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One thing I keep getting tripped up on with EV cars is the usability during an emergency. I grew up in SoCal when there were rolling black-outs. Just this week,

One thing I keep getting tripped up on with EV cars is the usability during an emergency. I grew up in SoCal when there were rolling black-outs. Just this week, a windstorm took out my parent’s power for 3 days. I don’t view electricity to be as reliable as gas. What fact am I missing that can change my view on this?

fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
I have SCE, but I just keep my Model 3 plugged in when I’m not driving, and it’s always at 90% when I need it: it’s better than gas, because home charging means I don’t have to remember to keep my tank full for emergencies.
root_axis 6y ago
You can't pump gas if there's no power to the pump. Electric is also nice because you don't have to queue up at a fueling station, this is especially convenient in situations where an outage is anticipated like in advance of inclement weather. Also, in a typical emergency situation if you're using your vehicle, it'll be taking you out of the disaster area into a place where electricity (and gas) will be available.
pmorici 6y ago
Tesla put a bunch of their charging stations onto solar panels with battery backup and they have large batteries on trailers with chargers they deploy to meet demand during peak travel periods. In a world where everyone or a lot people have a home battery system with solar neither gas stations nor the electric grid will matter as much possibly not at all. Think about it this way. Is there a way for you to buy equipment to make your own gas from resources on your property? Is there equipment you can buy to generate your own electricity?
jillesvangurp 6y ago
How much is that irrational fear worth to you? In the end that's the question that needs answering. Very soon, you'll be paying extra to buy a petrol vehicle. And that's before you drive it anywhere and get to deal with taxes, fuel cost, and maintenance cost as well. In any case, a typical EV would have about 50KWH of battery; more than enough to power a house for a while. The more EVs there are, the more stored KWH of energy will be around in any area if a blackout happens. Much more useful than oversized SUVs burning up all the remaining fuel in your area while fuel logistics are being disrupted. For your parents, an EV and vehicle to grid technology could have seen them through those 3 days. More, if you drive it to some fast charging access point in between to top it up for 10$. It's perfect especially for remote setups. Add some solar panels to the mix and you are basically not dependent on the grid.
- sharpneli 6y ago
  Amusingly enough there will be oversized EV SUV's. Up to ridiculous ones like the upcoming Hummer EV, yes you read that right. A Hummer. As EV. It has 200kWh battery so that should give even more juice to power a house. I wouldn't be surprised if some would buy ridiculously oversized EVs just to alleviate that fear.
nic-waller 6y ago
It's easier to set up back yard solar panels than a back yard fuel refinery.
- olivermarks 6y ago
  'backyard' Solar panels won't recharge an EV
  - colinmhayes 6y ago
    I charge my EV with solar panels.
  - recursive 6y ago
    I mean, they certainly can. Depends on whose yard I guess.
  - acomjean 6y ago
    We have a solar array on the roof. It’s great. But the dc->ac converter needs the grid to be active to do its conversion, so when the power goes out no solar. (I suspect it syncs with the grids 60hz...) If you include a battery backup in your system, you can run without grid power. When I worked at a power monitoring start up we had a demo house that was charging an electric rav4, so it’s possible.
    - WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
      (I suspect it syncs with the grids 60hz...) Yeah, that's the actual reason. I've seen someone use a small Honda generator to generate the frequency required to trick the solar generator into going... it's a weird setup because you basically tie in your generator using a breaker, so both generator and solar can be enabled at the same time.
      - Toutouxc 6y ago
        That sounds borderline stupid, is there a technical reason you can't just generate the "clock" internally? Do most of the devices require grid AC?
danhak 6y ago
Blackouts knock out gas pumps, too.
- agumonkey 6y ago
  They can always fuel a generator
  - zrm 6y ago
    > They can always fuel a generator But then so can you and charge your EV with it.
  - jlmorton 6y ago
    They could, but most don't. During public safety power outages in 2019, most gas stations could not pump gas.
  - baskire 6y ago
    And you can always use a generator to charge your ev. Or solar.
bpodgursky 6y ago
Buy rooftop solar. You'll be vulnerable to standard California chaos, but if the world truly collapses, you can disconnect from grid power and cruise around the post-apocalyptic gas-free wasteland as a zero-carbon road warrior.
jsight 6y ago
Look at how many chargers are nearby and how far you'd have to drive in a typical rolling black-out to charge. I bet it isn't that much worse than how far you'd have to drive a gas car to refuel, as those stations tend not to have reliable backup power either. On the US southeastern coast, the big concern is hurricanes. Gas stations are far from 100% dependable in regional emergencies both before and immediately after the event. Electricity tends to only be a problem afterward.
