Plug In Baby

We live in a small village in Mid Wales. A delightful place, full of friendly people and a pub.

Visitors

Since moving here, a lot of friends and family have been to visit which is always nice. Usually, it’s for a few hours although a couple from the U.S. did stay overnight with us last year. Recently, a distant cousin and his wife, who emigrated to Australia about twenty years ago, have been in touch to say they are hoping to visit the U.K in the Spring. All being well, they plan to call on us as part of their month-long tour here. Great, it’s been so long since I’ve seen them there’ll be a lot of catching up to do. Probably a stay of a couple of nights at least.

Charging

Now for the bad news. They are planning on hiring a new ‘all-electric’, one of those touring camper van things. I suppose they are to be commended for trying to do the ‘green’ thing, but there’s something niggling away at me. I think the number of charging sites around mid-Wales for electric vehicles can be counted on the fingers of a boxing glove. My distant cousin, who might just be relegated to a distant friend who I can’t remember, says there’s no problem with charging the vehicle as you can plug directly into a domestic electric house socket! Hang on, plugging a huge minibus into my house mains and leaving it eat my electricity overnight is not going to happen.

Where To Charge?

Although commercial chargers that are dotted around the place, more so in England, can charge a car within 3 hours, plugging into a house main can take up to 15 hours! In my terms, that is a small fortune. Then there’s the problem when they go off sightseeing around Wales. I know what will happen, they won’t be able to find a charging point and head straight back here and whoomph!! Plug into my electricity. I might be giving the impression that I’m a tight old curmudgeon and truth be known, I am. This is a big vehicle though and not a two-seater motorbike.

Out Of Pocket

My arithmetic has never been up to much, but I reckon that to charge the minibus, it will cost me about £20 overnight. As I say, I’m no mathematician, so I’m probably wrong and the cost will be double that. Add that up over at least a week of too-ing and fro-ing and that’s £140!! I know how things will pan out too, you haven’t a clue how much to charge them for the use of the electricity so they leave £30 cash on the table by the door. I fear their visit is going to be an expensive one. I’ll probably have to sell my petrol-driven car to finance it.

If you’re interested in electric camper vans:

Photograph by vanlifer.com