You’ve failed to change my mind on electric vehicles Jane, but it was a good laugh
Our ideal source of advice when it comes to electric vehicles should be someone relatable. Someone who could be your friendly but exhausting local neighbourhood know-it-all. Someone who isn’t lacking in confidence, but possibly should be. Enter Jane Caro, writes Tim Blair.
Opinion
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Perhaps you’re one of many Australians presently thinking about trading in your normal car for something electric.
If so, you may appreciate some advice about just how difficult or otherwise that transition could be.
Is switching from a petrol or diesel vehicle to an EV particularly and needlessly complicated, such as – for example – dealing with all of the state and federal regulatory, legal and financial paperwork required to open even a modest small business?
Or is it simple, like changing genders?
According to Climate Change Minister and EV enthusiast Chris Bowen, complexity has nothing to do with it. Electric vehicles, he said in April, are all about allowing Australians “to have better choices”.
Which doesn’t exactly explain how Bowen became a minister.
“We want Australians who are making their own decisions to have better options,” he added, sounding like he means to stand down before the next election.
We can count Bowen out, then, when it comes to apolitical clarity about petrol-to-EV complications.
Most motoring journalists aren’t much use either because jumping so frequently from car to car has made them unusually and enviably adept at coping with different technologies and layouts.
They don’t know how difficult switching can be for motorists who’ve previously driven the same vehicle for a decade. And young people are the worst. Being essentially born with apps included means they are dismissive of us non-app types.
Struggling to connect a phone app to an EV recharger? Don’t ask a youngster for help. No matter your current age, you’ll instantly feel 20 years older.
Instead, our ideal source of advice in this situation might be someone who is relatable. Someone who could be your friendly but exhausting local neighbourhood know-it-all.
Someone who, despite not being especially grounded in science, physics or even elemental mechanics, might reckon themselves able to handle just about anything in those fields, up to and including a peak role in solving Australian and global energy production and delivery.
Someone who isn’t lacking in confidence, but possibly should be.
And we’ve got just the individual. Step forward advertising industry veteran, frequent ABC talking head and failed 2022 Senate candidate Jane Caro.
Climate-conscious Caro recently took one for the team by blowing $50,000 on a smallish, Chinese-made EV that in any proper market might be worth half that.
She then set off from Sydney on an electric voyage that proved genuinely and hilariously educational.
Things went sour from the moment Caro and co arrived at the destination.
“Dear Twitter, drove my new BYD Atto EV to Canberra,” Caro announced last week on social media.
“We cannot find a charging station anywhere that is operational and non-Tesla. We checked our hotel had them, but they failed to tell us for Tesla only. Can anyone help? This is everything you worry about when u buy an EV!”
Dozens of tips quickly arrived: “Have you got the PlugShare app?”; “ABRP app should help you out.”; “You just need to tweak the settings. Filter out options you can’t use.”; “Did you enter your car type into PlugShare?”; “Change the settings to not include Tesla.”; “Maybe use a local Facebook group to find someone who has a matching charging point at home.”; “Try Chargefox.”; “Check your settings in plugshare.”
None of these suggestions were of any use to Caro, who appeared to get a little stroppy with some of her correspondents – especially the chap who suggested “a TV series where we watch Jane trying to find charging points in different parts of Australia”.
I’d tune in. Absolutely.
Another of Caro’s followers, going by the tag CatLadyDeDe, was more sympathetic.
She’s also had her share of recharging dramas.
“Have just driven from Qld to Vic and back and found trip horrendous!” CatLady reported. “A usually 16-hour drive ended up being 46 hours.”
She further advised complete avoidance of the Albury/Wodonga area after ending up “with 1 per cent battery left, stranded at 3.30am and having to get towed to Barnawartha”.
Caro, thank God, never suffered such an indignity, despite all of her recharging disappointments.
“We’re plugging it in to a socket in the hotel car park,” she wrote, having evidently run out of other options.
“Beauty of the Atto is it can charge in an ordinary power point.”
The beauty of normal cars is they can refuel in minutes at ordinary petrol stations, but let us not descend to gloating.
Jane signed off with a smile. “It’s just a learning curve. Quite fun really,” she claimed. “Cost us $13 to drive from Sydney to Canberra.”
Plus $50,000 for the EV. Bargain.
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