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If you're fleeing a disaster in your EV you may soon end up on foot anyway. I'd hate to think what the grid demand would be if, say, New York or LA suddenly all

If you're fleeing a disaster in your EV you may soon end up on foot anyway. I'd hate to think what the grid demand would be if, say, New York or LA suddenly all headed to the hills in EVs simultaneously. Especially if that infrastructure is taking battle damage.

edb_123 2y ago
I guess you could say the same about fossil fuel cars and gas stations? I doubt that everyone keeps their tanks full at all times. And just imagine the amount of traffic on roads in such a situation, regardless of your preferred energy source. You'd be struggling to get anywhere at all, unless you're among the first few fleeing town.
- jcgrillo 2y ago
  If your gas or diesel engine is old enough you could build yourself a wood/coal gasifier[1] and get yourself down the road. With a fairly simple regulator engines can be made to run well enough on natural gas, propane, maybe acetylene? Diesels will burn just about any liquid hydrocarbon, at least for a time before they succumb to injector pump damage or excessive carbon buildup. EDIT: sure would love to know why y'all're downvoting... Is anything I wrote incorrect? Speaking from experience having crossed the US more than once burning various waste oils I'm pretty sure everything I wrote above is correct and factually accurate.. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas_generator https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas_generator
  - vel0city 2y ago
    Because its massively impractical to think the average person is going to get the notice "you've got anywhere from an hour to an afternoon to evacuate" and be ready to convert their vehicle to goal gas and have plenty of wood/coal to actually get through the evacuation.
    - jcgrillo 2y ago
      Yes, this is impossible. If having a vehicle connotes survival such people will perish. My point was only to illustrate there are many ways to make a piston engine go brr and only one way to make an EV mobile.
      - EraYaN 2y ago
        But at the same time there are many many ways to make the stuff that makes that EV mobile. And you don't have to modify the car.
- Sebb767 2y ago
  Not to mention that EVs outmileage every other type of engine in a traffic jam. Also, power is much easier to get compared to fuel (with maybe the exception of fuel for old diesels that will run on everything - but this depends on circumstance). This is really a bad dig at EVs.
  - jcgrillo 2y ago
    > power is much easier to get compared to fuel Only if your power grid is functioning, which I wouldn't expect to be the case in most major disaster situations. Otherwise you'll be stuck burning fuel in a generator to charge your car. EDIT: the other great thing about liquid fuel is it doesn't weigh very much. Diesel is 7.1lb/gal so if your diesel car gets 32mpg (like mine does) you get 4.5mi/lb. With 1500lb on a trailer--let's say it only gets 20mpg or 2.8mi/lb towing--that's an extra 4200mi of range. That's enough to go from Boston to Anchorage without refueling. It's also a much more easily transferable energy source than electrons--all you need to do is pour liquid from one container into another. You don't need some fancy battery charger that needs stable power at such and such Volts, Watts, and Hz.. So, no, in a disaster or war situation I doubt the EVs will work at all.
    - helf 2y ago
      [dead]
    - vel0city 2y ago
      When the grid wasn't functioning around me, pretty much every gas station didn't have working pumps. The extreme few which did heavily rationed fuel (I think only 4gal per customer?) and often ran out.
      - jcgrillo 2y ago
        I have ~200gal of red diesel in a home heating oil tank for the shop that I could easily burn in my car, tractor (with PTO generator), or whatever. This is the versatility of liquid fuel--it's a fungible asset with a pretty good shelf life (basically infinite for diesel, with appropriate additives quite long for gasoline). Another problem with going to the gas station is payment. No internet means no credit cards or whiz-bang apple wallet stuff.
- TylerE 2y ago
  Gas stations are independent. The energy is already on site. In a real pinch it can be pumped with manu labor. None of that is true in the EV case.
  - jdminhbg 2y ago
    If you’re in the kind of Mad Max scenario where you are manually pumping gas, you might as well be hotwiring solar panels for your EV while you’re at it.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    you could imagine a mad max world having a bank of slaves riding bicycles so manual labor charges batteries to drive a cybertruck
- nucleardog 2y ago
  Liquid fuels are relatively light and easy and quick to transfer. When we had no power for a week, I drove a couple hours away to a gas station, spent 15 minutes filling jerry cans, and came back with enough energy to power my entire house for a week. Yeah, in a continental or global disaster, we’re quickly going to be unable to get our hands on gasoline without the drilling and refineries and distribution, etc and electricity would be much more available. In the much more frequent and likely regional disaster… I’d prefer to be stuck with gasoline right now. I could definitely see a future where instead of a noisy generator I power my house off of my car for a week until the charge is getting low, supplemented by some solar, then drive a couple hours to where the electricity is working and spend a half hour charging it back up. I just don’t think we’re quite there yet. A typical long range EV right now, after the power to get me there and back, would have about 25kWh of power I could use for other things. That would be three hours of driving to replace 3 hours of generator output.
