Tuesday 5 April 2022

I'm waiting before entering the brave new world of EVs
We have been contemplating getting an electric car for more than two years.
Our first foray into the Brave New World of EVs was with a test drive of a hybrid vehicle.
It handled and drove just like a “normal” car but with a snazzier screen visible through the steering wheel.
This showed us we were driving on diesel but that the electric bit had a range of just 58 miles.
We did not feel this was radical enough – going on a fairly long journey would still require aq great deal of earth-destroying fossil fuel.
Our interest in doing our bit waned somewhat. The whole EV thing was still quite new and maybe we should wait a little bit longer.
Then a member of the family announced the arrival of a new addition – a fully electric car.
Wow, I thought. Someone has finally taken the plunge. I immediately went online to check out the model. Nice, I thought.
This rekindled our interest and I started investigating again. Then towards the end of last year, our niece (for it was she) called us to ask if we could provide b&b for a night as she had to come to sunny East Anglia on business from her home in the woolly wilds of Devon.
We negotiated a room rate (a bottle of wine) and awaited her arrival. And waited. And waited.
It didn’t help that her husband had taken their EV that morning on a little jaunt and not recharged the battery, meaning she had to stop about 40 miles from home to do a recharge.
A wait for a charging point, a coffee and then on the road again. Next stop was at 90 miles later (which involved a longer wait for a charging point) and then again after another 140 miles (involving yet another wait for a free point). Time for another coffee.
The last 52 miles to our house was uneventful but the whole journey had taken her around three hours longer than usual.
When she finally arrived, somewhat frazzled, she asked if she could charge her car overnight from a power point in our garage. Of course, we said.
And then came the final twist of the knife – the charging cable that would have enabled this was missing from the boot of the car.
The situation was calmed when I mentioned there was a charging area a couple of miles down the road where she could stop at on her way to her meeting. Phew!
Her experience made me ask what is a fairly pertinent questrion. Why don’t car makers tell you that the 300 miles quoted on a full charge does not include using the radio, the a/c, lights etc?
Somewhat surprisingly all this hasn’t put me off buying an EV. However, we will wait just a little longer. Certainly until local garages have enough mechanics qualified to work on EVs, there are more charging stations and until manufacturers can show that the car batteries will last a reasonable time.
At my age I can do without more stress on a drive of more than 100 miles.

No comments:

Post a Comment