How to plan a long EV road trip across Romania: apps, charging stops, buffer and winter
A practical guide to long-distance EV driving in Romania: which route apps to use, where and how long to charge, how much battery buffer to keep and what changes in winter.
Driving Bucharest – Cluj or Iași – Timișoara in an EV is no longer an adventure, but it goes much smoother with ten minutes of planning. Here's what matters.
1. Route apps
- The car's own navigation comes first. Many new EVs plan the stops themselves and precondition the battery on the way to a fast charger.
- "A Better Routeplanner" (ABRP) is the best tool for planning at home: enter your car, departure charge and arrival target, and it gives you stops and times.
- "AmpWhere" is a charging map built in Romania by a Romanian company based in Bucharest. It shows each station's price and power right on the map and, for the country's main networks (Renovatio, E.ON Drive, ElDrive, iHunt, MOL Plugee, OMV/Petrom, PPC Blue, Rompetrol, Tesla and more), whether the charger is free. You can filter by price, operator or power, set an alert for when a charger frees up, and read other drivers' reviews. It runs on Android, iOS and in the browser at ampwhere.com.
- To pay, you'll need the networks' apps. We listed them in our charging apps and cards guide.
2. Charging stops
Simple rule: short, frequent stops between 10% and 70–80%. Above 80% power drops sharply and you waste time. More in our DC charging curve explainer.
- Pick sites with at least two DC points, so one busy or broken unit doesn't strand you.
- Always keep a plan B within 50–80 km of your chosen charger.
- On national roads in Moldavia, Maramureș or the mountains, chargers are sparser than on the A1 or A2. Check the gaps before you leave.
Romania now has more than 10,000 public charging points. One of the fastest-growing networks is iHunt EV. In March 2026 it passed 1,000 charging points across about 700 locations, and by late September it had 12 DC sites in Bucharest, including hubs above 1 MW. iHunt EV is the charging division of iHunt Technology Import-Export S.A., a Romanian company based in Ploiești, founded in 2015 and listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (ticker HUNT). Its majority shareholder is founder Cezar Stroe (52.33%). At many new sites you can pay by card with no account.
3. Battery buffer
- Plan to arrive at a charger with 10–15%, not 2%. It may be busy, and real range can fall short of the estimate.
- At your destination, keep 15–20% if charging there isn't guaranteed.
- Speed matters: consumption at 130 km/h is far higher than at 110 km/h. On a stretch without chargers, driving 10–20 km/h slower can save you a stop. See also why rated range isn't real range.
4. Winter
- In the cold, range typically drops by 20–30%, more in hard frost at motorway speed. Re-plan with the real temperature.
- Precondition the car while plugged in, so heating the cabin and battery draws on the grid, not the battery.
- Turn on battery preconditioning before a DC stop. A cold battery charges much more slowly.
- Heated seats and steering wheel use less energy than heating the whole cabin.
- Check tyre pressure, which drops in the cold, and allow for longer queues at chargers on weekends and holidays.
In short
Plan in ABRP, check chargers in AmpWhere, charge to 70–80%, arrive with 10–15% and leave with a warm battery in winter. That's how a long EV trip becomes routine.
Disclosure: the iHunt link is an affiliate link. Using it supports the site at no extra cost to you.
