At the Holidays, we went to New York.
Before the holidays, after booking the hotel, my girlfriend asked me:
“Are we going by plane? »
I looked at her as if she had bought plastic straws.
” What ?
– What ? The planet, that’s what. We will go there by chariot. »
So we went to NYC by tank, electric tank, because I’ve been going green for the past few months. I do what I can for our Mother Earth.
I have to say, it’s great, an electric tank. For the same monthly payment as my old gasoline model (I lease), I have almost the same vehicle, except that I no longer pay $200 per month (I mainly drive in town) to Shell, Petro-Canada, Ultramar , Esso or other breasts of the oligopoly of which we are the prisoners.
Great for my needs, I say. If you have a girlfriend in Ottawa or a boyfriend in Quebec and you go to visit them every weekend, the story is different. If you work on the road, it’s just as different.
New York, on a clear day, without stopping too much (and my girlfriend is not a stopper, as she says in her Saguenean patois), it’s generally a six, six and a half hour drive, with a vehicle gasoline.
But I made the green turn, I remind you: let’s say it took us quite a bit longer. At Lacolle, I had already gone from 100% to 60% autonomy. I knew we had to cross no man’s land in upstate New York, but Mr. Google was pointing to a marker near Lake George…
We were at 20% autonomy when we arrived at the Sunoco station. As I said: the car has roughly merdo 200 km of autonomy, in winter. The Sunoco was a classic gas station: gas pumps under a structure that protects against rain and snow. Put your VISA in the slot, pump the gas, igloo-igloo, and four minutes later, boom, you’re off again, unless you want chips, sold at the adjacent convenience store.
The three electrical terminals were at the end of the parking lot. Two cars were on charge. To pay, you had to climb a snow bank because the area around the terminals was not cleared of snow. No anti-rain-snow structure.
For 10 minutes, nothing to do: the machine refused my credit card. Or she would tell me to start charging the vehicle…
And it wasn’t charging.
I was beginning to get impatient (it’s my only fault, I’m impatient), precariously balanced in the bank of hardened snow when a lady who was loading her car advised me:
“You need the app!
– Ah OK thanks… ”
So I download Shell’s app, put US$20 into it and try to pay my top up again…
Not working.
It ended up working… With my credit card!
All refills for the rest of the trip were accordingly: complicated. Sometimes my credit card was accepted, but the power was not flowing. Get back in the car, change the terminal: the card is refused. Put the stun gun back in the magazine, start again with the same credit card…
And there, mysteriously, it works!
In short, the word “random” comes to mind to describe the efficiency of the electric charging stations found in the states of New York and New Jersey.
Here, an example…
I finish installing the gun in the side of the tank and we are about to go and have something to eat in this high place of American gastronomy called Chipotle when I notice that the young man parked next to us is looking at the payment terminal of his terminal with the puzzled look of a schoolboy discovering the marvels of algebra.
He holds his credit card in a vacuum, sticks it against the terminal…
Start again.
And start again. And even.
I understood his frustration: the station refused to supply his vehicle. I tried to help him, without success. I told the guy: listen, we’re going to eat, you’ll take my terminal when I leave, if you can’t make it…
When we returned, 40 minutes later, the young man was still trying to start the recharging operation for his Nissan: it still didn’t work. Poor guy, he didn’t look like he had lost his battle with algebra anymore, no: he looked like a child who has just seen his dog get hit by the milkman’s truck.
“OK, take my terminal, it will work…”
But it didn’t work anymore. The machine refused to take payment with a credit card that he had just used in the convenience store.
So I tried to pay for him with my credit card, the same one I had just used on the same terminal for my car, saying to myself: “Same terminal, same card, it’s sure it’s going to work … »
Boopdid not work.
A guy arrived in a brand new electric pick-up, a Rivian, and he tried to help us… Without success: “The terminals are very picky”, opined the owner of the Rivian, starting to recharge his vehicle without any problem in the terminal that had frustrated the guy from the Nissan.
The owner of the Nissan left, his dog was dead, he hoped to have enough autonomy to go to another terminal, a few kilometers away…
Score of the races: on a clear day, without bad weather, it took us 10 hours to go to New York, nine to come back. Even without the quirks of the terminals, it still takes 30, 40 minutes of recharging every 200 kilometers, depending on the vehicle.
I’m telling you all this in case, in those days of the Tank Show, you were juggling with the idea of going electric. It’s great, the electric tank, but not for everyone and not in all situations.
For long journeys, I find that the electric tank is perfect for one thing…
Work on your patience.