Y ou don’t say goodbye to your old car when you get a new car – I mean, I’m presuming they’d let you if you made a fuss, but they make no provision for it. It just gets left there in the car park, awaiting its next owner. They’ve already taken the keys.

Instead, my wife and I are escorted through a different exit, where our new electric car awaits, still wet in places from a recent wash. The salesperson is leaning in the driver’s window, explaining the dashboard display and steering column toggles to me, but I’m not listening. After two long showroom visits, I’ve had enough of car buying.

“That blue bar there,” he says, “shows the level of regenerative braking at any given …”

“OK, thanks, bye,” I say, pulling away and out through the gates.

“I don’t know what any of this means,” I say to my wife, waving at the screen and the dashboard.

“We’ll have to sit with the manual for a bit,” she says.

“Wait, am I going left here?” I say. “How do I indicate? Shit.”

As my wife negotiates a narrow country lane, the car pings and a yellow warning light appears. ‘Danger,’ I say, paraphrasing the manual

When we get home my wife takes the middle one for a drive through the neighbourhood, and then spends an hour sitting in the car trying to figure out how to draw in the wing mirrors manually, while the car is moving, rather than automatically, once the car is off.

“To fit in the drive,” she says. “There must be a way.”

We had a hard deadline for buying a car – the old car’s approaching MOT. But meeting that deadline also meant taking possession of the new car a day before we were scheduled to make a long car journey. Our learning curve was destined to be steep, but my wife did considerably more homework than I did.

Shortly after we set off, my wife encourages me to download the car’s app, as she has done, to secure a more meaningful connection between vehicle and phone. It becomes clear this is something the car won’t let you do while moving, even if you press a button assuring it that you are a passenger. Finally, the screen freezes.

“Well, that’s it,” I say. “Cut off, without information, lost and adrift.”

“We’re on the M3,” my wife says. “The map is still on your phone.”

“I can’t even change the radio station now,” I say. “I miss our old car.”

I consult the manual. Eventually I find what I’m looking for: pressing the power button for 10 seconds resets the screen.

“Systems restored,” I say. “Should we be in eco mode?”

“What is eco mode?” my wife says.

“It’s just one of the modes,” I say.

“OK, car!” my wife shouts. “What is eco mode?”

“Got it,” the car says. “Switching to eco mode now.”

“What’s happening?” I say.

“No, I just wanted to know what it meant!” my wife yells.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” the car says.

“Can you make it change the radio?” I say.

Our destination is near the extent of the car’s range, but we make it with about 30 miles to spare. A few days later we set off for home fully charged.

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“Now we know we can do it in one go,” my wife says, “you should find it less stressful.”

“Maybe,” I say. Speaking for myself, I don’t yet know whether range anxiety is a beginner’s ailment or a permanent condition.

As my wife negotiates a narrow country lane, the car pings and a yellow warning light appears.

“Danger,” I say, paraphrasing the manual. “Risk of damage, injury, death, etc.”

My wife touches the screen, selecting Car Status, and then the warning light update, which says “no information available”.

“Is it a secret?” I say.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Do I carry on?”

“What choice do we have?” I say.

A hundred miles on and I am driving, watching the battery tick steadily downward, teeth lightly clenched.

“Here’s what I think happened,” I say. “The car entered a signal blackspot, and couldn’t operate its dynamic road sign assist function.”

“I don’t know what that is,” my wife says.

“Which is the same reason the car status screen had no information,” I say.

“I’ve moved on,” she says. “You should too.”

“And also the same reason the warning light disappeared as soon as we left that lane.”

The car pings.

“There’s a diversion,” my wife says. “You need to get off up ahead.”

“A diversion?” I say. “How many extra miles?”

“I don’t know,” she says, zooming out on the map. “Fifteen? Twenty?”

As I move into the left lane, a little yellow light goes off in my head.

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Comments (757)

Guardian Pick

Many modern cars are too clever by three quarters. The obvious thing to do is to read the manual, but the printed manual is likely to be enormous and poorly indexed. These things are written by people who already know how to use the car, not by people who urgently want to shut the electric sunroof without it immediately opening again.

My tip for reading the manual is to read it ( or read it again ) once you are already somewhat familiar …

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AlanAudio 6 hours ago

Guardian Pick

Our hybrid vehicle has a ‘safety feature’, where it takes over the steering, pulling the car closer to the kerb - scared the living daylights out of me, first time it happened.

The bloke in the garage showed me how to turn it off before we set off each time. ‘Everyone switches that off’, he said.

Brilliant.

Jump to comment

renewablejames 6 hours ago

Guardian Pick

My tip for reading the manual is to read it ( or read it again ) once you are already somewhat familiar …

Jump to comment

AlanAudio 6 hours ago

Guardian Pick

Our hybrid vehicle has a ‘safety feature’, where it takes over the steering, pulling the car closer to the kerb - scared the living daylights out of me, first time it happened.

The bloke in the garage showed me how to turn it off before we set off each time. ‘Everyone switches that off’, he said.

Brilliant.

Jump to comment

renewablejames 6 hours ago

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Tim Dowling: our new electric car has a mind all of its own

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