New energy vehicle owners trapped in the blizzard: the charging gun is frozen and can't be pulled out, and they dare not turn on the power and wear a down jacket overnight
Tencent Auto & High-quality Creators specially planned the "New Energy Vehicle Owners Returning to Their Hometowns by Car in the New Year" series during the Spring Festival, which is jointly planned and output by [Everyone Auto], focusing on the real stories of new energy vehicle owners who are returning to their hometowns during the Spring Festival this year, including the extreme weather in Hubei Province that leads to high-speed traffic jams, and the ensuing real problems such as battery life anxiety and energy replenishment.
In the Spring Festival of 2024, a large-scale freezing rain and blizzard will come unexpectedly.
The wanderers who drove home by themselves and the returnees who finally grabbed high-speed rail tickets were all trapped on the road because of this extreme weather. Some car owners were stuck in the highway and couldn't go to the village or the back of the shop, and endured all night and walked two kilometers to find a small forest to solve the toilet problem; some tram owners didn't dare to turn on the air conditioner in order to save electricity, so they could only wrap up their down jackets and spend the night hard.
Xiao Mo, a girl who drove an RV, solved the urgent need of the owner of the car "next door", she enthusiastically lent toilets, hot water, and even set up a free barbecued sausage stall on the side of the road. The owners of the hungry and cold car owners suddenly dissipated the anxiety of being trapped.
This kind of mutual aid and self-help occurs on a closed highway for a period of time, and compared with the persistence of going home for the New Year, the difficulties and hardships on the road are nothing.
Text: Wang Xiaojuan, Wei Bing
Editor: Li Huanhuan
Operation: Potatoes
It took 20 hours to complete the road, and it took 57 hours to complete
As in previous years, Ouyang, his wife and sister took a year off to spend Saturday and Sunday on Saturday and Sunday, just so that they could spend more time with their families during the Spring Festival. At 4 o'clock in the morning on February 3, Ouyang Sanren, who had been busy outside for a year, took advantage of the night to set off from Dongguan, Guangdong, and the destination was Enshi, Hubei. According to the experience of previous years, even if you catch up with the traffic jam during the Spring Festival, the whole journey takes up to 20 hours.
Before leaving, Ouyang paid attention to the weather warning: from February 1 to 6, there will be a wide range of cold waves in Hubei Province, as well as low temperatures, rain, snow and freezing weather. Ouyang didn't take it too seriously, "It snows every year in our hometown, and the snow is very thick, and in some places it can be more than 20 centimeters, so it's no problem to drive back every time."
At first, the three of Ouyang were very relaxed, they nibbled on chicken feet and chatted, stopped when they arrived at the service station, rested and set off again. Ouyang prepared snacks, mineral water and 6 boxes of self-heating rice, and planned to eat two meals on the way, enough for three people.
▲ Ouyang and the three took a group photo in the car. Photo / Courtesy of the interviewee
As the way home became longer and longer, Ouyang sighed that he had underestimated the enemy this time. Rain and snow cause the road to be slippery, and there are constantly skidding vehicles colliding along the way.
It was about 7 o'clock in the evening, and when Changde was driving to Changzhang Expressway, everything began to go wrong, freezing rain mixed with hail and snow falling, the snow on both sides of the road was about ankle level, and the speed of the car slowly pressed to 10-20 yards, and then simply stopped. By 10 a.m. the next morning, the highway had been completely paralyzed for nearly 14 hours.
▲ The highway around 7 p.m. Photo / Courtesy of the interviewee
Being stuck on the highway for a long time, going to the toilet has become the biggest problem.
There is not even shelter on either side of the road, and if you want to go to the toilet, you can only walk a kilometer or two outside and walk to a small forest to solve the problem. The snow was thick along the way, the road surface was run over by wheels, potholes, and it was very difficult to walk.
The day was fine, but the night was cold and dark, and Ouyang's wife was stunned, so she didn't go to the toilet until the next morning. After that, in order to avoid trouble, she never drank much water, and when she was thirsty, she took two sips.
In order to avoid the rain and snow, Liu Ying and her family, who drove from Hangzhou to Chongqing, deliberately set off at 4 a.m. on February 2. As a result, when passing through Anhui, Liu Ying and his entourage encountered a series of rear-end collisions between multiple vehicles and were blocked in Anhui for five or six hours. When I walked to Hubei that night, I was just in time for this freezing rain. The highway was closed, and Liu Ying was trapped in the Xiantao section on February 3.
