Meet Rebecca

~ Bitchy After 60

Actually, what I want to say, but it was much too long for a title, is meet Rebecca, my beautiful new red Hyundai Kona Electric car. I picked her up last Monday and was overjoyed with the colour because I had no idea what kind of red I was going to end up. There wasn’t a colour sample to look at when I ordered my new vehicle in mid February so I very surprised to discover how pretty she turned out to be. 

I have spent some time this week getting to know Rebecca as she is very different from the standard shift Subaru Forrester I traded in. She comes with two fairly thick instruction manuals, which can be a bit intimidating in the beginning. They are a little wordy to say the least. I have been combining them with hands-on experience.

One of the first things you notice is that she does not have a gear shift of any kind. She has buttons. Easy to find and easy to use buttons. She also has three drive modes: Sport for those who want to zip around during their mid-life crisis. Comfort mode, which is default electric car driving. It still has great pickup and works for me. And Eco mode, which is for conserving the electric charge if necessary. These settings are accessible by a button as well as on screen.

Believe it or not, Rebecca has a lot of buttons, which is one of the reasons I chose the Kona as my electric vehicle. I loved the fact that she had buttons. As a sometimes distracted driver of a certain age, I did not want to be cruising around the streets trying to turn up my heat using a menu on a screen. I am used to using buttons and want to continue to do so.

Getting to know her is kind of like getting familiar with a new cell phone. The buttons below the screen open different areas that allow you to make changes or adjustments. I prefer to do this when I am not driving. She also has voice activation that I can use to make phone calls, which I have tried, use navigation, which I haven’t tried yet but plan to soon, change the radio, and several other things that I probably won’t ever use. There are just so many things.

Rebecca lives in our newly-found, or should I say newly-cleaned, garage where her charger hangs on the back wall right next to her charging port. My home charger is a Level 2 charger which will recharge her over several hours. Most people treat their electric cars like a phone and plug them in at night. Since we generate our solar power during the day, I plugged her in one afternoon. She wasn’t really in need of a charge. I just wanted to test the new charger and see how it worked with my car. Having one’s own charger makes life a lot easier, and I am all about easy.

The Hyundai Kona is rated for 415 km on a full charge. When I charged Rebecca this week she was saying over 460 km on full. However, just like a phone, the more things that are running, the more power she will use, so air conditioning and heat can effect this number while driving.

I am still getting used to backing out of our garage as I have to cut my wheels to make a 90 degree turn to straighten out in the drive way. There are lights and beeps warning me of the edge of the door opening on the left, and the snow blower parked on the right, but the process is coming. Practice makes perfect. And since I plan to keep Rebecca for many, many years, I will master it eventually.

Something to note, if you plan to purchase an electric vehicle, is where you live and drive. For long-distance driving, you will want Level 3 chargers, that can recharge up to 80% full in about an hour. A perfect break for lunch or to stretch one’s legs. Nova Scotia, my home province, has a reasonable number of chargers in populated areas, given the current amount of electric vehicles on the road, but very few of them are Level 3 chargers, so planning a trip route is important. You will not want to spend hours of your road trip charging your car. Also don’t plan to go to the middle of nowhere. Not here. Not yet.

We are planning to take Rebecca on our next trip to New Brunswick to visit our sons because there are several Level 3 chargers in their area, and I am looking forward to the opportunity to take Rebecca for a nice long drive.

Especially since she has a fully adjustable and very comfortable driver’s seat.

I know I haven’t had her for long, and that I have a lot more to learn about her; but right now, for bopping in and out of town, driving around the vicinity where I live and do most of my driving, Rebecca is perfect. Beautiful and perfect, what more could I ask for?

Thank you for reading. 

Photos:  Jenn Stone 

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28 thoughts on “Meet Rebecca”

          1. I drive a lot and my family are in Cape Breton. I can’t spend 30 hrs charging a vehicle on a 600km trip.That just sounds ridiculous

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  3. Exciting times ahead for car drivers. In UK we have problems with charging points and worries over having enough electricity. Fortunately I have a few years before having to make a major decision as my diesel is good for a few more years. By then I will have a free bus pass and no desire to drive long distances so the decision will make itself. 🙂

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  7. Very sharp-looking ride! I’m with you—buttons over touch screens. The latter constantly makes me take my eyes off the road. My truck has a backup camera, but the picture is unclear. It defeats the person of having one if you can’t see that well.

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  9. She’s a lovely colour – I like red cars – and yellow ones – and not many others. I tend to stick to silver though as I have so many rows with other drivers I don’t want to stand out when they come looking for me or my car!

    I’d have to be in the sport mode most of the time as I definitely ‘make progress’ on the road so that would be my driving style. But here, you’d soon have to go down to eco mode as the charging points in places like Scotland will be few and far between. Come to think of it, the petrol stations are too but my cars, being small-engined, generally have a range over 300 miles (about 600 km I think).

    We could only have Level 1 chargers in the rural area here as the infrastructure wouldn’t support anything stronger – which is why it would take me approximately 48 hours to charge an electric car.

    How many kilowatts is your charger?

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    1. Ha ha. Staying incognito is important when you piss off other drivers. I do love the red. That way people will see me coming and hopefully stay out of my way. I am a relatively fast driver as well. Comfort mode is quite peppy but has regenerative braking for slowing down without using the brakes much which is better for the battery life. My charger is about 10kw.

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      1. it’s the 10KW I can’t manage here. I pull 12-15KW overnight with the heating, my solar only provides around 3.5KW on the better days.

        I’m just really hot-tempered and don’t suffer fools (on the road or off) lightly so I get into a lot of ‘arguments’ while driving.

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