Going electric in Kintyre and Knapdale

May 2023

In September last year I was planning a trip back to Scotland in May 2023 to continue my coast walk around the Kintyre peninsula and Knapdale. I was flying to Glasgow and planning to hire a car from there as the area is too remote to rely soley on public transport.

I got the most ridiculous quote I have ever seen from Hertz for 5 days car hire. I took a screenshot, the price was so crazy (I promise, it’s not photoshopped). I even checked on my phone in case that gave a different price and on my computer in the office the following day but no, I still got this crazy price.

£6,013.80 to hire an electric car for 5 days? Or £25,000.82 if I choose to pay on arrival?! You could buy a new car for that much, let alone hire one. Well I think for that sort of money at the very least there should be a chauffeur and champagne on tap included. But it appeared not. Despite the crazy price for an electric car the price for the cheapest (Group A) car was £216.84 (which was still about 1/3 above the price I was used to paying prior to Covid). Not surprisingly I opted for this.

The Government wants to ban new petrol and diesel cars at some point (supposedly 2030, but I doubt it will happen that soon) so at some point we will be forced to drive an electric car. However my thoughts when I heard this were that I’d be glad I’d have finished my coastal walk by then as trying to get up to and around the remoter parts of Scotland in an electric car sounded like it would be a nightmare with few if any chargers, limited range and the time taken to recharge.

Roll forward to last week and it was not time for this trip and so I was heading back to Scotland. My plans for the day were already looking a little challenging. The flight I had booked originally had been re-timed to depart 45 minutes later than when I booked (British Airways strikes AGAIN) and on top of that it was, of course, late due to the plane being scheduled to depart from London Heathrow for Glasgow just 5 minutes after it had arrived from Copenhagen, which was of course never going to happen. This meant I had already had to abandon my original plans of what bus I was going to catch. Now my alternative plans of a later bus and slightly shorter walk were looking a bit at risk too, so when I did finally arrive, I was keen to get going.

I headed to the hire car building at the airport only to find the Hertz desk shut and a sign saying it was “temporarily closed” and to go to the hut in the car park. Not a great start, so I headed there only to find the two members of staff already serving other customers.

One was an American couple who I gathered had arrived the night before only to find Hertz were closed even though they had booked an “out of hours collection”. Needless to say they were not too pleased. The lady serving them insisted someone was there. The American couple insisted they weren’t. After going back and forth at this a few times the lady suggested they could have an upgraded car to help resolve the issue. They were offered an electric car. Meanwhile the other customer being served was told there were no petrol or diesel cars available (despite having booked such a car) and she had the choice between an electric car or an enormous and in my view pretty ghastly Ford Ranger pick up truck in Orange. She opted for the electric car too having been re-assured they would waive the usual requirement to return it with more than 80% charge as she was only hiring it for 1 day.

Now it was my turn and what I feared was going to be the case was true. I too was told that although I had booked a “Group A” car they didn’t have any, nor did they have any petrol or diesel cars available at all (I did wonder if that crazy price on the website meant they had bought electric cars but no one had booked one). All they could offer me was that horrible Ford Pickup truck (which I didn’t fancy trying to park or drive around the narrow and often single track roads of Scotland) or the electric car. With a queue now out the door I felt I had to make a decision quickly. I did a quick check on my phone for electric car charge points and found there were two listed in Tarbet where I was staying.

I was told it was very simple to charge, there was a dongle on the key fob that would authorise the charging and it could be recharged from 10% to 80% in 35 minutes at most chargers and there were chargers “all over the place”, that I’d have no problem finding a charger and that the car was already fully charged and could go over 260 miles so I would have no problem getting to my destination today anyway. She was also at pains to point out that this was a Group G car so a “significant upgrade” over the Group A car I had booked for no extra cost. I’m not sure I felt the same way but clearly I was on a hiding to nothing and it sounded like my only options were to take one of the two vehicles Hertz offered me or ask for a refund and see if I could hire another car from someone else (probably for a higher price). With the time ticking I decided to opt for the electric car. I was going to have to try one sometime so I suppose it might as well be now.

