There’s also the issue that running out of charge will likely only happen on unusually long drives during which the driver either forgets to charge, or can’t find a place to charge, and that’s a fairly small subset of most people’s driving.
If you had a gas pump in your home garage that allowed you to top up your tank every day before going out on your usual day-to-day driving, you’d almost never run out of gas. Having a charging station at home is essentially this. You’d probably have to forget to charge for several days in a row before it became an issue.
Diesel-electric locomotives have a lot of batteries but their function is to turn over that big diesel engine (called a prime mover) on startup, not roll down the track. If the prime mover ain’t moving, neither are you.
Back in the day the main generator and traction motors were DC and to keep things efficient within the limited RPM range of the diesel the motors would be connected in series, parallel, or series/parallel. This was called transitioning and the voltage to the field windings would also vary. Today’s locomotives are all AC so I don’t know if that’s still a factor.
They also responded to ~500,000 service calls for people who ran out of gas, according to the same article. And EVs represent about 0.5% of cars on the road in the US, so proportionally you would expect the AAA to have to respond to about 2500 EV drivers who run out of energy on the road.
EVs are highly concentrated at the moment, so covering just a handful of markets can cover a significant fraction of the total.
“Thousands” was total, not per year, and the service started in 2011.
You don’t know if AAA’s typical driver is more or less likely than average to own an EV. It certainly seems plausible that EVs are more common among that demographic.
Short range EVs (<80 mi) were more common in 2016 and aren’t representative of modern >200 mi cars.
I watched most of that video (skipping some bit at points) and it seemed that you really have to work hard to run out of juice in an electric car. The ones in the video provided the current expected range on the dashboard display and when the battery was running low, increased the urgency of the message being displayed. The ICE cars I’ve driven just have the fuel gauge and an E light on the dashboard, so if anything, it’s far easier to run down a gasoline car.
Yes. My impression is that driving around with some extra long cable extension cord could save you a lot of trouble, if you are careless (urban) shmuck type.
EVs are also concentrated in a few markets. As of 2018, market share for plug-in vehicles was 7.8% in California and 0.2% in Mississippi.
Also, only ~1/4 of US drivers are members of AAA. I would expect EV share to be higher among AAA members than the whole country, just because higher-income families are more likely to get both.
Well, if you’re stuck way out in the country, you probably only have to walk to the nearest farm to get help. Most active farms (especially dairy farms) have a generator on a small trailer that can be towed behind a tractor. Those are powered from the PTO of the tractor. And the minimal size is usually 15-25 KW, and 120/240V. So that would be level 2 charging easily. Should be about 1 mile of travel for every 3 minutes of charging.
So if your Prius dies, look for the nearest dairy cow farm!
This discussion seems CONUS-centric, focused on prosperous metropolises within stable electric grids. Running out of juice mid-drive across Brazil, Australia, or Alaska with the next charging station far away? Oh, bother! “Planned” PG&E shutoffs here in California have left long swathes unpowered for days. So, fit that EV with a backup generator and avoid huge towing bills.
From the Nissan website, “Need a charge in a pinch? The Nissan LEAF features a standard 120V charging cable, which allows you to temporarily plug into a standard 120V outlet for a Level 1 charge. It’s the slowest option, but it lets you add some range almost anywhere you have access to electricity.” My guess is that most electric vehicles include this or at least offer it as an option.
These sorts of comments in these sorts of discussions really annoy me. *Of course *we’re talking about “prosperous metropolises within stable electric grids”. That’s where most of the rich people live, and it’s the rich people who will be buying the vast majority of these new types of vehicles for the foreseeable future. No one who lives and works in a remote place like the middle of the Amazon Jungle is going to be buying a vehicle which requires an infrastructure that just doesn’t exist in the middle of a jungle, so there’s literally no point in making the point you just made.
And this is no different from what happened when gas-powered cars were first introduced. Did MiddleOfNowhere, Iowa have gas stations in 1895? Of course not. It took years to build up the refueling infrastructure needed to allow long-distance travel by car, without serious advanced planning for refueling.
If you lived in the middle of nowhere in 1895, you stuck with your horse that ate oats and grass, and if you live in the middle of nowhere in 2020, you’ll stick with your car that burns gas. Once we’ve built out more infrastructure, maybe then you’ll re-visit this option, just as you would have back then.
But electrical service is so ubiquitous today that unless you are truly in the middle of nowhere - central Alaska, or Greenland - you will be within 200 miles of a 240V service. Travel will not be impossible but could be incredibly inconvenient and need serious planning. I have seen comments about crossing North Dakota and Canadian Prairies, which until this year had no fast chargers. It was just a sloooooow trip. So I would guess 95% of North American population now has adequate infrastructure. In the future, fast chargers will be as common as gas stations are now - it’s only getting better. In I would guess 3 decades, it may be the problem that you have to check where gasoline is available before making a cross-country trip.
Warning: Possibly annoyingly ignorant question ahead. Read at your own risk.
Discussion of the 120v vs 240 service always confuses me. Yes, if you could only plug in one cord, I’d imagine that would be ridiculously slow. But most electrical outlets have two plugs, both of which are capable of being used at the same time. So why can’t I stop in a motel in podunk Arkansas, and then stretch two high-level cords in to plug into the wall? Wouldn’t my car be fully charged by morning?
Both plugs in one outlet are running off the same circuit breaker, which is limited, perhaps to 20A. Using both outlets in one box doesn’t give you any more power.