Oh oh, I can add to this after my recent experience from Sixt at the Frankfurt airport!
I get to car rentals and after waiting 30 minutes for an available car, I was asked if I would like an electric car, I thought, why not. I’m given the keys to an Opel Mokka e. Load my shit in and see the charge level is 10%. I was not given any charge cards or explained how it works. I leave the airport because im hot and sweaty after carrying my two bags through the airport after an 8hr flight. I just want to go.
So I thought “no problem” and I would find a charging station easy because I’m in a city. Didn’t find any and ended up calling
@leviathan who guided me to a charging station because my data wasn’t working, but I could message and call through telegram. Once I’m there I figure it would be easy, it says I need to attach the plug and activate either through an app or pay contactless. Which I found the contactless wasn’t working or just not activated. Either way, no charge. The car saw the charger and was waiting to charge. Since I felt like the dumbest person on earth, I call
@leviathan again and he was able to activate the charger through an app he uses for his Tesla charging. Great.
Sie how do you turn it off? Ah, you would think with activating, something would change in the display, but no! So I had bother
@leviathan yet again to have him stop the charger since the plug gets locked into the jack on the car during the charging process. I end up returning the car back to Sixt and was given a diesel Citroen C4 with low AdBlue.
But at least the Citroen could be driven and refueled normally without needing to use an app to switch on and off a fuel pump.
So my first experience with an electric car could not have been worse and sadly for me, I’m now very firm with that we are not ready for widespread electric car use. Not until charging is as a simple as, insert payment, take charger cable and plug it in, and wait until full or stop when you want to leave, and payment is complete. Until recharging is as simple as refueling an ICE car, I don’t want to deal with it.
And the only way this is possible is if you have a charger at home.
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