extrapickles 6y ago
I only charge my car once a week, as it has almost exactly the same range as my old gasoline car (~300 miles). So if there is going to be a bad storm in the forecast, I will top it up, just like a gasoline car. If the outage is extended, there are plenty of DC fast chargers near enough to me that its unlikely that both me and them would face an extended outage, just like how in a gas car you might have to drive a few gas stations over to find one with power. If I had solar installed, I would be able to recharge during the day if I am somewhat careful in driving as the estimated surplus power for area I have for solar is ~7-20 miles a day.
- jjav 6y ago
  If the outage is caused by something large enough for it to last a longer time, it's very likely any charging stations near you are also out.
  - theshrike79 6y ago
    It's also very likely that any gas stations will be out, unless they hand-pump the stuff.
    - jjav 6y ago
      In areas where outages are expected (hurricanes), the better-prepared gas stations have their own generators. Not all do, for sure.
anonuser123456 6y ago
I have lived in SoCal for 22 adult years. I’ve lost power maybe 3 times, and for at most 6 hours. A Tesla should have enough range for a few days commute w/out recharge. I don’t think power reliability should be a concern... except for when the big one strikes. But in that case all the freeway overpasses will collapse, so an ICE car won’t help you anyway.
- bradlys 6y ago
  Sure but PG&E wasn't doing these outages 10 years ago as much as it is now. In the Bay Area, it's regularly an occurrence where people in the Santa Cruz Mountains will not have power for 2 days to a week. With little to no notice too. You come home with a low battery to refill it at home, you might not be able to get very far. Hopefully you just drive with 50+ miles ready all the time.
  - jjav 6y ago
    Later this week I'd expect multiple areas in the Santa Cruz Mountains to lose power (from the coming storm). It's very common, happens multiple times per year (fires, winds, rains can all cause it). Sometimes it's just a day, sometimes many more. Unless I someday get to live somewhere with a very substantial solar system, I won't ever be with only an electric car. Grid-delivered electricity isn't reliable enough to bet on. And consider storms like hurricanes Irma and Maria which left many areas of the Caribbean without power for multiple months.
- millstone 6y ago
  Wait really? I live in NorCal, I lost power twice last week. That was unusual, but PG&E's safety outages are a fact of life of living in California. That said I also remember a hurricane (Harvey?) which shut down refineries, making gasoline scarce. So it's pick your poison.
  - ido 6y ago
    PG&E's safety outages are a fact of life of living in California Is this due to natural disaster risk or lack of maintenance for infrastructure? I've lived in Austria & Germany for 15 years now and only once experienced a power outage (I think it lasted about 15 minutes).
guitarsteve 6y ago
In the Miami area after Hurricane Irma in 2017, we couldn’t find gas for our cars for about a week. I think the pumps for gas stations require electricity (which was also out) plus deliveries were disrupted by downed trees, traffic signal outages, etc. Just an anecdote that gasoline is not always available during crises. We did have electricity at home but neighboring buildings and neighborhoods had outages for a week or more.
- theshrike79 6y ago
  And even if gasoline is available, it will most likely be prioritised for logistics first. Trucks moving actual goods, buses, ambulances etc. Also: People coming in with their Ford F-one-million with an umpteen-gallon fuel capacity and hogging all the fuel.
  - Ichthypresbyter 6y ago
    The trucks and buses probably run on diesel. (In most countries so do the ambulances, but the US might be an exception here.)
  - akgerber 6y ago
    Living in NYC after Hurricane Sandy, I spent a lot of time biking past mile+ gas lines. Gas stations ran out for a significant period of time and National Guard fuel trucks were eventually deployed, but didn't have enough for all comers.
- 01100011 6y ago
  But it's not uncommon for people to have at least a gallon of gas stored in a typical suburban home. That's 20-30 miles of emergency travel if needed. I don't think most people can easily store enough electricity to give them 20-30 miles of EV range. Maybe that's possible with a powerwall type setup? I'd be happy to pick up a cheap(<$15k) EV for work commutes(range of 30 miles is fine), but it would be supplementing my gas vehicle(hybrid or conventional). The math may change as gas prices spike over the next year. I think that will really drive EV adoption. Time will tell though. So far, I see EVs appealing to a certain type of consumer(pro-technology and/or affluent).
ajross 6y ago
Can't you just... drive to a charging station? I mean, it's not like the whole continent lost power for three days. Just go fill up and come back and park it at home. Note that with a gas car, you can't fill it up at home ever, for any reason (unless you have a well and refinery I guess).
- jjav 6y ago
  > Note that with a gas car, you can't fill it up at home ever, for any reason (unless you have a well and refinery I guess). Or a drum of gasoline and a hand pump which is very practical. If you live anywhere where outages and natural disaster are a thing, it's good to plan ahead.
reissbaker 6y ago
