This Beats Range Anxiety?
Wednesday, March 29, 2023
My neighbor across the street owns two Teslas, but ahead of a recent hurricane, I saw him piling his family into a much more practical internal combustion vehicle ahead of evacuating.
Having evacuated from a major city in the past myself, I know that even refueling a conventional vehicle can be a dicey proposition, and that was part of why I chose to stay put for that one.
But refueling is just one part of the problem the phrase range anxiety fails to capture, as evocative as it is. The ridiculous amount of time it takes to recharge is apparently significant enough that some see -- or claim to see, perhaps thanks to ESG "investing" -- a chance to make money:
The dude across the street has a charger in his garage and -- based on his behavior -- uses his cars for short, local trips. For his use case, an electric car could be a practical method of transport most of the time because he has (I would imagine) made charging part of his routine so that range is not a normal concern for him.Tony Quiroga, editor-in-chief of Car and Driver, has been forced to wander the aisles of a Walmart in Burbank, California, while the EV he's testing that day sits and charges. He's become a familiar face at a Mexican restaurant in Mohave, California, where a Tesla charger is located. A coffee shop recently opened nearby that caters specifically to EV drivers.
This taking too long defeats part of the whole purpose of having a car. (Image by Precious Madubuike, via Unsplash, license.)
"I imagine an ecosystem will be built around charging stations eventually," he told ABC News. "Longer trips bring up flaws with EVs. People are leery of taking them on long trips -- that's why older EVs don't have 40,000 miles on them."
Sandwich chain Subway announced Wednesday it was partnering with GenZ EV Solutions to build "Oasis Parks" at select dining locations. EV customers can expect charging canopies with multiple ports, picnic tables, Wi-Fi, restrooms, green space and playgrounds to make the charging experience more "seamless," Subway said. [bold added]
But I fail to see how these "oases" really help anything. If you're local and can plan your way out of a paper bag, you'll be like my neighbor and keep your car charged. And if you're -- what? taking a cross-country trip?! -- get ready to add significant time not getting to your destination to the trip.
At least on these stops, even children will know not to ask Are we there yet? on long-distance trips, so I suppose the suckers who try this will have that.
What has me scratching my head is that if the champions of electric vehicles are having to discover the hard way just the first-order problems shifting from gasoline can cause, it boggles the mind to consider knock-on effects. I can see people traveling much less by car after having to add a day or two -- just to refuel! -- with impatient children to already-long trips.
Have the bigwigs at Subway and the like thought about any of this? Are they being bribed with government money? Have their boards been populated by pod-people at the behest of ESG investors? With today's anti-capitalist sentiment and the perverse incentives of the all-pervading welfare state, seeing a gold rush like this inspires more suspicion than confidence on my part.
-- CAV
6 comments:
The issue of scale in the USA is something that I don't think Europeans or folks who primarily live in cities can really understand. I've heard many arguments that sound fantastic--as long as you live in a dense city center. For example, everyone should ride bikes. If you live a mile from the nearest grocery store and live alone, sure, that can work. For a family of four, living fifteen miles from the nearest store? It's simply not an option. A car is necessary merely to have a full belly. And if your primary means of transportation is a bike, forget any home repairs, or even hobbies that involve anything bigger than a backpack!
Likewise, many Europeans are used to traveling from one side of their country to the other in mere hours. Getting from one major city to another is relatively short. In contrast, in the USA it's entirely possible to travel for three days and not get to where you're going. People on the coasts of the USA are just as bad; the vast, nearly empty expanses of much of the center of the country are completely alien to them. A solution that works fine in Europe and along the coasts--say, limited range on an EV--would render something like 80% of the nation totally inaccessible (rail systems have their own issues, and high speed rail simply isn't viable in the USA). As someone who's been stranded in the Basin and Range once or twice, I have a keen appreciation for just how much of a risk that is. I used to carry three days of Army emergency rations at all times when I worked out there.
Both problems stem from the same source: a failure to realize that not everyone lives the same way. The solution works for the people who are pushing it, so they figure it works for everyone. They fail to appreciate that the people living other lifestyles aren't doing so merely because we're all stupid; we're doing so because this is the best option for us.
I encourage you to run the numbers and model ICE vs EV for the scenario you presented. It doesn't add "a day or two" to long trips. Having impatient children with you doesn't really change the calculus either. But yes, it is slower. It's also faster for the 99% of your life not doing road trips.
EVs are more likely to be fully fueled at the start of a disaster/trip because people with home chargers top them off every day. Very few people refill their gas tank every day and that takes way more time than plugging in when you get home.
I picked an 850mi road trip (Denver to St Louis); 12.5h of non-stop driving time. Using a Tesla Model 3, that gets turned into 15.0h due to charging stops (6 stops ranging from 10-25m each including diversions). This info is available in the car and online with Tesla's trip planner.
A modern ICE car can do this trip with one refueling if it starts full, but you'll likely have to top up at the start of the trip. 2 stops. Let's call it 5m each for 10m of refueling bringing it to 12.6h. I'm not counting diversion time for ICE.
But humans tend to do other things besides just refueling. At a gas station, bathroom/snack purchases are serial to refueling unless you leave your car unattended. When charging, that's done in parallel. 15m gas station stops are normal, so 13.0h. Many people would also stop for 1 or 2 quick meals which can also be done in parallel to charging if you limit your choice to a nearby restaurant. Call that a 45m penalty for ICE. 13.75h.
Young kids and dogs also tend to require additional stops to run around. Count that as an additional 0-30m. 13.75-14.25h. That's quicker than 15.0h and you have more choice of restaurants. But it's really not life changing and most people only do road trips once a year. You make up that time and more by not filling up every week or two.
Instead of expecting you to sit around and charge your car, they should develop cars with swappable batteries. So when you need a recharge, you pull up to a swap site, get a new battery, the swap site charges your low battery, and off you go. They then swap your charged battery into another car at a later date.
Swappable batteries would also fix the problem of "I can't sell my EV because it needs a new battery that costs almost as much as a new EV".
Dinwar,
The failure to account for how other people live is unsurprising coming generally from the same quarters that favor top-down measures forcing EVs on people they aren't ready for.
Anon,
I appreciate your detailed comparison between Tesla refueling vs. traditional refueling. Assuming for the sake of argument that all EV's eventually recharge this quickly, that only reaffirms my suspicion that special businesses catering to EV customers are hardly a brilliant idea: Either they're really just gas stations for EV's or they'll quickly become obsolete.
But they aren't. Not really. You paper over the longer charging vs filling up stops by noting the other things people often do on these stops.
In a disaster/evacuation, this time difference will be felt very acutely, even if power is available: That's all people want to do. If it takes 3 minutes to fill a gas tank, but even just 10 minutes to fast charge an EV, 10th in line has to wait nearly two hours vs a half hour. My neighbor was wiser than he probably realized to choose the SUV when push came to shove.
Jennifer,
Yes, batteries are a huge problem for older EVs, whether you like what you have and want to keep driving it or want to sell. Swapping out would be a nice option, but I wonder about the amount of space storing/charging enough batteries for a busy day might take.
Gus
s/swapping out instead of reacharging/swapping out in last sentence above
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