David Gardiner - Transport

An electric vehicle

2026-08-20T20:30:00.000+09:30

We got an EV! I had been thinking for a while now that our next car should be an electric vehicle. Our good friend Jane had got one last year (and prior to that had a hybrid), and was a strong proponent making the switch, so it was definitely on my radar. We also attended a really informative community seminar early last year, where lots of EV owners brought their along cars for people to look at and ask questions. A few speakers gave really good presentations on what it's like owning an EV and the current state of the market. Given our driving patterns it just felt like the logical choice.

Our old car (a Kia Sorento 7 seater SUV) has had a good run, but it had recently ticked over 300,000 kms and while it was still going remarkably well (we did a road trip from Adelaide to Sydney earlier this year with it), it was likely going to get more expensive to keep on the road.

In hindsight I really should have done something about this last year - but I didn't count on a world-wide oil shortage, which then encouraged a lot of other people to start buying EVs too!

I also decided to take advantage of using a novated lease through work. There's some helpful government discounts that made this an option to consider. Some employers might only support a single lease provider, but SixPivot doesn't have any such limitation. I looked around at a number of leasing companies and also spoke to my work colleagues who were already leasing to hear their experiences. That's how I ended up choosing Fleetcare (If you're interested in using them, let me know and I'll share a referral code with you, and we both get a $250 gift card each if your lease is settled).

After a decent amount of research we settled on a Kia EV5. The base model (which we got) has a ~400km range and quite decent boot space compared to some other cars we looked at. It's a 5 seater SUV. Not quite as big as our old Sorento, but it does pass the "Cello" test. That's where you take a full-size Cello in its case and try and fit it into the car boot without having to put down one of the back seats. It's a lot more modern than our old car, but there's still a bit of "Kia" familiarity to it.

I'd also spent a bit of time looking at our past driving history and running costs to try and get a good idea of how much we could afford to budget for a new car. (The running costs also proved useful when filling out the lease documentation).

Some other brands I tried felt like the usable area of the windscreen was reduced quite a bit, especially around the rear-view mirror area - almost like driving with blinkers on. Maybe that's ok for shorter people, but as someone slightly taller, that was noticeable to me. A number of new cars seem to be adopting a US layout with indicator and wiper controls on the "wrong" side of the steering wheel. Not a deal breaker, but it was appreciated that the EV5 keeps with what I'm used to - wipers on the left, indicator on the right.

There's also a lot of variation across EV models as to how the gear stick is located. Not that you usually have more than just forward, park and reverse. Some have a dial in the centre console, some have what looks like a traditional gear stick, and some (like the EV5) have the gear stick as an extra "stalk" on the steering wheel.

A few bumps

About a week after we got the new car, I started noticing some weird error messages appearing on the dashboard display. They'd appear briefly and then go away, but a small warning icon would remain. They'd disappear when the car was turned off, but then another error would show up at some stage later. The strange thing was it wasn't always the same system that the error was referring to. They weren't predictable either.

Here's one that I did manage to get a photo of. The text would only appear for a few seconds, but the warning icon would stay in the bottom right of the display until you turned off the car.

I contacted our car sales guy to ask what the message meant, and he referred it to their service department. They asked for me to bring it in for a day. The result of that was they said they needed to book it in again for an extended period as they weren't sure what the problem was.

As a software developer, the worst kind of bug is one that you can't reproduce. Given the amount of software that runs inside a car these days, I was worried this might be one of those situations. But I was somewhat relieved to hear that when they plugged in their diagnostic tools into the car the technician could see a whole bunch of errors being logged. So it wasn't just me.

A couple of weeks later we took it back and it stayed in for a few days, during which they informed me they'd referred it up to Kia Australia. Finally they identified a fault with a high-voltage cable being too close to other wiring and causing interference and the 'phantom' warnings.

It was disappointing to be without our new car for about a week all up (at least we were given a loan car) but hopefully that problem is permanently resolved.

Bells and whistles

The new car is quite an upgrade from the old Sorento. Like most new cars on the market these days, it comes with a fully electronic dashboard, with navigation and all kinds of driving assistance features. Many of these like to go 'ding'! The steering wheel will rumble if the car thinks you're going out of your lane (or if it thinks you're about to change lanes and bump into a car).

As an avid Double-J Radio listener, I do appreciate having DAB digital radio built in.

Apple CarPlay is also nice, though maybe I'm "holding it wrong" as I've missed a few messages sometimes, that I thought I would get notified about. Also a bonus to be able to rely on Bluetooth and retire the old Aux cable. There can be a bit of competition now as to whose phone is the one to connect first and choose their music!

The built-in speed limit warnings are handy, except when they're not. As I understand it, the car can detect speed limit signs, but it presumably has some fallback mapping data that it defaults to. The quality of that data is variable. Some roads that have changed speed limits in the last year are obviously still using the old speed limits in its dataset. Others seem to have weird limits that make no sense - eg. there's a couple of roads where it insists the limit is "55km/h" - there is never a "55" speed limit. 40, 50 or 60, but not 55. I wish I knew how to submit updates or give feedback.

