Andy Richardson: Anxiety and hidden costs in trying to go all-electric
Zoe arrived right on time. We’d known she’d be here and we’d prepared for her arrival. An electric charge point had been installed before the Renault E/V came – though that hadn’t been without some fuss. What is it about salesmen with pound signs in their eyes?
One guy had quoted an improbable £3,000, then decided to sting us for an extra £500. “We want to charge a car, mate, not build a nuclear power station.”
Another, more sensibly, had quoted £1,300 for the luxury of being able to charge a car and move away from gas-guzzling cars.
How can one guy come in at 37% of the other? You don’t have to answer. I already know. The guy who quoted £3,500 to sit a power box to a wall and run some cable to it was Having. A. Larf. Either that, or he was planning to install a box made from gold.
“I’ll need to put two guys on the job for two days,” he’d said, as I’d nodded, cunningly masking my contempt for his quote.
Zoe was blissfully unaware of the fuss she’d caused. She arrived with a glowing reviews and the kind words of a friend, who’d assured me that switching from diesel to electric would be fine. “There are charge points everywhere,” he’d said. “Even I managed to use them without calling the helpline.” If only I’d be as switched on as him.
I took Zoe for a spin. She was delightful. Responsive, packed with loads of useful electric stuff – who knew cars could become phones? – and with the promise of 240 trouble-free, low-cost, environmentally-responsible miles. What could go wrong? As it happened, just about everything.
On Day One, I stayed local in case anything went wrong. It didn’t. And so on Day Two, with my friends’ words fresh in my mind, I took her to London – The London – where the streets are paved with gold.
And then I realised something unexpected. The promised 240 miles were only legit if you drove at 55mph on the motorway, rather than the normal 70.
So by the time I’d reached my destination, I’d got 40 miles fewer on the clock than anticipated.
No matter, I thought. I’d arrived an hour before a meeting so I could hook up with a streetside charger and plug her in. This’d be simple, I thought. I could hook-up, go to a meeting then by the time I returned, Zoe would be fuller than an oligarch’s bank account.
Except the thing my friend had said about it being ‘easy’ to charge up turned out to be correct only for people with a modicum of common sense.
For creatives, like me, who don’t know the top and bottom of a can of soup, it was a little bit more complicated.
After toying with leads, apps, direct debits and customer helplines – I called them three times, rather than my friend’s none – I gave up. I went to my meeting, flustered, but thankfully not late. Zoe could wait. After all, plugging her in, sticking a few miles in the tank – sorry, battery – and heading home wouldn’t take long, would it?
Turns out it would. After fiddling with more apps than Google’s Playstore, I managed to hook her up. It was 5.30pm. The car did a quick calculation. It’d take until 6am the following day to charge her up. Six. A. M. Whaaaaat?
I’d thought I’d be saving money by going electric – turns out I’d need to book a hotel that cost twice as much as the fuel I was saving. So I stayed in the car, laptop open, looking like a quantity surveyor in a really weird metal office made in France. With too few miles on the clock, I decided to bolt. And I found the flipside to the ‘lost miles’ is that you gain them when you drive slowly and head downhill. Something to do with regenerative breaking and kinetic energy.
I think I like Zoe. Though she’s a complicated mover.