Like Ouyang's wife, Liu Ying's most devastating thing is going to the toilet. "I don't dare to go on it during the day, I can only hold it", taking advantage of the darkness at night, Liu Ying covered herself with two big umbrellas, and relied on her own car to solve the problem, "The first time was really embarrassing", Liu Ying did a long time of psychological construction before daring to go, and on the third day, the outdoor toilet "has become very calm".
After nightfall, the chill hits and people need to fight the cold.
▲ Trapped on the highway for up to 14 hours. Photo / Courtesy of the interviewee
Ouyang drove a hybrid model, the BYD Tang DM-i, and when he was first trapped, there were still 700 kilometers of mileage left, and he was rich in oil and electricity, and they kept sleeping with the heater on at night.
Liu Ying's car is a fuel car, BMW X3, because she is afraid that she will be "carbon monoxide poisoning" if she turns on the heater for a long time, so she can only turn it on for a while when she sleeps, and then turn it off when she wakes up. That night, Liu Ying and her family were repeatedly woken up by the cold, and they couldn't rest well at all.
In order to keep warm, some people picked up some dead branches on both sides of the road and put them together and made their own fires. There are constantly car owners joining, everyone roasts their hands around the fire, chats about their hometowns, and can be regarded as finding a trace of solace in hardship.
Trapped for a long time, some people simply cook hot pot with cassette stoves in the snow, and some people cook self-heating hot pot with snow water due to the shortage of mineral water. The villagers of the nearby villages traveled a long way to the snow road to bring hot water and food to everyone, and along the way, Ouyang and Liu Ying encountered such heart-warming moments.
▲ Villagers are delivering hot water to trapped car owners. Photo / Courtesy of the interviewee
Xiao Mo, who was traveling in an RV, had been stuck in traffic on the Xiantao Expressway for more than 16 hours, and compared to others, Xiao Mo had more abundant food. Realizing that everyone might have nothing to eat, Xiao Mo set up a free barbecued sausage stall on the side of the road and beckoned everyone to come and eat. The man in the car next to him wanted to borrow a pot of hot water, but Xiao Mo hurriedly handed it over, "Their family of four is huddled together, my wife has a cold, and the two children are very young."
In addition to food and water, Xiao Sue's RV also came in handy – solving the toilet problems of many people in the neighborhood. At 7 a.m., a girl knocked on her car door, hoping to get in the car and "borrow a toilet". Then there were the second and third girls...... "I used to drive a small car, and I can understand that it is the most difficult for girls to go to the toilet." ”
▲ Xiao Mo provides hot water for everyone in the RV. Photo / Courtesy of the interviewee
Ji Chun was trapped near the Jihan Bridge on National Highway 234, and the snow was so heavy that many cars were stuck in it. Everyone spontaneously stepped forward to help push the cart, and if they couldn't push it, they took out the rope and tied it to the cart, and everyone pulled it out together. Ji Chun will also go up to help push it when he sees this situation, and he has forgotten how many times he has pushed it along the way.
After being trapped for 14 hours, the driver of the large truck who was in a hurry next to him spontaneously went to the front to explore the road, and found that the driver in front of him was asleep, completely unaware that the car in front of him had gone away. He came all the way back to wake up the sleeping car owners, so that everyone was ready to leave, and the traffic finally flowed. This time, on the 20-hour journey home, Ouyang walked for 57 hours, and the journey was difficult and difficult, second only to the snow disaster in 2008.
"I didn't dare to turn on the air conditioner, so I could only wrap myself in a down jacket overnight"
Compared with gasoline car owners, in the face of this large-scale rain and snow that has not been encountered for many years, tram owners are more difficult.
When spending the night in the car at night, Ouyang noticed that several pure electric cars around, perhaps in order to reduce power consumption, the lights and central control screen were turned off, the car was pitch black, the air conditioning was also stopped, and the owner could only wrap in a down jacket to keep warm.
In the case of freezing rain + blizzard, as well as the complex weather of fog, there are relatively few tram owners of "Tou Tie", and many people leave in a hurry when they can get off the highway, "There are relatively few 'green plates' on the road".
At 7 a.m. on February 3, Tesla Model Y owner Jianxiong set off from Ningbo and drove back to his hometown in Wuhan for the New Year. At the beginning, the road was smooth, and after getting on the Shanghai-Chongqing Expressway, the nightmare began. The whole journey of three or four hundred kilometers is almost congested, and the endless waiting makes people "crazy", "almost experienced Tesla lying in Hubei".
The cold became the biggest challenge, and as we approached Wuhan, the snow began to accumulate on the roads, and at night the snow froze and it was even more difficult to walk. For Jianxiong, entering Hubei is actually very close to home, and he is blocked 40 kilometers from home, but all the vehicles are stuck in place, and he can only wait on the spot.