I have an EV. After I drive it home, I plug it in. Except when I'm lazy, it's basically never below a couple hundred miles of range remaining. Rolling blackouts wouldn't really cause an issue, and when I've experienced blackouts, it's never been a problem. When the power is on, the car would charge back to the limit I set (I usually keep it at 80% charged to preserve the battery, which is still nearly 250 miles of range). When the power is out, it's anyway very rare that I drive hundreds of miles in a day and actually need to charge — and as other posters have mentioned, you could hit up a charging station that isn't in a blackout at that point. When I owned a gas car, getting below 50%, or even below 25%, was completely normal. So I can see how if you're used to gas cars, it would seem worrying that there might be a blackout: how do you "refill" if you're low? But the truth of electric car ownership, at least in my experience, is you basically never go below 50% charge in daily use. So the idea that you'd likely get stuck at some point because the power went out just isn't really a concern. IMO assuming you have home charging (either a garage in a house, or if your apartment building offers chargers) — which to be fair is a reasonably big if — electric is much, much more convenient than gas. You never have to stop at a gas station equivalent in your day-to-day life, since you just plug the car in when you get home, like you'd charge a phone overnight. You barely need to do any maintenance, because the moving parts are so simple. And electricity is much cheaper than gas. For people without access to home charging, I think EVs are currently more annoying than gas cars. But not because of blackouts: it's just because charging to full is considerably slower than filling a tank of gas. If you're not able to have it charge at home while you're asleep, regularly hitting up charging stations and waiting is annoying.
- jjav 6y ago
  > And electricity is much cheaper than gas. Maybe. When I was commuting, my daily driver gas car got 36 MPG. My commute used 0.72 gallons. At $3.55/gallon, the trip cost $2.56 or about 9.9 cents/mile. At the same time I had a Fiat 500e. The same commute consumed 11kWh. So the breakeven point (between my two cars) is $0.24/kWh in electric cost. Looking at my PG&E bill, peak time (4pm-9pm) cost is $0.35/kWh and part-peak (9pm-midnight) is $0.34/kWh. These are winter time prices, they are much higher in the summer (but I only have my current bill handy). So if I had to ever charge the electric car during peak or part-peak times, it is quite a bit more expensive than gas. Now, of course, I only charge it at night (PG&E price $0.17/kWh) so it is a bit cheaper. Just need to be careful to set the timer so charging never starts before midnight.
kart23 6y ago
I'm more worried about range of EVs and charging stations being absolutely swamped in times of crisis. Gas stations lines were bad enough during hurricane evacuations, imagine roadside charging stations. I think I will always hold onto a reliable ICE car for the rest of my days.
- natch 6y ago
  Every building on the grid is a potential charging station. Even when gas stations are locked down.
cbhl 6y ago
Wikipedia says the 2000-01 California energy crisis was caused by Enron. I believe it will take years of engineering-driven investment (upgrade lines; trim trees; clear flammables from the transmission corridors) to make power reliable in California again, but the California energy companies are bankrupt (again?) after judgments in recent years' wildfires. I believe the reliability problem is worst in California and is less of a problem in other states and countries. (But offset in part by the large number of charging stations in metro areas, at least in SFBA.) That said, a replacement doesn't need to be as reliable as its predecessor, it only needs to be reliable enough. Cell phones, for example, will go down a few hours after a power outage, whereas POTS phones were engineered to stay up (and provide power to corded phones) during power outages and weather events. Cell phones are more convenient. EVs have two nice properties: faster acceleration than gas cars (which some view as a safety feature), and they're cheaper to fuel than gas cars. This can tip the balance in favor of an EV for day-to-day use. If you are prepping, I think it still makes sense to have at least one conventional gas-powered car. Just make sure to keep the tank at least 3/4s full; gas pumps tend to go down during blackouts.
- theshrike79 6y ago
  > If you are prepping, I think it still makes sense to have at least one conventional gas-powered car. Just make sure to keep the tank at least 3/4s full; gas pumps tend to go down during blackouts. If you're really prepping, also have a fucking bicycle. You provide the fuel and they're cheap to maintain. The irony is that the only time it's actually safe to ride a bicycle in an average American city is during a post-apocalyptic event when there are no cars on the road =)
- eigenvector 6y ago
  Nothing inherent to cell phone networks causes them to go down during power outages. Just like POTS they need a backup power supply for their infrastructure to remain functional when the power grid is down. Usually this takes the form of diesel generators. The main difference is that the cell network doesn't power the handset but modern cell phones use so little power than a $50 consumer UPS would recharge a cell phone many times over. Keeping phone networks up during power outages is very important for public safety.
handmodel 6y ago
