Wiebe Wakker
May 22, 2016
This morning the sun woke me up in the car at 5.45AM, I slept pretty good after that long day. The car was charged to 70% which is normally enough to drive to remaining 108 kilometers to Hamburg. The car charged for about 9 hours on a 3.5KWh charging station at this Hyuandai dealer. I re-arranged the car from sleep mode to driving mode and drove to Hamburg where my mother was waiting for me. I should meet her the night before but you know what happened. It was no problem for her as she had a friend here who she visited.
It was nice to see her again and have someone with me who I already knew. Meeting new people everyday is great but after a while it’s nice to talk about different and deeper things (struggles etc).
https://www.facebook.com/PlugMeIn/photos/a.466370933571974.1073741835.211949022347501/492292127646521/
We explored hamburg which is really a beautiful city, it has a huge harbor (the third biggest in Europe) and it was build around the same time as Amsterdam and some buildings have similar styles. My favorite part is Speichelstadt where they have these old buildings surrounded by water. Water is everywhere in Hamburg and the city has more bridges then Venice & Amsterdam combined.
Sustainable city
Hamburg is home to 4.3 million people and the 2nd biggest city in Germany. 1.8 million people live in the city centre. The city was awarded European Green Capital in 2011 by the European Committee. They have an ambitious Climate Action Plan which covers more than 360 projects and measures to cut CO2-emissions by 2 million tons from 2007 – 2012 and to reduce the overall carbon footprint by 40% until 2020 (compared to baseline 1990). The city budget provides an additional annual funding of 25 m. Euro (approx. 120 m. Euro up to 2012).
E-mobility
Hamburg’s government has ambitious plans to make the city suitable for electric vehicles. This comes a bit late as the first public charging station was build only in April 2015 (source). In late 2016 a total of 600 charging stations must be installed, 70 of them will have DC fast charging possibilities. This allows taxi companies to do their business emission-free.
Back to our sightseeing tour. We went on a boat to explore the harbor. First we sailed through the old part, majestic buildings popped up everywhere and in of them fellow Dutchman Joop van den Ende had his Academy, that guy is everywhere. Then to the new modern part. It’s huge! Cranes, docks, containers and people everywhere. Windmills are placed throughout the harbor but I can’t imagine that this will power the whole area.
By foot we went to the city centre. The city has two faces, the old industrial but yet majestic part and the new impressive industrial side. I enjoy both of them. In the heart of the centre you can find many expensive clothing brands and of course, a Tesla store. I didn’t had the opportunity to visit one before, one of the employees was very interested in my story.
We had lunch next to an lake in the centre, we found it a bit to busy, went back to the car which was then 50% charged and went to a park to relax. Today I felt like a king as my mother treated me with ice creams, good food and even new clothes.
Later we went back to the apartment and I couldn’t charge my car on a normal household socket as it was on the fifth level. With the PlugSurfing app I  found a station just 1.1KM from our location. The coverage is already very dense, I had many back-ups nearby if the station would have been occupied.
This is where I charged the car overnight in Hamburg.
