Electric vehicle drivers across Britain are today marking a half-decade of absolute chaos, commemorating five full years of downloading apps they’ll use exactly once, standing in motorway service station car parks at 11pm watching a charging unit flash error codes in what might be Morse code, and developing the kind of route-planning skills previously only seen in Antarctic expeditions.
The milestone comes as EV ownership in the UK reaches record levels, with thousands of drivers now united in the shared experience of needing seven different accounts, four separate RFID cards they definitely put somewhere safe, and the phone number of that one bloke on Reddit who knows which charger at Northampton services was working last Tuesday.
“I’ve got an honours degree in biochemistry, but I honestly could not tell you which of my fourteen charging apps will successfully connect to the unit I’m currently standing in front of,” said Rachel Morrison, a teacher from Bristol who has been driving electric for three years. “Sometimes it’s the blue one. Sometimes the blue one tells me to use the green one. Last week the green one told me to phone a helpline, and the helpline told me to use the blue one. I’ve started bringing a Ouija board.”
The British tradition of stoic acceptance has reached new heights among the EV community, who have developed an almost zen-like approach to charging infrastructure. Planning a journey now involves consulting live status websites of unknown reliability, a WhatsApp group called ‘Is Cobham Working Today’, and what can only be described as prayer.
“I’ve got a spreadsheet,” admitted Tom Edwards, an accountant from Manchester. “It tracks which chargers were functional on which days, weather conditions at the time, and whether Mercury was in retrograde. I’m not saying there’s a pattern, but I’m not not saying it either. Last month I drove an extra forty-three miles to use a charger that I knew worked on a Thursday if you tapped your card exactly twice then opened the app while standing on one leg.”
The celebration has been somewhat muted by the fact that most EV owners are currently stranded at different service stations, trying to remember which email address they used to register for an account in 2019.
Meanwhile, the charging network operators have released a joint statement assuring customers that they’re working hard to improve the experience, which they will do via an exciting new app that’s incompatible with all the previous apps and requires you to upload a photo of your driving licence, your first pet’s name, and a brief essay on why you deserve electricity.
The traditional fifth anniversary gift is wood, which seems fitting given that many EV owners report the experience has given them a renewed appreciation for things that simply work when you put fuel in them, like fires, or petrol cars.
