Guest Post by Eric Peters
It’s not so much the range that’s the primary electric car gimp – it’s the time it takes to recharge.
Which is a minimum of 30-45 minutes, assuming you have access to what is hilariously styled a “fast” charger. These are 240 volt rigs (twice the voltage of standard household outlets) that can reduce the time it takes to recharge an electric car from several hours to under a hour.
But that isn’t very “fast” compared with the less-than-five-minutes it takes to refuel a non-electric car.
Especially given the non-electric car can be refueled to full in those five minutes at any gas station – while the not-so-fast-charging electric car can only recoup a partial charge – about 80 percent of its full-charge capacity – at a “fast” charger. This additional limitation is necessary for both fire-safety reasons (to avoid excessive heat build-up) and in order to preserve the useful life of the battery.
Electric car batteries – like the 12 volt starter battery in a non-electric car and any other battery yet devised – gradually lose their capacity to accept – and retain – a charge over time.
Hitting them with too much charge – too fast – causes that to happen faster.
But unlike a 12 volt starter battery – which costs about $100 to replace – an electric car battery costs thousands of dollars to replace. Which is why it’s very important in terms of electric car economics to make the battery last as long as possible.
Hence the partial – and not really very “fast” -recharge.
Which also amounts to a 20 percent reduction in whatever the electric car’s range on a fully recharged battery would have been. Which is another way of saying you’ll have to recharge sooner after you “fast” charge.
Or, wait longer – to get back to full charge – by plugging in to a standard 120 volt household outlet.
If you can find one.
One of the cognitively dissonant things about electric cars – which because of their range/recharge issues are fundamentally city cars – is that finding a place to plug in is more of challenge in cities. Because most people who live in cities live in apartments or condos and don’t have garages with electric outlets to plug into.
Do you run an extension cord from your fifth floor apartment to the street below?
Ask the Starbucks people to let you run an extension cord into their joint and mooch off their power?
“Fast” chargers are harder to find than household outlets – because they are specialized and expensive outlets – and the potential for expansion is limited in number by the available real estate. Each “fast-charging” electric car takes up a car-sized parking space while it charges. Imagine circling the block looking for an open “fast” charging spot.
Either way, it’s a pretty long wait.
What if you haven’t got the time?
What if you need to keep driving – because something unplanned for came up? Like an emergency? Or you just want to get where you’re going before tomorrow gets here?
Now you’ve got another problem.
You’ll need another car – probably not electric. Or someone else, to give you ride.
Some electric cars have more range than others – but they all take comparatively forever to recover what range they have. This is a problem of battery chemistry – see above – and will remain a problem unless battery chemistry changes.
There is no sign of this happening.
It’s a problem analogous to making ice cream. The ingredients have to be mixed together – and then cooled. There’s no such thing as instant ice cream.
Or even five minute ice cream.
A poorly tuned ’67 Chevy with a slipping transmission that only gets 10 miles-per-gallon is still a much more practical car than an electric car because however much gas it uses, that gas can be replaced quickly.
Even if the 10-miles-per-gallon Chevy only had five gallons of gas in its tank (about a fourth of actual capacity) and so could only travel 50 miles in between fill-ups, those fill-ups would still only take five minutes. Less, actually – because it doesn’t take five minutes to pump five gallons of gas. You can can pump 15-20 gallons in that time. Most non-electric cars carry at least that much gas.
Which would mean at least 150-200 miles before our clunker needed more gas.
And the clunker can be refueled to full – not 80 percent of full – almost anywhere, almost anytime.
A gas-thirsty car does make you stop for gas more frequently – but only briefly.
This lets you get where you want to be – or need to be – before tomorrow gets here.
The unplanned for is not a problem.
Even assuming a preposterous 50 miles of range (10 MPG, with just five gallons of fuel in the tank) our hypothetical Chevy could recover 450 miles of driving range in the time it takes an EV to recover 80 percent of its range just once.