The EV5 does come with V2L (Vehicle to Load) with a standard Australian power point inside the boot. I haven't used it yet, but it's good to know the option is there. Handy if you're out on a picnic and want to boil a kettle, or if we ever have another massive storm with extended blackouts then we could use the car's battery to tide us over.

The car came with a standard charging cable (known by some as a 'granny' charger), that just plugs into a regular wall socket. My plan was to see how we went with that, knowing that it may take a while to recharge. In the short-term I could always take the car to a nearby fast-charging point, but if it became a regular problem then installing a higher-powered home charger would always an option.

Range anxiety?

The old car would average around 600km on a full tank. The new car has a nominal range of 400km, but I've found it can vary a bit depending on the kind of driving you're doing. Shorter drives to the shops or around town are easy. The longest we've done so far is a round trip to Port Elliott/Victor Harbor (~145km) which has been fine as well. I did notice that the faster highway driving does use up a bit more battery than just the normal suburban trips. But that's pretty normal for current generation EVs.

The more we use it, the more we get a feel for what it can do. I'm looking forward to taking on a longer drive. Yes, we'll need to plan out our stops for recharging, but given you really should stop every couple of hours for a break, I think that should coincide nicely.

And then there's the joy of driving past a petrol station and just ignoring the price of petrol. Probably the only downside to that is it means I need to be more intentional about stopping in occasionally just to keep the tyres up to pressure.

So yes, I'm happy we chose it.

A busy, but enjoyable weekend

2011-09-18T21:01:00.001+09:30

It's been pretty full-on in the Gardiner household over the last couple of days. We've managed to pack car-shopping, basketball carnivals, entertaining friends for tea on Saturday, and Church, car-cleaning and visiting friends for an extended afternoon tea today on Sunday. Perfect Adelaide Spring weather certainly didn't hurt. It's nice to be sitting down Sunday evening to catch our breath before the work/school week begins again tomorrow!

Saturday morning, I left a bit earlier than normal to pick up my parents and head out to Nuriootpa (in the Barossa Valley) to check out a potential car to replace our trusty but outgrown Camry. The car in question is a 2010 Kia Sorento Si (petrol). After test driving the current model the previous weekend I was impressed, though the price tag for the 2011 SLi diesel was a bit high for my budget (I felt a bit sad for the salesmen as their faces dropped when I informed them of that).

Searching around for used cars that didn't have too many kms on the clock had turned up this particular specimen. The challenge would be driving up to check it out and still get back home in time to take the kids to basketball.

We made good time (thanks to the new Northern Expressway) and after a test-drive I agreed to purchase the vehicle (subject to a satisfactory mechanical inspection).

Just enough time to visit the Nuriootpa Bakery before racing back down to Adelaide.

The basketball carnival was good fun, but sadly the team I coach had to be content with just participating rather than winning. There were a few close games, but it wasn't to be.

No rest yet – then racing back home to get ready for some friends coming over for tea. With Narelle cooking up a storm, it was a very enjoyable evening. Her Crème caramels were a particular hit, with some people going to extraordinary lengths to pry out the last bit of toffee left in the bottom of the dishes.

Sunday morning, and off to Church. Then some time at home to do a bit of gardening and clean up another friend's car that we've been borrowing while she's been away on holidays.

Then just enough time to head around to some more friends who were celebrating a successful morning's participation in the City to Bay fun run. I think the kids (not to mention myself) thought we'd landed on our feet when we saw all the yummy things for afternoon tea. A wonderful, relaxed afternoon.

ps. If you're looking for a well used but reliable car, I plan to sell the Camry in a few weeks time.

A Sydney Wedding

2009-12-01T23:14:00.001+10:30

Narelle's cousin Katie was getting married in Sydney, so we bundled the family into a plane and headed over for the festivities.

I'd booked seats on Tiger Airways earlier in the year (taking advantage of particularly cheap tickets). One thing with Tiger is that everything besides a seat on the plane costs you extra. I paid for extra baggage allowance but decided not to shell out for the privilege of choosing allocated seats. There was a risk that Tiger's seat booking system might be so stupid that it could put the kids and the adults in completely separate seats, but I'm pleased to report that we ended up with decent seats all in the same row on both flights.

A few quibbles with Tiger – the PDF attachments they emailed me were blank. Fortunately I figured out that the attachment file name happened to be the confirmation number so you could still review the details by going to their Review Itinerary page. Their website also fails to mention the fact that they will carry prams for free (thanks to Margaret for finding that out).

I'm not sure if it's a measure of how trustworthy visitors to Sydney airport are, but you have to pay $4 to use a luggage cart – contrasted with Adelaide airport where the carts are free (and I'd suggest a better design too – 3 bags fit side-by-side which we couldn't do with the interstate model).