The car turned out to be a Polestar 2. I had never heard of it (but it turns out Polestar are owned, at least in part by Volvo).

I was assured all the instructions were inside and I would have no trouble driving it. That turned out to mean they stuck a sticker inside. Not quite what I had in mind.

I decided I’m sure I’d work out enough to get going myself. It took me a while to work out how to open the boot (the button on the remote control made a click but didn’t open it) but it turns out there is a button I hadn’t spotted under the boot lid and it’s all motorised. Having sorted that out I found how to put it into “drive”, as the gear stick isn’t really a stick at all but an electronic control that you touch to go either forward or backwards, it doesn’t even lock into position like on an automatic car. The hand brake was, I assumed, a button behind it marked P and pressing it turned on the expected symbol on the dashboard. Well I could at least find the steering wheel accelerator, brake in their usual place along with the indicator and I knew the way so didn’t need to bother with a SatNav, so it was time to set off. (I later found you could also set it up for “single pedal driving” which I think means one pedal acts as both the break and accelerator depending how far you press it, but I didn’t try it).

It was a large but comfortable car with many gadgets though I didn’t explore most of them. Setting off it was very smooth and very quiet. Heading onto the slip-road onto the M8 I floored the accelerator as I do in my own not very powerful car (it being the only way to reach 70mph before the end of the slip road in my car) and was thrown back into my seat as it went racing forward. Wow! I hadn’t expected it to be so quick, I was going to have to be rather more careful with the accelerator.

It was very quiet at speed (and hence you have to watch the speed closely to avoid a speeding ticket) and also showed the current speed limit on the dashboard (but got confused by the speed limit on the adjacent roads or off-slip at times), as well as the tendency of speed limits on the roads I was using to have 3-2-1 countdown signs to a slower speed limit which caused it to think the slower limit applied immediately at times. It would also show other signs, presumably there is a front camera that has software to read the road signs.

I quickly spotted that I got an orange graph going to the right when using battery power and a white graph to the left when breaking, which re-generates into the battery. The promised range by the time I checked was 260 miles, it seemed to go down in 10 mile intervals and after I’d done about 10 miles, so at least it proved to be fairly accurate (and I had the windscreen wipers and lights on as it was raining).

So it was certainly nice to drive. I reached my planned start point Lochgilphead in time to catch the bus and parked in the car park. There are cameras at the front, back and sides but they had been set to some sort of clever view where you get a live overhead view, I assume using some clever software to combine the images from the 4 cameras.

I noticed there was an electric charge point in the car park, so that was an encouraging sign. The downside was that it looked rather complicated, with different connectors, some showing as AC some as DC and a few buttons on the front. What was I supposed to use? I had assumed all cars had the same connectors and you just plugged in, it seemed not. Another problem quickly became apparent. You could only park in the bays for electric car charging for 2 hours at a time. If they were all like that (which turned out to be the case) that meant I’d not have the option of leaving it to charge whilst out on any of my walks, all of which would be over 2 hours but have to do it at some other time, which might well cause a problem with my plans.

Still I had almost 70% charge still, more than enough for today so I would worry about that another time. At the end of my walk (I had walked back to the car) I drove on to Tarbert where I was staying. After dinner I headed to the car park to see if there was a charger there, as Google suggested. Fortunately there was which would help as it meant I could charge the car for a couple of hours when I got back each day if needed. However no I had a new problem. This charger didn’t have any cables on it (unlike the one I had seen in Lochgilphead).

Another lesson – not all chargers are the same. I assumed there must be a cable with the car I could plug in. I looked in the boot. No cable. I looked under the shelf in the boot but there was only a puncture repair kit, no cable.

I gave up and went to the hotel and did some Googling. Hertz do say all electric cars come with a cable, you are responsible for checking it’s present and if you return it without, you will be charged a fee (and it was a LOT, I think about £400). I checked the documentation they had sent me by email but the list of accessories present when I collected it did not mention a cable at all. So it looked like I didn’t have one. That was going to be a problem.

