As soon as dawn broke, the thin mist still lingering on the hills, Ms. Bui Thi Lan Huong left her house in Hoa Binh ward to start a new working day.
The electric car quietly rolled through familiar roads, taking the female pharmacist from home to the store, and then continuing to connect with pharmacies scattered in the highlands of Phu Tho province.
That pace of travel is repeated almost every day. Both going and returning, the distance Ms. Huong travels is about 130km.
Ms. Huong currently has 3 pharmacies in Lac Son district, former Hoa Binh province. Recently, her family moved to Hoa Binh ward to live.
Ms. Huong shared: "Nearly 1 year ago, my family decided to buy an electric car to serve the needs of traveling, picking up and dropping off children for short distances. At that time, there were many opposing opinions, analyzing and comparing between gasoline cars and electric cars. But driving for nearly a year now, I find it very satisfactory, very suitable for the needs of the family.
In the highlands, traveling has never been a small matter. Her working day is not just limited to a fixed pharmacy.
Some days she stands selling goods from morning, some days she has to run through sales points to check, supplement medicine, process orders, deliver goods. The car must be compact, easy to maneuver, easy to park, easy to reverse, but also strong enough to climb slopes, go far, go continuously.
Going back and forth, I am a girl, the car is compact, so it is very convenient. Parking and reversing is also easy," she recounted.
After nearly a year of use, the car has traveled about 25,000km with Ms. Huong. But what surprised her was that the maintenance cost was quite low.
Having traveled 25,000km, but only maintained 2 times, the cost of both times is more than 1 million VND," she said.
According to Ms. Huong's calculations, if in the past year she still used gasoline cars in the same segment such as Hyundai i10, Kia Morning, Toyota Wigo... to serve current travel intensity, her family may have to spend an additional 37-38 million VND on fuel. That does not even include maintenance fees.
At a time when gasoline and oil prices are high, this difference becomes even more obvious.
Outside the yard, the family's Carnival car has been idle for nearly a week. Ms. Huong said that since gasoline prices increased sharply, her family has further limited the use of diesel cars for daily trips.
Normally, that car fills the tank with more than 1 million VND, but now to fill the tank, it costs nearly 3 million VND. If you go from Hoa Binh ward to the old Lac Son district, both ways cost 400,000 - 500,000 VND per day for fuel," she said.
Not only saving money, the car also made Ms. Huong change her mind about traveling on hilly roads.
Once I went to ship goods in the old Ngoc Son commune, a hilly area where cars climb steep slopes smoothly. The charging station in the old Hoa Binh city area is also convenient, in Lac Son it is also convenient. Vin station is only 2km from my house, and the station in Lac Son is next to the store," she said.
And in the context that gasoline and oil prices are still a concern for many families, Ms. Huong's choice is probably also something that makes many people stop to recalculate the daily travel problem.