And no electric car currently available can travel anywhere close to 450 miles on a fully charged battery.
Most require a plug-in before they’ve gone even half that far – and as a practical matter, it’s actually less than that . . . because of the time it takes to recharge.
Because of the potential inconvenience – or worse – that running low in an EV represents.
You can risk running on fumes in a non-electric car because even if you run out of fumes, you can be back on the road in the time it takes to pour a couple of gallons into the tank. But in an electric car running on “fumes” – a battery nearly depleted – you face a best-case scenario of a 30-45 minute wait.
If you can find that “fast” charger.
If you can’t, then it’s overnight.
Bad news if you need to be somewhere before then.
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Sounds like Peters is lukewarm on electric cars.
Everybody’s in such a rush.
So what if it takes 8 hours to recharge your Tesla. Wander around the charging station for several hours and you can find all kinds of bits of plastic and metal. Clean it up for the good of global ecology. There, dont you feel better already?
The structures I see being built around me make no accommodations for the electric vehicle. My town has fewer than 1 charging station for every 10,000 people and I know of no more that are being built or are planned. Hybrid cars make a lot of sense but fully electric cars will always be playthings for the wealthy.
Sort of reminds me of trying to find a diesel station, only worse. Ever buy a diesel and then realize nobody seems to sell it? Didn’t change my love of the car, but did force me to pre-game my driving some. I imagine the electric car is worse. Does anyone make a jerrycan for Teslas?
I’ve noticed there are odd locations with open fast chargers for Teslas in different cities. It’s strange to see, because they’re usually empty and not that convenient to any particular location. I visited a Trader Joes that had a couple powered spots in their parking lot. Seems like a waste of money to me. Can you imagine a grocery store filling your gas tank while you shop?
Million-dollar idea! A power pack that you can switch too to help you get to where you’re going.
He covered this once before already.
The biggest issue with electric cars is that they are just not yet cost-effective with gas.
The long recharging time is a non-issue for city driving. I charge my car at home overnight every three to five days. It takes seconds to plug in at night, and seconds to unplug in the morning. It is actually a huge time savings overall. I never have to go find a gas station, wait in line sometimes if all the pumps are full, or spend time pumping gas.
The only time charging is an issue, is if I forget to charge the car before it gets too low , which is much rarer now, or on trips. On trips, charging is a PITA between trying to find a station and the charging time. In California, supercharging stations, there are not enough around and they are usually full.
thinkprogress has their knickers in a wad because trump is allegedly trying to kill electric cars–
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-is-trying-to-kill-electric-cars-but-will-kill-jobs-and-the-climate-instead/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tp-letters
I am still waiting for someone to grasp the reality that there is nothing “green” about electric cars.
Only (well) trained engineers can understand that, and there are very few of those.
This narrative of shoving electric cars down everybody’s throat is nothing but the elite telling us we won’t be driving cars unless we’re one of them. Then there’s the narrative of how they want to regulate cattle farms to cut down on “greenhouse emissions” which means you won’t be able to afford or even buy milk, butter, and meat. The bastards even have a narrative out about how grubs are the protein food of the future. Supposedly there is a budding narrative talk about how the drain pipes on every building in America emit Gorebull warming gases through the roof vents and how they need to be sealed up. All of this is all a good example of why if all of these troublemakers were lined up and shot then we would not have any of these problems.
Picked my buddy up off the 81. He Got a nissan leaf as a loaner. He abandoned it on the side of the highway in disgust when the battery went dead. Too funny.
I can see electric hybrid cars with a built-in charging engine like a Prius. (diesel would better) All-new pickup trucks should be set up to run on natural gas from the factory. Synthetic oil should be used by everyone and the change interval controlled by oil lab testing. Pure electric cars could be used by some people willing to live with the miles they can drive. The demand on our shitty grid makes me dubious about millions converting to electric cars. Like many, I like my paid for car and truck.