Illustration: Selman Hosgor/The Guardian View image in fullscreen Illustration: Selman Hosgor/The Guardian The Tim Dowling column Family Tim Dowling: our new electric car has a mind all of its own Perhaps I’ll learn love our EV once it stops talking utter nonsense – and knows where it’s going
Tim Dowling Sat 4 Jul 2026 07.00 CEST Share Prefer the Guardian on Google 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?”
“OK, car!” my wife shouts. “What is eco mode?”
“Got it,” the car says. “Switching to eco mode now.”
“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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