I have a similar sensibility when it comes to generators. I grew up in the northeast and there were two ice storms I remember where we lost power for over a week. After the second, my parents got a gas generator that could be refueled when it ran out - even while the power was still out. If they were buying today I'm sure many would recommend some type of electric powerwall to store energy but I'm doubtful in the situations you need it the most it would be there. And the whole point of getting a generator is not to provide you with electricity for the time you lost it for three hours - but for the one in ten year storm that leaves you without power for a week.
toast0 6y ago
I've got a PHEV; when I need to exercise my portable generator (it's supposed to run for at least 30 minutes once a month), I plug in my car to at least have some load, rather than letting it just idle. Personally, PHEV makes a lot more sense to me than full EV. My particular model (Ford C-Max Energi) has pretty low EV only capacity (20ish miles, if you stay under 60 mph and relatively flat), and the battery interferes with cargo space, but if you got the capacity up to about 50 miles, that would do a lot of people's (non-covid) daily commute with a single charge (either overnight at home, or during the day at work; but you wouldn't need both). And when you need to go farther, 500+ miles per tank, 5 minute fillup.
natch 6y ago
Generally people don’t have their cars sitting around at close to zero miles of charge left. So you can drive to a charger that does have power, if your house doesn’t. You can always come up with fearful scenarios though. What about pumping gas during a power outage? I guess they have battery backups for the pumps? Many Superchargers have battery backups as well, built in. And some are powered by on-site solar with battery storage. But again you can always come up with a worst case scenario. During COVID lockdowns I was wondering if the national guard would be deployed to gas stations to enforce limits on driving by limiting gas purchases. If we want to just make up scenarios, this is the kind of scenario you could avoid by having an EV with your own solar and backup batteries.
speedgoose 6y ago
That's a very local problem that SoCal needs to work on. I can't remember having a blackout ever in my life, I live in Europe. Just keep your car charged between 50% and 80% when you are at home and it should be enough to reach the hospital or a safe place during a blackout.
- carlmr 6y ago
  It's not a local problem just because it's not a European problem. Plenty of countries don't have that reliable electricity.
  - speedgoose 6y ago
    SoCal is the exception and not the norm as a develop country with enough wealth to afford electric cars while having a non reliable electric grid. Most of the other countries with unreliable electric grid are not very much into the brand new premium electric cars market.
    - carlmr 6y ago
      That's true, but I think most of North America has unreliable power grids. In 2 years living in Canada I experienced 6 blackouts. In 28 years living in Germany I've experienced 3.
    - sundvor 6y ago
      Can confirm this is true for Australia. We frequently have outages and the network is in shambles. Just to make sure, rather than provide any incentives (there are NONE) we're going to introduce extra taxes for EVs to make up for lost fuel excise taxes, which contrary to popular belief doesn't pay for our roads. I guess the minimalist (by Norwegian standards) yet growing sales numbers in spite of our soaring electricity costs and Zero CO² taxes on ICEs (they're eg 40% in Norway) must be scaring the fossil fuel sponsored politicians (both Libs and Labor alike). Yep, whiskey tango foxtrot indeed.
- fogihujy 6y ago
  Besides, if the power outage brings society into such a disarray that you can't just call an ambulance if something happened, then there is a high likeliood that having a petrol-powered car wouldn't be much better than an electric one anyway. Europe is a big place, though. There's a lot of people living in the countryside and with much less reliable utilities compared to urban areas. Power outages do occur here too and they're even frequent in some areas. :)
gnicholas 6y ago
We have thought about this as well. If there is an emergency that affects a metro area, you need to be able to get out of the area and then refill. In an ICE, it's easy to drive 200 miles and then tank up in 5 mins. In an EV, you might be able to get 200 miles, but it's much less likely that you'll be able to refill in under an hour. If many people are evacuating, charging stations will be overloaded. Trickle charging can be done almost anywhere, but that can take a really long time.
- mixmastamyk 6y ago
  Hotels, motels, and malls are providing charging now. May not be scarce much longer.
kortilla 6y ago
Buy a backup generator. It can both charge your car and power your house in an outage.
reddotX 6y ago
solar panels
Dumblydorr 6y ago
Just wait a few more years, gas stations will start being phased out, rooftop solar will be even cheaper, and the economical side of your worry will be eviscerated. The learning curve solar and batteries are on means their relentless March of improvement will render gas scarce and expensive by comparison. Gas will still play a role for older cars and antiques, but it'll be harder and harder to find over time.
bagacrap 6y ago
if that's a problem then your parents should have a gas or diesel powered generator anyway, which could charge the car in an emergency

fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago

I have SCE, but I just keep my Model 3 plugged in when I’m not driving, and it’s always at 90% when I need it: it’s better than gas, because home charging means I don’t have to remember to keep my tank full for emergencies.

root_axis 6y ago

You can't pump gas if there's no power to the pump. Electric is also nice because you don't have to queue up at a fueling station, this is especially convenient in situations where an outage is anticipated like in advance of inclement weather. Also, in a typical emergency situation if you're using your vehicle, it'll be taking you out of the disaster area into a place where electricity (and gas) will be available.

pmorici 6y ago

Tesla put a bunch of their charging stations onto solar panels with battery backup and they have large batteries on trailers with chargers they deploy to meet demand during peak travel periods. In a world where everyone or a lot people have a home battery system with solar neither gas stations nor the electric grid will matter as much possibly not at all. Think about it this way. Is there a way for you to buy equipment to make your own gas from resources on your property? Is there equipment you can buy to generate your own electricity?

jillesvangurp 6y ago

How much is that irrational fear worth to you? In the end that's the question that needs answering. Very soon, you'll be paying extra to buy a petrol vehicle. And that's before you drive it anywhere and get to deal with taxes, fuel cost, and maintenance cost as well. In any case, a typical EV would have about 50KWH of battery; more than enough to power a house for a while. The more EVs there are, the more stored KWH of energy will be around in any area if a blackout happens. Much more useful than oversized SUVs burning up all the remaining fuel in your area while fuel logistics are being disrupted. For your parents, an EV and vehicle to grid technology could have seen them through those 3 days. More, if you drive it to some fast charging access point in between to top it up for 10$. It's perfect especially for remote setups. Add some solar panels to the mix and you are basically not dependent on the grid.

sharpneli 6y ago
Amusingly enough there will be oversized EV SUV's. Up to ridiculous ones like the upcoming Hummer EV, yes you read that right. A Hummer. As EV. It has 200kWh battery so that should give even more juice to power a house. I wouldn't be surprised if some would buy ridiculously oversized EVs just to alleviate that fear.

nic-waller 6y ago

It's easier to set up back yard solar panels than a back yard fuel refinery.

olivermarks 6y ago
'backyard' Solar panels won't recharge an EV
- colinmhayes 6y ago
  I charge my EV with solar panels.
- recursive 6y ago
  I mean, they certainly can. Depends on whose yard I guess.
- acomjean 6y ago
  We have a solar array on the roof. It’s great. But the dc->ac converter needs the grid to be active to do its conversion, so when the power goes out no solar. (I suspect it syncs with the grids 60hz...) If you include a battery backup in your system, you can run without grid power. When I worked at a power monitoring start up we had a demo house that was charging an electric rav4, so it’s possible.
  - WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
    (I suspect it syncs with the grids 60hz...) Yeah, that's the actual reason. I've seen someone use a small Honda generator to generate the frequency required to trick the solar generator into going... it's a weird setup because you basically tie in your generator using a breaker, so both generator and solar can be enabled at the same time.
    - Toutouxc 6y ago
      That sounds borderline stupid, is there a technical reason you can't just generate the "clock" internally? Do most of the devices require grid AC?

danhak 6y ago

Blackouts knock out gas pumps, too.

agumonkey 6y ago
They can always fuel a generator
- zrm 6y ago
  > They can always fuel a generator But then so can you and charge your EV with it.
- jlmorton 6y ago
  They could, but most don't. During public safety power outages in 2019, most gas stations could not pump gas.
- baskire 6y ago
  And you can always use a generator to charge your ev. Or solar.

bpodgursky 6y ago

Buy rooftop solar. You'll be vulnerable to standard California chaos, but if the world truly collapses, you can disconnect from grid power and cruise around the post-apocalyptic gas-free wasteland as a zero-carbon road warrior.

jsight 6y ago

Look at how many chargers are nearby and how far you'd have to drive in a typical rolling black-out to charge. I bet it isn't that much worse than how far you'd have to drive a gas car to refuel, as those stations tend not to have reliable backup power either. On the US southeastern coast, the big concern is hurricanes. Gas stations are far from 100% dependable in regional emergencies both before and immediately after the event. Electricity tends to only be a problem afterward.

