𝅘𝅥𝅮 late December, but in '24 𝅘𝅥𝅯 (hat tip to Frankie Valli & the 4 Seasons), but our night was definitely NOT about a thrilling experience. It was a loooong journey home in our electric car in a frigid 25°F (almost -4°C) night, necessitating 2 recharging stops, one of which extended to 45 minutes plus (the charging station needed a re-boot because of the cold), and also included a speeding stop.
We traveled home from Orange, MA after dinner, with 69% battery charge, did a 15 minute grocery run, and then stopped in Tewksbury, MA to recharge for 30 minutes (too cold for me to get out of the car and find out how it all works). What isn't often talked about is how much heating, defrost, fan, wipers, lights, etc., all chew up one's battery. Our projected 'cushion' had dropped down to a mere 5 miles, which was too risky in the cold conditions, so we realized we'd need to make another recharge stop in Kittery, ME.
Dale did the outdoor parts of the 'expedition' in Crocs and his compression stockings (silly man), and had to take his gloves on and off multiple times to try and work the phone App and the icy cold 'bowser' handle. At bay #1, after multiple tries, no charge was being delivered to our car, so we started the engine and moved to station #4. This effort too, yielded the same result - unable to charge. We finally decided to call tech support (Dale had successfully used recharging stations a few times previously, so he knew what the procedure was). He obviously had to go through a long-winded set of steps before speaking to a person, who then began trouble-shooting from the beginning, and getting our details through. Ugh, a few tries of being walked through the process confirmed that it was perhaps the charging station that was at fault (conditions too cold) and it would need a re-boot from the remote location. Of course, this also took a while as we waited for Windows to cycle through a reset. Even after that it still failed to initiate charging so the tech support person had to initiate charging remotely after going through a process of getting full authorization from us to do so!
There were no other customers around (it was almost 11:30pm for goodness' sake), and we got our top-up charge completed in 15 more cold minutes. We still had an hour to go before getting home, so hurriedly set off for the I-95, only to see a police vehicle light up in glorious red and blue flashes as it pulled in behind us! Dang! We'd been going too fast in a 25mph zone - closer to 50, I heard him say. Oh no! The officer was very friendly and understanding when we told him briefly of our "Oh what a night," ordeal and he let us go with a warning. Phew! We were so relieved that we turned right immediately after the traffic stop, only to find that it was a turn too early and we ended up in the 'gamadoelas' (South African slang for being in the boonies) far from the highway, so decided to retrace our steps. Wouldn't you know it, we encountered the same officer pulling over a car at the exact same spot he'd caught us - Dale waved as we drove past.
We felt haggard by the time we got home (12:20am), I can't lie (and all I did was sit in the cold car, shivering and watching). It was a 4.5 hour trip that usually takes just under 3 hours! Using an electric car is a whole new mindset, and demands a bit of learning to get the unfamiliar procedures understood and working comfortably, but the same goes for anything new. I'm certainly not regretting buying one.
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