  - vel0city 2y ago
    I've actually lived through evacuations of a major metro area...twice. Both times gasoline quickly became incredibly hard to come by. Electricity would have been a lot easier. Also, there was massive amounts of traffic trying to leave. An idling car slowly creeping through a 100mi traffic jam still uses a good bit of gas. An EV uses very little energy slowly rolling in the same situation. Sure at normal speeds I would have easily had 300+mi in the gas cars, but my mileage in traffic was massively worse on the 14+ hour drive from Houston to San Antonio.
    - _hyn3 2y ago
      I have as well, in hurricane zones, but electricity was out for multiple weeks, but gasoline was still available (if quite expensive due to market forces, but of course that meant that there were still a few gallons available for everyone.)
    - vel0city 2y ago
      And here come the headlines about gas shortages in Florida. Many hours of idling to go <100mi, stranding cars along the highway. Meanwhile, EVs still charging just fine.
4fterd4rk 2y ago
Ah yes good thing gas stations have an infinite supply of fuel ready to go that'll never need to be replenished in the face of unprecedented demand. Also we're very lucky that gasoline is such a stable material that it'll surely not cause problems in the event of "battle damage". What is it about EVs that makes you people's brains turn off?
- jcgrillo 2y ago
  "You people"? Tell me more. > Also we're very lucky that gasoline is such a stable material that it'll surely not cause problems in the event of "battle damage". What? Are you saying gasoline burns? Congratulations you cracked the world's greatest mystery! Batteries burn real good too, you should try it sometime it's quite spectacular :D EDIT: Seriously, though, taking out all the hydrocarbon fuels is a much, much more difficult proposition than taking out the power grid. The environmentalist in me wishes this wasn't true, but it is.
  - EraYaN 2y ago
    Disturbing the supply chain for both hydrocarbons and electricity is actually scarily easy and in most places those are closely linked anyway. But it really takes a tiny push and the whole system comes crumbling down. Especially if you have adversaries that know what they are doing. There is very little "offline" infrastructure.
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  I agree with your point. I see this type of comment on HN frequently when EVs are discussed. There is a certain (very vocal) minority of people, that no matter how good is an EV, will only focus on the negatives. It is best to mostly ignore these types of comments, unless they are bringing new ideas to the discussion.
  - jcgrillo 2y ago
    > no matter how good is an EV, will only focus on the negatives What? I would love to be able to drive EVs. They just don't cut it for the uses I need a vehicle for. Multi-hour recharge times and the weight of batteries make it untenable. Hopefully some day we'll get there, but we're talking an order of magnitude in both the charge and mass dimensions.
acomjean 2y ago
A sneak preview happened during the eclipse this year. Those with EVs found large waits for charging on the way home. https://www.newsweek.com/tesla-charging-station-police-solar-eclipse-travel-1888941 https://www.newsweek.com/tesla-charging-station-police-solar...
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  Any long weekend holiday will also give you that.
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  Gas stations were no better. The eclipse traveled over many remote areas that never see more than 10 cars/hr on their roads. Suddenly there were thousands all at once. We went to northern NH and the ride back to the NYC area was unreal, taking 11 hours. Thankfully we had the forethought to fill up the morning before the eclipse.
pkulak 2y ago
Except that ev “tanks” are full every morning. Besides, all cars are garbage when everyone uses them at once, until Texas finally builds their 200-lane freeway. Give me a bike with wide tires.
- akira2501 2y ago
  Disasters are known to happen at night. Cars can drive on terrain we just usually don't because it's seen as impolite. This isn't about transportation (or the width of your tires) it's about having a layer of security, some storage for more than what you can physically carry, a place to sleep off the ground, and shelter from the weather. Plus, you know, a radio.
  - prmoustache 2y ago
    you just described a bikepacking bike.
    - akira2501 2y ago
      Well, aside from the physical security aspect, sure. There are more than other people to be afraid of. Animals are severely annoying if you're out in the wilderness with something like food.
- neoromantique 2y ago
  I own multiple vehicles, every single one of them is capable of going 1000km on a single tank of gas, and seeing as I live close to border with Russia I keep at least one of them (4x4 capable one) at full tank at all times. What EV can do at least half of that? EDIT: To add to AM radio in said car I also have CB Radio with detachable (magnetic) antenna, just in case.
  - UncleMeat 2y ago
    Almost nobody behaves like you do, though. At any given moment there are tons of cars in garages that have 10% of a tank.
infecto 2y ago
This does not seem like a very strong argument. I suspect if there was a massive evacuation there would be a lot of strain on gas stations.
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  It would be impossible to get fuel. This situation already plays out all the time the the US. When hurricane Irene hit NYC, you couldn't get fuel in the area for a week. And once it started showing up again you had to wait in 2 hour lines even at 3 AM.

