How to live with an electric car in Berlin and how to monitor fuel prices
Rarely has solidarity of every color been as important as it has been in the last two years and especially in the last few weeks. Since many Berliners are currently running out of money at the city’s petrol pumps, I would like to present a medium-term and actually obvious solution to their problem to everyone: the electric car.
As the owner of an electric smart, the many reports, memes and internet discussions on the subject of “fuel price explosion” pass my wife and me completely unnoticed. Because two years ago our VW Eos swallowed twelve liters in city traffic and would crack 100 euros with a tank filling today, so we pay a slim 20 euros extrapolated for the same range for our Smart. And since we constantly come across strange, twisted or completely wrong representations on the subject of e-mobility, both privately and in the media, I would like to give all skeptics, doubters and ignorant people a small field report and a jump-start on the mystery of the e-car give.
The original reason for this post was a few months ago. In October 2021, the Berliner Zeitung published a trip report by a man who wanted to make a trip to the Müritz in an electric car for the first time and failed miserably on the 180 kilometers due to the technology, the apps and various other obstacles. Personally, I was annoyed by the sub-installation sound, which presented the electric car, which after all is the future method of locomotion worldwide, as an art that failed and immature niche technology for enthusiasts. Because almost at the same time, a car magazine was testing the new ID.4 from VW. The test driver also loaded his family into the new car and then drove the fast 1000 kilometers from Stuttgart to Sylt without any problems and needed the same ten hours for this that he otherwise needed with the combustion engine.
How can it be that the same technique leads to such different results? How much fun is an electric car and how much does this fun cost? And what about the many rumors that are buzzing all over the net?
The purchase decision
After I had already dealt extensively with the topic of e-cars and sorted out the strange rumors as such (e.g. child labor, risk of explosion, large CO2 backpack, power failures), we looked around for charging options in Wilmersdorf, because a bad one For us, the charging infrastructure remains the only comprehensible argument against buying an e-car. We found the only two charging stations on Rüdesheimer Platz less than a hundred meters from our front door, but they were always free and have since increased in size.
So we took the plunge, sold the Eos and bought an electric Smart, which was far cheaper than we expected. Our Smart-EQ Cabrio costs 22,000 euros in the basic version in 2020. To this day, you receive a dealer and promotional bonus totaling 9,000 euros, which is paid out promptly. Whether Opel Corsa, Audi e-Tron or Golf – with the same equipment, the 9000 euros usually make the difference between the electric car and the combustion engine. In addition, there are ten years of tax exemption and the daily fuel costs, which save many thousands of euros in the long run.
How do you load anyway?
Before we made the purchase, we first looked at the charging apps and modalities on the sofa. With up to three apps (e.g. Smoov and Plugsurfing) you can quickly find all charging stations in the city or in Germany. The apps reveal availability, loading speed, price, exact location and many other important details. Payment is made at the push of a button by direct debit, Paypal or credit card. With a bit of routine, you might stand at the column for a minute. The pump refuels the car for as long as you want or until it is full, and of course the meter stops at that point for billing. How long the car has to charge depends on how much electricity the car can draw per hour and the charging station can deliver.
The electric car works on kilowatt hours (kWh). To illustrate this, you can roughly imagine it as a litre. For example, our Smart has a battery (a tank) of 18 kWh and can be charged with a maximum of 22 kWh per hour. 80 percent of the columns in Berlin are operated by “Allego” and emit 11 kWh per hour. It also takes me about 90 minutes to fill my 18kWh battery at 11kWh per hour. Some columns in Berlin also offer 22 kWh or 50 kWh charging speed, so the Smart would be full again in an hour.
Fast-charging stations on motorways already manage up to 350 kWh, which makes no difference with a Smart, which cannot take more than 22 kWh and is therefore the bottleneck. The situation is different with a Porsche Taycan. Its battery has a capacity of 80 kWh and can be refueled with 300 kWh. At a quick charging station on the motorway, the obligatory break for a sandwich is sufficient and the journey can continue with a full tank. You can cover the 1000 kilometers between Stuttgart and Sylt in the same time as with a combustion engine. This is why the charging infrastructure is so important. At the moment you should plan ahead when you are going to fill up and where, a spontaneous long-distance tour is not recommended here – otherwise the Müritz will suddenly move far away.