A friend of mine has a Tesla so I got in touch to ask if he knew where the cable might be. Fortunately he suggested under the bonnet. Apparently this is common in electric cars (I don’t think I’ve ever opened the bonnet on a hire car before so this hadn’t crossed my mind). I headed back to the car park to look again, Fumbling about in the dark I found how to open the bonnet (but by now the midges were out, so was getting bitten by them). Well under the bonnet there isn’t an engine to be seen but thank goodness there is a compartment under the bonnet with two cables, one with the “chunky” plug on the charger and another with an ordinary 3-pin plug. So it looked like I had all I needed after all.

My friend also explained the different connectors and that most likely my car is compatible with all 3 and after I sent a picture of the connector, he confirmed it and told me which charger type was fastest.

I decided to swipe the key fob Hertz had on the key ring on the charger to see what happened. The screen came up “Access Denied”. Oh! That doesn’t bode well.

I returned to the hotel and did some more Googleing. The key fob I had on the key ring was marked “Shell Recharge” with a website.

I went there to search for the nearest charger to me. Bad news, it was either on the Isle of Arran, The Isle of Gigha (hardly convenient) or at a petrol station back at Glasgow Airport! (I was on the Kintyre pensinsula,t he bit of mainland between the Isle of Arran and Gigha on the map below).

So another lesson. Not all electric car chargers are the same. It seems there are different providers and you have to sign up to whatever one you plan to use and get a key fob.

Why does it need to be so complicated? My usual petrol station (Sainsbury’s) has pay at the pump. You put in your credit card and PIN then you can fuel up to £100 and you are charged for how much fuel you pump at the end. Why can’t electric charging work the same way? Why the need for multiple key fobs and accounts rather than use a credit/debit card? Can you imagine if you could only buy petrol from BP if you created an account with them first. And likewise for Shell and so on? It’s all a bit of a mess. I found the charger Google had directed me to was run by “ChargePlaces Scotland” so figured I’d have to find out about that. (I think it is an organisation set up by various Councils in Scotland to install charging points in more remote locations).

I was now a bit worried as if the nearest charger on the same body of land as me was at Glasgow Airport I wasn’t going to be able to do all the walks I planned this trip as I wouldn’t have enough electricity to drive to the places I needed to go and to get the car back to the airport at the end if I could not charge it. In addition I found in the terms that if I didn’t return the car with at least 80% charge, I’d get charged for the charging required (fair enough I guess, if I return it with less than I picked it up it costs money to re-charge so it’s fair they charge me for the electricity) BUT there was also an additional admin fee added on top for this which I thought was unfair. I mean at the end of a holiday you likely have some distance to drive to the airport and a flight to catch. A petrol car can be re-fueled in a matter of a couple of minutes. If the electric car is going to take 40 minutes, that’s a lot more time I have to allow and it wasn’t my choice of car in the first place

I decided to ignore this problem for now and continue with my plan for the next day, which meant I needed to drive to Campbeltown and back. I had enough range for that, so I’ll worry about the charging later.

I had found the “Charging Places Scotland” app for my phone and it did suggest that you can apply for a key fob from them (but no good for me now, since it’s sent by post) BUT there is also the option to pay in the app or on a web page and that you could use that if you didn’t have a key fob. They had also had more places to charge.

Well it was a relief it looked like I had a solution since by the time I had driven to Campbeltown I had 49% charge left which meant I likely now couldn’t make it back to Glasgow Airport without finding somewhere to charge it.

My days walk went to plan and whilst on the walk I had an idea. Now I had learnt there were different chargers and connections and that one type was faster than others (CCS) I found there was a charger in Campbeltown that was one of the faster ones and the one in Tarbert was less powerful and hence slower. I decided to see if I could get it to charge in Campbeltown and since it was fairly late by the time I got there I’d get a takeaway there whilst the car was charging.

