'Stranded' - Electric car driver left 'in the middle of nowhere' in Mayo after breakdown

A bank holiday trip along the Wild Atlantic Way turned into a 40-hour ordeal for Irish Independent journalist Adrian Weckler after his electric car broke down in rural Mayo, despite a promised 24/7 "mobility guarantee" from the manufacturer.

Speaking on The Big Tech Show podcast, Weckler explained that he had taken his 10-month-old Volkswagen ID.3 to a remote part of west Mayo for a short break over the recent Bank Holiday weekend when the car suddenly failed to start on Sunday morning.

"So I took it down, and on the Sunday at about 11 o'clock in the morning, I noticed that it wouldn't start. My 10-month-old ID.3 wouldn't start," he said. "It was working, the electrics and the heating and the radio and everything else was working in it, but it just wouldn't start."

Volkswagen advertises a "mobility guarantee" for its electric vehicles, promising to "guarantee to keep you mobile around the clock", including an on-the-spot fix, towing, a hire car and even accommodation if needed.

But what followed, Weckler said, fell far short of that promise.

After calling Volkswagen's breakdown line - which is handled by the AA - he was first told someone would be with him within 90 minutes and that the issue might be fixed on the spot. An hour later, he was told no repair would be attempted and that a tow truck would be required.

Then came another call.

"I was told there now wouldn't be any tow truck that day," he said. "So I asked, well okay, what's the mobility guarantee like? What am I supposed to do?"

'Out in the middle of nowhere'

Stranded south of Belmullet, Weckler said he was effectively left without any realistic help. Ballina and Castlebar were both more than an hour away, while Westport was even further.

A hire car was offered, but only from Knock Airport, which was 117km away. To make matters worse, the rental desk was closing within 90 minutes.

"Now it's not actually physically possible to get to Knock Airport from Belmullet in under 90 minutes," he said.

He said no taxi had been arranged to bring him to the rental depot, and no accommodation had been offered.

"So now I'm stranded. I'm out in the middle of nowhere. I have no fix. I have no tow. I have no taxi. I have no rental car. And there's no accommodation offered," he said.

Because the car was electric, he said no local garage was willing to take a look.

"In my case, I was really stranded. Like really stranded," he said. "If I hadn't had local connections - if that had happened, like I broke down somewhere where I had recourse to shelter and everything. But if I had been up a mountain, like what I'm being told here is, I'm sorry, there's no one coming for you. No one."

With poor weather setting in, Weckler organised his own way home the following day, getting a lift to a local bus stop, travelling on to Ballina, then taking a train to Dublin and finally a taxi home from Heuston Station.

"It was doable," he said. "But certainly kind of far away from Volkswagen's mobility guarantee."

Days before recovery

The car was eventually towed to a Volkswagen garage in Ballina on Tuesday evening, more than 48 hours after it broke down. Even then, Weckler said it took another week before the car was diagnosed, with confusion over which technician was qualified to assess the fault.

After he contacted Volkswagen to say he intended to write about his experience, the company apologised.

"They apologised. They said, 'We apologise for your experience with Volkswagen roadside assistance.' They said it 'fell well below the level of service we deliver on a daily basis'," he said.

Volkswagen also said the matter was under investigation and that changes had been made to ensure access to replacement vehicles is now available 24/7 through its breakdown partner, the AA.

But Weckler remains sceptical.

"I might actually test that because it seems like a tall order for that to happen," he said. "To go from what happened to me to some sort of all-inclusive 'yeah, we will definitely be out to you, I know it's a Sunday, I know it's 6pm or 2pm or 10pm, but we are going to be out to you. We're either going to tow your car, or we're going to fix it, and we're going to give you a rental car.'"

"I would be very pleasantly surprised if that was the case," he said.

Warning for rural drivers

Weckler stressed that he is not anti-electric vehicle and continues to drive an EV. But he believes his experience highlights a real risk for drivers travelling to remote parts of Mayo and other rural counties.

"I like electric cars. I'm not going back to owning a petrol or a diesel car. But I do think it's important to point these things out.

"If you look at counties like Mayo, Donegal, Kerry, large parts of Cork, Tipperary, Roscommon, Clare - I mean, I could go on - there are large parts of the country, at least a third of the country that you could say the same thing about. Quite rural, quite remote, at least 50 kilometres or 60 kilometres from a dealer or a rental car location," he said.

"If you decide to follow the message in the ads, which is to take your new car, your comfortable, really efficient, cheaper to run by the way, electric car, and you take it down somewhere beautiful, like the Wild Atlantic Way for a bank holiday weekend or on a Sunday, like the ads suggest that you could and you should.

"If you break down, you might have an issue. You might have an issue, and you might be stranded like me."

While Volkswagen says the issue has now been fixed, Weckler said the experience should make EV drivers think twice about how robust breakdown support really is once you're far from the main roads and cities.