Rent an electric car on holiday? It’s more trouble than it’s worth
Always ready to do my bit for the environment, when I needed to rent a car for the day in Copenhagen last week I went to Sixt to rent a Citroen from their pioneering electric car depot.
When you take the car out they are at pains to point out that you can’t travel more than 100kms – and while there are electric car charging points around the city, getting a full recharge for the car takes about eight hours.
If you let the car’s battery run down, you are told, you will have to pay to get it towed back.
Instead of a broad brush fuel tank gauge – where the needle hovers uncertainly between full and three-quarters full or whatever, on an electric car you get a precise read out. I’d only gone a few miles when I noticed that what had started out as 100 per cent a few minutes ago was now down to 92 per cent with the amount diminishing in front of my eyes.
Having gone 10 miles in the direction of the airport, I was suddenly down to two-thirds full. In fact it became hard to think about where I was going because I suddenly began to wonder whether I would ultimately have enough charge to get me home.
I eventually cut my trip short and returned the car early because this anxiety was too annoying.
On the plus side: the car runs quickly (albeit silently) and in all other respects is indistinguishable from a ‘normal’ vehicle.
I realise that batteries are improving and ‘fast charging’ is becoming a more widely available option (allowing the battery to be charged in half-an-hour) but at the moment it strikes me that electric cars don’t really solve the problem.
Particularly if the electricity being used to charge the cars comes from fossil fuel power stations.
There must be some big idea in the works that will replace fossil fuel-driven cars. Surely, there must be…
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