Never hire an Electric Vehicle

We love our planet and are fervent environmentalists, but our recent experience in the UK has put us off hiring Electric Vehicles for life. Embrace the horror. Read the article.

This is not an April fool.

Two weeks ago we had an unexpected trip to the UK. Unexpected because Suzy’s auntie Pam went and died on us. We last saw each other when she rocked up to see us during our STARLITE.ONE tour in Ross-on-Wye just a few of months ago. Pam was 89, loved what we did and was one cool lady.

As we live in Portugal we had to book flights and arrange accommodation for the girls (our two Labradors) at Hotel Canino da Quinta de Santa Maria, the pet hotel owned by our fabulous vet Rita Cruz.

We then started looking at hiring a car to make the journey from Stansted Airport to Herefordshire on a tight budget or more accurately, no budget.

The hire

I used to arrange our hire cars through booking.com but because we don’t have credit cards, found it almost impossible to secure a booking as nowadays they require one with a suitably high credit limit to cover the excess.

On the advice of our eldest son James, we bypassed aggregate sites and booked directly. Boom! It was easy with a debit card and as cheap - the only snag is they pre-authorise the card and it takes a while for the money to be released back into your account.

As of today, we haven’t had £200 deposit returned.

So, after booking our Ryanair flights, I trawled around the car hire sites and discovered that Hertz was offering an electric vehicle for £109.92 for five days. Bargain!

I know nothing of these devilish devices but what could possibly go wrong?

Going electric

I have always been an early adopter of technology, but because we need a van to move all our gear around, an all-electric option for our current vehicle at home was off the menu.

Back in the mid-2000s, I did own a Toyota Prius electric/petrol hybrid and was unimpressed with the performance, but it’s 2024, a Brave New World where the chatter about Electric Vehicles (EVs) is only rivalled by Trump’s testimonies and Swift’s sex-life.

In Portugal, Tesla’s are a common sight just like pigeons in Trafalgar Square, only these are usually gleaming white. They go about their business silently, almost levitating above the tarmac making no smell, sound or fuss and so we are led to believe, are a glimpse of the future.

Every time we go to Pingo Doce, our local supermarket (pronounced PingU) - we park the Van of Rock next to two green monolithic charging points.

Compressed

The flight from Lisboa was seamless and once I had managed to straighten my arm and spine following two and a half hours of severe compression caused by a very large lady who sat in the aisle seat next to me, we walked to the bus stop and waited for the free bus to take us to the car rental village at Stansted.

The car rental village

We have been to the village at Stansted several times and the service has always been really good: today was no exception.

The Hertz receptionist was a very friendly chap called Paul who told us wistfully that he had worked for the company for over forty years.

On each visit, I see the rapid march of technology. The absence of paper - just a few squiggles on a tablet but this time the major difference was the talk of fuel and damage reporting.

Paul said, “Bring it back over 80% charged.”

Electric virgins, not ‘Electric Warriors’

Here we go - EV Virgins

He kindly escorted us outside, cordially introducing us to our new charge (forgive the pun) - a Polestar 2 LR SM in gleaming white.

We later discovered that LR = Long Range and SM = Single Motor - very important as you need to tell the charging app what vehicle you have.

I asked Paul what the range was with the current charge. “Oh, you have just over 80% charge and that’s about 220 miles”.

Back in the late 60s and 70s, layouts and functionality found in the Polestar were things of science fiction. It was equipped with a large tablet screen with multimedia capability, all-round collision sensors, integrated Google Maps sat-nav - all available via Bluetooth. I know most cars are moving that way but this was pretty next level.

No key or handbrake, just drive, neutral, reverse and a big round park button.

The Future

I am used to driving in Portugal so needed to reprogramme my head to drive on the left but Starlite kept a vigilant eye on my road position just in case I momentarily forgot.

Unlock, sit, adjust the seat (electrically of course), press the accelerator and you are away!

