If you’re curious about how it works to sell your car and join an electric car pool instead, I thought I’d share my experiences.
We have now been in an electric car pool for almost 3 years. The pool is run by a company called Move About. According to its own website, it operates the largest fleet of electric car pools in the world. They are active in several locations in Sweden and have pools in several countries in Europe. A few years ago I decided that they suited our needs best. In this post I will describe what it is like to be without a car but in a commercial pool.
Our needs.
We have most of our trips locally in Helsingborg and Skåne but make about 15 trips a year further afield. Mostly to Gothenburg and/or Mälardalen/Stockholm. In these places this company, Move ABout also has operations and when we are there we can rent a car in these places. But most of our journeys are made at home, by bike to and from work or by public transport. To go shopping or buy larger or heavier items, it’s a good idea to have access to a car. Even if you are short of time, we can hire a car to deal with more cases in a shorter time. So most of the journeys we make by electric car are either shorter than 2 miles or around 10 miles one way. For example, we have 10 miles to our summer cottage. The longer journeys to family, relatives and friends vary between 20 miles and up to 70 miles.
How does the pool work?
In order to use Move About’s services, you must be a member. It is easy to register. You do it on their website. Identification via bankId. You must also have your driving licence available at the time of registration.
As a member, you download an app where you can easily book a car or bike where you need it. The app gives you access to all pools across the country. We have not tried any pool abroad yet. At home in Helsingborg we have 3 places, stations, where we can pick up a car. They are within cycling distance (0.9 – 2.5 km).
Booking a car is easy. You open the app and can instantly enter the date, time you need the car and approximate driving distance. In addition, you choose from which station you want to pick up the car. If you want, you can add your own note about what the car is used for. Good to have if you use the car in your business or in the office, it can be a good feature.
When the time to use the car is approaching, you open the car using the app or send a 4-digit code of your choice in response to a text message you receive about 15 minutes before the rental period starts.
The key is in the glove compartment of the car. The car is checked to make sure there is no damage that has not been noted before. The app allows you to report damage, scratches, dents, etc. by taking a picture of the damage and writing where it is on the car. This is a very good feature.
Once you’ve checked it, just get in the car and drive away BUT don’t forget to unplug it first! The cord is on the front of the type of car we have. There is an extra cable in the boot of the car that you can take with you. The cord allows to charge at home at other stations or directly into a wall socket. But charging in a normal wall socket takes a long time and is only suitable if you are going to leave your car overnight or for a similar long period.
Should there be a problem, they have a good customer support team that you can call if there is a problem. The number is in the app and the opening hours are 7-21 on weekdays and 9 – 21 on weekends. I have called at some point on both weekdays and weekends and received good support for any question I had at the time.
Driving.
Then it’s just a matter of driving. Driving an electric car is, if you haven’t done it before, a pleasant experience. The car is very quiet and very quick to respond to the throttle. In our pool we only have Nissan Leaf 40 kw. They have several functions and a lot of information on the display. In addition to the usual speed distance and several warning lights, you can see how much power is being consumed and how much less is being consumed if you turn off the radio, for example. There are also features such as eco operation which of course saves power and the car is not as fast and powerful in its reactions. There’s also an e-pedal setting that makes the car “engine brake” when you release the accelerator. This means that instead of dissipating power, the motor acts as a generator and charges power. It also means that you have to press the pedal to get the car to start rolling. A feature that I usually use but requires some use to get used to.
Driving an electric car is a very pleasant experience. It’s quietly smooth and very responsive. Simply a pleasant driving experience.
On the downside, there’s the slightly shorter range if you need to drive longer distances than 10 miles one way in a day. But in most cases you can expect to drive up to 20 miles and a little more than that. However, this assumes that you are prepared to charge the car during the journey. The charging itself need not be a major problem, but compared to a car with a different operation, it takes longer to refuel.
To “refuel” an electric car.
