Why can't you rent towable aux batteries for electric cars?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Was discussing this with a friend the other day, who told me that purely battery powered cars pretty much all can go 300 miles or so. That makes it sound more plausible.

But three more really important points:

  1. They don’t, themselves, contribute to global warming.

  2. The potential ability to improve environmental impact at a fixed centralized electrical power plant is much greater than in millions of independently owned moving vehicles.

  3. Many of us, for most of our use, would NEVER HAVE TO TAKE THE CAR TO A FILLING STATION. Wow! That is such a hassle! Over a lifetime I might make several thousand filling station stops. Having my house top off the tank every night would be sweet!

These are huge things. I guess I’ll make the switch before the range issue is completely eliminated, just because these other issues are also so important.

42

Yes, this is such a big thing. EV skeptics focus so much on the 20-40 minute charging stops on infrequent long trips, and completely dismiss the 3+ times per month that they spend 5+ minutes stopping for gas (10+ minutes if you’re waiting in line to fill up at Costco).

(Pre-response to the responses this always elicits:

  • If you take multiple 1000 mile road trips each month, time on the road is your number one concern, and you can hold it for 6 hours, then yeah, this doesn’t apply to you
  • Don’t argue about whether you can fill up in 5 minutes, 3 minutes, or exit the highway and be back on again with a full tank in 96 seconds, I won’t believe you because it can take 30 seconds for the credit card reader to sort itself out, and gas stations peak at about 13 gallons per minute
  • I know that 6 \times 20 minute charging stops is two hours which is 24 5-minutes gas stops, which might be 6-12 months of gas stops. It’s not about trading minute for minute, just the whole inconvenience of making the typical weekly (or whatever) fueling stop versus the convenience of just plugging it a home
  • I know not everybody can plug-in at home, again, if you can’t, then this doesn’t apply to you. Lots of people can plug-in at home, it applies to them.

)