Page 51 - Aug 2022

"I S ay T here!"

Cheeky Thoughts on

Electric Motor Cars

"... I?ve downloaded a handy little app called Zap-Map, which tells me where to

find nearby electricity. The first two charging stations I try are out of order. The
third one has a car already charging there. I?ve only got 20 miles of range left, so
I decide to stick rather than twist. At a busy petrol station you might have a
three-minute wait, which you can spend deciding whether you?e going to buy a
r
grab bag of Wotsits or Discos from the shop. Here, I spend an hour waiting for
the Nissan Leaf in front of me to bugger off, and revisiting my life choices, with
no promise of Wotsits to keep me going? .
Visiting my parents. [in Scotland] Leaving the house is now a case of keys,
phone, wallet, charging station plan. The vehicle technology may be space-age,
t
but the infrastructure is decidedly Cretaceous. It?s glaringly obvious there aren?
enough places to power up, but that?s only a quarter of the problem. Some
chargers allow only one specific make of car to use them ? thanks Elon! ?
some supply electricity comically slowly, presumably using a single AA battery;
t
others don? accept bank cards, instead insisting that you have their own app or
By Adam Kay. the
charge card: a folder in my phone and a whole section of my wallet are
bestselling author of
dedicated to things called Ecotricity, Ubitricity and Instavolt. In true Wild West
This is Going t o
style, any operator can set the price however high they like, safe in the
"E l ect r ic car s ar e cl ear ly
knowledge you?ve got no option unless you want to spend the rest of your life Hurt , on his nail
t he fut ur e and when our
cur r ent one pe
sitting in a lay-by. At least Dick Turpin had the manners to wear a mask while he biting year driving a r m anent ly
robbed you. Jaguar I-Pace.
ices over or expl odes, I? m

I?ve done my sums and my parents?house is a round trip that?s pleasingly just cert ain we? l l r epl ace it
within the car?s range, with about five miles spare. Easy. Until. The turn-off I wit h anot her. But if t his
needed to get home from the motorway is closed. The only diversion available is new t echnol ogy is going t o
?Keep driving and good luck!? The car warns me with increasing urgency quite pr ove t o be a S pot ify
how little range I have left, like that panicking Scottish space mechanic on the r a t her t han a M iniD isc, t he
Starship Enterprise. It decides to take matters into its own hands and turns off infr ast r uct ur e needs t o
the heating, the onboard computer and the radio to save power (which is fine ? ca t ch up, and quickly ."
I don? want to listen to the car grinding to a halt while Take That tells me today
t
is ?the greatest day of our lives?). As we approach the junction, the car does a
go-slow, crawling along to conserve power, and I become about as popular with
the motorists behind me as a cold sore at a threesome.
... I?ve three miles of range left and I?m five miles from home. I?m not sure what
to do other than plough onwards. As my mother never tires of reminding me,
hope is not a strategy, but it?s the only one I have available here.
We arrive in Scotland, a trip planned with the precision of a military manoeuvre,
with an overnight stop booked that suited our ever-fluctuating range ? phoning
ahead to make sure they actually have a charging facility and Zap-Mapping every
possible alternative just in case the hotel?s is broken or being used by yet
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another Nissan Leaf. Emotionally, we?e on a knife edge for an uncomfortably
large part of the journey, but we make it. Admittedly a day later than in a petrol
By Beetle-ink adapted from a poem by Spike Milligan
car, but we make it...."
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