Head of Sustainable Construction at Borders College get his first Tesla
Greg Steel – Curriculum Learning Manager for Sustainable Construction @BordersCollege talks about owning an Electric Vehicle:
What is it like owning an EV?
Six months ago, I became the proud owner of an Electric Vehicle, and I can honestly say it has been great.
In some ways, it is just a car and gets me from A to B, but in other ways it is a completely new experience, and a great one.
For example, I don’t have a conventional key:
I walk up to the car, and it is unlocked, I walk away, and it locks, giving a friendly honk to confirm it is locked. This is really convenient and just works. It does this using the app on my phone and Bluetooth. I have a backup RFID credit card, in case my phone should run out of battery.
I thought that the range anxiety would be worse;
the car will do 260 miles on a full charge, but realistically at this colder time of year, with normal driving, is more like 200, but that is more than enough to do my weekly commute. I am lucky enough to have a home charger, so can plug in at home. It is Smart, so I just plug in, and it will determine the best time to charge overnight, so that it is ready for 7am. A full charge is around £12 in electricity on a normal domestic tariff. Public charging is getting better all the time, with more than 42,000 charge points to choose from.
Longer journeys need a bit of planning,
but the navigation in-car does all the planning for you; it will suggest which chargers to stop at, how long you will need to stop for, and build this into the route. After 2-3 hours driving, stopping for 30-40 minutes for a break and coffee, it’s a good thing. It may take slightly longer, but it is more relaxing and safer than ‘splash and dash’.
One of the things that has been nice during the cold weather is, whilst eating my toast in the morning, I can turn on the defrosting windscreen, set the cabin temp and turn on the heated seats, with one tap on the app on my phone, so that when I go outside, the car is ready to go.
With the majority of electricity generation in Scotland from renewable sources, it is nice to know that the journeys taken in the car are not reliant on fossil fuels, and no local emissions from the tailpipe!
It has been a big step to get an EV, but the lower cost of fuel, servicing and road tax, and saving the planet, has definitely been the right move for me.
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