So we got the car on Saturday and it’s AWESOME! I don’t want to ever give it back. It’s just so natural and easy to drive and it’s got amazing acceleration, but I didn’t find that out on the first day.
Conor very kindly dropped the car over to us mid morning. I was fully expecting it to arrive completely empty, but it had about ¼ charge. Conor informed me there was about 15km left in the car. Our next journey of the day was a 14km trip to Monkstown. Sure we’ll take the risk!
We managed to get to Monkstown with a couple of bars of charge left and proceeded to find an on street parking spot in Dun Laoghaire…which of course had a petrol car parked in it. Not to worry, we’d try Blackrock, surely two Saturday’s before Christmas that spot would be free, right. When we arrived their was naturally a car parked in the space, but there was a passenger in the car who very kindly informed me the driver would return shortly. He did, and we got our space. Happy days. A cup of coffee and a little Christmas shopping later and we’d plenty of juice to take us to our next destination and home.
I can’t wait for lots more adventures and see how far we can get on a full charge.
Hi David, we’re delighted you’re enjoying your new wheels! We can understand your frustration with petrol and diesel cars being parked in front of the charge points. Currently, the law does not allow for on-street public car parking spaces to be designated for electric cars only (that said some counties e.g. Waterford have already moved to designate spaces).
However, according to the statement released on the 11th of December, the Road Traffic Bill 2012 includes legislation to allow local authorities to provide parking bays for electric vehicles. Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Leo Varadkar, hopes to bring the Bill before the Oireachtas early in 2013. So this will be good news for EV drivers and it will also mean that councils will be able to mark out the spaces. For more details, please see The Road Traffic Bill 2012 (http://www.dttas.ie./pressRelease.aspx?Id=690).
That’s fantastic, certainly will be welcomed by all ecar drivers! But I appreciate the law as it stands today.