That's Life

«It’s a drag, because it’s the last working day before the New Year. The car’s battery is running low quickly, there’s 15 percent left. We look for a charger, we drive to OceanPlaza, the map shows as many as dscsv of free ports there. But the parking lot resembles a madhouse with cars crawling in different directions, trying to find somewhere to settle in. We run away, drive towards Respublica, where I know a good charger. There are 11 km left on the road, which means 5 kilometers in the cold. In this stress, we find a free charger on the map, reach it, park it and go to warm up. We exhale. Then suddenly, an hour later, I see in the app that the car has stopped charging. It turns out that the area has been turned off, the charger has also gone out. We have to drive further to look for a new one. We drive again, again the same 11 km, we stop near Respublica. I insert the gun, pay money for the app. And here this area is already dying. Damn, I’m ready to abandon this damn car and go to Vasylkiv by minibus. We find another charging point, a kilometer away. We go there. Industrial zone, garages. We get stuck in a snowdrift. We push ourselves out. We arrive. This is some kind of critical infrastructure structure and the charging works! I’m also charging this application, for the third time.» This is part of a post by journalist and now military serviceman Stanislav Yasynskyi, who a few days ago recalled how on New Year’s Eve he tried to charge his electric car, moving from location to location, because the light was disappearing.

On the morning of January 22, a video of a man playing a shooter on his computer in a McDonald’s restaurant in the capital was shared on Kyiv Telegram channels. He turned out to be Lieutenant of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Anton Shevelyov, who told dev.ua how the situation arose and assured that the video game on his PC was not «the fucking Tarkov.»

Winter in Ukraine has always been a challenge for motorists, but the combination of extreme cold and regular power outages due to shelling of energy infrastructure has created unique conditions for owners of electric cars. "Electric cars" have become not just a means of transportation, but also act as large portable charging stations that can power a private house for several dozen hours. We spoke with electric car owners and industry experts about operating cars in conditions of constant electricity shortages and extreme temperatures.