▲ After the blizzard, the vehicle struggled to move forward. Photo / Visual China
Unable to do anything, Jianxiong could only keep staring at the navigation, watching the system prompt the remaining time constantly changing, 2 hours, 4 hours, 5 hours ....." My heart was cold, and most importantly, I panicked even more when I saw that the car had only 39% of the battery left. "Daily commuting in the city, this electricity is still enough, even if the temperature reaches below zero in winter, the air conditioner is turned on in the car, and it is no problem to hold on for a few hours, but when all the cars on the road are turned off, it is estimated that he can only spend the night in the car, Jianxiong still panicked.
Jianxiong logged on to social media to scroll through related posts, and found that the congestion time is usually five hours to the bottom, and it was one o'clock in the morning, and there was no relaxation at all, and Jianxiong decided to leave the highway anyway.
After checking the map, Jianxiong found that he was about 6 kilometers away from the nearest high-speed exit, and at this time, a construction truck happened to come to the emergency lane. I followed the engineering truck for about half an hour, came to the front of the congestion team, and no one stopped it, there was a highway management official car and a snowplow, briefly checked the passing vehicles, reminded the driver to pay attention to safety and let go.
Further on, there were fewer and fewer cars, and the road was completely covered with snow, and I finally reached the exit. Kenxiong found that this section of the exit was the most difficult to walk. The ramp is a slope and a car in front of it skidd and broke down.
▲ Traffic accidents occurred in many road sections. Photo / Visual China
Carefully driving out of the exit, Jianxiong breathed a sigh of relief, he wanted to find a place to charge, but the outdoor charging gun was blocked by freezing rain, and he finally found one that could be pulled off but could not be charged. Charged to 60%, Jianxiong could no longer support it, so he found a nearby hotel to stay, it was 3 o'clock in the morning, and it had been a full 20 hours since Jianxiong's departure.
Early the next morning, Jianxiong turned on the "vehicle defrost" function and set off again. He didn't dare to take the next high-speed road, so he could only walk slowly and carefully on the national highway in the snow, but fortunately, the remaining distance was not long, and he arrived home in less than four hours.
Another tram owner, Lan Li, escaped the blizzards in Hubei and Henan, but was planted in the heavy snow in Gansu. From Shanghai to Lanzhou, the journey is nearly 2,300 kilometers. Careful all the way and fighting the cold, Lan Li felt that it was not easy, and finally "got off the highway crying".
At half past six in the morning on January 30, Lan Li drove his Volkswagen ID.4 X, with a large family - three cats and a dog, set off in a mighty way, and arrived in Luoyang at 3 o'clock in the morning the next day. "The dogs found the most comfortable sleeping position, and the cats slept all the way. ”
The really tough part is the second half. originally planned to sleep in Luoyang until he woke up naturally before setting off, but Lan Li saw the weather forecast that there was about to be a blizzard in Henan, and in order to avoid the blizzard, Lan Li started to rush again at 8 o'clock in the morning.
▲ Driving in a blizzard. Photo / Visual China
Thousands of calculations, but still did not escape the heavy snow in Gansu. Due to a series of car accidents on the snowy road, the highway was closed after Pingliang. Lan Li had to come out of the nearby highway exit of Longde County, Ningxia, and stayed for another night. When she was trapped in Longde, Lan Li planned to go to a charging station near the highway intersection to charge, but the charging station was built halfway up the mountain, and the road was slippery in snow, Lan Li didn't dare to drive it herself, so she could only find an old driver to help drive it.
Lanli's car has been used in Shanghai for a long time, and it is not equipped with snow tires and snow chains, so it has been skidding when driving in the snow. "Several times she skiddled into the middle of the road" and she had to move at a low speed, causing "the big car behind me to get impatient and keep dripping me, and on two or three occasions I almost hit my car".
Along the way, Lanli replenished energy every 200 kilometers, and did not dare to turn on the seat heating throughout the whole process, and the air conditioner was only turned on to 26 degrees, so I was afraid that the power would run out and lie on the road. The further west I go, the more I feel the inconvenience of energy replenishment, "I used to use NIO's charging piles often, but after entering Shaanxi, there are only battery swap stations in many places." In Gansu, "there are also charging stations, but some are not open, so you can only look for them farther away", and it has become significantly more difficult to replenish energy.
Although this experience was not good, Lan Li felt that it was not the reason for the tram, and it would not affect her overall evaluation of the tram because of this experience. After arriving home, the thrill of this road slowly dissipated.
