Rigmarole required to charge Nissan Leaf is a nuisance
ELECTRIC VEHICLES
Some question what all the fuss is about regarding electric vehicle range. They say that if you know it can only do 200km then plan around it, just as you would if your internal combustionengined car said it only had fuel for 200km left in the tank. It’s easier said than done. The Leaf arrived from Nissan UK with a tag for the Chargemaster network. When it needed charging I found a point on an app and headed to a shopping centre where I plugged it in. An hour later I unplugged it and it had barely added 16km of range.
I went home and looked for another provider. I found a fast charger operated by Ecotricity at the nearest Ikea store. After 45 minutes downloading an app, trying to register, discovering that new Leaf was not listed and getting multiple errors I eventually plugged it in. An hour later it was charged and I was billed by Ecotricity. Actually I was billed twice. The company explained that when you connect they take a holding amount and then they take the same amount after charging and refund the holding amount later. They don’t do that at the local petrol station.
One Saturday we headed off to a factory outlet village 84km away. The car said it could do 192km so we were good. Or we thought we were. On leaving the village, the car said we would not make it home. We drove to an Ecotricity charging point at the highway services and with the kids asleep in the car plugged the Leaf in and waited 45 minutes. After the app said it was charged I unplugged it and headed off, only to find that it had barely charged at all and we were back on the highway risking getting stuck, so 16km up the road we stopped again at another service station and plugged in. We charged enough to get us home where I plugged the car into the mains socket overnight and the next morning it was full.
The switch to electric should not force you to change how you live. You should not be paying more for the car, you should not have to plan your journeys and you certainly shouldn’t have to be anxious that you and your family will be stuck on the side of the road. Until all of that goes away, EVs will still be a difficult sell for many.