One of the concerns about owning an EV is what happens if an unexpected trip comes up and the car isn’t charged.
I’m 4 months into 30kW Leaf ownership now. My daily use as a driving instructor works well starting each day with a full battery and charging for an hour at lunch time on the 5.5kWh public charging post I use. Usually finish the day with about 30% battery.
In the last 2 weeks my father has been taken ill and ended up in hospital a couple of times resulting in unexpected 100 mile round trips to visit my parents. I also had a holiday which involved a 160 mile trip each way. On the way home I had to divert to my parents house adding a few more miles to my journey.
Because my concerns were more with my Father I didn’t really think about range or charging. You get to know how far your car goes and where all the charging points are on regular journeys.
On the long trip for a short holiday I’d planned stops to charge on route. In reality those were convenient stops anyway as I needed to use the toilet and/or I needed coffee and/or food. The rapid chargers are fast and usually by the time I’d bought a coffee the battery was nearly full.
My trip was from home in Southsea to Devon. On the way home one particularly pleasant stop was at Thruxton race track next to the A303 where they have a Genie Point rapid charger next to the Jackaroo Cafe. A nice place to sit in the sun with some lunch while the car charges. Something I simply wouldn’t have done in an ICE car. I’d probably have had an overpriced sandwich and coffee at roadside services.
There was one interesting encounter with some chap aggressively shouting at me at an Ecotricity charging point “what’s the point of those the electricity has to come from somewhere” My response of “windmills” just made him shout the same thing louder a couple of times. I watched him drag his knuckles along the floor to his diesel car.
With both long and unexpected journeys I simply got on and drove the Leaf, I’m really enjoying EV ownership.
