Dogs know better - Electric is easier!

Long distance with electric cars

Range Anxeity! For those unfamiliar with the new world of electric cars – range is often the first thought that comes to mind. Whenever I discuss electric cars with someone that has never driven one they almost universally bring up range as a limitation. 

Fear of the unknown often leads to very definitive statements such as…. “there is nowhere to charge”…“it takes too long to charge”…“with electric you simply can’t do long road trips!” 

So many I have spoken with are not yet prepared to take the leap from internal combustion to electric for fear of running out of battery! 

I totally agree, or at least I did…one year ago...

It is one year now since I traded a very nice and comfortable Diesel BMW for a Tesla Model S. I had never driven an electric car before, never charged one and knew very little about this new world. The test drive convinced me almost instantly. There was nothing like the power, smoothness, silence and simplicity of the Tesla. When I returned to my BMW after the test drive it felt like I had just climbed out of a Model T Ford and got back on my horse. There was one big concern though, I couldn’t take my eyes off the battery level indicator.

Less than one week of driving the Tesla and I had to make a journey from Luxembourg to Payerbach Austria, almost 1,000 Km, in one day. I have never driven more than 600-700kms in one day before and the thoughts of such a journey in an electric car scared me. So much was I terrified that I considered renting a diesel for the trip. This was an uninformed fear. I simply entered the address on the Tesla navigation screen and there was my electric journey all mapped out. Each of the four supercharge stations clearly marked, and how long I needed to charge at each stop. 

Whenever I drove long distances before I would just keep driving and almost never stop. I usually arrived exhausted after 500km or more. After 1,000km in the Tesla I was not tired. These ‘forced’ supercharging stops were used for food, nature calls and the last two for cat naps. It made a huge difference – I was fresh when I arrived after 12 hours on the road. 

My Tesla has a range of around 380km when fully charged. How many times do you drive more than this on an average day? 90% of us drive less that 100km a day. And for the rare long journeys electric works! It’s just different!...better.

Most times I just plug the car into a normal 220v socket at home every second night or so. It only ads about 14km per hour, but given the car is parked from evening to next day that’s enough. I only need public and supercharging stations for those exceptional long drives.

Tesla now has now more than 400 Supercharging stations with over 3,200 charging points across Europe, and is adding 8 locations a week... And it's not just about Tesla. There are more than 5,000 CCS Combo DC and 6,250 CHAdeMO chargers across Europe, with a power up to 350 kW - thats very fast charging! And a massive build out is underway for example with Ionity, the pan-european fast charger network founded by BMW, VW, Daimler and Ford. So our New Nissan Leaf and Jaguar iPace customers have the same experience – easy.

Almost all UFODRIVE customers have never driven electric before. In our first six months they used superchargers 372 times and public chargers 230 times. Our customers have driven as far as Berlin, Warsaw, Rome and Dublin from Luxembourg without help or incident. In fact we have had just one support issue relating to charging out of almost 1,000 journeys. 

Universally our customers have been quite simply ‘blown away’ with the performance and ease of transitioning to electric. UFODRIVEs real-time EV Analytics support technology ensures that our customers have never had an issue with the new world of charging and range.

Try an electric car, take a test drive or rent with UFODRIVE and see for yourself how driving for more and more of us in the future will be electric. You may just change your mind about what your next car will be.

By the way - That trip to Austria ? – was to collect a Labrador puppy! He won’t drive anything else now but electric!