As we set off an email arrived with a very detailed report on the condition of the car with photos and diagrams showing all the existing damage and scratches. Impressive.

The first thing I noticed was when you take your foot off the accelerator there is quite a dramatic braking effect caused by the car using the kinetic energy of this very heavy vehicle to switch the motors from draining the battery into generators that charge the battery. It was pretty disconcerting, but that’s the way it is and you have to get used to it.

I quickly discovered the adaptive cruise control which uses the sensors around the vehicle to accelerate/decelerate depending on the traffic conditions. I left the airport, set it to 70 mph and apart from a small traffic jam on the M42, left it on for the whole journey. The screen showed me where all the other vehicles were and where we were going. I was only steering baby!

As the journey progressed I kept an eye on the range and the amount of charge left. The range started at 220 miles as predicted and gave us an estimate of 6% remaining in the battery when we arrived which was quite alarming and we thought we might have to recharge on the way.

An hour into the journey the estimate of the remaining charge was getting better, 12%.

Apart from the normal UK traffic, the journey was pretty cool and we arrived in Ross-on-Wye around 1745 with an impressive 20% remaining charge, which wasn’t down to my careful driving, but the adaptive cruise control.

It seemed logical to stick the Polestar on charge and go for a quick pint in the King’s Head, where we stayed when we played at the adjoining Corn Exchange venue during last year’s UK tour.

Diary of a touring musician: day six

There’s an app for that

Before we set off from home, Starlite had researched some EV charging apps which we were led to believe are necessary and looked into the cheapest way to facilitate charging.

We downloaded two apps: Octopus Electroverse (5.9K five-star reviews) and Zapmap (36K five-star reviews), the former of which I dutifully added a debit card ready for action.

Before arriving in Ross-on-Wye we checked the app charging locations and the closest to the pub was at Eddie Cross Street Car Park.

Charging attempt #1

Being a native Rossian, Starlite deftly navigated me to said car park to find the Swarco Rapid Charger. That is what we need, a rapid charger!

There were two charging points, one of which was being used by a lady. I pulled in forwards which was the first mistake as the cables were not long enough to reach so I turned round, reversed in and opened the flap to access the charging sockets.

Plugs and sockets are my business - as a musician & studio hound, I am used to a dizzying array of the buggers. These were heavy-duty and designed for high-current applications; a two-pin covered with a cap with a multi-pin above it, the plugs however didn’t appear to match the sockets.

I looked at the charger to find two connectors, one of which couldn’t be removed as there was a red light on above it, the other being a Type 2.

The lady saw we were confused and very kindly came over to help, explaining that type 2 was slow and we needed to use the CCS, but the CCS was unavailable. This amused me somewhat as the last time I heard of CCS was…

And of course, the diabolical cover of Whole Lotta Love used during most of the 70s as the Top of the Pops theme tune.

We didn’t want slow, but gave it a go.

The app connected, we plugged in and it told us there was a fault. Tried again, no joy. The chatty, kind lady was in a hurry and before leaving mentioned charging points at Morrisons Supermarket, but then gave us horror stories of minimum charging fees and delayed repayments then quickly told us that the car park we were in was pay and display and chargeable after only half an hour.

We had been up since 0545, had flown through the sky, packed tight like canned sardines (living in Portugal we know a thing or two about sardines) and navigated the British roads for three hours: we just wanted to charge the bloody car. We were not amused.

Brainwave! Even though they were not on the Electroverse map, when we were at the King’s Head last October we saw charging points in the car park at the back of the venue, So, off we drove silently around the one-way system to said public house.

Charging attempt #2

Negotiating the entrance into the Kings Head car park is tricky when approaching up the hill past the Market House as it’s almost a 140 degree turn into a narrow alley - the sensors on the car were beeping like crazy, but never fear the Polestar came through unscathed.

The last time I did this we were in the Van of Rock - a 6m long Volkswagen Crafter - and managed to get that badger in with no problem albeit with a different approach driving in an almost straight line down the hill from the Royal Hotel.

The two charging points are on the left-hand side of the car park. I reversed up to one and inspected the socket. It was a slow-charge version, but it was worth a try.

Failure cannot withstand persistence.

The Electroverse app didn’t work here so I tried Zapmap where the points were proudly displayed in the app. I followed the instructions, entered the debit card details and… nothing - failure to connect.

Not to be beaten I downloaded the eoApp, which was shown on the charging point and repeated the procedure. Nothing. OK, let’s go in the pub and see if they can help.

We ordered a couple of pints of Butty Bach from Wye Valley Brewery (which wasn’t the best bitter we have ever tasted) and asked the lady behind the bar about the charging. “Are you resident?” - err, no but we played here a few months back and know the owner. “The car park is full” - ahh, but we are drinking here.

Fortunately, before the conversation escalated, Magda turned up who remembered us from the gig. We explained the problem. “You need to download the app and follow the instructions.”

And still no joy! No electricity! No charge! Fuck all!

Defeated, we left to meet Nick Stephens and his wonderful partner Jane with whom we were staying. They live in the town and it’s easy to walk everywhere - good because we do enjoy a beer or two.

Nick is an old friend and ex-brother-in-law to Starlite who loves all things guitars and was a big musical encouragement when she was a teenager.

Jane is the sister of the late great Pete Overend Watts most famous as the bass player in Mott the Hoople, which were formed locally in Hereford.

We arrived to be greeted with big smiles and open arms. Gifts were distributed, hugs exchanged, a lovely dinner was presented, wine was consumed, guitars were played and much fun was had.

Charging attempt #3

The funeral wasn’t until Wednesday morning but we arrived a day early as we had heard of several cancellations from Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado Airport - so Tuesday was a free day.

I have only visited Ross-on-Wye three times before and all related to gigs. All the rushing around isn't conducive to getting to know a town and I wanted to understand more about my wife’s birthplace. We slept in a little and Nick made us a monster English breakfast.

At home, we don’t eat breakfast and tend to have one meal a day so we were already starting to be stuffed. But it was fabulous and a real treat.

Against the advice of our friendly charging goddess from the Eddie Cross Street Car Park, we decided to throw caution to the wind and visited Morrisons Supermarket. The Polestar needed feeding and this seemed to be the only option left. 19% charge on the clock.

I parked in the correct orientation, saw the fastcharge CCS connector, opened the Electoverse app, followed the instructions and voilà something started to happen, but excitement turned to horror as the charge didn’t start.

I tried again. Same story but third time lucky it worked and started to charge so we ambled up towards the town centre, Starlite excitedly recounting tales of traders from her childhood, some that have moved, some closed, some long since dead.

I saw a sign saying that there was a free parking limit of two hours at Morrisons.

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Ross-on-Wye

There is something about this town, something ancient and wholesome. Suzy tells me the area is like The Shire from the books of Tolkien and I believe her.

We made our way towards the old market hall passing a disproportionately large number, by UK standards, of independent traders - a great thing to see!

Two of special note are Thompson Trading and The Architectural Store which we visited first and full of cool stuff for sure. It’s a good job we didn’t have the van with us and were flying back as we could have bought most of the shop! It’s not strictly antique, with some reproduction and modern wares, but they have a great selection.

We couldn’t take him home with us - in The Architectural Store

Across the road is Thompson Trading and looking in the window we saw a large dog and thought it was part of the display, then it moved!

We entered to be greeted by the very enthusiastic hound and his owner who was the proprietor. He was dressed in a wonderful vintage suit and tie - a perfect advert for the shop. We wandered around and again wanted to buy everything.

Marmite and beard oil

If you have ever lived abroad you will know there are certain things you just can’t buy and now following BREXIT, it’s difficult and expensive to have them shipped. Nick had already received a pile of ‘unobtainables’ which we had delivered to his house, but now needed some basic essentials.

Two hot water bottles for example (WTF do we need them in Portugal, well we are not soft and we certainly do) so we whipped into Boots the Chemist - a large British healthcare chain.

One important point here about living in Europe - everything seems to be 30-50% more expensive and the customer service is pretty shit. In the UK we have found that things are cheaper and customer service is generally far superior.

I had misplaced my beard oil (yes, beard oil - if you need to know more read our article - 12 things we have learned in 2023), thinking I had left it at home and leaving Starlite in cosmetics heaven, whipped across the road to Superdrug (another a large British healthcare chain) to see if they had Bulldog, the brand I was used to. They did, I purchased at 2-for-1 and returned, using our Boots Advantage points for Starlite’s stuff which with all the discounts seemed really cheap.

At the checkout, we met a very chatty guy who was thinking of moving to Portugal. He owned two antique stores across from the old Market building and we waxed lyrical about life, the universe and everything but didn’t mention 42 once.

I miss conversing in my native tongue: we made our way to the Man of Ross Inn and enjoyed a few pints of the more agreeable HPA.

The bar at Man of Ross public house - HPA to the right.

The bill

We had a notification from the Electroverse app to say the car was charged and made our way back to Morrisons. It was a little over two hours, but we didn’t have a parking ticket - good.

The machine showed us it had reached 80% (why not 100%) and the charge cost £43.88 - 183 miles (295Km) for £43.88 = £0.24 per mile (£0.17 per Km) - bad.

Let’s look at this. Today the average price of unleaded fuel in the UK is £1.43 per litre (£6.51 an Imperial Gallon). £43.88 is 6.74 Imperial Gallons and therefore for 183 miles, the petrol equivalent is 27 mpg. A Toyota Yaris hybrid can achieve 69 mpg, but let’s be reasonable and say 54 mpg on a motorway run, that would be around £0.12p per mile.

Interesting eh?

Our readers from all corners of the globe may find all this confusing. In the UK we buy fuel in Litres, but measure road distances in Miles and generally refer to fuel consumption as Miles per Gallon (mpg) - and that’s the Imperial Gallon as opposed to a US Gallon which is different. Confused? We are.

Of course we understand that charging from home is a fraction of that cost (around £0.03 per mile), but it’s clear that travelling around the country in an electric vehicle is very expensive.

We made our way back to Jane and Nick’s, ate another fabulous dinner with great company, drank more red wine and played more guitar.

Nick has several cool guitars and tonight let me use his Gibson ES339 Custom Shop from the mid-2000s. It’s certainly one of the best-sounding production guitars I have ever played and this model was the basis of my signature Drake SC6. It’s a Simon Campbell guitar for sure.

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The funeral

I don’t really want to talk about this too much as we try and keep stuff like this private, but it was of course sad, Starlite and I sang Daniel Lanois’ The Maker during the Mass at St Francis of Rome Catholic Church, had a few beers and a bottle of wine at the wake - which was held in the centre of Ross at the Royal Hotel - and for the first time, met most of my large extended family.

Martin

I have met Starlite’s brother Martin a few times over the years. He is an expert in all things engines and a lubricants specialist. The subject of the electric car came up followed by a flood of expletives, my favourite being “They are an abomination” - nice.

It was interesting getting an expert’s view on the technology and he brought up some interesting points. We discussed infrastructure: how does a group of tenants in an apartment block charge using their domestic supply? Inextinguishable battery fires. Range and range anxiety (the biggie which we really felt). Real environmental impact etc.

Anyway, suitably lubricated (ho-ho), stuffed with beer, pork pie and jacket potatoes, we retired to the Man of Ross Inn and chewed the fat with Starlite’s pal and super cool guy, Julian Knight over a few pints of HPA. We returned to Jane and Nick’s pissed (for the benefit of our American readers, that’s intoxicated, not angry) for a wonderful dinner - we were getting really stuffed now - with red wine, fun and drunken guitar playing. Do you see a pattern here?

The jam

Nick had arranged for his mate Bill to come over and have a jam on Thursday. He arrived carrying his Martin acoustic and a bass guitar for Starlite which he had bought for £30 several years ago. A bit of action adjustment and tuning and boom, there you go.

Bill is the brother of the late Dale ‘Buffin’ Griffin who was the drummer in Mott the Hoople. Beer was drunk, guitars were played, songs were learned, fun was had and at 1730 Bill made his way home and Nick lovingly created another delicious dinner - he is a great cook.

The Jam Session (L-R Starlite, Simon, Bill and Nick)

After eating, we walked into town as we had arranged to meet up with Martin and his partner Debbie in the King’s Head and had a couple of pints.

Starlite went for a final round but they shut the bar at 2230, we went to the Man of Ross, the same story. WTF is happening in the UK?

We found a JD Wetherspoons - a pub of last resort - which didn’t close till midnight, where the beer was cheap but the atmosphere sterile.

Great evening…

Off to St Albans

No trip to the UK is complete without a trip to see my old mucker Jez Levy, his son Joshua and long-suffering wife Pauline.

This morning we literally couldn’t move but Nick insisted we have croissant and the regulation bucket of coffee before we left - it was almost a Mr Creosote moment.

As we walked out of the door he checked inside his Gibson ES339 guitar case to ensure we hadn’t ‘accidentally’ packed it. Great guitar…

Stuffed with food, love and many happy memories, we said our goodbyes and silently drove off.

Julian & Mary

I had never been to Julian’s house and we decided to visit on our way to St Albans. He lives in a tiny hamlet just outside Ross and wound our way through the beautiful Herefordshire countryside arriving a little before midday. He was there to greet us along with his partner Mary.

It is such a beautiful part of the country and his house is a stone’s throw from the meandering river Wye. Julian was instrumental in Starlite’s music education and ran the legendary Negative Earth disco with Roy Westley.

He’s a real music lover who buys new material (yes, buying folks) weekly, finding bands and artists you generally only discover through conversations in record shops or music magazines. We had tea, chatted and marvelled at his great hi-fi system which sat adjacent to thousands of CDs and vinyl records.

Just before we left he whipped out an old guitar case. I knew inside was something special and he opened it to reveal a wonderful Fender Jaguar from 1963. A player’s instrument with great action - another Simon Campbell guitar!!

Starlite, Simon, Julian and Mary

We had a lovely few hours but it approached 1345 we said goodbye and set our controls for the heart of the sun - not really, but it sounds dramatic.

The reality was we were in England with little sun and off to St Albans via Luton. We had brought with us two modules from our CADAC J series analogue mixing console that needed servicing. Anthony Waldron from Audio EMC, used to be the Technical Director for the company when they were in production and is an expert on their maintenance. He is based in Luton which is on the way to St Albans so we set the sat-nav for the route and fearlessly drove on utilising the adaptive cruise control.

This time the end charge estimate was a heady 19%.

Charge anxiety

We were thinking ahead to our return to Stansted Airport the next day (Saturday) and during the three-hour journey, Starlite was researching charge points. She looked around the area we were heading to i.e., Jez’s Opticians - Eyes on St Albans - which is situated in the Quadrant in the historic city of St Albans. No joy.

The plan was to go to the shop, have drinks, order a takeout curry (unusually the first of the trip) and chill out with the family in the evening.

It is possible to charge from a 13A socket, but unless you have the correct rate and/or a purpose-installed charging point it’s very expensive and didn’t want to impose on family Levy.

We opted to sort it out in the morning as our flight wasn’t until late afternoon and proceeded with the plan.

Curry & beer

We met Jez and our friend Jo Hayley in Fade to Black, a bar/coffee shop adjacent to Jez’s shop. Drinks were drunk, fun was had and drove to the curry house. Jez had a little errand to do beforehand and he zoomed off on his canary yellow Vespa meeting us later at the restaurant.

18%.

We really can’t get over how expensive it is in the UK. I don’t think the Rami Tandoori and Balti is pricier than anywhere else in the South of England, but we were a little shocked by the bill!

Yes, whilst we were waiting we each quaffed a large bottle of Kingfisher as the takeout was being freshly prepared, but coming from Portugal, it’s a wake-up call.

Anyway, the quality and memories remain whilst the cost is soon forgotten and we had a wonderful evening with Jez, Pauline and later Joshua when he returned home from work.

Shit was shot, red wine and curry - which was very, very good - consumed.

Another wonderful evening with friends who are actually family.

Charging trauma

Saturday morning - we had our regulation bucket load of coffee, said our goodbyes and hit the road.

17%.

Having found a charging station on the way, we set off to the airport. It was located right on our route in a McDonald’s car park. In the 11 years of being together, we have only ever eaten once at a macky dees and twice at a Burger King. The food is plastic and the company troublesome.

If you go back to the beginning of this article you will see that Hertz, not unreasonably, needed the car returned with an 80% charge and we were at 17%. If we charged fully in McDonald’s and went directly to the airport we would only be at 50% and hence two stops were required.

Charge #4 - McDonald’s

It looked like a school pickup. A backlog of cars spilling out on the roundabout, people milling around old and young. Miraculously, when we eventually managed to get into the car park there was a free charging point. We were lucky as within five minutes there was a queue waiting.

I get the drill now, reverse in, open the Electroverse app, select the charger and plug in. Sadly the app wouldn’t connect and for the first time tried a contactless card. Success! It started to charge.

It was pissing down and having nothing better to do and nowhere else to go, we reluctantly went inside McDonalds. It was quiet as most people were ‘driving through’. We ordered two coffees via a screen with no human interaction and successfully navigated the up-down-sideways cross-selling menu. Electing for table service, the coffee arrived quickly, with a smile - nice.

I kept whipping out to monitor progress, it was pretty fast. The coffee was shit, the place was filling up so we decided to leave. £31.60 | 55%. This would be enough to get us to the next charge four miles from the airport.

Onwards…

Charge #5 - Welcome Break

We arrived at Welcome Break, Birchanger Green at 1430. Car drop off was at 1500 and Starlite back timed to the flight, calculating we should be off the Rental Car Village bus and at the terminal soon after.

I chose to ditch the app this time and used contactless. The Applegreen charging station had many free outlets and it wasn’t busy. Result. Debit card, plugged in CCS. ‘Card turns on the power, watch the power flow’.

Charging.

Starlite and I hadn’t eaten all day and went into the service area. There was a Waitrose food outlet where we bought a couple of wraps: falafel & hummus and spicy chicken. They were OK.

We get the occasional glance and the Manchester in me goes “Who are you looking at?” but then see a reflection in a window. All dressed in black, with boots of rock and sunglasses. To add to the drama Starlite was wearing her long, black, faux fur coat so attracting attention should not be unexpected.

Back again to the charging point. £18.43 | 84% and it’s 1455. Cool, drove to the car rental village arriving at 1505. 83%. Phew. The check-in assistant was amazed we managed to get the vehicle back over the 80%.

The bus arrived and we made the terminal by 1535 and I didn’t give a flying fuck about the charge - we were free!

The flight home was delayed, JD Wetherspoons helped us out again with our final taste of proper British beer for a few months and ended up hanging around in queues waiting to board, but the relief was palpable.

We landed in Lisboa and there to pick us up was our wonderful friend Patricia who greeted us with a big warm Portuguese smile and monster hug driving us home in an old-fashioned petrol vehicle.

Finally…

Amp anxiety is a real thing and we were tired and stressed by the whole hire car experience on this trip - it stole hours of our time trying to find charging points and working out how far we could travel with the limited range. The charging infrastructure is not great. It's unreliable, very expensive and impractical if you have a tight schedule!

Conclusion: never again.