Range anxiety panic
Saturday morning, quarter past four. I put the key into my car and turned it on. I thought that I was half a segment above the 1/2 point. I was actually a half a segment below the 1/2 point. I set off, noting that the morning was several degrees colder than forecast.
By the time I got to the forest, I was glancing at the power level and watching it click down, and again, and again. Oh sh*t! Oh sh*t! Oh sh*t! Should I turn around, plug it in for an hour, just turn up late?
It seemed like coming out of the forest it was taking longer for the needle to click down a step. So I continued, perhaps recklessly.
In town, there is no place to recharge freely. I don't mean freely as in "at no cost", I mean freely as in "here's my card, squirt me some electrons and then bill me when you're done". It's all apps and accounts and a massive data grab because they can. Or it is "en panne" (broken down).
When I got to work, I was just above the 3/4 mark. It was very dicey as to whether I would make it home - but as long as I make it to the other side of the forest then there's a nice English couple I could ask if I could pop a few minutes of power in just to get me home. Plan B would be "as long as I can make it to my driveway (or even to the top of the hill before and just coast down the other side) then I can just push myself the rest of the way, it's a 350kg(ish) car so it isn't hard to push".
Work done, it was a slog, especially that time of the morning. Coming out, powering up, the needle pointed to just below the 3/4 mark. This was very much Not Good, but I had the benefit that the day had warmed up to about 13°C. I'd have been screwed if it was a 2°C kind of day, but it wasn't.
On the way into the forest is a big hill. Coming from home, I go down. Coming from work, I have to climb. My little car struggled. There just wasn't enough power to get good magnetism in the motor so I lost speed on the hill until I was doing about 30 (instead of ~46). I could have pushed the peddle down to dump more power into the motor and take it into the warning area, but it was already glitching the power level needle so I just decided to lose speed instead.
But my little car made it up the hill. The power consumption dropped and the speed increased on the flat, and I made it through the forest, with the needle only just into the red zone.
Through the village, down around some fields and the final hill. It's a longer gentler climb on this side, but again I lost speed and... the charge level warning light came on. This was a big enough deal that the digital speedo was replaced by a simple "Battery" logo. As in "Oh sh*t!".
I was now down to... what is it, 10%? 15%? I think it means that in this weather and these conditions, I have maybe five kilometres left. And I used one of them to make it all the way home.
You better believe I got out and gave my little car a hug, and then made myself a gallon of tea to calm down.
I don't ever want to do this again.
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| John, 1st December 2025, 22:20 |
And it's not even winter yet! |
| C Ferris, 1st December 2025, 23:37 |
Not got a local farmer to give you tow :-/ |
| jgh, 2nd December 2025, 00:51 |
It's December. It's winter. |
| Rick, 2nd December 2025, 06:38 |
Saturday was November. 😋 |
(Felicity? Marte? Find out!)
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Last read at 14:48 on 2025/12/14.
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