The electric jeep of the Plovdiv MP Manol Peykov passed him last night in the middle of the highway. He himself announced the ordeal on Facebook. A colleague had to save him so that he wouldn’t be left in the dark after the road.
This is what Manol Peykov wrote on the web last night:
Today, 950 days after I got my electric Peugeot 2008e, after 50,000 kilometers driven (every one of them with undisguised pleasure), about 7,500 BGN saved on fuel and God knows how many headaches saved from parking tickets, for the first time I got stuck on way.
On the way out of Sofia after the premiere of “The Jam Case” I was talking on the phone (hands free, of course) and got distracted, and by the time I realized it, it was too late to turn the car around (and maybe it wasn’t too late after all , but I underestimated the situation because I was still talking on the phone).
I was ten kilometers before the Ikhtiman charging station at exactly 9:26 p.m (the car stopped at the 32nd kilometer, and the motel is at the 42nd) and I called my colleague Zori to rescue me.
She arrived in about an hour with two lifters and a cargo platform. For another hour we tried to put the car in neutral gear – unsuccessfully. After much digging on the internet and watching a dozen useless videos, I finally got in touch with a technician online – not anywhere, but in the UK! – and for five pounds I had a meaningful conversation, from which I realized that my only salvation was rollers to be placed under the car after it was jacked up. Alas, the cargo platform had none.
The boys fired up the rig and sped off to a nearby gas station, from where they called another rig, which arrived another hour or so later, already on rollers. (The “Peugeot Assistance” program advertised as 24-hour and completely free in case of breakdowns proved helpless in my case – first they told me that a flat battery was not included in their free program and they could only help for a fee; after agreed, they asked for details, and then profusely apologized that their available platform… didn’t have rollers.)
So, exactly four and a half hours after the “accident”, my car was duly brought to the charging station ten kilometers down the highway – for 420 BGN, which, it seems to me, quite realistically reflects the effort put into coming from Sofia in no time , loading, unloading and the return to Sofia in even less time.
Right now I’m sitting at the gas station, waiting for the car to fill up, and I’m making a night of it by telling you all this.
I comfort myself with the thought that sooner or later something like this happens to a person – and it is best if it happens to him at a time when he is not in a hurry to get anywhere.
But if you still decide to gain experience in this direction – it is recommended to do it virtually (for example, by reading my post and taking the relevant lesson) and not in the field.
P.P. Comment the other morning, after I got up, made coffee and saw that under my post there were 170 comments of the most varied nature:
So, the pleasure of driving the car is so great and its advantages (personal, public and planetary) are so many that if it will happen once in 1000 days (and entirely my fault!) – I swallow it with a smile and move on, without impressing me at all.
P.P.P. Reflecting on the incident post factum, I realize that during those five-plus hours of waiting (including charging time), I never once felt bored, annoyed, irritated, tired – nor did I feel regret (either for my distraction or because of the fact that almost three years ago I quite consciously chose to drive an electric car).
I find this amazing – especially given the fact that my fuse is generally quite short and I often get irritated by seemingly minor things.
The bottom line? When one is convinced that one has made the right (wise, responsible) choice, it helps one to overcome the adversities associated with that choice with Olympian calmness and unsuspected endurance—all the while keeping one’s senses fresh and enjoying every trifle that refreshes and diversifies the difficult situation in which he finds himself.
Because he realizes that this is the price he has to pay for his choice and (if the choice is carefully considered and conscious) he is ready to enjoy every penny that flows out of his pocket at the given moment – because in this way openly and unconditionally confirms his choice.
