Electric Vehicle Owner Pretty Fucking Smug Right Now
LOS ANGELES — Area resident Gavin Holt, 41, has spent the better part of this week reminding anyone within earshot that he pays roughly $1.20 to fully charge his car at home, a fact he described as “just basic foresight, really” while colleagues stared at their phones in the break room, none of them pulling up gas station apps for the first time in months.
Holt, a mid-level procurement analyst who purchased his Nissan Leaf in 2021 after what he called “months of painstaking research” — and what his wife called “a panicked impulse buy during a test drive” — told reporters he had always known a moment like this would arrive. “People laughed,” he said, leaning against the vehicle in his office parking lot. “Not to my face. But I could sense it.”
Co-workers offered a less heroic account. “He’s unbearable,” said Laura Chen, who sits two desks away. “He brought in a calculator on Tuesday. An actual calculator. Showed me what I’d save annually if I ‘made the switch.’ I drive a 2019 Corolla. It’s paid off. I’m fine.”
“I’m not saying I predicted the exact circumstances,” Holt clarified, unprompted, gesturing vaguely at the world. “I’m saying the math was always there.”
Holt has reportedly begun forwarding Reuters articles about crude oil futures to a WhatsApp group titled “Lads + Gavin,” a chat in which he is the only active participant. Members confirmed they muted notifications in early March.
His wife, Priya, noted that Holt’s environmental convictions had deepened considerably in recent weeks. “He never once mentioned the planet when he bought it,” she said. “It was about the HOV lane. Now he’s retweeting Greenpeace.”
Chen added that Holt had taken to parking his Leaf directly beside the office entrance — a spot previously occupied by their manager’s BMW X5. “He reversed in,” she said. “So the charging port faces outward. I think he wants people to see it.”
At press time, Holt was calculating his monthly fuel savings on the same calculator while eating a $19 salad from the deli downstairs — up from $14 in February — and had not yet made the connection.
