Yes, a good hurricane (if that isn't a misnomer) highlights the folly of electric-only vehicles as just about nothing else can.
I doubt there'll be enough charging stations along evacuation routes to do much good. Also, good luck finding a way to recharge your vehicle after the storm has passed, when the power's out and the generators in the area are all powering homes and businesses. I suspect asking a homeowner to stop powering her A/C for a few hours, leaving her kids hot, bothered and fractious while you charge your car, might get an... interesting... response.
Peter
13 comments:
Yup. A hybrid is great for such situations (burns hardly any gas when stuck in the great traffic jam), but a full-on EV makes a seriously bad bug-out vehicle.
(And, wait. Someone driving an electric car, starting from Florida yesterday, could make it to South Georgia by Friday? Isn't South Georgia somewhere down around the Falklands? That's some car! Ah, South Georgia, land of the sammiches.)
Another alternative ... put a trailer hitch on the EV and haul a trailer with a generator.
On one discussion board I regularly am on, some wanker from Sweden constantly berates us in the US for not having more electric cars, more bicycles, more public transportation and more trains.
I continually point out to this wanker that if one is in Key West, it would take 13 hours on a good day to get to Macon, GA. Now do that in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
And factor in 1/4 of the battery's charge is lost due to heat and humidity.
Yeah...
If you don't stop eating all the hurricane snacks, you won't fit in the little helicopter rescue basket!
Becoming convinced many of our families left Europe for many other reasons. They see themselves as more "civilized" but are really just weak. Even my wife comments that most men in the UK seem to be short, beaten, and if grown, going bald and basically effeminate. Occasionally,(1:50 or less) looks healthy past their early 20's.
But these migrations also had an unintended consequence of "watering down" the gene pool in many ways. The men in northern Europe (where I've spent more time recently) look beaten and listless. Hunched over staring at the ground. Like their spirit has been drained away. You see an occasional man who walks upright and does not flinch away from eye contact. I am sorry to say it makes me wonder what happened to them. You see the same in the US but not as prevalently.
People with EVs will learn fast as they run out of power waiting for the few charging stations that work and their vehicles die while in long lines. Georgia, Alabama, and SC will not save them as the traffic and distance will not help. It is bad enough for gas vehicles waiting for gas pumps in the few places that will be working.
Some people just need a slap in the face to bring them back to reality.
Sad but true.
I predict that there will be more than a few used EVs for sale in gulfcoast Florida after this.
James: "men in the UK seem to be short, beaten, and if grown, going bald"
I occasionally notice something similar in photos / video of UK women. Some time back, there was a story out of the UK that came to my attention, that included a photo of a woman in her late 20s - this was a carefully posed, "look how youthful I am" photo, presumably with the camera set on maximum flatter - and I found myself wondering if they'd published the wrong photo and maybe it was her mother or grandmother. But no: 'twas truly the twentysomething, looking all wore out already, and, IIRC, the accompanying text affirmed that she was truly a well-preserved specimen.
This may be historically normal; it's just wildly out of line with what we've come to expect in post-WWII America.
("By the time Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years." - a young Tom Lehrer)
Standby for the wailing and gnashing of teeth when they get stranded. It will be 'somebody else' fault...
Can they be moved manually if they run out of juice or do they lockup in place? It would be unpleasant if i-75 and other routes north out of Fla were blocked with uncharged evs...
Charge EV by towing?
https://www.motortrend.com/features/how-to-flat-tow-recharge-electric-vehicles/
The idiot democrat (but I repeat myself) running for Governor here is blaming the lack of sufficient charging stations on DeSantis, who apparently believes there are better uses for state monies than infrastructure that is useless for the majority of Floridians.
Speaking of majorities, I'll wager hefty sums that the majority of people trying to evacuate in an EV are recent transplants. Real Floridians understand the need to be able to both evacuate in stupid heavy traffic and shelter in place and survive 3-5 days without electricity.
JaimeInTexas:
The motors in an EV are directly connected to the wheels, without clutches to disengage them. When they were hitting the road in the early 00's, tow drivers in CA were warned that no wheels could be turning while towed.
The mandated tow vehicle was to be a flatbed, as the motors would act as a generator and a resulting fire was possible. The use of a conventional tow truck/wheel-lift with a dolly for the rear wheels was disallowed, as some lazy drivers would decide to not bother to do it correctly (I can guarantee that would happen).
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