Did the dongle murder my car?

This is my 6th blog post for the Blaugust 2026 community blogging project. Join me all this month for more blogging. Bellingham, WA is a lovely town. It’s the northernmost city on the US west coast – just a half hour from the Canadian border. Last April I spent nearly a week there. That would have been great, except I had only planned on visiting for three days. Back in February, I bought a used 2024 Hyundai Ioniq 5. This is a fully electric vehicle, my first. I’d been thinking about going to Linux Fest Northwest in April. I already bought advance tickets. Originally, I thought it might be nice to travel by train. But once I got the car, I saw a road trip opportunity. It would be nearly a five hour trip straight through from my neighborhood in Portland. About 268 miles. That puts it just beyond the range of a single charge, so I’d get a taste of the road-trip EV recharge experience. I left Friday. The drive up was long, as expected, but beautiful. I enjoyed the Saturday sessions. At…