Having recently purchased a used Nissan LEAF Electric Vehicle (EV), a deep nostalgia for the smell of petrol came upon me unexpectedly. Now that we only visit the filling station to put diesel into our ‘other car’, a big old Kia Sedona gas guzzler, I miss the weekly trip to Asda’s unmanned pumps – and that sharp-sweet smell of petrol glugging into the tank.
Somehow, the daily hook-up to the recharging cable from our garage at home, with its invisible trillions of electrons filling the LEAF’s battery isn’t quite the same. Maybe EV manufacturers could add a fragrance so that recharging had an olfactory dimension?