David (pronounced da-VEED) and the EV
A tiny travel horror story, part 2
I am cursed when it comes to rental cars, I swear. And now I have a triptych of tiny travel horror stories to reinforce this idea.
First, there’s the infamous and very long story of our ill-fated side trip to Naples four years ago, when I wrecked the Beast not once, but twice. I will let you take some time to read that (or listen to it) if you haven’t already.
This other trip? Two, count ‘em two, moments of automobile misfortune. Two tiny travel horror stories. I’ve broken them up into two parts. You can read part one here. Below is part two.
We rented a car for our week in the south of France. Unfortunately, the first rental car melted down, literally. Fortunately, it did so just 5km from the rental car place, and we were able to hail a taxi to get us back there, where we nabbed a different vehicle—an electric Hyundai Kona EV.
It was a temporary reprieve from car trouble.
We had a great time on our drives. The Kona drove nicely and offered a comfortable ride. And being an EV, it was sooooo quiet. The only downside is that you have to charge these EVs every 480km or so. (How many miles is that, you ask? I don’t know. Hold on, I’ll make a Google so you don’t have to…mmk, it’s almost 300 miles.)
By the time we’d had a few days of adventures, including a jaunt in the seaside town of Antibes, we needed to juice up so we would have enough battery to complete our journey and fly home. The following day, we were planning to drive back through Provence to Marseilles, where we’d return the car at the airport.
We had a long afternoon at the beach ahead of us, which was a perfect amount of time to plug in the EV and charge it to 100% while we frolicked.
Monkey-hand-in-a-coconut trap
I dropped off the fam at the beach and drove to a charging station in a neighborhood near our flat. But I had a dickens of a time connecting the car to the charger.
The stations in Antibes are pretty much all Wiiize stations (yes, three “i”s). You’re supposed to have a Wiiize card to pay, which of course I did not have, but there was a QR code you could scan to pay online.
This is how it’s supposed to work (I realize I’m in the weeds already, but this story hinges on the hilarity and calamity of minute details, so hang with me):
Connect charging cable to car
Boop your Wiiize card (or, apparently, pay online and receive a charge code)
Press the green start button on the charging station
Open the little door
Plug in the other end of the charging cable
Close the door
Wait for the battery to charge (over the course of hours)
Press the stop button
Open the little door
Remove the cable
Drive away
I could not for the life of me get the door open to plug in the cable. But eventually, after a lot of card booping and button pushing and shrugging and audibly sighing for an audience of no one, the door unlocked.
I did not question why. I was just glad it happened. I plugged in my charging cable, closed the door, and peeked at my car’s dashboard display: full charge in 7 or so hours.
Pleased, I went to the beach to hang with the fam for the afternoon.
After beach time and a long lunch and beach exploration with Essie and a shower at the flat, I headed out to retrieve the car and move it. (You get free parking as long as you’re charging. But when you’re topped off, you have to move. Pas problem, happy to move it. I paid for a parking pass for the weekend that would let me park on any street in the neighborhood. Easy peezy breezy EV.)
But…the car had not charged at all. The light on the charging station was off. It’s supposed to be green (available to charge), red (done charging), or blue (currently charging). “Off” is not one of the color options.
I was annoyed that it didn’t charge and was confused as to why. But whatever. I could just try again, and leave it overnight.
One issue: See, when the door of the charging station closes, it locks the cable head inside, like a monkey-hand-in-a-coconut trap. This is so no one can stop your charging sesh and steal that yummy electric juice for themselves. And that’s a great feature! …as long as your charging station is functional.
Because if it’s NOT functional, then your cable is simply locked inside. This is the situation I was in. Ok, fine, I’ll just re-do the charge thing, and the door will pop back open, and I’ll unplug/replug the cable, and I’ll close the door, and it won’t matter.
But the payment website wasn’t working. The acquisition of a charge code: failed. And then when I tried again, my bank helpfully texted me, flagging this as a potentially fraudulent transaction. I replied to confirm that it was not, but still I could not get the payment to go through. I even tried another card. Bupkis.
I sat down, pondering how I was going to solve this.
Fact: My car’s charging cable is locked inside a box.
Fact: I can open the box only by paying for another charge session.
Fact: I had no way to pay for another charge session.
A little hope?
Just then, another EV backed into the other spot to charge. Maybe this fellow knows something I don’t, I think.
A middle-aged couple stepped out of the car. The man set about charging his vehicle. “Parlez-vous anglais?,” I asked. The question doubled as a prayer of supplication to whatever higher power was listening. “Yes,” he said.
Oh. This is good. Hokay.
“I am David,” he says. (It’s pronounced da-VEED.) I asked him if I could watch what he does, because I couldn’t get my machine to work. He said sure, and walked me through the steps. Simple. When his charging station suddenly turned blue, I realized that mine had never done that. Ah. So it’s the machine that’s messed up. Or at least, my half of the machine.