The most tormenting thing is "undecided later"
Spring Festival, the real migration army is in the train station. In the past few days, due to the impact of freezing rain and heavy snowfall, countless trains have been suspended or delayed, and more returnees have been stranded at the station and trapped in the train.
Song Qinghuan, who is still in college, didn't have to wait until this time to go home, because of the audit internship and the need to transit in Wuhan with the project team, he unexpectedly caught up with this difficult migration. It only takes two hours to return to his hometown in Jingzhou from Hankou to his hometown by high-speed train, but this time, Song Qinghuan was stranded in Wuhan and spent the longest 60 hours in his life.
In these three days, Song Qinghuan grabbed a total of five tickets home, but all five trains were suspended, and "one day all trains at Hankou Station were suspended", and she was never able to set foot on the way home. What is painful is that the news of the outage was not released immediately, at first it was an hour late, then it was undecided, and finally the suspension notice was waited for in endless anticipation. "The undecided state is the most uncomfortable, and it is better to notify the suspension directly to make people die. ”
▲ Song Qinghuan's failure to grab tickets for the home ticket. Photo / Courtesy of the interviewee
More often, Song Qinghuan cycled between waiting, buying tickets, waiting for departure, being notified of the suspension of operations, refunding tickets, and grabbing tickets again, and hopes continued to ignite and shatter. Two days ago, Song Qinghuan could only spend the night at McDonald's at the station, "the nearby hotel rose to 1,000 yuan per night, and the cheapest one was 400 yuan, and there was no room, and the stranded people crowded into the hotel lobby waiting for others to check out."
Further northwest from Wuhan, the situation here is far less complicated than in Hubei, but it is also experiencing suffering and tossing and turning.
▲ On February 5, Lianyungang high-speed rail station after a snowstorm. Photo / Visual China
At Xianyang Station in the early hours of February 6, people were waiting for a train from Guangzhou to Hubei. Meng Yan came from Beijing and went to Gansu, the previous itinerary was very smooth, and she encountered trouble when she transferred in Xianyang, and when she entered the station, she saw at a glance that the big screen at the station said "Late undecided". After sitting in the waiting room for more than ten minutes, a staff member came out to report, "This train is delayed for more than 12 hours, and it is recommended to change the ticket."
For a while, the people waiting for the bus blew up. A staff member in charge revealed that normally there are still 10 minutes to the train to Xianyang, which had just departed from Xiaogan, Hubei. The staff member suggested that when going to Xi'an for a transit, try to avoid the cars coming from Hubei. Some people gave up the train and planned to carpool away, but in the waiting hall, a big brother shouted, "Is there anyone who went to Baoji?"
Meng Yan found that there were still tickets left for the train to Tianshui the next morning, so he planned to stay in a nearby hotel first, and it was already 3 o'clock in the morning when he lay down. However, early the next morning, Meng Yan opened the 12306 official APP and found that the newly bought train departed from Shanghai and passed through Xuzhou Station, and it kept showing "delay undecided".
When I arrived at the station, I found that the train was "currently about three hours late". So Meng Yan decided to change the booking again, and after waiting for two hours, she finally got in the car. After getting on the bus, she found out that it was a slow train from Fengtai, Beijing. Starting from Beijing, going around and around, and returning to the car sent from Beijing, Meng Yan couldn't help but smile, "This way is also magical."
Although there have been several twists and turns, all the way through the wind and frost, for Meng Yan, a bowl of beef noodles in his hometown can withstand everything.
On the third day, the next ticket home had not yet been settled, and Song Qinghuan, who couldn't hold on, decided to go to a hotel far away from the station to rest. can finally lie down, but people don't dare to relax completely, refresh the ticket purchase app over and over again, finally grab the ticket, take a train that is not suspended, and Song Qinghuan goes home. A hanging heart is put down, and finally there is no need to worry about floating outside for the New Year.
After 57 hours of twists and turns, Ouyang and his wife were very optimistic when they talked about this "adventure". Next year, they will still choose to drive home, "the eight elderly people in both families are still alive, my parents-in-law are in construction, running around the country, and I look forward to the New Year's reunion all year round."
▲ Reunion dinner. Photo / Visual China
In the Spring Festival of 2024, it took several times the usual time and went through dangers before the returnees finally returned home. But going home for the New Year is an obsession deeply rooted in the hearts of every Chinese. The Spring Festival is a period and meeting that every homeleaver looks forward to for a year. Hearing the familiar local accent and seeing the smiling faces of my parents, everything on the road is nothing.
No matter how hard it is, I have to go home for the New Year.
(At the request of the interviewee, all names have been changed except for Xiao Sue)
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