The charge point I found was at the CalMac ferry terminal. I found it and was pleased that this was one of the type that had the cable already attached. I tried to use the website to trigger it. Each attempt required me to type in my credit card number, name, home (billing) address, the 3 digits on the back of the card, then wait for a text message from my card provider to “authorise” the payment, then type that in and then I could start the charge. I tried 3 or 4 times (the charge was an initial 1p authorisation) and every time it told me there was an error starting the charging session. Aargh. It wasn’t going to be simple. A check on the app showed another charging point in Campbeltown near the police station. With the help of Google Maps built into the car I found this. I tried again. This time it actually worked! At last it seemed to be charging, the screen on the dashboard went green and showed it was charging and the page on phone also showed this, along with an end session button.

Flushed with success, I went to a takeaway (I had stayed in Campbeltown before) and had that on a seat at the sea front, it being a sunny evening and not wanting to make the car (which was clearly very new, with only just over 500 miles on the clock when I picked it up) smell of chips.

Returning to the car I was back up to about 70% or so charge. That was a relief as I now suspected this would be enough, just about, for my planned journeys and with enough to get back to Glasgow albeit it would be very low by then. Flushed with success, I drove back to Tarbert and decided to try and charge it in the car park there once I got back. I eventually managed to plug in the cable and get it going there, though it took several attempts. This charger was much slower though and after about 90 minutes it had only added about 15% more battery life. If you’re only allowed to use the charger for 2 hours at a time (which is what the sign and app said) and that only adds 20% to the battery that seems pretty poor.

Still the next day I didn’t need to drive at all as my walk started from Tarbert and I was catching a bus back. The following day I had a longer journey to Inveraray. Here I decided again at the end of my walk to try the fast charger there and go for a takeway whilst the car was charging. Once again the first one I tried it wouldn’t start at all and I must have spent about 20 minutes trying the different cables, each time having to enter my payment details, address, wait for a text message and so on. I gave up but found there was another charger in the same car park. A less powerful one but this one did appear to work so I was able to add some charge whilst I had my takeaway (hmm who would think having an electric car would lead to more takeways!). Never the less the website then gave an error after a few minutes, so I was unclear if it was in fact still charging.

It was, but again the amount of charge added wasn’t that great and I had to drive back Tarbert.

I was wanting to get the charge as high as possible as tomorrow was my last day and I wanted to be able to minimise the amount of charge time I would have to allow before returning it to avoid getting extra fees. I therefore decided once back at Tarbert I’d charge it for 2 hours whilst I had dinner and a shower at the hotel then go back later and disconnect it, to avoid exceeding 2 hours.

This made me realise another problem. The drink drive limit in Scotland is lower than in England. Normally when back at the hotel I won’t be driving until the next day so I have a pint with dinner. Now I had to go and move the car to a “normal” parking bay after dinner, after the 2 hours were elapsed so I couldn’t have a pint with my dinner. Another frustration. Anyway I headed back to the car park and connected up the cable. This time the web page or app both refused to start the charging. I tried perhaps half a dozen times and every time when it told me to connect the car I did that, and within a few seconds it would tell me to disconnect the cable again and the car was showing an error. (I later found each time I tried, I got a 1p charge to my credit card, but these have since been refunded).

Now I had a much bigger problem. When I tried to do that (disconnect the cable), I could disconnect it from the car no problem, but the cable would not come out of the charger. There was no eject button. I tried pulling really hard, but it felt like it was locked in place. A bit of Googling showed this is intended whilst the car is charging due to the high voltage and current to ensure the cables aren’t live before you disconnect. However it seems something had gone wrong. The cable had unlocked from the car fine but not from the charger. I looked in vain for some sort of “force eject” button or some way of doing it, but I couldn’t find anything. I tried to pull and to twist, but nothing seemed to get the cable out. I tried to re-connect it to the car and re-start the charging but every time it failed (and I tried many times). More 1p charges. More text messages with codes to enter to authorise the payment. More failures. More wasted time.