extrapickles 6y ago

I only charge my car once a week, as it has almost exactly the same range as my old gasoline car (~300 miles). So if there is going to be a bad storm in the forecast, I will top it up, just like a gasoline car. If the outage is extended, there are plenty of DC fast chargers near enough to me that its unlikely that both me and them would face an extended outage, just like how in a gas car you might have to drive a few gas stations over to find one with power. If I had solar installed, I would be able to recharge during the day if I am somewhat careful in driving as the estimated surplus power for area I have for solar is ~7-20 miles a day.

jjav 6y ago
If the outage is caused by something large enough for it to last a longer time, it's very likely any charging stations near you are also out.
- theshrike79 6y ago
  It's also very likely that any gas stations will be out, unless they hand-pump the stuff.
  - jjav 6y ago
    In areas where outages are expected (hurricanes), the better-prepared gas stations have their own generators. Not all do, for sure.

anonuser123456 6y ago

I have lived in SoCal for 22 adult years. I’ve lost power maybe 3 times, and for at most 6 hours. A Tesla should have enough range for a few days commute w/out recharge. I don’t think power reliability should be a concern... except for when the big one strikes. But in that case all the freeway overpasses will collapse, so an ICE car won’t help you anyway.

bradlys 6y ago
Sure but PG&E wasn't doing these outages 10 years ago as much as it is now. In the Bay Area, it's regularly an occurrence where people in the Santa Cruz Mountains will not have power for 2 days to a week. With little to no notice too. You come home with a low battery to refill it at home, you might not be able to get very far. Hopefully you just drive with 50+ miles ready all the time.
- jjav 6y ago
  Later this week I'd expect multiple areas in the Santa Cruz Mountains to lose power (from the coming storm). It's very common, happens multiple times per year (fires, winds, rains can all cause it). Sometimes it's just a day, sometimes many more. Unless I someday get to live somewhere with a very substantial solar system, I won't ever be with only an electric car. Grid-delivered electricity isn't reliable enough to bet on. And consider storms like hurricanes Irma and Maria which left many areas of the Caribbean without power for multiple months.
millstone 6y ago
Wait really? I live in NorCal, I lost power twice last week. That was unusual, but PG&E's safety outages are a fact of life of living in California. That said I also remember a hurricane (Harvey?) which shut down refineries, making gasoline scarce. So it's pick your poison.
- ido 6y ago
  PG&E's safety outages are a fact of life of living in California Is this due to natural disaster risk or lack of maintenance for infrastructure? I've lived in Austria & Germany for 15 years now and only once experienced a power outage (I think it lasted about 15 minutes).

guitarsteve 6y ago

In the Miami area after Hurricane Irma in 2017, we couldn’t find gas for our cars for about a week. I think the pumps for gas stations require electricity (which was also out) plus deliveries were disrupted by downed trees, traffic signal outages, etc. Just an anecdote that gasoline is not always available during crises. We did have electricity at home but neighboring buildings and neighborhoods had outages for a week or more.

theshrike79 6y ago
And even if gasoline is available, it will most likely be prioritised for logistics first. Trucks moving actual goods, buses, ambulances etc. Also: People coming in with their Ford F-one-million with an umpteen-gallon fuel capacity and hogging all the fuel.
- Ichthypresbyter 6y ago
  The trucks and buses probably run on diesel. (In most countries so do the ambulances, but the US might be an exception here.)
- akgerber 6y ago
  Living in NYC after Hurricane Sandy, I spent a lot of time biking past mile+ gas lines. Gas stations ran out for a significant period of time and National Guard fuel trucks were eventually deployed, but didn't have enough for all comers.
01100011 6y ago
But it's not uncommon for people to have at least a gallon of gas stored in a typical suburban home. That's 20-30 miles of emergency travel if needed. I don't think most people can easily store enough electricity to give them 20-30 miles of EV range. Maybe that's possible with a powerwall type setup? I'd be happy to pick up a cheap(<$15k) EV for work commutes(range of 30 miles is fine), but it would be supplementing my gas vehicle(hybrid or conventional). The math may change as gas prices spike over the next year. I think that will really drive EV adoption. Time will tell though. So far, I see EVs appealing to a certain type of consumer(pro-technology and/or affluent).

ajross 6y ago

Can't you just... drive to a charging station? I mean, it's not like the whole continent lost power for three days. Just go fill up and come back and park it at home. Note that with a gas car, you can't fill it up at home ever, for any reason (unless you have a well and refinery I guess).

jjav 6y ago
> Note that with a gas car, you can't fill it up at home ever, for any reason (unless you have a well and refinery I guess). Or a drum of gasoline and a hand pump which is very practical. If you live anywhere where outages and natural disaster are a thing, it's good to plan ahead.

