It is easy to think “I fill the my car once I reach a quarter of a tank, and to keep that attitude once you get an EV. With faster charging cars this works well but with others the concept is flawed.
Today I drove to Geneva and back to drop into Digitec to drop off the Garmin Forerunner 570 because I noticed that transparent plastic of some sort was trying to escape from between the glass, and the rest of the watch. In the process I drove an EV.
In the last two days I noticed several posts speaking about an upcoming tax for electric vehicles that will charge people per mile driven, as there is with petrol cars. In theory people will be charged a flat fee for the first year, and then per kilometre from then onwards.
I don’t see how this would work in practice because of two things. The first is that if you’re on a road trip you’re using public chargers and the price to charge is from 38 centimes to 1.10 CHF per kilowatt/Hour. In other words a scale could already be applied to “tax” people straight from public chargers.
A modern village is one that has parking on the outskirts, so that you can drive to it, park on the perimeter, and walk in, to hike, run, cycle or other. It also includes affordable slow chargers where you can park for as long as it takes to charge to full.
Such a village is modern because it reduces the need for traffic to transit through it. If people can visit the village without driving in, then it becomes like Italian citadelles, but also like carcasonne, Yvoire and other villages and towns. Even Morges has this, to some degree.
I write this as a joke, rather than as a serious post. I have access to two EVs. The first is a Fiat 500 that has a potential range of 180-200 kilometres although in Switzerland with the hills and more the range is theoretical, rather than practical. The second option is much smaller and can be taken in a lift or on a train. That is an e-scooter. By e-scooter I mean one of those that you can stand on.
Someone suggested going to see Sinners last night so I went with the EV. I plugged the car in, started the charge and went up to the cinema. I went to see Sinners for the main reason that I haven’t seen an imax film in a long time. I haven’t seen a film at the cinema in a long time. Having said this I was at film screenings several times a week ago.
I know of two chargers that I can use when shopping. One of these costs 2 CHF just to connect, and then the cost of the charge. At the second shopping centre I can plug in for five minutes, or two and a half hours and I will only pay for the charge. Not having a connection fee makes the cheaper option more attractive.
If people want to charge quickly they have four fast chargers outdoors, by McDonald’s but if people want to charge slowly then they have the cheaper indoor parking chargers.
Yesterday I drove an EV from Nyon to Boudry and back. The journey took about 40 percent charge for each direction for a total of 80 percent charge. Keep in mind that this is a fiat 500 with a small battery rather than a large one.
I routed the journey from Nyon to a 150w charging station and within 14 minutes I had gone from 56 percent or so to 86 percent. I then drove to the train station where the group was scheduled to meet and waited.
Today I got to experience something new, to me, and exciting. I got to charge an EV in the rain. In theory you should avoid doing this because you don’t want moisture to get into the connectors of the car, as well as the rubber plugs. You also don’t want to get moisture into the plug of the EV station adaptor. I was not electrocuted, and from what I saw everything remained dry.
Yesterday I tried to use a slow charger to recharge the car. After 49 minutes I had charged 8.95 watts for 5.13 CHF. I got to about 63 percent. I stopped charging. I drove somewhere and by the time I got back I was down to 30 percent. I looked to my left as I was approaching McDonald’s and saw that the GoFast chargers were free so I stopped to charge.
Yesterday morning I plugged the car in to charge at Signy Centre while shopping and for the price of a coffee I charged the car by ten percent. I then went to the lakeside of Nyon to test the Service Industriel de Nyon (SIN) chargers and failed.
They were out of service so I drove towards Chavannes Centre because I thought of using their chargers until I realised that by the time the car is charged I would be driving through rush hour traffic. Instead I drove back to Signy Centre.