First big piece of 'Electric Highway' gets juice

San Jose Mercury News ^ | 3/16/12 | Jeff Barnard

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Electric car drivers hit the road Friday to inaugurate the first major section of a West Coast "Electric Highway" dotted with stations where they can charge up in 20 minutes.

The stretch of 160 miles of Interstate 5 served by eight stations marks the next big step in developing an infrastructure that until now has been limited primarily to chargers in homes and workplaces.

The stations go from the California border north to the Oregon city of Cottage Grove and are located at gas stations, restaurants and motels just off the nation's second-busiest interstate. One is at an inn that was once a stage coach stop.

Spaced about every 25 miles, the stations allow a Nissan Leaf with a range of about 70 miles to miss one and still make it to the next. Electric car drivers will be able to recharge in about 20 minutes on the fast-chargers. The charge is free for now.

"I would say range-anxiety with these fast chargers will be nearly a non-issue for me," said Justin Denley, who owns a Nissan Leaf and joined the caravan. Inspired by the stations, his family is planning a trip from Medford to Portland, a distance of about 280 miles. Last summer, he took the family on a 120-mile trip to the coast and had to include an overnight stop at an RV park to charge up.

He expects the trip to Portland to take perhaps three hours longer than in a gas car, because the only chargers available for the last 100 miles are slower, level 2 chargers.

[NavVet]

I’m not suggesting that ICE’s aren’t the best bet for most people right now, but if you have the money to spend, you can buy a Tesla right now that will 300 miles without a charge, and over 200 with the heater / AC on. Most of us don’t have the 50-80K to spend, but if you do the cars are available. My point on the pre-heating is that it takes a lot of energy to raise the temperature of a frozen car up to 70 degrees. It takes less energy to maintain that temperature, and that is why being able to pre-program the car to heat up / cool down while still plug in will help to maximize your range.

However, your arguments are why I haven’t considered a Nissan Leaf. It’s advertised 100 miles goes down to 75 in cold weather. But a vehicle with 300 mile range, would have the energy to spare to heat / cool the car and still drive over 200 miles on a charge and that would take care of most people most of the time. Couple that with fast charging stations on interstates, so that you could top off every couple hundred miles and I think you would see a lot of people choosing EV’s. Of course, until the cost of batteries drop in 1/2 they will remain out of the reach of most people unless you just want a second car like the 25K Nissan Leaf for around town.

[Eye of Unk]

For some odd reason I keep seeing an image of millions of cars with trolley poles in the future, or some devilish monstrous type of electrical transmitter through the air across the country such as Tesla imagined and cars, planes and even boats were mandated to use “over the air electrics” by law.

[palmer]

Frankly I see a booming economy for ANY tow truck in CA.

Even electric tow trucks?

[NavVet]

That would be sight. Of course, if that did ever happen and it actually promoted productive human activity, the left would find some reason to oppose it.