Chatting about Electric Vehicles in the donut shop

Chatting about EV Life at the Donut King in King City, Ca

When my husband told Alex The Donut King of King City that we would be hanging around his wind swept town for four hours to charge our 2012 Nissan Leaf en route to Malibu, he thought we were nuts. “Too much. Too much,” he said. “Not 20 minutes?” He scrunched his face as if smelling a burned crueller.
A rancher who ambled into the the donut shop for his morning cup of coffee was more philosophical. He has a diesel truck for working his 20 acres of “row” crops outside of town, and so he had to quickly learn which gas stations have diesel. ” You get used to it, ” he said.
That, of course, is the big question car manufacturers face as they try to sell and improve upon their electric vehicles to make them more convenient for the average American driver.
On the road during Day 2 of our EV trip from Silicon Valley, I keep wondering how average we are.
We are having a great time, but would it be as fun coming through this friendly town a second time after the newness wears off and we have seen the few points of interest?
Surely, if this town gets a supercharger someday and shortens our charging time to 30 minutes, we would not have spent 15 minutes chatting with Alex and the rancher. Nor would I have worked off the buttermilk donut by walking 1.5 miles to the Monterey County Agricultural and Rural Life Museum.

And then, I would have missed learning about the ranchers that had come before my new found rancher friend, the men who worked the land, and did what no one said could be done. When the wind blew, they planted trees to block it and when the lettuce withered, they figured out how to make ice to chill it. And, they turned the Salinas Valley into the largest produce vegetable district in the world.
With that spirit of innovation, it will only be a matter of time that EV drivers will be breezing through these communities. And, it will be bittersweet.