A week-long road trip through Norway in a rented electric Toyota turned into an ordeal, culminating in windshields frozen from the inside. The search for the cause ultimately pointed to a surprising culprit.
I discovered Ebba in late March at a small commercial park in Leira, Norway. Ebba, whose full name is Ebba Warm, promised everything I needed at that moment: warmth, comfort, and a sense of security. By the complete of our vacation, I almost took her with me, if my wife hadn’t vehemently objected.
That’s because Ebba is 2 meters long and 1.40 meters wide. Even folded into its packing bag, the hollow fiber duvet wouldn’t have fit in my KLM carry-on luggage. I needed Ebba desperately – a situation entirely caused by the vehicle I was driving: a Toyota bz4x electric SUV rented from Sixt.
But let’s start at the beginning. At the start of the winter break, we landed in Oslo for our winter vacation in the Norwegian mountains. I should have been suspicious at the Sixt counter: the customer service representative asked if we might prefer a gasoline car instead of the available electric Toyota. He mentioned that two complaints had already come in that morning regarding the same model, which didn’t necessarily mean anything – but you never know. The frustrating part was that even with a 50 percent discount, the gasoline car would have cost 250 euros more than the Toyota. My wife said, “Let’s risk it with the Toyota. he just wants to make a sale.”
We were warned, it seems.
We started with a 95 percent battery charge. 94, 93, 91, 83 percent. Even leaving Oslo, I noticed the charge was dropping faster than the distance indicated on the navigation system. It was easy to watch. A minus 13 degrees Celsius outside temperature apparently puts a strain on an electric car. Fortunately, we were generally able to drive no faster than 70 km/h under these conditions.
When we finally arrived in Aurdal after three hours of driving in the dark, the search for our accommodation began. “The GPS knows the way,” I told my wife. Today I know that the GPS knows nothing. As a Norwegian explained to us later, some roads are simply converted into ski slopes in winter. The navigation system, of course, has no idea.
Pushing Keeps You Warm
First, we got stuck on a hill even as turning onto the road indicated by the GPS. My wife and son had to push to get us back out. That keeps you warm. Battery level at that point was 34 percent. Distance to the destination was just under four kilometers. So, everything was actually fine, if we hadn’t actually ended up on a wide, ski-slope-like road five minutes later.
We laboriously worked our way out of that situation as well, drove back onto the road, and waited. We called our host in desperation, and she promised to rescue us. It would take 30 minutes, however. That proved to be a problem. Half an hour with the interior climate control and windshield wipers running drains the battery, and eventually, it drains it significantly. So, I turned off the car. At minus 15 degrees Celsius.
Can you imagine how quickly the temperature drops inside the car? Do you have any idea how quickly the windshield fogs up and then freezes from the inside?
Actually, it’s not a problem if you start driving again immediately, simply turning the interior climate control to full blast – and the warmth returns. But I was wrong. When our rescuer arrived, the car still had 31 percent charge. But when we drove off to follow her, the car refused any heating functions. Heater, fan, seat heating, windshield defroster. It simply stayed cold. We slowly and shivering followed the gasoline car of the landlord to the house.
Charging Not Possible
ChatGPT later explained to me that the car had shut down all interior consumers to conserve the battery. That sounded logical. But what does artificial intelligence know about a Sixt Toyota bz4x? The next morning, the car started without problems at equally arctic temperatures with still 25 percent charge, and the heater, fan, and everything else worked perfectly. Which didn’t bother me at the moment.
We drove to the charging station. I told my wife, “I’m not going to warm up to Elton.” Elton wasn’t Elton John or the TV presenter Elton, but an app that allows you to charge almost everywhere in Norway. However, not with our car. The first station in the Leira commercial area refused to initialize, even though 500 Norwegian kroner had already been deducted from the card, and the second one did too: “Charging not possible” was displayed on the station’s screen.
Have you ever stood in front of your car at minus 13 degrees without gloves for over fifteen minutes, wiping your phone hoping the car would finally charge? Blue-red fingertips are the first sign of frostbite symptoms, I recently read.
Eventually, we found a station that connected to the car and even worked without Elton, using only my credit card. The first time, it took the car an hour and a half to charge from 21 to around 65 percent. An hour and a half in a small commercial area, where besides a store from Intersport, two discounters, and the aforementioned outfitter with the Ebba Warm, there wasn’t much.
Cold Loading Takes Longer
My wife thought at the time that maybe it was due to our inexperience. Today I know: it was due to Toyota and Sixt. During the second charging process, we drove to a larger commercial area. We needed more shops, as we were supposed to continue into the country the next day. We needed at least 80 percent charge based on our previous experiences. At the gas station in Fagernes, however, the charging stations again refused to connect to the car. At minus 17 degrees. Any questions? Eventually, we found a station in town, a kilometer away. It took 1 hour and 40 minutes to reach 80 percent.
The realization after the charging process? It wasn’t the low remaining charge on the first day that caused the heating and all the comfort features to stop working. Even with a good 87 percent, the heater remained off. The car drove to the accommodation, but the windshield froze from the inside. Heavily bundled up, my wife had to scrape the front windshield from the inside repeatedly, which isn’t easy with such a large car. At this point, my editor and electric car skeptic Ulf Poschardt would have said: you get what you pay for, who takes this car to Norway?
Back at the mountain accommodation, the car had only 81 percent charge. Electricity apparently disappears faster than hydrogen in conventional pipelines in the cold. It reminded me of Sixt’s classic slogan: “The only thing that rattles here are your wife’s teeth.”
From then on, the car ran almost flawlessly for days, except that I almost bought the duvet during the last major charging process because it took so long. We were still in the store when they already lowered the blinds because it was closing time. But we still needed so many percentages.
Sixt, You Have a Problem
On the last morning of our stay, we started at 7:30 a.m. Towards Oslo. From an initial 96 percent charge, there were still about 87 percent left. The navigation system said: you won’t make it with that charge. Somewhere, less than an hour before Oslo, it led us to a municipal charging station. There we had 51 percent left. Our experience was confirmed again: this rental car was picky. It only accepted every third station on average. Fifteen minutes later, we drove on – with 47 instead of 51 percent, despite ten minutes of charging. Why ever.
It was good that the Sixt Toyota decided to keep the interior cold and the windshield frozen, otherwise it might not have been enough. We reached the airport, almost frozen.
