1750 – EV Frustrations

Between 2020 and today, we have owned (and still own) two 100% electric vehicles. The car we have is an absolute delight to drive and we love it. Any frustration we have is something other that the vehicle itself, I’ll give you one guess as to what it is (pausing)…

Did you get it\?

Yes, it’s the battery.

So, what would ease my frustrations, lets see;

A battery that;

• Delivers at least a 500 mile (actual distance travelled rather than “Battery miles”).
• Can be re-charged in the same length of time that it takes to fill a 50L Petrol or diesel tank from empty, at a standard rate of delivery (i.e., you drive onto any forecourt and use any relevant pump).
• Has a life of twenty years, or the cost of replacement is negligible. I must admit, I’m not confidently able to quantify negligible but let’s say a cost of less than £1000 over the same period.

Battery technology, is not there yet.

Doesn’t stop us from having an EV, but even now, our second vehicle has almost double the range of the first one. This means of the three long journeys we normally make over the course of a year, two of them we can do as returns without recharging, and the third we usually stay for a couple of nights so can recharge.

There is one journey though, that we would like to do, which I have no confidence about doing, and that involves going to France. It think it’s quite likely that the infrastructure is there, but I just don’t know and that gives me the serious jitters. It’s a bit more than range anxiety, it’s a fear of poor infrastructure.

Infrastructure is another issue. I have a few thoughts on that – but that’s a later story.