What about the range?
The range is not a problem in Berlin. The buyer can control this second factor in the electric car himself. With the Smart, we opted for by far the smallest battery from the best-known car manufacturers and, despite continuous use, seven days a week, we never fail because of the range. The Smart creates only about 80 kilometers in winter and with air conditioning. More like 140 in summer. Even small cars like the Nissan Leaf or Renault Zoe have more than twice the realistic range and the largest battery in the VW ID.3 can cover 500 kilometers in city traffic. If you don’t commute between Köpenick and Spandau several times a day, you have to go to the charging station two to four times a month, depending on the model. And if our car is really empty and our columns are occupied, we set off ten minutes earlier and recharge at the fast-charging column at our favorite café.
That would be the counterpart to: “I’ll quickly throw a tenner in the tank.” If you work within the S-Bahn ring, you will certainly find a pillar near the workplace like we do. It is good manners to leave the car at the pillar overnight and not for days at most, because the neighbors also need electricity and the demand is growing noticeably, which is a good sign. An absolute no-go are combustion engines that park charging stations and also electric cars (especially from car sharing) that were parked there but not charged. Electric car owners have no alternative – when the battery is slowly draining and the app shows a charging option, you rely on the free space.
And how is it driving?
I’ve driven a lot of cars in my life, but I’ve never had that go-kart feeling on the road. Even conservative electric models are just plain fun. The reason for this is the torque that is available in full from the start in e-cars. Thus, even the Smart leaves every sophisticated AMG-Mercedes standing at the traffic light. Anyone who has always wanted to drive a Lamborghini but does not have the wherewithal will find a cheap alternative in the Tesla Model 3. This also accelerated from zero to 100 in 3.3 seconds and costs only a tenth of the Italian. In addition, the e-car is completely silent and glides elegantly, since there is of course a motor and therefore no gears. Incidentally, the buzzer is generated automatically, serves to ensure the safety of other road users and is required by law.
Anyone who wants to frighten acquaintances in the passenger seat dies instinctively at the sound of an engine at the start of the journey, drives out of the parking space at full throttle in the middle of a sentence. Since some car sharing providers in Berlin have e-cars in their program, everyone can experience this driving experience for themselves. That’s how we got hooked.
disadvantages and prejudices
My in-laws live in Lichtenrade. This is where the ideal solution for homeowners is the private wall box. You charge your car in the garage for even less money and have no worries or hardships. For all other Lichtenraders, on the other hand, things look bad, because on the app there is only one charging station for 50,000 inhabitants – as in many other areas on the outskirts. Buying an e-car is not possible here and there is a lot of catching up to do, otherwise entire residential areas would be excluded from e-mobility.
The list of prejudices is much longer. Every day we read in the news that Germany, as a large car nation, is fighting all EU decisions and guidelines with tooth and nail and that should really make us suspicious, because the car companies do a lot of greenwashing and don’t use the media as clumsily as others Interest Groups.
To address common prejudices: E-cars do not catch fire faster and you can tow them normally. Repair requirements and costs are minimal simply because there is no such thing as a 1000-piece engine. A mobile phone and a radio don’t drain the battery when you’re stuck in traffic in winter. A Tesla battery weighs 750 kg, a mobile phone battery 30 grams. The only battery factor is the air conditioning, just like with a combustion engine. Lithium mining in South America is indeed problematic, but the same batteries don’t bother us in cell phones. And we can argue whether the electricity in Germany will run out if all Germans drive an electric car. At the moment, however, we are not even reaching our goal of selling 15 million electric cars by 2030 (also 3o percent).
The global CO2 countdown for the 1.5 degree target has now reached seven years. Anyone who thinks they want to wait until miracle fuels or hydrogen cars are on the market before buying them is lying to themselves or looking for an excuse. The alleged compromise with a CO2 slingshot called a plug-in hybrid is even worse in many ways. A little courage is important in these times. My wife and I have never regretted buying our electric car.
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