, who seemed to have the best price compared to some of the more familiar hire car companies. One thing I didn't find out until after submitting a hire request through their website was that they require a "CREDIT" credit card (ie. not a debit card) for security. So began a mad panic to try and obtain such a card in less that 2 weeks. Despite trying to ensure my credit union had all the paperwork required up front, it took a few days for them to ask me for a pay slip and then a group certificate. The Thursday of our departure arrived, but sadly the card did not (it was delivered the day before we got back home!) Thankfully Narelle's parents were also travelling on the same flight and were kind enough to use their card for the security (the actual payment could still be done on a debit card). Also in Sydney this company's office is actually within reasonable walking distance from the terminal. In peak hour if you don't have much luggage, walking may actually be faster than the free pickup they offer.

The car (a Toyota Camry Altise) was perfect for our needs, and we were able to just cram the kids into the back seat (with various booster/baby seats). Our own car is also a Camry (though a slightly older 1995 model) and by comparison I found the modern Altise quite responsive, a bit gruntier and with more headroom (something I tend to notice). Imagine my surprise to learn learn that the current model still has only a 4 cylinder engine. (And no, that picture is not a Camry!)

We took the opportunity to do a bit of sight seeing, and visited Ocean World at Manly. We all enjoyed looking at all the various exhibits – especially walking through the tunnel through the aquarium. Boy those teeth look sharp!

Having grown up in Adelaide, driving in a big city like Sydney is not my idea of fun. The traffic just seems crazy, and it all feels like there are just way too many cars trying to squeeze along lots of too-narrow roads (even though the roads are usually multi-lane). At least this visit we did pretty well finding our way around – Narelle's old NSW navigation skills came through with flying colours.

It was a nice holiday but it is good to be home again.

Belair line brochure photo

2009-03-21T11:25:00.001+10:30

My parents actually noticed this photo on the front cover of the “Belair line renewal” brochure (Broken link, was originally 210.247.132.180/alt-host../../assets/pdf_file/0003/36165/A4_brochure.pdf) (PDF), and then my son happened to notice the brochure and asked “Why are you in this photo Dad?”

Passengers boarding train at Blackwood Station (Broken link, was originally 210.247.132.180/alt-host../../assets/image/0005/36176/blackwood_08.jpg)

Have a close look at the tallish guy closest to the left of the train. Yes, I reckon that might be me! You may recall, as a regular train commuter this isn’t my first brush with fame. Moving to ABB Grain (who are on South Tce) I did stick with the Belair train for a while (hopping off at Unley Park station to transfer to a bus down King William Rd), but then realised that the 218 bus is generally quicker.

The Belair line is being fixed up this year, however it’s the only line that isn’t being electrified, which is just ridiculous. I’ve heard that “it’s tricky because the Belair line runs next to an existing freight line and also goes through some tunnels”. Give me a break! These are simple engineering problems that can easily be solved.

The Belair line has never been the same since the government sold off one of the lines to become a standard-gauge freight line. Reducing it to a single track has meant that trains now need to wait on sidings to pass each other, and as a consequence the trains virtually never run on time.

What I would love to see is they fix up the line, electrify and standardise the gauge and lease back the other line so that services could finally return to normal. That seems sensible and logical to me, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

Google Transit for Adelaide

2008-12-02T21:55:00.001+10:30

I saw this mentioned on Australian IT today – if you open up Adelaide in Google Maps, you now get the option of listing directions by “public transit”.

So for example, if I wanted to get from “Westbourne Park to Glenelg”, just enter exactly that phrase and search, then click on the ‘public transit’ link

View Larger Map

As you can see from the map, it indicates the bus route (216), then you change to a tram (), then finally you walk (). The directions panel contains bus stop details and the service times.

Ever since I owned an Apple Newton MessagePad and more recently a few Windows Mobile devices I’ve had an idea for an application that would allow you to interactively find out when the next bus was, and tell me what time I would arrive home – taking into account that I used to catch two buses and a train to get home. Well it looks like Google has pretty much implemented that idea for me!

Fix it Pat (part 2)

2007-11-05T10:21:00.001+10:30

As we arrived at Church on Sunday, I was greeted by a number of people saying, "We saw you in the paper today!"

So while I didn't get a mention from Thursday's interview on the day, apparently my mug is in the paper edition, along with along with some of my comments (down under the Belair sub-heading).

To be fair to the Sunday Mail, they are being pretty open about the fact that they were the ones handing out the badges, and I think I've been quoted accurately, which is reassuring.

(Photo from Sunday Mail, 4th November 2007)

Fix it Pat interview

2007-11-02T11:13:00.001+10:30

Today at Blackwood Train station, I was interviewed by a Sunday Mail journalist.

Apparently they are running a campaign to encourage more investment in public transport, particularly after the problems the trains had yesterday with the computer system failing completely.

I didn't make the copy in the final article - oh well.

Looks like I will need to get Owen's autograph after all (he's the guy on the left). I was sitting just out of shot behind the guy standing up near the door on the right :-)