@des What an excellent post. It is so refreshing to have an EV owner acknowledging their limitations rather than just extolling their virtues.
We have put our toe in the water with a PHEV, as we have the ability to charge at home, but a full EV just doesn’t appeal yet due to the current real world ranges and I don’t want to have to stop away from home for charging. I appreciate that this means that I’ll pay more, but that’s a price I’m more than prepared to pay for the added convenience.
I took my wife to a hospital appointment today. We have to use a disabled space with a hatched section to the side as we use a person hoist and need the space. The only available disabled space was for EV charging and the sign made it clear that if you aren’t charging you get a fine (the car in the adjacent space was displaying a blue badge but had received a parking fine as it wasn’t charging). I have no intention of ever charging away from home as it’s too much effort for too little return with a PHEV, but her appointment time was fast approaching so I decided that I’d park there and charge so that I could get my wife to the appointment on time. I dug out the public charging cable from under the boot floor but could not connect it to the charger, even though it was definitely the right connector. I didn’t catch what type of charger it was, but the instructions implied that you needed to have some sort of card. Perhaps you have to scan that before the charger allows you to plug in to it? I’ve no idea, but it was beyond me in the time I had so I gave up. Funnily enough I’ve never had an issue working out how to use a fuel pump! Thankfully I’m managing to charge at home without difficulty, but that’ll do for now 😂