Tim Blair: Electric vehicle ‘etiquette’ brings more despair for motorists

Prepare for your standard of living to decrease and your lives to become more difficult as we begin our eight-year journey towards Labor’s emissions ­reduction target, writes Tim Blair.

As a general rule, everything green is worse than traditional alternatives.

Renewable energy is less reliable and more ­expensive than energy generated by coal. Electric cars are less convenient and more expensive than cars powered by petrol or diesel. And green politicians – from all parties – are even more annoying than normal politicians.

The one exception to this rule is nuclear power, which despite being clean and green is angrily opposed by most clean-and-green activists – presumably because it works and won’t destroy capitalism.

So prepare for your standard of living to decrease and your lives to become more difficult as we begin our eight-year journey towards Labor’s 43 per cent emissions ­reduction by 2030.

Half of that journey is already complete, thanks to the closure of coal-fired power plants and such. Consider them the low-hanging fruit of emissions-slashing.

The coming of electric vehicles brings challenges like 'charging rage' as people try to transition with the technology.

But now things become more challenging, as may be measured by one telling figure. When Australia was basically shut down throughout 2020 by Covid panic, it led to a reduction in emissions of just five per cent.

Imagine, then, the scale of change required to achieve multiple times that amount – all to make Australia’s already-insignificant carbon dioxide output even less significant.

It’ll be a wild ride, people. Let’s look at how just one aspect of our lives may change as we yield to the commands of our UN climate overlords.

At present, recharging an electric car, besides being time-consuming, is not particularly arduous. If at home, plug in overnight. If on the road, rock up to a charging station, plug in and wait.

Perhaps you could while away a lazy 40 minutes or so by chatting with two or three other EV drivers (who tend to be older or retired, in my experience. They’re not in any great hurry). There aren’t that many of you, so maybe there’ll just be the one. Or none.

But the government is aiming for 20 per cent of Australia’s vehicle fleet to be electric by 2030. That’s four million cars. And while battery technology keeps improving EV ranges, advances in charging times have not kept pace.

Tesla electric cars charge at a Tesla charging station outside a shopping mall in Beijing. Picture: AFP PHOTO / GREG BAKER

 

If you think waiting for 40 minutes to reach an 80 per cent charge is tolerable, you might think again if you’re waiting for two or three others to get their 40 minutes done before you even begin.

Delays cause friction. “Charge rage” is already a thing overseas, even in countries with greater numbers of both EVs and charging ­stations.

As far back as 2015, the New York Times reported: “Electric vehicle owners are unplugging one another’s cars, trading insults, and creating black markets and side deals to trade spots in corporate parking lots.”

Even with increased numbers of charging station, conflicts continue.

According to a 2019 Canadian survey, “almost a quarter of electric vehicle drivers have argued with a fellow driver at a public charging station.

Twenty-four per cent said they have experienced ‘extreme frustration’ when other drivers use public chargers to fully charge their ­vehicle”.

It’s apparently considered bad EV manners to aim for more than an 80 per cent charge, because charging slows significantly beyond that point.

So, when an EV is at 80 per cent and its owner has wandered away somewhere, other drivers may attempt to unplug the car and grab a charge for themselves. “Even if you can unplug it, don’t – you aren’t the only one who needs to charge your car,” advises one of many online charging etiquette guides.

“You are also touching someone’s property when you are doing this. This could inspire an altercation.”

Can’t say I’ve noticed many fights at petrol stations. I did once see someone get yelled at for parking on a tyre inflation hose, however.

When EV drivers aren’t arguing with each other, they argue with malfunctioning recharging equipment.

Petrol pumps are simple mechanical devices, difficult for even the most maladroit motorists to inadvertently damage. Rechargers, by contrast, are delicate and electronic. They break down all the time.

Confessed “smug EV evangelist and self-proclaimed EV expert” Jonathan Gitlin last month wrote of driving 1000km from Washington DC to upstate New York, encountering useless chargers the entire way.

Gitlin “spent almost as much time stationary, arguing with charging machinery, as I did actually pulling electrons into the car’s battery pack throughout the 600-mile journey …

“A five-minute wait to see if the car and charger would establish communications was invariably the case. Waiting 10 minutes was not uncommon. Even then, there was no time to relax; more than once, an error somewhere in the loop shut everything down after just a few kWh.”

‘Charge rage’ is one of the new problems electric vehicle owners can look forward to. Picture: DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS / AFP

Electrify America, which runs the largest public recharging network in the US, offered Gitlin some technical assistance via its helpline: “The representative told me to hold the charging handle up once it was connected to the car rather than let the weight of the cable pull it down.”

So not only are you stuck there for 40 minutes or two hours or whatever, you’re holding the damn charger all the time.

Gitlin’s piece was accompanied with a photograph: “Four cars, four chargers, but only one of us is actually drawing power and recharging their battery, because three of the machines were faulty or completely down.”

There’s your future, Australia. Happy motoring!

UPDATE: