Rutger Middendorp listens to a colleague who defends the purchase of a Volvo V70. But based on what?
It happened again this week. A colleague applauded his Volvo V70. Before we knew it we were in a conversation where smiling anecdotal nonsense against the electric car was being performed. Result: everyone was a bit uncomfortable and nobody really learned anything. However, my annoyance about the mediocre level of knowledge about electric cars among highly educated people had grown.
He thought he had the solution for empty batteries
This morning I was in the car with my son and he thought he had found the solution for empty batteries in electric cars: put a small windmill in front. We got an animated conversation about the law of conservation of energy and how Leonardo da Vinci already tried to build a perpetual motion machine. He also did not know the law of conservation of energy. The refreshing thing about it is that my son is briefly disappointed when his solutions don’t work. But he does take that disappointment. (I have no idea how Leonardo da Vinci handled disappointment.)
Small windmills give resistance, magnets have to be pulled off again and gears are not carriers of energy. OK. On with life.
I wish the conversation with my colleague had gone the same way. The man talked about his Volvo, but clearly felt a bit of fuel shame and said he really wanted to drive electric. But the next one should definitely be a hybrid. He regularly drives to Berlin and that really won’t work with an electric car. I told that I recently drove to Berlin with an electric car and also to Sweden and Switzerland. With two fingers in the nose. And one hand on the steering wheel. On a travel day you might make one more stop, but that’s it.
Charging twice between Amsterdam and Assen
His reply was that someone he knew had driven a Tesla from Amsterdam to Assen and still had to stop twice on the way to charge. It was also a new lease car.
I responded by saying that if that person had left with a completely empty battery, even 1 stop would have been enough. Because even with a Tesla with the smallest range (Model 3 standard range), with the heater fully on, in a flying snowstorm, at -10 degrees and with three fat friends on board whistling 275 kilometers. And in somewhat normal circumstances about 400. Given that according to Google you have to drive 185 kilometers to get from Amsterdam to Assen, charging twice is really not necessary, unless you start with an almost empty battery and after two minutes of charging think: the was beautiful again or because you took a detour via Paris.
Such an anecdote – which is often eagerly passed on – gives potentially dozens of people the idea that they are really still comfortable in their fuel car. 227 kilos of CO2 goes into the air on a return trip to Berlin with the V70. But yes, someone he knew had to load twice between Amsterdam and Assen. Then you really can’t do anything about it.