Journalist Andrew Moseman writes in Heatmap “Maybe Don’t Rent an EV in Europe”. Which if we said it would be ho hum. But here it’s hey what? Isn’t Europe on the cutting edge of the green energy transition, and in an EV? Well um see reality is tricky. And let us give him full credit for reporting the matter. As he writes, “All I wanted was to drive an electric car to the solar eclipse” which is a great opening. But then he admits that what sounded good went bad.
As he writes, he’s the kind of person who would rent an EV. Indeed:
“Opting for an EV as a rental car can be an attractive proposition. For a longtime electric driver like me, it’s the opportunity to avoid car emissions even when on holiday, and to try out the experience in another country. For others, it could be a way to save money while on vacation in countries with even more expensive gasoline than America’s, or perhaps to try out electric driving before taking the plunge on buying an EV back home.”
Except for what happens if you try.
Part of the problem was an endless succession of apps for charging on different networks that involve “typing in endless fields of personal information just to add a few kilowatt-hours to one’s car battery” and aren’t always available partly because of spotty cell coverage. (Is that thing still around?) But one assumes this kind of payment issue could be overcome with one of them new-fangled credit cards if only cutting-edge European electric stations knew what they were, so it’s hard to blame on EVs and their inherent supporting infrastructure. Alas the rest is not straightforward, as he almost admits:
“Spain isn’t nearly as far along with EVs as the Scandinavian or the low countries, where electric cars are already a majority of cars on the road, or nearly there. But it is ahead of the U.S. So I figured driving around the country to see the total solar eclipse in a Peugeot E-5008 electric SUV would be a manageable task.”
So what went wrong. Well, it seems charging is slow. Which he claimed to enjoy in California because driving is so miserable, but didn’t deny was chronic:
“There’s simply no way to replicate the five-minute pump-and-go gas station stop, but when it comes to dealing with the slog of freeway travel from L.A. to the Bay Area, for example, I’ve come to enjoy taking a longer charging stop to breathe as opposed to making the best possible time on a car trip. On vacation, though, there’s no time to lose.”
Again, there’s a bit of “If this is Tuesday, it must be Belgium” to that complaint. Some people think vacations are leisurely or should be. But there’s no getting around the fact that charging is slow, unless he says you “rent a Tesla” which for some reason you apparently don’t.
Of course, lesson not learned. In the first place, “The experience might lead you to believe, incorrectly, that the EV experience is just like this.” But it’s not… except when it is. But it won’t be:
“A more seamless time is coming, when charging stations are abundant everywhere and a simple, idiot-proof interface for plugging in is the standard. Until then, you’ll probably have a more relaxing vacation burning fossil fuels. Just don’t let that stop you from buying an EV.”
Um why not? They still work better. The day may come when they don’t, and we’re not stick-shifts-in-the-mud when it comes to changing technology, regardless of what hype about the green energy transition may have been attached to it. If one day an EV is a better choice, we won’t go around growling that it shouldn’t be.
By the same token, if it currently isn’t, they shouldn’t go around saying it is. Especially if they just learned the hard way that it’s not.
