My emotional year of discovery in an electric car
Former BBC East Midlands Today and Derby Telegraph reporter MIKE O’SULLIVAN tries to go green
I WAS an electric vehicle wannabe. So I jumped in and bought my first just under a year ago. Now I’m sharing my experiences in a YouTube channel called – you’ve guessed it – EV Wannabe.
My EV year got off to a bit of a shaky start. The second-hand 2017 Nissan Leaf I ordered sat unused on the drive for a few days. It was a car, but not as I knew it.
Then, on a nervy solo trip to a local supermarket, I had to phone family members to bring up the EV’s instruction booklet so I could get back home. I couldn’t figure out the startup sequence. Don’t tell anyone!
Gradually in spring and summer, my tentative travels in the electric era became less stressful. Playing Kraftwerk, the electronic music pioneers, on the EV stereo made them seem even more ahead of their time. Autobahn indeed.
Range anxiety – the fear of running out of battery power – subsided to the sound of the band’s hypnotic beats. But instead came charger anxiety.
The number of public charging points has to be increased dramatically. And some operators need to up their game so that their chargers are reliable and actually work 24/7.
My worst EV charging episode came on a trip to Buxton, a great town, but where the network left me frustrated once again. There was an exasperating find just as we were leaving around 10pm after a family meal.
The town’s only two rapid chargers, in separate locations, were out of action that night, unable to power the Leaf with a 20-30- minute charge to get us home. Up the road, there were some fast chargers by the Fairfield shops. I was relieved and grateful to find they were working.
They’re called fast chargers, but electricity is delivered at a much slower rate than the rapid ones. The result? It took about an hour and a half to charge up. We finally got back at around quarter to two in the morning – two and a half hours late.
A big plus though has been installing a home charger. It’s cheaper and more convenient if you have parking space, although the £350 Government grant has now been sadly scrapped.
Autumn and winter meant surprisingly fewer miles from the EV as I discovered batteries of any sort just don’t like the cold. But in February, for me came a new and totally unexpected factor in support of the EV: energy security. Putin’s horrific war in Ukraine shows undesirable regimes shouldn’t be relied on to keep transport flowing.
Spring has now returned, bringing hope of warmer battery-friendly days out and about in the Peak District.
The biggest lesson I’ve learned? Planning journeys to family in Bradford and Stockport around public chargers – and identifying back-ups! It’s been an emotional year of discovery in what is an unfinished EV revolution. As I say in EV Wannabe, there’s an EV in persevere!