edb_123 2y ago

I guess you could say the same about fossil fuel cars and gas stations? I doubt that everyone keeps their tanks full at all times. And just imagine the amount of traffic on roads in such a situation, regardless of your preferred energy source. You'd be struggling to get anywhere at all, unless you're among the first few fleeing town.

jcgrillo 2y ago
If your gas or diesel engine is old enough you could build yourself a wood/coal gasifier[1] and get yourself down the road. With a fairly simple regulator engines can be made to run well enough on natural gas, propane, maybe acetylene? Diesels will burn just about any liquid hydrocarbon, at least for a time before they succumb to injector pump damage or excessive carbon buildup. EDIT: sure would love to know why y'all're downvoting... Is anything I wrote incorrect? Speaking from experience having crossed the US more than once burning various waste oils I'm pretty sure everything I wrote above is correct and factually accurate.. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas_generator https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas_generator
- vel0city 2y ago
  Because its massively impractical to think the average person is going to get the notice "you've got anywhere from an hour to an afternoon to evacuate" and be ready to convert their vehicle to goal gas and have plenty of wood/coal to actually get through the evacuation.
  - jcgrillo 2y ago
    Yes, this is impossible. If having a vehicle connotes survival such people will perish. My point was only to illustrate there are many ways to make a piston engine go brr and only one way to make an EV mobile.
    - EraYaN 2y ago
      But at the same time there are many many ways to make the stuff that makes that EV mobile. And you don't have to modify the car.
Sebb767 2y ago
Not to mention that EVs outmileage every other type of engine in a traffic jam. Also, power is much easier to get compared to fuel (with maybe the exception of fuel for old diesels that will run on everything - but this depends on circumstance). This is really a bad dig at EVs.
- jcgrillo 2y ago
  > power is much easier to get compared to fuel Only if your power grid is functioning, which I wouldn't expect to be the case in most major disaster situations. Otherwise you'll be stuck burning fuel in a generator to charge your car. EDIT: the other great thing about liquid fuel is it doesn't weigh very much. Diesel is 7.1lb/gal so if your diesel car gets 32mpg (like mine does) you get 4.5mi/lb. With 1500lb on a trailer--let's say it only gets 20mpg or 2.8mi/lb towing--that's an extra 4200mi of range. That's enough to go from Boston to Anchorage without refueling. It's also a much more easily transferable energy source than electrons--all you need to do is pour liquid from one container into another. You don't need some fancy battery charger that needs stable power at such and such Volts, Watts, and Hz.. So, no, in a disaster or war situation I doubt the EVs will work at all.
  - helf 2y ago
    [dead]
  - vel0city 2y ago
    When the grid wasn't functioning around me, pretty much every gas station didn't have working pumps. The extreme few which did heavily rationed fuel (I think only 4gal per customer?) and often ran out.
    - jcgrillo 2y ago
      I have ~200gal of red diesel in a home heating oil tank for the shop that I could easily burn in my car, tractor (with PTO generator), or whatever. This is the versatility of liquid fuel--it's a fungible asset with a pretty good shelf life (basically infinite for diesel, with appropriate additives quite long for gasoline). Another problem with going to the gas station is payment. No internet means no credit cards or whiz-bang apple wallet stuff.
TylerE 2y ago
Gas stations are independent. The energy is already on site. In a real pinch it can be pumped with manu labor. None of that is true in the EV case.
- jdminhbg 2y ago
  If you’re in the kind of Mad Max scenario where you are manually pumping gas, you might as well be hotwiring solar panels for your EV while you’re at it.
- fragmede 2y ago
  you could imagine a mad max world having a bank of slaves riding bicycles so manual labor charges batteries to drive a cybertruck
nucleardog 2y ago
Liquid fuels are relatively light and easy and quick to transfer. When we had no power for a week, I drove a couple hours away to a gas station, spent 15 minutes filling jerry cans, and came back with enough energy to power my entire house for a week. Yeah, in a continental or global disaster, we’re quickly going to be unable to get our hands on gasoline without the drilling and refineries and distribution, etc and electricity would be much more available. In the much more frequent and likely regional disaster… I’d prefer to be stuck with gasoline right now. I could definitely see a future where instead of a noisy generator I power my house off of my car for a week until the charge is getting low, supplemented by some solar, then drive a couple hours to where the electricity is working and spend a half hour charging it back up. I just don’t think we’re quite there yet. A typical long range EV right now, after the power to get me there and back, would have about 25kWh of power I could use for other things. That would be three hours of driving to replace 3 hours of generator output.
- vel0city 2y ago
  I've actually lived through evacuations of a major metro area...twice. Both times gasoline quickly became incredibly hard to come by. Electricity would have been a lot easier. Also, there was massive amounts of traffic trying to leave. An idling car slowly creeping through a 100mi traffic jam still uses a good bit of gas. An EV uses very little energy slowly rolling in the same situation. Sure at normal speeds I would have easily had 300+mi in the gas cars, but my mileage in traffic was massively worse on the 14+ hour drive from Houston to San Antonio.
  - _hyn3 2y ago
    I have as well, in hurricane zones, but electricity was out for multiple weeks, but gasoline was still available (if quite expensive due to market forces, but of course that meant that there were still a few gallons available for everyone.)
  - vel0city 2y ago
    And here come the headlines about gas shortages in Florida. Many hours of idling to go <100mi, stranding cars along the highway. Meanwhile, EVs still charging just fine.

