A date with Sarah-Kate; Kate’s home truths
Sarah-Kate’s rental car fails to last the distance!
Iam such a skinflint that filling my car with petrol feels like having a kidney removed. A hundred bucks for a case of wine? I get that. The wine tastes nice, and makes you chatty and smiley. But a hundred bucks to make sure you can get from A to B when there’s no other alternative? I don’t know what petrol tastes like, but you can be sure as God made little green apples that it won’t make me smile.
Which is why I’ve been so excited about the advent of electric cars. The idea of never again fumbling at the bowser in some freezingcold forecourt appeals enormously. So when I had to rent a vehicle to drive from Wellington Airport to the Kapiti Coast to see my mum, I chose an electric one. What a perfect opportunity to try before you buy, thought I.
Once I worked out how to start it – literally so easy I overlooked it for the first five minutes – off I flew in my little electric bubble, my mathematically challenged mind bothered only by the fact that the car had just 220km in its tank (or whatever).
This didn’t seem enough. Luckily, I knew I could charge it when I got to my mum’s. Unluckily, the rental car company had forgotten to provide the necessary adapter.
“Oops,” they said when I rang them up. “You’ll have to take it to a roadside charging station.”
After tracking one down (they’re not as common as one might hope), I found myself early on a cold weekend morning crouched on a windswept Waikanae corner trying to plug my rental into the world’s worstdesigned spark plug. It didn’t work, which put me in something of a dilemma.
On one hand, I had it on good authority that a stall at the Waikanae Farmers’ Market sold seriously good cheese scones. On the other, driving to the market could end up depleting so many kilometres that I might have to walk to the airport to get home. What, oh, what is a girl to do?
Don’t be silly! I’d crawl across a desert littered with broken glass, barbed wire, truculent teenagers and angry middle-aged males with road rage to get to the right scone! Of course, I went to the market. And the results are definitely in my top five.
Then I made the rental company bring me a normal car. Electric ones can be charged on a domestic supply overnight if you have the right plug or in half an hour at a charging station if you find one that works. But in the absence of both those things?
The giant red 4WD builder’s ute – with canopy – that I ended up with might have been able to double as a fire truck, but it also allowed me, among other things, to drop by Queen Sally’s Diamond Deli in Lyall Bay. I can report their date scones (separate ranking system to cheese) remain in the number-one position nationally.
When an e-car can get me to the bun emporium of my choosing without fuss, I’m in. Until then, I’m sticking with petrol.