I had one of those small adventures the other day that reminds you why the internal combustion engine has not quite packed its bags and shuffled off into the museum just yet.
A colleague and I were dispatched to BCA Bridgewater to collect two vehicles. He drew the Land Rover Evoque. I drew the Nissan Leaf. The Evoque had a quarter of a tank of diesel. The Leaf, proudly, declared that it had 77 miles remaining. Our journey back was under forty miles. Even by modern standards that seemed a comfortable margin.
Two miles later the Leaf had clearly changed its mind.
By the time I reached the M5 the miles remaining were disappearing like biscuits in a meeting room. Heating off. Eco mode on. I settled into a stately 55 mph, the automotive equivalent of walking gently across thin ice while pretending everything is perfectly normal.
The situation deteriorated steadily. Every slight incline shaved miles off the prediction. The car began to look at me in the accusatory way computers do when they know they are about to ruin your afternoon.
Then the phone rang.
My colleague had broken down at Junction 16. The Evoque had stopped and now sounded, in his words, like a bag of nuts. So I peeled off the motorway and went to investigate, clutching the jump pack I keep in my rucksack when collecting auction cars. The jump pack revived the Evoque well enough, although the engine continued to sound as though several internal components had recently resigned.
Before I performed the roadside mechanical triage, the Leaf's remaining range dropped to three miles. Three. Then something curious happened. When I got back into the car the display now said 15 miles remaining. Apparently the electrons had been having a little lie down while I was helping the Land Rover. Happy days, I thought.
My happiness was, of course, premature. By the time I reached Tytherington the display was on zero miles remaining with five miles still to go. At this point I was driving downhill slopes using the e-Pedal like a Victorian miser shaking coins out of the upholstery. Every hill became a negotiation. Every mile felt like a personal insult.
Miraculously, I made it back to base.
The whole episode did rather underline the practical difference between the old world and the new one. If you run out of petrol or diesel, you can at least walk to a filling station, buy a can, and return with five litres of hope. With an EV, once the numbers start going theatrical, you are reduced to prayer, light throttle inputs and a growing intimacy with the topography of South Gloucestershire.
I am sure electric motoring has its place. Quiet, smooth, efficient, very worthy. But auction collections, unexpected detours and a colleague stranded on the hard shoulder in a dying Evoque are perhaps not its natural habitat. There is something faintly absurd about living in an age of astonishing technology, only to discover that what you really need is the electrical equivalent of a man in a layby selling emergency watts out of a can.
As an aside, I subsequently went to BCA Enfield and collected an electric VW ID3 with 176 miles remaining for a 136 mile journey. Made it with 12 miles remaining, after having driven for about 30 minutes at 55 MPH on the M4 to conserve energy.
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