For me, this loading thing seemed like a big question mark at first. How to do it? Where are they? How to pay and so on?
First, you need to find a charging station. Most petrol stations now also have charging stations as a complement. Especially if there is also a possibility to eat in connection with the station. It is both logical and practical. Charging a car takes longer than filling up with petrol. Then it’s good to be able to charge the car while having lunch or a coffee break.
But in practice, you still need an app in your “smart phone”. There are several apps to help you find charging locations. The apps have a map function that shows where the charging points are, how many contacts there are, whether they are busy and what type of charger it is (fast or normal).
I’ve got an app called InCharge, which is Vattenfall’s app for finding their charging stations.
I also, on my first trip, got one called Bee Charging but as it’s a new market there are changes all the time. The infrastructure is being developed and so is the business structure. Now the company is called Bee Charging just More.
In practice, joining companies is relatively easy. I joined Bee Charging via a Circle K gas station that had the first charging station I came to. A washer was needed to make a connection and the shop sold them. You entered your details and had the opportunity to recharge while having a coffee. It was also a promotion so they offered great discounts. Eventually I also found In Charge and joined them as well. Filled out an online application and received a badge in the mail.
The charging post tells you how to do it. And in one of the steps you need to identify with the badge you have been given. In practice, charging is only needed for longer trips and when we rent the car for a longer period of time. During the summer we have had the car for a few days and then we have charged in the cottage’s electric socket. It takes longer, but it doesn’t matter so much during the summer when you’re off work.
Charging the car is perhaps the trickiest part of being in an electric car pool. So brace yourself for a lot of numbers and watts!
Charging takes much longer than filling up with petrol in the old traditional way. How long depends on the type of charger you get. There are different capacities of the charging stations and it is described by their power. In electricity, we are talking about kilowatts, which is the same as 1000 watts. Today, charging stations are usually of 3.7, 11, 22 or 50 kW. If you refuel your car there for an hour (or hour in English =h), you will have spent as many kiloWatt-hours (=kWh) as the power at the station.
Then the charging time depends on a number of things. What is the capacity of your car, i.e. what power does it have and how empty is the battery? You want to charge before it’s completely empty. But cold also plays a role, which is a factor in our country. The colder it is, the longer it takes to charge. There is a theoretical formula that looks like this:
So a Nissan Leaf, which we have at our nearest station, has a battery capacity of 40 kW. With a charging station of 22 kW, the charging time is 1.82 hours. That’s the same as 1 hour and 49 minutes to charge from 0 to 100%. Now you rarely have 0% when you get to the charging station. You are maybe at 10-15%. Then it is also the case that it is fastest to charge the first 80% and if you have a fast-charging station, i.e. 50 kW power or higher, the theoretical time is 0.8 hours, i.e. 50 minutes. There are fast chargers up to 350 kW, but this assumes that your car is built to handle such power.
In practice, we have a charging time of just under an hour down to half an hour to charge the car we have, the Nissan Leaf 40 kW. Which is roughly equivalent to a long lunch or a hearty coffee.
The price of charging the car is very competitive with filling up a petrol car. Although it varies slightly between different types of charging stations and for different charging companies as shown in the table below:
| Name of the charging network | Price as guest fast charging |
| Ionity | 8,70 kr/kWh |
| More | 5,00 kr/kWh |
| InCharge | 2,50 kr/kWh |
| Recharge | 5,75 kr/kWh |
According to the same source, the cost of charging per mile in this case would be between DKK 5/mile and DKK 17.4/mile. This means that the cost of driving the car has become a fraction of the price of petrol. I have also managed to choose the two cheapest companies for my loads. In addition, no costs for insurance, service, tyre change, washing and depreciation are included in the rental price.
Summary
Joining an electric car pool has, in my opinion, not only advantages but it has many advantages and the main ones are that it saves the environment and that it is cheap. On the downside, it requires a bit more planning and takes a bit more time.
