Electric cars and electrical supply for charging them

[jeffmorris]

Many car makers are planning to stop making cars with gasoline/diesel engines and start making electric cars. The bad weather knocked out electricity in parts of USA. What if people have electric cars now and there's no electricity to charge them?

[aleekat]

Guess electric generators are next. Kinda oxymoron.

[jeffmorris]

There was "Revolution" TV show about 10 years ago where the bad guys caused a permanent global blackout where everything that use any kind of electricity, even battery-powered products, stopped working. What if this happens in real life?

[CharlieWex]

I don't think that's going to happen. The US authorities are already working on it. Come on, there are plenty of cars that will continue to run on petrol, electric cars are not a panacea.

[Chris V]

Originally Posted by jeffmorris

Many car makers are planning to stop making cars with gasoline/diesel engines and start making electric cars. The bad weather knocked out electricity in parts of USA. What if people have electric cars now and there's no electricity to charge them?

The bad weather knocked out electricity in Texas only. And it also knocked out the refineries so no gasoline was being made (which is why the prices went up recently). Texas was a special case, as they didn't bother winterizing the natural gas plants even after they had the exact same problem 10 years ago. Add to that the fact that Texas decided a long time ago to NOT be connected to the rest of the US grid and they couldn't even get electricity from neighboring states. Bad choice.

EVs charge just fine normally, and if you do what most owners do, and plug in every night so you have a full charge every morning, you can drive a long time before needing to charge up again. So if the power goes out, you have a fully charged EV already and can weather the storm.

Speaking of weathering the storm, EV owners in Texas were able to get into their cars in the frozen garages and run the car to keep warm for weeks with very little battery power used. And ZERO Carbon monoxide generated. Try doing that with a gas powered car. You WILL die of asphyxiation. I know a number of Chevy Bolt owners in Houston that ran their cars for a couple weeks and only used 2% of their battery charge.

Remember, if the power goes out, the gas stations can't pump gas, either.

There was "Revolution" TV show about 10 years ago where the bad guys caused a permanent global blackout where everything that use any kind of electricity, even battery-powered products, stopped working. What if this happens in real life?

Then your gas powered cars, which have batteries and alternators to run on, will also stop working.

Why is it that people stop thinking when it comes to EVs and always want to come up with implausible scenarios that would ALSO affect their gas powered cars?

Just as a bit of reference, I've had EVs now for about a decade and know what it's like to live with them on a daily basis. My 2020 Bolt is a great road trip car and a worthy commuter. Leaving me money to have a 2 seat sports car as my weekend car. We've taken the Bolt on road trips from Baltimore to Eastern CT and back a few times already, as well as down to South Carolina and back.