He noted that there’s a number on the charging station that I could call to have them remotely reset the charger. “It will take only five minutes,” he said, in his lovely French accent. I thanked him, and he and the missus bade me adieu and walked off for dinner.
I called the number. The voice recording was only in French. No English options. I eventually just started saying things into the phone, hoping an automated system would take over. “English.” “Restart machine.” “Charger is broken.” Etc. ‘Twas to no avail.
I started to sweat and swear. I am…out of options? What a strange trap to be in. I can’t get my charging cable out of this machine. And my phone battery is almost gone. Also, the service center closes in like an hour, David had told me, and so if I can’t get them to restart the machine now, I have to wait until morning, and even if I can get them to fix it in the morning, I will have a dwindling car battery that will not carry my family and me to our next destination.
We are stuck. I almost laugh aloud at how stupid and uniquely unfortunate this situation is.
The runaround
…and then, out of nowhere, David returns. “I cannot see you suffer in this way,” he says. Because of his somewhat limited English vocabulary, this sentence is more dramatic than he intends, but I feel it. I feel it. I am suffering, David!
I don’t know how he even knew to come back. It had been several minutes since they’d left, and I don’t think they could see me pacing around on the phone. But it doesn’t matter. It matters only that David has returned to end my suffering.
He says he will swipe his Wiiize card to keep it simple, and I can just give him cash. This sounds awesome to me…even though I presently do not have any cash. A bridge to cross later.
He asks about the machine reset situation. I say it’s all in French, no English option. He says no problem, they all speak English, but “I call for you,” he says, and dials the number.
He is on hold for an uncomfortable amount of time. So much so that after a while, he started making small talk. Am I on holiday? Do I like the Kona? Etc. I pop the trunk to show him the car’s ample storage, and we both do that head-nod-while-frowning-in-approval thing.
His wife is being very patient. They’re on their way to dinner. Or were. “I’m going to go get you cash,” I offer cheerfully. I do this because 1) if his machine reset plan works, I don’t want to delay them further by making them stand on the sidewalk while I run off to find money, and 2) I’m hoping this buys me some time before he tires of being on hold and does not end my suffering.
I try to run as casually as possible. Which…is not really something you can do. But I do it as well as I can.
I get to a bank: It’s closed of course, and there’s no ATM. I run to a different ATM. It rejects me, and I hope it’s the machine and not my card—which perhaps is still blocked because of the fraudulent fraud concern? I go to another ATM. Same.
This is bad. What are the odds that two consecutive cash machines are out of order? Occam’s Razor tells us that it’s probably my card. I’m sweating. But I run to a THIRD ATM, and…UNEXPECTED SUCCESS!
I grab my cash and run back, slowing down only as I round the corner so as to appear to David and his wife that I’m hurrying, but not desperate. I think I thread the needle.
I reach them, and David is still on hold. I try to not breathe too hard even though I’ve been running, and smile. “Still on hold?”
It gets personal
David looks annoyed, but he’s soldiering on. I think it’s now become personal: Like, he accepted this challenge of ending my suffering, and it’s not going well, but it’s not my fault, it’s stupid Wiiize’s fault, and he is offended by their rickety machine and poor customer service.
Suddenly, they pick up. (Phew.) He speaks French rapidly into the phone. I hear him say “américain” a few times, and I choose not to feel insecure about how that word fits in with the rest of the words he says.
He is further annoyed, because he just needs the woman on the phone to reset this stupid charger so he can be on his way, but she seems to be struggling with the concept, and he has to repeat the serial number of the machine two or three times. Each time, he says each digit more forcefully, louder, and slower than the time before, as you do.
“ZERO. ZERO. CINQ. ZERO. SEPT. UN.,” he says. He shakes his head and calls her an idiot. His wife swats him on the shoulder.
But then, the door pops open, and my cable is freed from its monkey trap. David has ended my suffering!
But David has more kindness to offer. He taps his Wiiize card, replugs me in, and closes the little door. The light turns blue. The dashboard says we’re actively charging. Huzzah!
Twist: You have to have the Wiiize card—the same Wiiize card—to stop the charging. David realizes this and says he’ll text me when they’re done with dinner, so at least I’ll get a few hours of juice. We swap contacts on WhatsApp. I shove cash in his hand. He is shocked. “Please let me pay for your dinner!” I say. He protests, but assents reluctantly, and off they go.
I traipse back to the flat, soaked in sweat and with a phone about to die, and no food. I chug a beer.
David then continues to out-mensch himself. He texts me to say that he figured out that he can end the charging session (and therefore unlock the door) remotely, so just leave it charging all night (yessss). We agree that I’ll return at 7:30am to open the door, remove the charger, and close the door.
“If you need any help any time, I will be there,” he texts. Once again, this sound more dramatic than he intends. But I feel it. I feel it. David is my hero.
The next morning, I arrived at the car a bit early. I text David, “I am at the car.” A minute later, the thing makes a sound, the door opens, I free my cable, and I am saved. My suffering has ended.
Great story lol. 😂😂 I’m sure Daveeeds wife was peeesed uff at his kindness.