4fterd4rk 2y ago

Ah yes good thing gas stations have an infinite supply of fuel ready to go that'll never need to be replenished in the face of unprecedented demand. Also we're very lucky that gasoline is such a stable material that it'll surely not cause problems in the event of "battle damage". What is it about EVs that makes you people's brains turn off?

jcgrillo 2y ago
"You people"? Tell me more. > Also we're very lucky that gasoline is such a stable material that it'll surely not cause problems in the event of "battle damage". What? Are you saying gasoline burns? Congratulations you cracked the world's greatest mystery! Batteries burn real good too, you should try it sometime it's quite spectacular :D EDIT: Seriously, though, taking out all the hydrocarbon fuels is a much, much more difficult proposition than taking out the power grid. The environmentalist in me wishes this wasn't true, but it is.
- EraYaN 2y ago
  Disturbing the supply chain for both hydrocarbons and electricity is actually scarily easy and in most places those are closely linked anyway. But it really takes a tiny push and the whole system comes crumbling down. Especially if you have adversaries that know what they are doing. There is very little "offline" infrastructure.
throwaway2037 2y ago
I agree with your point. I see this type of comment on HN frequently when EVs are discussed. There is a certain (very vocal) minority of people, that no matter how good is an EV, will only focus on the negatives. It is best to mostly ignore these types of comments, unless they are bringing new ideas to the discussion.
- jcgrillo 2y ago
  > no matter how good is an EV, will only focus on the negatives What? I would love to be able to drive EVs. They just don't cut it for the uses I need a vehicle for. Multi-hour recharge times and the weight of batteries make it untenable. Hopefully some day we'll get there, but we're talking an order of magnitude in both the charge and mass dimensions.

acomjean 2y ago

A sneak preview happened during the eclipse this year. Those with EVs found large waits for charging on the way home. https://www.newsweek.com/tesla-charging-station-police-solar-eclipse-travel-1888941 https://www.newsweek.com/tesla-charging-station-police-solar...

seanmcdirmid 2y ago
Any long weekend holiday will also give you that.
Workaccount2 2y ago
Gas stations were no better. The eclipse traveled over many remote areas that never see more than 10 cars/hr on their roads. Suddenly there were thousands all at once. We went to northern NH and the ride back to the NYC area was unreal, taking 11 hours. Thankfully we had the forethought to fill up the morning before the eclipse.

pkulak 2y ago

Except that ev “tanks” are full every morning. Besides, all cars are garbage when everyone uses them at once, until Texas finally builds their 200-lane freeway. Give me a bike with wide tires.

akira2501 2y ago
Disasters are known to happen at night. Cars can drive on terrain we just usually don't because it's seen as impolite. This isn't about transportation (or the width of your tires) it's about having a layer of security, some storage for more than what you can physically carry, a place to sleep off the ground, and shelter from the weather. Plus, you know, a radio.
- prmoustache 2y ago
  you just described a bikepacking bike.
  - akira2501 2y ago
    Well, aside from the physical security aspect, sure. There are more than other people to be afraid of. Animals are severely annoying if you're out in the wilderness with something like food.
neoromantique 2y ago
I own multiple vehicles, every single one of them is capable of going 1000km on a single tank of gas, and seeing as I live close to border with Russia I keep at least one of them (4x4 capable one) at full tank at all times. What EV can do at least half of that? EDIT: To add to AM radio in said car I also have CB Radio with detachable (magnetic) antenna, just in case.
- UncleMeat 2y ago
  Almost nobody behaves like you do, though. At any given moment there are tons of cars in garages that have 10% of a tank.

infecto 2y ago

This does not seem like a very strong argument. I suspect if there was a massive evacuation there would be a lot of strain on gas stations.

Workaccount2 2y ago
It would be impossible to get fuel. This situation already plays out all the time the the US. When hurricane Irene hit NYC, you couldn't get fuel in the area for a week. And once it started showing up again you had to wait in 2 hour lines even at 3 AM.