This week should have been travel intensive; however, a bad cold meant that didn’t happen. Bad, it was awful, the first cold I’ve had in years, and I didn’t cope well. I cancelled all my appointments on Wednesday, including a lunch I was looking forward to and I had to get someone else to host the online networking session I run.
Having only used the car for local trips on Monday and Tuesday I had plenty of charge for my trip on Friday to Helland near Bodmin to record a podcast episode for Your Partnerships in the Cornwall Channel studio. Great time to have a cold, and yes, I did have a coughing fit during the recording.
On the way back I thought I would use the charger at the Kingsley Village Shell station and visit the retail park while the car was charging. The charger that I mentioned last week as being out of service still hadn’t been repaired, fortunately there was no one using the other one. Even though it appeared to be working it did not deliver a charge, so I left without visiting the retail park or having a coffee in Starbucks. If motorists are to have confidence in electric vehicles chargers need to be reliable and fixed quickly if they do go wrong. The one in Hayle I mentioned in my first electric car post on 22nd August is still out of action.
I had intended to head straight home, until I heard on the radio that there had been an accident on the single carriageway section of the A30 and there were long delays. There is a charger at the Shell station just before that section, so I popped in there, plugged in and dealt with emails, etc. on my phone while the car was charging. By the time I left the road had cleared, I don’t think I lost any time by stopping.
Reflecting on the week I realised that when driving in residential areas I spent most of the time negotiating around parked cars, often giving way to other motorists or them giving way to me, because the parked cars made the roads effectively single track with passing bays. And there is the big problem, those cars are not going to be charged at home, they are going to have to rely on the public network, which is inadequate, patchy and unreliable. Policy makers, politicians, senior civil servants and experts live in houses with drives and garages whereas a lot of other people have to struggle to find a bit of curb space which is often not right outside their home.
Banning sales of petrol and diesel cars by 2030 is an easy thing to do, working out what the consequence of that policy is and implementing plans so there are no problems is not. Just look at some of the recent problems, the carbon dioxide shortage, the fuel crisis, problems in the energy market (with lots of firms going out of business), a shortage of HGV drivers, pigs stuck on farms due to a shortage of workers in abattoirs and rumours of there being no turkeys for Christmas. I’m not hopeful for a smooth transition to electric vehicles.
Here is my verdict on the government’s approach to electric cars:
If you want to try an Onto electric car no commitment monthly rental use the code 52aad to get a £50 discount.
============
Electric driving 