Last summer, I took the plunge and bought an electric car. After a bit of research, I decided on an all-electric Nissan Leaf. A little over 12 months and close to 10,000 gas-free miles later, I couldn’t be happier about my decision. But countless short-distance commutes, weekly cross-city drives and one semi-adventurous road trip have also taught me a lot about the shortcomings of electric mobility. My biggest pet peeve? The hassle of finding, and using, public charging stations.

First, a few words about my car of choice. The [company]Nissan[/company] Leaf isn’t as splashy, or expensive, as a [company]Tesla[/company], but it does a great job as a city commuter car, and is actually surprisingly zippy when you need to speed up to merge onto the freeway or get the head-start at a traffic light turning green.

And yes, you can tell by my use of words like zippy that I’m not…