My good blogging friend, William Teach, has pinch hit for me in the past, and while I haven’t needed his help since I was forced to reconstitute this site, he just published one I have to steal reference:

Who’s Up For A 130 Mile Trip In An Electric Car That Takes 9 Hours?

By William Teach | November 28, 2020 | 3:00 PM EST

The climate cultists at the UK Guardian try to put a rosy face on this, but, ‘taint working

‘Why did it take nine hours to go 130 miles in our new electric Porsche?’

A Kent couple love their new car – but their experience suggests there are problems with the charging network

Miles Brignall | Saturday, 28 November 2020 | 3.30 EST

A couple from Kent have described how it took them more than nine hours to drive 130 miles home from Bournemouth as they struggled to find a working charger capable of producing enough power to their electric car.

Linda Barnes and her husband had to visit six charging stations as one after another they were either out of order, already had a queue or were the slow, older versions that would never be able to provide a fast enough charge in the time.

While the couple seem to have been “incredibly unlucky”, according to the president of the AA, Edmund King, their case highlights some of the problems that need ironing out before electric car owners can rely on the UK’s charging infrastructure.

The couple, who love their new fully electric Porsche Taycan 4S, which has a range of about 250 miles, contacted the Guardian to describe how difficult it is to recharge a car away from home. Their journey would have taken two and a half hours in a conventional car, they say.

In a portion that Mr Teach did not quote, the couple stated that they left Bournemouth on the return trio with 45 miles of charge remaining, so they must have burned through some electrons while in Bournemouth. Perhaps electric car owners need to be a little bit more conservative in planning their travels.^[1]As I have pointed out previously, electric cars have far lower ranges when the weather is cold.

Must be nice. That car starts at $185,000. See, these very rich people don’t worry about giving up fossil fuels like the peons

“Electric vehicle consumers want more interoperability, more chargers, greater reliability and a contactless experience. To really help the revolution get to full power before 2030 we need a concerted effort from local authorities to take up the charging point grants – only one in six do, according to AA research, and for those premises providing chargers to ensure they work. Driving an electric vehicle is great fun and can save you money and save emissions. Let’s make sure the future network can help save range anxiety,” he says.

See, we need Government to really build all these charging stations and stuff, so the rich folks aren’t inconvenienced with their expensive toys

The Guardian’s story said that the Taycan Turbo 4S has a range of about 250 miles, but that’s significantly higher than EPA ratings, which state the range to be 192 to 201 miles. The Taycan 4s (not the Turbo 4S), with the upgraded Performance Battery Plus, has a slightly longer listed range of 203 miles, and is actually less expensive, at $103,800 MSRP. Note that The Guardian article wasn’t really very specific about exactly which model the Barneses owned.

A parishioner at my church has a plug in Chevy Dolt Bolt. Given that there are no electric car charging stations in our rural county, he has to have a charging station at his home. If I had a plug in electric, I do have an easy and convenient place in which I could install a 50 amp, 240 volt charging station, something within my skill set, but many, and perhaps most, people do not have a dedicated and secure garage in which they could install such a charger. And, of course, if they don’t have the knowledge and the skills and the tools to install one themselves, they’d have to shell out a couple hundred bucks to a sparktrician to do it for them.

The Guardian article noted that there are more than 11,600 public charging sites in the United Kingdom, but, as the Barneses found out, far too many of them are out-of-service at times, and it can take a long, long time to recharge the vehicle. On Black Friday of 2019, Tesla drivers in the Pyrite State found themselves stuck in hours-long lines trying to recharge.

Plug in electric vehicles might be OK for tooling around town, but if you are like most Americans and at least occasionally take longer trips in your automobile, you had better have a second, gasoline powered vehicle. The Barneses have learned that the hard way.
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