Now I was in a bit of a panic. I could drive, but the cable came with the car, if I couldn’t return it (because it was connected to the charger and I couldn’t remove it), and so I had to leave it here, I’d be charged around £400 for a new cable from Hertz. Maybe there was a telephone number and someone could come out to help, but it was Saturday evening and tomorrow was Sunday so I doubted there would even be there today or tomorrow. I rang the helpline number listed on the charger anyway, not expecting to get thought but to my amazement after about 5-10 minutes someone, an actual person, answered. I was relieved to find the help line was open! The man I spoke to after finding the right charger (they have numbers on) tried to send various things to the charger to get it to disconnect the cable. I could see the screen would light up each time he did so, but the cable remained stuck. I think the 3rd or 4th thing he tried (which was to tell me to re-connect it to the car, then he remotely started then stopped the charging) worked. At last, success, it released the cable! Fortunately the man confirmed they are open 24 hours a day so if I needed further help there would be someone there to help. Well that was a relief, but I wasn’t going to risk it again, I would give up with that for now, move the car to the car park in front of the hotel and leave it for tonight.

The next day, my last, I was doing another walk in the other direction from Inveraray again. The buses back were several hours apart. The first I suspected I wouldn’t make. However the paths and tracks were good so I did actually make it in time for the first bus. That meant I got back to Inveraray in time to visit the castle (which I wanted to do) and so managed to get the car to charge there again, after several attempts and weird errors from the app.

After that I had enough time to drive back to Glasgow Airport for my flight (which had also been re-scheduled later since I booked it). I made it with enough time to use one of the “Shell” chargers with the key fob Hertz gave me. I found that rather than use the charger at the petrol station at the airport I could continue another mile or so to the next junction where there was a retail park with a compatible charger where I figured there was more to do.

I found it and this time, with the key fob, it was easy. The charger had the cable already attached. Plug one end to the car, swipe the fob, press start and it actually worked first time. The idea with these fobs is that Hertz have an account. They then pass on the cost of the electricity used in the time the car was hired to me and charge that to my card a day or two after the hire ends (though at the time of writing still haven’t). I found a Costa Coffee that was still open there and got a drink (not coffee) and used the toilet and waited about 25 minutes. Fortunately when I got back the car was at 92% charge, so certainly much faster. However I then noticed the rates this charger was charging for electricity was more than double what the “Charging Places Scotland” chargers charged. Another lesson. There is a vastly bigger variation in prices to recharge an electric car than there is for petrol and shopping around makes a big difference.

Anyway I drove back to Glasgow Airport and was surprised to find Hertz was closed with a sign in the window they were only open 8am to 4pm, Monday – Friday which surprised me at an airport. So I had to just put the keys through the key drop and hope they were happy with it.

Fortunately the next morning I got my “end of rental” invoice confirming my deposit was returned and no extra charges had been made to my card, so that was a relief.

So I managed and did all the walks I had planned but it was very far from a trouble free experience. It seems that a fully charged electric car is nice. The problem comes with charging them. You should not need to get hold of a key fob for every different company providing electric chargers in order to be able to use all of them or have to install a different app with each. You don’t have to have an app to use a BP petrol pump and a different app for a Shell pump and so on so why do it for electric car chargers? In addition many of the chargers failed to work at all. There are far fewer of them than petrol stations, so you need to plan ahead more. As I also found there is a risk the charger will decide to not release your cable, potentially leaving you stranded if you can’t get hold of anyone to help. The app and website were buggy and unreliable and the two hour limit is a problem in my situation (where I want to leave the car for many hours whilst I am walking, then drive straight back). If you have your own charger and are at home I’m sure it would be a smoother experience. The situation will have to improve before the majority would be willing to buy an electric car I feel (and that’s ignoring the fact that they are far more expensive to buy than petrol cars). Still it was an interesting experience and I suppose if the same situation arises again on my next trip I will be better prepared, but it was certainly some stress and hassle I could have done without!