My summer holiday was ruined by my EV

Oct 14, 2023

A DRIVER has revealed how his holiday was ruined by their EV - as they spent the whole trip searching for a place to charge it.

Ben Rowell booked a summer getaway to Tuscany, Italy, with his family and hired a Polestar 2 - but he was left regretting it.

The dad said he had initially tried to defend the idea of getting an electric car for the holiday when pals poured doubt on the plans.

He said pals had even jokingly offered to let his wife travel with him on the holiday as they didn't think an electric car would handle the trip.

But writing for the Telegraph, he said he lectured his friends, saying: “The website Welcome to Tuscany says there are 14,000 charging stations in Italy. Two in our village alone, Google Maps says. This is not the 20th century.”

And he said he even refused his wife's pleas to change their electric car when they arrived at Florence.

He said: "I would relish (my friends') faces when I pulled up at the villa in my torque-y, rangy beauty and – my final flourish – plugged it in to the villa’s own power supply to charge for free."

The holidaymaker said any lingering doubts were also calmed when the rental car worker insisted they would be able to charge the car from a domestic socket at home, even if there were no charged stations.

Hours later, it had all gone wrong.

Mr Rowell said he went to help some stranded pals - with the trip eating up 235km of his range and meaning he was anxious to start scouting for charging points.

It was then that he realised one of the charging car parks hadn't been built yet - with another local station unavailable for his electric motor... and with that, knocking out 40 per cent of all Italian EV stations.

This issue combined with the lack of a domestic charging cable in the boot - which later turned out to be stored in the bonnet - left Ben nearly stranded.

He had just 80km left on his estimated range, with that the exact distance between him and the car hire company's charging station in Siena.

Fortunately, he managed to get their in time, but the holiday was dominated by range anxiety and the search for suitable charging points.

Ben even claimed that, when he returned the car, the company rep said: "Yes, a beautiful car. But no charging stations. Only one in Florence, one in Siena."

Overall, he concluded that he "may rely on horsepower" next time he travels abroad.

It comes after an expert mechanic explained why you should never buy an EV.

Meanwhile, a ULEZ rebellion is heating up on the outskirts of London as councils refuse to put up new signs warning about the levy.