peter​minarik.com/blog/

Somehow we are soon to be the owners (well leasers 🤨) of an EV. Somehow makes it seem like this just happend to us which is of course not true. But there is an element of somehow to this. But before I get into that, here's the car that will soon silently haul our family of four around. It's a Kia EV6 and this is how it looks.

The Kia EV6 looks a little odd but also definitely futuristic. © Kia

If you ask me the back with the long back light strip looks great. © Kia

Now back to the somehow. We did not really plan to get an EV right now. We had to give back our current leasing car earlier than we thought and had the plan to actually try to get by without a car. We have two kids in kindergarden age and we live in Berlin in a relatively central area. We thought that with public transport and our new electric cargo bike we have our transportation needs mostly covered. And if we needed a car for something we could always easily rent one.

We did already know a few uses cases where we would want / need to rent a car.

• In summer we do tend to go to the lakes around Berlin quite often on the weekends. With most lakes being too far away to practically go by bike. We already identified one or two closer ones that would work by bike but most nicer ones were too far.
• Many of our friends in Berlin have bought a house or found other reasons to move further towards the edges of the city. At least they are technically all still in Berlin, but this city is huge. So visiting them on the weekend just takes too long with either public transport or the bike.

We also knew that while renting one of the car-sharing cars was super easy it was less easy with kids since you needed to haul the child seats to and from the car. And especically when going to the lake that definitely wasn't the only thing you'd have to bring.

What I'm trying to say is that we wanted to try living without a car, but we knew it would come with some reductions in comfort plus some added friction when being active on the weekend and keeping in touch with our friends.

And then I stumbled (really, I was not looking) upon an amazing offer while watching an EV channel on YouTube. My wife and I had to decide within two days if we wanted to sign the deal and in the end we did (duh 🙄 I know).

And now what?

While I was already spending more time than I'd like to admit watching EV YouTube videos, it has only become more since I know that we'll soon be part of the whole spiel.

There are lots of horror stories around EVs with regards to charging and range and many of them are just people being afraid of change. But if you are to believe the many different YouTube EV reviewers there are many real issues when comparing an EV to a cumbustion engine car. Especially when you, like us, don't have a possibilty to charge at your own house but purely rely on public charging infrastructure. In the end it mostly requires a little more planing. But some patience and being able to stay calm will also be required.

On the other hand I am also quite excited about it. It's new, a little unknonwn and just feels more futuristic. On top of being at least a little better for the environment. And while I am aware that cars in cities are a problem and one that EVs can't fix, there is an aspect that just feels like "doing the right thing".

I will also use this as an opportunity to write about the practicalities of living with an EV here on this blog. I don't really have a plan yet what exactly that will entail but 🤞 you'll soon be able to read more about this topic here.