The joys of green driving - early days

By Brian Clegg

It’s early days using a plug-in hybrid, but after a holiday trip to Cornwall I now have some experience of commercial chargers, though admittedly a small sample. When at home I always charge there – my electricity costs about half the rate per mile of petrol. Looking at commercial chargers, moderate ones (or those at friendly locations) are similar to petrol, while fast chargers can be up to twice the petrol price.

For this reason I thought I wouldn’t bother to charge before the return journey, as there wouldn’t be a financial advantage, but in reality, travelling the 223 miles down to Gwithian, I found the cleverness of the hybrid mode meant that I got significantly more miles per gallon/kWh than I would on petrol alone. As a result I had four attempts at charging in Cornwall, of which two were successful. 

The first one seemed perfect. It was at a location we were staying several hours, at a rate a little cheaper than petrol. I plugged in, started a charge on the app… and nothing happened. Ringing the support number, I was told there was a hardware fault, but they only looked after the software, so there was nothing they could do but cancel.

A couple of days later I was catching the delightful little train that shuttles between St Erth and St Ives. According to the apps, it had four chargers at a reasonable rate – again, ideal to leave the car and let it get on with its thing. When we got there, the four chargers had all disappeared (you could see where they were in the app photos and they aren’t any more.) Instead there was a single charger (admittedly faster), but with a nearly twice petrol rate – and you couldn’t access it without an obscure app I didn’t have and couldn’t be bothered to download. Result – no charging. 

I was so frustrated at this point that when I topped up with petrol before the return journey, I added some charge at a Shell Recharge.  Ridiculously expensive, but very easy to use (no app needed) and fast.

Finally, we called over at a National Trust house (Killerton) on the way back. This seemed ideal. Chargers in a preferential parking location, cheap, again no app required and l would get a good charge while we looked around. When I got back I terminated the charge… and the charger refused to release the cable. I had to ring the support number (that’s 2 cases out of 4). Thankfully they could reboot the charger, which let me unplug.

As a plug-in hybrid user, I’m far less susceptible to range anxiety than a pure electric driver. I have to say, that my experience so far suggests the charging network is not yet ready for large scale use, particularly when you are a little off the beaten track.

Image from Unsplash by Zaptec

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Now Appearing is the blog of science writer Brian Clegg (www.brianclegg.net), author of Inflight Science, Before the Big Bang and The God Effect.