The Observer
38 09.01.22 Focus
T
his time last year my
partner John and I cel-
ebrated purchasing
an electric car by driv-
ing through London
to see the Christmas
lights without having to pay con-
gestion or Ulez – ultra-low emission
zone – charges. I gleefully tweeted
that Regent Street, deserted in lock-
down, seemed a London from a
different era: empty roads and glit-
tering shop windows.
This was my fi rst moment of
enjoyment of the electric vehi-
cle (EV), whose purchase had been
the source of considerable domes-
tic tension. An eternal optimist, John
was convinced we should dispense
with a diesel car. The arrival of a
grandchild, living at the opposite
diagonal corner of London, tipped
the balance. It would cut 30 minutes
off a hellish journey.
I mainly saw negatives. I liked my
nippy BMW and had range anxiety.
How far could we go before the bat-
tery failed? Would we be able to do
long drives? Were our meandering
journeys through France fi nished
for good? “Of course we’ll go,” John
said. ‘The French are way ahead of
us when it comes to electric.”
Not in the Tesla price bracket,
we settled on a Renault Zoe. OfStreets ahead? What I’ve learned
from my year with an electric car
chargers but still got caught out,
idling away an hour in a glum cor-
ner of Amesbury in Wiltshire, only
to discover the charger had stopped
working after 10 minutes.
After that, it was a hunt for other
chargers in obscure garden centres,
supermarkets and garages. Some
worked, some did not, but we began
to meet the community of elec-
tric adventurers, passing time wait-
ing for chargers by comparing apps,
prices and “worst EV journeys”.
Most places are willing to help
out with charging. They were happy
to sling a wire at Gow’s and on the
way back, the Bull hotel in Bridport,
Dorset – booked last minute – didn’t
turn a hair, reserving us a place by
an external charging point. “We’d
better get used to this,” they said.
By July I noticed my range anxi-
ety was fading. I didn’t think twice
about a trip to North Yorkshire. I no
longer watched the battery gauge.
If the car said it would do another
106 miles, it meant it. Stops could be
planned confi dently. A new mental-
ity was creeping in : “get as far as you
can” was replaced by scheduling in
longer stops and delays.
But “laid-back” only works up
to a point. There were still anxious
moments – chargers not working,
less-than-helpful helplines and ever
more provider registrations. The
new anxiety was charge anxiety –
not that the car cannot do it, but that
chargers will not be available.B
y August it was deci-
sion time for France.
John was still push-
ing for the 700-mile
journey in this car. I
was just as set against
it: I could not recall seeing chargers
around and my French source said
our destination village had a charger
that was invariably hors service.
I got my way and was also proved
right. Once there and able to look
around, it was clear France was not
electric car nirvana after all. So the
French EV adventure still awaits.
So, I no longer have diesel parti-
cles on my conscience and changes
in driving habits augur well for the
environment. You drive at lower
speeds, while travel by train for
longer journeys becomes more
appealing. But the unnecessarily
complicated charger network leaves
everything to be desired. There is no
universal charge card for all suppli-
ers and far too few chargers overall.
This will be a huge problem when
EV numbers increase.
I cannot say the electric car has
widened my horizons, but it has
made me plan more carefully for
reaching them.Ros Coward
and her partner
John top up
their electric
Renault Zoe at a
charging point in
Whitstable, Kent.
Andy Hall/
the ObserverFirst person
Record sales and now
news of a battery that
lasts hundreds of miles.
It’s getting better,
but going green was
tough, admits reluctant
pioneer Ros Coward
the cheaper cars, it had the long-
est range: about 240 miles on a full
charge, weather and driving con-
ditions dependent. But all EVs are
expensive – £31,000 for this small
and far-from-luxury car. We opted
to lease, paying a small amount of
cash and then monthly payments.
From the outset, the whole expe-
rience was distinctly lacking in
frills; a couple of young petrol heads
waved us goodbye with minimal
induction to the car and no informa-
tion about the charging infrastruc-
ture, except to “use the Zap[-Map]
app to fi nd a charge point”.
One piece of info that would have
been handy for our survival was that
EV s have incredible acceleration. We
had been in eco-mode since pur-
chasing the car, when, on the fi rst
trip outside London, we found our-
selves labouring up a hill, acceler-
ator fl at to the fl oor and still only
hitting 55mph. John reached over
and switched off eco-mode “to see
what happens”. Pinned against the
seats by the sheer force, we took off
like a rocket.
We were on our own trying to fi g-
ure out the mysteries of the coun-
try’s charging network. BP rang,
offering us a charging point outside
our house. This domestic charging
is cheapest but, living in a LondonWe began to meet the
community of electric
adventurers,
comparing apps and
bad journeys as we
waited for chargers
terrace, we were ineligible. Instead,
we became afi cionados of charg-
ing lamp-posts , relatively common
in our area. But, as often with EVs,
there is a catch. Wandsworth bor-
ough council does not reserve the
parking spaces for EV s, so “ordi-
nary” cars park there, displac-
ing EVs, which are forced to hunt
around for one of the faster, more
expensive chargers.
There are numerous providers
and not very numerous chargers.
Each provider requires you to down-
load its app and subscribe. They all
work differently and prices vary.
Many chargers are out of order.
Problems are most visible on
longer journeys. When lockdown
was relaxed in May we booked to
stay at Derek Gow’s rewilding pro-
ject in Devon. We planned to stop
where there were “clusters” of