Introducing my new car, Presto the Electric Mouse! 🚘
We call our cars mice because of their shape (David, my husband, drives a Nissan Micra K12 N-Tec that we’ve named Techno the Mechanical Mouse). In fact, this is my main criteria when choosing a car. Apart from being able to get me from A to B without breaking down, it needs to be small, round and cute, either like a bubbly spaceship or rotund rodent. 🛸🐁 When David once came to pick me up from work, I could see the shadow of his Micra on the building opposite even before it came round the corner, and with its wing mirrors resembling ears, it truly looked like a cartoon mouse trundling down the road! And now, I also have one to call my own!! 🐭🙌🏻
As you can probably tell, I know precious little about anything with wheels. 😅 However, the opposite can be said about David who is very much a car enthusiast and used to own a Ford Mustang (yes, left-hand drive) years ago before our family had to cut costs due to changes in our financial circumstances. This is also one of the reasons I decided to switch to an EV. 🤷🏻♀️ With the price of petrol rocketing due to what’s going on in the world, it seemed a good time to make the change. ⛽🚫💸
Like many others, I used to scoff at the very notion of electric vehicles, believing some of the myths… New EVs would be too expensive, a used one would have a knackered battery that would cost thousands to replace, and blah blah blah. 🙄 Since then, I have discovered many EVs that are within an affordable range, and with a bit of research also found that their batteries do not lose efficacy as speculated. 🔋✅ A quick search would bring up examples of EVs that still retain over 80% of their battery’s lifespan even after a decade. Since they first appeared on scene in the late 2000s, the technology has only gotten much better and more reliable. Even David, an inveterate petrolhead, has been contemplating going electric. 😮
As a fairly inexperienced driver (I have only been driving for just over a year and mainly to work and back), I haven’t got a lot of confidence, so I suffer from anxiety every time I’m on the road (hence the little blue ribbon on my sun visor reminding me to stay calm and take deep breaths!). 🩵 That said, the Fiat 500e La Prima is a very nifty little car that is a pleasure to drive. It is excellent value for money and comes with many helpful features, like a rear camera for parking, co-pilot, adaptive cruise control, lane and hill assist, among many other smart attributes. 🤩
Presto is by no means a fast car, but being able to accelerate swiftly is a trait of EVs… very useful if you need to pull away quickly. Despite the name I have given my car, my driving style is usually more adagio, but I do believe I’ve occasionally surprised others who probably thought they were tailgating the slowest driver in the world. 🐌 One minute I’m navigating a tricky junction/roundabout at glacial speed (to the sound of frustrated beeping coming from behind), and the next I have suddenly teleported halfway down the road. 💨🤣
Whilst its greatest advantage is within an urban environment, the 500e still does have good enough range if I want to travel out of Blackpool. 🗺️📍 Furthermore, it only takes 20-30 minutes to power it up to 80% on the fast chargers at most service stations, and there are apps which will show you the best places for a quick volt-and-bolt (we found Tesla chargers to be the most efficient). ⚡ On an average week, I need only charge Presto once. and that’s from 20%. 😍🤌🏻 For those who are unaware, it is generally not advisable to keep charging any battery to 100% as it will eventually damage them.
Thankfully, since Henry Ford’s famous words, we now have a wide range of colour options, and I’ve always said I would have a car of any colour, so long as it’s NOT black… or white, or grey/silver. I’m not that keen on pink either. It did narrow down my choices for a used 500e La Prima somewhat, but I am happy with my final decision — Ocean Green. 🌊 This shade is quite unique as, much like the sea, it wavers between blue and green depending on the light.
My car might be small (not a lot of leg room at the back), but he has a lot of personality! From the way he sort of vomits when cleaning the rear window, to the kooky tune he makes when you press the “off” button (almost as if he’s a little taken aback you’ve told him to go to sleep), Presto has got more than enough quirkiness to match me. 😄 Plus, the 500e is the only car with an Acoustic Vehicle Alert System (AVAS) that plays a melody (the theme from classic Italian movie Amarcord) to announce his presence to pedestrians. 🎶 He does bong quite aggressively when he sees a speed camera on the horizon though, so… fair warning! ⚠️
Although my 500e has had other owners before me, he somehow retained that nice new car smell. After we had a few freakishly hot days, I thought it might be a good idea to get an air freshener anyway… just in case. 🥵 I saw a few posts about homemade scent diffusers and they seemed quite easy to make so I gave it a go. All you need is a bit of felt, string/thread, scissors/puncher, mini pegs, and essential oils of your choice. I don’t like sweet or floral scents, but anything fruity/citrusy is fine, even better if it smells like petrichor or a fresh ocean breeze. 😄 The general advice is to use felt made from wool, but I only had the bog standard felt used for kiddy crafts (I think it might be polyester or acrylic?) and it seems to work fine. My diffuser is more like a garland clipped to the vents than the average type you hang from the mirror. I don’t like things dangling about within my peripheral vision when I drive, and for safety reasons, I don’t really want to encourage anyone else from getting them either. It’s far too distracting!
Whenever David and I are out and about, we play a game of “spot the EV” so we have noticed their numbers growing. Of all the cars I see on the road, I’d say at least one out of twenty is electric. 📈👍🏻 With all new EV registrations in the UK having leapt from 19% in 2023 to 30% in recent months, it’s clear that EVs are the future. And globally, most governments also seem to be promoting their rise, which has seen power grids expand to adapt, with more incentives for renewable energy. 🌿 My main criticism is that many homes in England do not seem to have their own driveways or garages which would make it difficult for a large number of drivers to own an EV. That said, I believe the issue is not insurmountable and several solutions have been recommended (such as cross-pavement gullies etc.), so hopefully they will be implemented sooner rather than later. For those of you who are now ready for sustainable travel (and not necessarily looking for anything huge to begin with), I strongly recommend the Fiat 500e as it is a great introduction for anyone new to the EV scene. 🚗 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
