drive; it’s also cheaper and quieter. Italy (at least north of Rome), Slovenia, and Croatia have good charging station coverage, and the ecosystem is advanced enough that you don’t need to worry about local apps. Rent electric instead of gasoline!
Final Rant
In the first 10 minutes of driving, I realized people in Italy do not respect speed limits at all. People were frequently tailgating and a bit aggressive when I drove the speed limit on a 50 km/h street. The general flow of traffic was usually about 20 km/h over the limit. Stay safe!