reissbaker 6y ago

I have an EV. After I drive it home, I plug it in. Except when I'm lazy, it's basically never below a couple hundred miles of range remaining. Rolling blackouts wouldn't really cause an issue, and when I've experienced blackouts, it's never been a problem. When the power is on, the car would charge back to the limit I set (I usually keep it at 80% charged to preserve the battery, which is still nearly 250 miles of range). When the power is out, it's anyway very rare that I drive hundreds of miles in a day and actually need to charge — and as other posters have mentioned, you could hit up a charging station that isn't in a blackout at that point. When I owned a gas car, getting below 50%, or even below 25%, was completely normal. So I can see how if you're used to gas cars, it would seem worrying that there might be a blackout: how do you "refill" if you're low? But the truth of electric car ownership, at least in my experience, is you basically never go below 50% charge in daily use. So the idea that you'd likely get stuck at some point because the power went out just isn't really a concern. IMO assuming you have home charging (either a garage in a house, or if your apartment building offers chargers) — which to be fair is a reasonably big if — electric is much, much more convenient than gas. You never have to stop at a gas station equivalent in your day-to-day life, since you just plug the car in when you get home, like you'd charge a phone overnight. You barely need to do any maintenance, because the moving parts are so simple. And electricity is much cheaper than gas. For people without access to home charging, I think EVs are currently more annoying than gas cars. But not because of blackouts: it's just because charging to full is considerably slower than filling a tank of gas. If you're not able to have it charge at home while you're asleep, regularly hitting up charging stations and waiting is annoying.

jjav 6y ago
> And electricity is much cheaper than gas. Maybe. When I was commuting, my daily driver gas car got 36 MPG. My commute used 0.72 gallons. At $3.55/gallon, the trip cost $2.56 or about 9.9 cents/mile. At the same time I had a Fiat 500e. The same commute consumed 11kWh. So the breakeven point (between my two cars) is $0.24/kWh in electric cost. Looking at my PG&E bill, peak time (4pm-9pm) cost is $0.35/kWh and part-peak (9pm-midnight) is $0.34/kWh. These are winter time prices, they are much higher in the summer (but I only have my current bill handy). So if I had to ever charge the electric car during peak or part-peak times, it is quite a bit more expensive than gas. Now, of course, I only charge it at night (PG&E price $0.17/kWh) so it is a bit cheaper. Just need to be careful to set the timer so charging never starts before midnight.

kart23 6y ago

I'm more worried about range of EVs and charging stations being absolutely swamped in times of crisis. Gas stations lines were bad enough during hurricane evacuations, imagine roadside charging stations. I think I will always hold onto a reliable ICE car for the rest of my days.

natch 6y ago
Every building on the grid is a potential charging station. Even when gas stations are locked down.

cbhl 6y ago

Wikipedia says the 2000-01 California energy crisis was caused by Enron. I believe it will take years of engineering-driven investment (upgrade lines; trim trees; clear flammables from the transmission corridors) to make power reliable in California again, but the California energy companies are bankrupt (again?) after judgments in recent years' wildfires. I believe the reliability problem is worst in California and is less of a problem in other states and countries. (But offset in part by the large number of charging stations in metro areas, at least in SFBA.) That said, a replacement doesn't need to be as reliable as its predecessor, it only needs to be reliable enough. Cell phones, for example, will go down a few hours after a power outage, whereas POTS phones were engineered to stay up (and provide power to corded phones) during power outages and weather events. Cell phones are more convenient. EVs have two nice properties: faster acceleration than gas cars (which some view as a safety feature), and they're cheaper to fuel than gas cars. This can tip the balance in favor of an EV for day-to-day use. If you are prepping, I think it still makes sense to have at least one conventional gas-powered car. Just make sure to keep the tank at least 3/4s full; gas pumps tend to go down during blackouts.

theshrike79 6y ago
> If you are prepping, I think it still makes sense to have at least one conventional gas-powered car. Just make sure to keep the tank at least 3/4s full; gas pumps tend to go down during blackouts. If you're really prepping, also have a fucking bicycle. You provide the fuel and they're cheap to maintain. The irony is that the only time it's actually safe to ride a bicycle in an average American city is during a post-apocalyptic event when there are no cars on the road =)
eigenvector 6y ago
Nothing inherent to cell phone networks causes them to go down during power outages. Just like POTS they need a backup power supply for their infrastructure to remain functional when the power grid is down. Usually this takes the form of diesel generators. The main difference is that the cell network doesn't power the handset but modern cell phones use so little power than a $50 consumer UPS would recharge a cell phone many times over. Keeping phone networks up during power outages is very important for public safety.

