On the afternoon of Saturday the 17th of February, the rapid charger beside the electrical cabinet at the pier car park began smoking due to a component failure. The local fire brigade were quick to attend, shutting down the apparatus and ensuring the area was safe. Perhaps being more safe than sorry, the ‘brigade taped off all of the adjacent chargers as well as the one that was faulty.
Local electric vehicle drivers were understandably alarmed by the units being taken out of service because the small cluster of rapid chargers are the only ones that serve the area. Taking to Facebook to voice their concerns, they were soon rebuked by an overseas man named Mark Jeffrey, who scoffed at the very notion of people driving electric cars – bragging that he himself drove a diesel.
When not working for a drilling company in the fossil fuel industry (coincidental, I’m sure – Ed.), Jeffrey appears to like spending his time spouting conspiracy theories in the direction of people who don’t really care.
In the discussion thread posted on the Helensburgh Community Group regarding the issue with the chargers, Jeffrey speared in with fairly standard electric car disinformation nonsense; “No kids were killed digging up the ingrediants (sic) for my battery!” he said, presumably re-treading the oft disproven allegation that children are routinely being killed by working in cobalt mines.
The fact that most modern electric vehicles use little to no cobalt in their batteries wasn’t going to deter him. Long after the smoke had cleared from the issue with the charger itself, Jeffrey was still trying to fan the flames of a debate he evidently wanted to have with anyone who would stoop to his level.
Unfortunately for him, not a single person engaged with his subsequent meandering rant of over 200 words (many misspelt) where, somehow, the military, China, Russia, and the Middle East were all the concern of local EV drivers who just wanted to charge their electric vehicles. Or “electric vehicules” as Jeffrey himself put it.
More of a worry for local EV drivers was that it might be days or weeks before the chargers were back up and running again. Happily, it was just a day or so before those located beside the one that failed were operational again.
We reached out to Mark Jeffrey to ask his thoughts on their prompt return to service;
“That repair only happened so fast because of dark, untraceable money. I kid you not, Putin himself was likely behind it. Anyone who drives an electric car is one of Putin’s pals. Kids probably died making the replacement parts, too. I bet the engineer’s van was a diesel like my car – that’s the irony of how they maintain these things – there is no green utopia! Now, if you don’t mind, I need to get back to my research on the dark web.”
Mark Jeffrey, formerly of Helensburgh. Now, thankfully, a safe distance from us all in Norway.
Now that the dust has settled, we’re glad that Jeffrey, formerly of Helensburgh (now, thankfully, a safe distance from us all in Norway), is off doing something better with his time instead of attempting to antagonise local electric vehicle drivers.
We hope it’s not too long before the faulty unit is back in working order.
Editor’s note;
Mark Jeffrey’s comments above were edited to improve clarity, spelling, punctuation, and suspension of disbelief.
