Some Pre-departure Thoughts

There's something about going on a non-holiday trip that always causes a funny feeling in my tummy. Having performed the role of a field engineer for the railroad industry in America, I know what it means to set off on a repair mission to remote locations. After a couple of visits, I concluded that the list of key items to have is made up of:

• A Plan
• Tools
• Safety Equipment
• Knowledge and Skills

For some odd reason, I got the same tummy feeling just before our departure from Durham to Cardiff in the i-MiEV, and interestingly enough, I felt that we had prepared all of those four key items. 

The plan was drafted and re-drafted up until the very last minute before our departure. SatNav coordinates were triple checked. We made a route that pointed us to the desired charging stations, and a backup charging station no more than 10 miles away from the desired station. Phone calls were made to ensure that the chosen charging stations were operational and available.  We even waited for the post to deliver an RFID card to give us access to charging stations in the Midlands prior to our departure. 

Our safety equipment in this case was reduced to a torch, fully charged mobile phone, blanket, medication for any kind of illness possible (as if we were travelling through Siberian winter). And of course, a standard SatNav. 

As tools we prepared all of our charging cables, standard automobile gear, and swiss army knife in case we wanted to cut that sandwich while waiting on the car to be charged. 

The i-MiEV's manual was studied, a paper road map of the UK was packed, and emergency phone numbers were noted. The plug types and standards at charging stations were studied, the vehicle was tested beforehand at all types of charging stations available and on the road. 

The point being that this is part of the beauty of engineering. As an engineer, one plans and anticipates scenarios that can negatively affect the outcome of a project, considering timelines and budgets. However, no matter how much planning (and simulations) one does, there will always be some unexpected challenge. In theory, it is clear that our trip to the LCNF 2012 Conference is feasible, but in practice I know that we will face technical, social and environmental challenges that will question the theory. I believe that the tummy feeling is there to remind us engineers that there is a real world out there full of variables that challenges our designs. Over the next couple days we'll get a feeling of the challenges that will come in our way and probably we'll realize that we could do without many of the items that we brought in the car. Although I can foresee long trips on EVs becoming more popular as charging stations spread across the UK, for the moment I feel more comfortable sticking to the the good old saying "hope for the best, but be ready for the worst".