I was tooling along in the Mini when I got a warning that I only had 5 miles of fuel left. It caught me completely by surprise. Home was 17 miles away, and the nearest charging station was 4 miles away. Which was great. Until I took a wrong turn and got the “Insufficient charge” message. I yelled NOOOOOOOO until I accepted my fate and pulled into a parking lot with 2 miles left in the “tank”.
The phone was fully charged, ChatGPT told me I couldn’t use a regular tow truck, the Mini app knew the number for roadside assistance, and the tow truck came in a third of the expected time.
Barrier 1.
“You can wait in the truck,” the driver said.
The bottom of the door was at hip level. I almost didn’t make it the first and fourth time I got in and out of the truck. I was in and out multiple times because of …
Barrier 2.
I’ve used three types of on-road charging stations, but these charging stations at the college the dispatch sent us to didn’t take my physical ChargePoint card. So after he showed me how to put all my cards in my phone’s “wallet” (because it would seem I am quaint) we found that we had been sent to a station that wasn’t active. The dots on the app were blue, not green. Because that’s obvious.
So off we went to the next station, where my physical card worked and charging began immediately and there was much joy even though …
Barrier 3.
… it was a level 2 charger, which means it took an hour and a half to get enough charge for the 15 mile drive home.
And you know, it sounds bad, and it was bad. But I have all kinds of cards in my Apple wallet now, and as long as that first station wasn’t some kind of a trap to grab all my card data, then it was just a learning experience. Not even the worst thing to happen that day.