Trying to get electricity along European highways: not ready for prime time

I had a bad feeling about the recharging infrastructure when I decided for a gradual transition to electricity from oil with the plug in hybrid technology. As I drove to Hungary to join the family vacation, I tried to use all my coffee/restroom stops as recharging stops as well. The Prius PHEV of course could cross Europe just fine on its gasoline engine, but as a matter of principle I’m trying to maximise my electric travel. My quite discouraging adventures were the following:

At the Total station between Rheims and Metz, the charging point existed only in Google, not in real life, so I drove on. My first stopover was in Luxembourg, staying at a former IEA friend. We could not locate any operating charging points in the neighbourhood, but we managed to pull my charging cable through his toilet window and get electricity to the street where I was parking. This is a violation of all safety standards, but it worked, onward to Germany.

At the Exxon station near Mannheim the charging station existed but I could not figure out how to put it into operation. It had some QR code based registration system which did not work with my French mobile. The station staff was friendly but did not have a clue either. The episode raises two interesting questions:

1.     I don’t recall having to register with Exxon to buy their gasoline. I show up at the station and buy it, so why on Earth one has to register to buy electricity?

2.     Can’t register in Germany with a French mobile? Hello, there is this thing called European Union.

At the OMV station just before Nürnberg they apparently believe that all EVs are as small as the Renault Zoe or the BMW i3 since with normal parking the cable was not long enough to reach the docking point of the Prius. After ten minutes of back and forth I managed to position the car to plug in, and hallelujah, it did give me electricity. However, the pricing of it was daylight robbery, on a per km basis more expensive than driving the car on gasoline. In the conference speeches the low operating cost of EVs is their key advantage.

Stations get scarce on long Bavarian stretch from Nürnberg to Passau, but I stopped at a Shell which had a charging point. It was comfortably close to the restaurant and was occupied by two large and visibly non-electric BMWs (I guess I should not complain, otherwise they would have parked on the disabled slot). Onward on oil.

My second stopover was Vienna, with two Hungarian friends. They live on the 3rd floor and I could park only a 100 meters from their house, there was no way to plug the gap even with an extension cord. Nevertheless, in the morning we drove to a nearby shopping mall and had an excellent Viennese cappuccino while the car was charging in the garage.

The final leg was crossing western Hungary from Sopron to lake Balaton, I did not find any charging points along the way. Apparently they exist, mainly in the parking lots of posh castle hotels and golf resorts, presumably for the guests.

My overall evaluation is a clear D-, not good enough. All of the episodes above were entertaining with a plug-in hybrid with its build in ability to switch back to oil, but with a pure electric it would have been extremely annoying and would have greatly interfered with my family plans. The consumer experience today is clearly inferior to the old oil based system: infrastructure availability, ease of use and interoperability will need to be greatly improved in order for EVs to break out from the fringe of urban geeks to mass middle class adoption. Forget those creative Google Maps planning exercises. As an average driver I’m not going to leave the highway to try my luck at an IKEA parking lot. The charging points have to be at the motorway rest stations. And of course don’t even start that smart transport talking point about me not really needing long distance driving. All across Europe the highways were full, people do long distance driving, period. Electro mobility will defeat oil only if it stops lecturing consumers about why they need to change their lifestyle but provides them with the comfort and services they got used to and came to expect.