Charging, It’s a “Small Thing”
*This article is reproduced from autocarweekly.
Author: HooKnows
The compact and tidy charging station, lifting the charging gun with ease and a “click” sound when inserting it into the charging port, indicators displaying a tranquil flow, and the “fully charged” pop up on a mobile APP, followed by simply taking two or three steps forward to detach the gun and cover it, taking the car away from oil pollution and dust, charging the electric car is now an experience of ease, convenience, elegance, and good taste.
In the advertisement.
If there is a convenient home charging condition, or if it is used as a second or third car in the family, an electric car has long been the perfect commuting tool. Nevertheless, if you have been attracted by the trend of electric vehicles and have bravely chosen to use a pure electric car for everyday transport without fixed charging conditions, how will life not cooperate?
Many new car owners who have never been involved in the charging process, only realize that the “charging line” may be more appropriately called the “charging pipe” when standing 50 centimeters away, can it still be considered a “line” with thickness comparable to a thermos cup?
In the imagination before actually using an electric car, charging should be like this: one slim and soft cable, lightly grasping it with five fingers can easily pull it off, without blowing a whistle, free of the dust and noisy world.
The crisp “click” sound, clean and beautiful, yet civilized, makes people recall the jumping knives and forks on a lunch avocado salad, fit perfectly with a suit, Oxford shoes, or a small high heel dress, emanating a delicate and urban light.
But in reality, it is often like this. A cable as thick as a child’s arm, from the moment you press the unlock button, detaches from the charging station, and the small ten-pound weight of the cord rests entirely on one of your arms. If you are a girl with weaker strength, using both hands is normal.
The thickness determines that the cable is not soft and easy to bend. You may have to spend half a minute figuring out which side it can bend more smoothly. If the location of the parked car is not ideal, it is frequent to hold the charging gun with both hands and push it inside to make the cable go in the direction you want, at the right angle.
And because the charging cable’s “belly” is constantly dragged around on the ground, don’t think that saying goodbye to gasoline means embracing a clean and tidy “technological sense”.
When you have to use the other hand to adjust the cable’s bending direction, it’s best to have wet wipes in the car to wipe your hands. What’s even more important is when you hold the charging gun, try to open your arms as much as possible to keep the cable away from your body, otherwise its elasticity and gravity could leave marks on your pants or shoes – something you don’t want before work or a date.
Of course, these are all small things, and the “thick cables” cannot be a reason to resist electric vehicles. The key here is: advertising is for reference only. Don’t think that charging an electric vehicle is a far more elegant and modern thing than filling up with gasoline.
Every winter, there are always some people who complain about electric cars like they do about their dads; and every summer, some (northern) people forget about the cold of winter.
If you believe that electric vehicles can already “replace gasoline vehicles” and that relying solely on public charging stations can sustain your life, and happen to be located north of the Qinling and Huaihe River, then winter is more than just a simple “reduction in range”.
Friends in the south may not understand that the distance between the relaxed, leisurely walks under the clear blue sky can turn into a daunting chasm in winter. Under normal circumstances, few people are willing to walk for more than 10 minutes in minus 10° north wind weather.
So when the closest charging station is not too close or too far away, the problem of charging becomes unconsciously complicated.
It only takes five minutes to drive to the charging station, but you need to detour for 15 minutes on foot, and it takes 60 minutes to fully charge.
This means that: if you choose to walk back after starting to charge, then you’ll have only 30 minutes of free time left after walking 15 minutes to get home in the cold, and you’ll have to walk 15 minutes back to get the car; if you choose to sit in the car and wait for it to fully charge, because using air conditioning to heat up will add about 10 minutes of charging time, then you’ll waste a total of 1 hour and 20 minutes in the car.The cost of walking in the cold wind for a total of 30 minutes can only exchange for 30 minutes of free time, while the cost of always being warm is 80 minutes spent doing (basically) nothing — it’s really hard to say which one is more appropriate.
Long-distance travel is a problem that everyone knows with electric cars, but the real driving experience is not worry-free just because “the destination distance is not beyond the actual cruising range.”
The journey from Baoding to Beijing is close to 200 km. The standard cruising version of Model 3, driving on high speed with air conditioning on, can actually cruise for about 200 km. So Tesla’s onboard navigation suggested that I limit my speed to 110 km/h to avoid a surprise loss of power halfway through.
This means that once again, I objectively have two choices: if I drive straight to Beijing at 110 km/h all the way, theoretically I can get home to rest at the fastest speed, but I will face the embarrassment of almost zero power the next day, unable to go anywhere; if I drive at full speed of 120km/h, find a supercharging station near Beijing to charge, then I will still be able to have at least half the power to meet my daily needs the next day, but I will be at least 1 hour late getting home.
There is no need to tell which one was ultimately chosen because neither choice was really improper, because what’s truly annoying is not either of them, but the choice itself — you shouldn’t have had to use your brain for such trivialities. However, now for any trip, your brain generates a few choices, and none of them happen to be perfectly painless.
If you have witnessed a lineup of Teslas squatting to grab charging spots, you will better understand what I mean by “it’s not as good and painless as you think.”
No brand will tell you these nuances of experience, no car blogger will tell you about these small troubles in detail, and no media will be able to describe these “negligible” trivialities in a test drive review.
But if you are an ordinary worker without freedom or parking space, and believed that the electric car industry has matured and bought it as the only commuting dependency, small troubles can easily accumulate and then be magnified to affect more people. If it is a household electric car that costs tens of thousands of yuan, without the support of Tesla’s supercharging network, the annoying things will only be more diverse.Just like in ads, it is impossible to simply remove the gun and leave without dealing with the cable, and the cable is always slender, light, small and delicate to use, but often takes more than ten hours to fully charge. The charging station claiming to charge 80% in “40 minutes” may take half an afternoon with a round trip. The nearest shopping mall where you can “incidentally” charge your car while eating or shopping may not have any stores that you would like to visit. Even if the car navigation system intelligently draws the range, there is still a possibility that you won’t be able to come back for the majority of users who only own one car. Although electric cars have countless advantages, it is difficult to regard any trivial obstacles in the charging process as “small things” for most of the users who only own one car.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.