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At the moment I am doing a favour that requires me to drive the electric car over a route that takes 25 percent of the car’s battery. This means that for every time I do the favour I have to charge the car for five hours.
About the Drive
The drive from where I charge the car to home takes eight to ten percent but the drive back to charge the car takes up to 15 percent due to traffic, but also due to the climb. This climb means that for every trip to charge I have three hours of waiting. In total I have five and a half hours of waiting around for the car to charge.
Three Times in a Week
If I was charing the car once per week and waiting five hours it wouldn’t bother me, because it’s once per week. This time It’s three times. That’s fifteen hours of waiting around for the car to charge.
Walking, Running, Cycling, Blogging Etc
Of course there are plenty of things that I can do while waiting for the car to charge, like walking, running, cycling or writing this blog post. I can occupy myself and get things done whilst waiting
The Wait for Petroleum
If I think waiting five hours for a car to recharge is long I should try waiting for petrol to be ready. It takes several million years for petroleum to become what it is, and we burn it within seconds in a car. If I take biomass and wait for it to become petrol then my wait will be several million years. In contrast waiting for a solar panel to charge a car is a number of hours.
I Still Like Electric Cars
Although it may sound as though I have fallen out of love with electric cars that is not the case. I don’t feel like waiting for another 10hrs for the car to charge, when the task that I need to do takes seconds. On Friday the favour will be over and then I can use the elctric car more economically, doing the 30 percent drive once per week, rather than three or four times per week. As I said, driving to the shops and back takes less than one percent per trip but it’s rounded up to one percent. This means that instead of burning petrol and polluting I am using a tiny amount of electric energy.
This energy could have come from solar panels, hydroelectric dams or wind power. It’s when you drive up a mountain three times per week, and on the motorway that you deplete the battery.
And Finally
Petrol cars need to be run every so often and mine hasn’t been run for several weeks. It makes sense to run the engine, recharge the battery and ensure that it doesn’t get depleted before I need to jump start the car. By back and forth I wil refresh the battery and the likelihood of being stranded with a dead battery will be lessened. I still care for the environment. I was even toying with the idea of dropping off the petrol car at home, and cycling back for the electric car at another time. If I do that I will tire myself, and with winter coming I could easily regret it.
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