Don’t Do… Whatever This Is

Hi, it’s your friendly neighborhood car blogger here with another public service announcement. Today, I am asking you, no begging you, to please not park like… whatever’s going on here. I know your new electric vehicle is fancy and full of all sorts of confusing features, but come on. You do not, under any circumstances, need to take up three charging spots to charge your car. I’m even sympathetic to the fact that not all chargers have cables that are long enough to reach your charge port without getting a little creative, but come on. 

The Chevrolet Blazer EV‘s charge port is on the driver’s side front fender, meaning absolutely none of this was necessary. Zero. Nada. Not a bit. The driver here could have pulled right into a single charging spot and plugged in without a single issue. Every problem this particular driver encountered is entirely of their own creation. If you have an EV, you simply do not have to do this. 

Now, this photo was taken in front of some Tesla chargers, and at least in theory, you could argue they were simply trying to keep people from giving Elon any money, and who am I to criticize some direct action? Except they were plugged in and at least appeared to be giving Elon some of their money. I’m open to being wrong here, but I highly doubt they parked that way because of their pro-democracy-and-rule-of-law stance.

This one, on the other hand, is even worse, despite the fact that they only blocked two parking spots instead of three. As you might be able to guess from the fact that half the car isn’t even in the parking space, they also decided to block the part of the parking lot where people drive their cars, forcing other drivers to go around. The selfishness is off the charts. Sure, I can admit the location of the charge port doesn’t make a setup like this the most convenient, but I also know for a fact that particular charge cable extends, meaning, once again, they could have simply parked like normal, not inconvenienced anyone else and still charged their car. 

I guess it’s possible the driver here wasn’t strong enough to move the cable, and yeah, they can be pretty heavy. Maybe this driver was old or had a disability and could otherwise drive just fine. But you know what you can do instead of blocking traffic? It’s this little thing called “asking for help,” and 10 out of 10 times, it’s guaranteed to be less annoying than pulling halfway into a parking spot and expecting everyone else to go around you.

I mean, while it’s getting better, this country’s charging infrastructure already sucks enough as it is, and the chargers that do work are often blocked by gas and diesel-engined cars whose drivers who think it’s cool to be giant, flaming douche-nozzles just because some of their neighbors choose to drive vehicles with nontraditional powertrains. The last thing we need is EV drivers making charging harder for their fellow EV owners. And yet, here we are.