handmodel 6y ago

I have a similar sensibility when it comes to generators. I grew up in the northeast and there were two ice storms I remember where we lost power for over a week. After the second, my parents got a gas generator that could be refueled when it ran out - even while the power was still out. If they were buying today I'm sure many would recommend some type of electric powerwall to store energy but I'm doubtful in the situations you need it the most it would be there. And the whole point of getting a generator is not to provide you with electricity for the time you lost it for three hours - but for the one in ten year storm that leaves you without power for a week.

toast0 6y ago

I've got a PHEV; when I need to exercise my portable generator (it's supposed to run for at least 30 minutes once a month), I plug in my car to at least have some load, rather than letting it just idle. Personally, PHEV makes a lot more sense to me than full EV. My particular model (Ford C-Max Energi) has pretty low EV only capacity (20ish miles, if you stay under 60 mph and relatively flat), and the battery interferes with cargo space, but if you got the capacity up to about 50 miles, that would do a lot of people's (non-covid) daily commute with a single charge (either overnight at home, or during the day at work; but you wouldn't need both). And when you need to go farther, 500+ miles per tank, 5 minute fillup.

natch 6y ago

Generally people don’t have their cars sitting around at close to zero miles of charge left. So you can drive to a charger that does have power, if your house doesn’t. You can always come up with fearful scenarios though. What about pumping gas during a power outage? I guess they have battery backups for the pumps? Many Superchargers have battery backups as well, built in. And some are powered by on-site solar with battery storage. But again you can always come up with a worst case scenario. During COVID lockdowns I was wondering if the national guard would be deployed to gas stations to enforce limits on driving by limiting gas purchases. If we want to just make up scenarios, this is the kind of scenario you could avoid by having an EV with your own solar and backup batteries.

speedgoose 6y ago

That's a very local problem that SoCal needs to work on. I can't remember having a blackout ever in my life, I live in Europe. Just keep your car charged between 50% and 80% when you are at home and it should be enough to reach the hospital or a safe place during a blackout.

carlmr 6y ago
It's not a local problem just because it's not a European problem. Plenty of countries don't have that reliable electricity.
- speedgoose 6y ago
  SoCal is the exception and not the norm as a develop country with enough wealth to afford electric cars while having a non reliable electric grid. Most of the other countries with unreliable electric grid are not very much into the brand new premium electric cars market.
  - carlmr 6y ago
    That's true, but I think most of North America has unreliable power grids. In 2 years living in Canada I experienced 6 blackouts. In 28 years living in Germany I've experienced 3.
  - sundvor 6y ago
    Can confirm this is true for Australia. We frequently have outages and the network is in shambles. Just to make sure, rather than provide any incentives (there are NONE) we're going to introduce extra taxes for EVs to make up for lost fuel excise taxes, which contrary to popular belief doesn't pay for our roads. I guess the minimalist (by Norwegian standards) yet growing sales numbers in spite of our soaring electricity costs and Zero CO² taxes on ICEs (they're eg 40% in Norway) must be scaring the fossil fuel sponsored politicians (both Libs and Labor alike). Yep, whiskey tango foxtrot indeed.
fogihujy 6y ago
Besides, if the power outage brings society into such a disarray that you can't just call an ambulance if something happened, then there is a high likeliood that having a petrol-powered car wouldn't be much better than an electric one anyway. Europe is a big place, though. There's a lot of people living in the countryside and with much less reliable utilities compared to urban areas. Power outages do occur here too and they're even frequent in some areas. :)

gnicholas 6y ago

We have thought about this as well. If there is an emergency that affects a metro area, you need to be able to get out of the area and then refill. In an ICE, it's easy to drive 200 miles and then tank up in 5 mins. In an EV, you might be able to get 200 miles, but it's much less likely that you'll be able to refill in under an hour. If many people are evacuating, charging stations will be overloaded. Trickle charging can be done almost anywhere, but that can take a really long time.

mixmastamyk 6y ago
Hotels, motels, and malls are providing charging now. May not be scarce much longer.

kortilla 6y ago

Buy a backup generator. It can both charge your car and power your house in an outage.

reddotX 6y ago

solar panels

Dumblydorr 6y ago

Just wait a few more years, gas stations will start being phased out, rooftop solar will be even cheaper, and the economical side of your worry will be eviscerated. The learning curve solar and batteries are on means their relentless March of improvement will render gas scarce and expensive by comparison. Gas will still play a role for older cars and antiques, but it'll be harder and harder to find over time.

bagacrap 6y ago

if that's a problem then your parents should have a gas or diesel powered generator anyway, which could charge the car in an emergency