Posted on 11/05/2012 6:20:53 PM PST by AmonAmarth
The debate about the value of electric cars just got another jolt.
In the aftermath of superstorm Sandy, unprepared electic vehicle owners in the Northeast were out of luck. With power grids and public charging stations down there was, and in some places still is no way to get energy into their cars.
According to automotive analyst Thilo Koslowski, the storm has revealed the one major vulnerability with electric cars: that a backup infrastructure is almost non-existent.
“If the outages continue, this will negatively impact consumer interest,” he told FoxNews.com. “We will need to address the issue of electricity shortages if we want to have a growing share of EVs.”
Technology analyst Rob Enderle agrees that the infrastructure problem with EVs is being called into question in the wake of the storm. Early funding for the EV infrastructure has focused on building charging stations at malls and offices, not on disaster-proofing them. If the grid goes dark, he says, there’s no back-up battery storage to keep your EV running.
ChargePoint, which runs one of the largest public charge station networks in the area affected by Sandy did not respond to requests from FoxNews.com to discuss it's contingency plans.
“EVs need infrastructure and low cost batteries to survive -- and they have neither,” he says. “We need some strong advancements in energy storage or generation to truly make electric competitive.”
The automakers themselves are looking for answers, as well.
“As more pure EVs hit the market, consumers will demand solutions to these types of dilemmas and the industry will have to respond,” says Jana Hartline, an environmental manager at Toyota.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Nope. No power no fuel.
This disaster has caused me to consider a diesel engine for my next car. No lines at the diesel pump.
Prius don’t need electricity. They use the brake to charge the battery. You can also drive them under 20 miles per hour and not use any gasoline.
They are good cars to have when gasoline supplies are low.
Exactly.....Gas pumps need electricity as done EV’s. I just leased an EV because it was basically free to me if gas stayed around 3.50/gallon. I’m sure the EV’s enjoyed driving past the gas stations and their 4 hour lines, etc. Sure, they need to charge up, but I think I’d rather try and find a socket than a gallon of gas in NY right now....this is just trying to dump on the EV’s. I’m sure I’m the only conservative driving a Nissan Leaf in the country...But it is, what it is....
A steam car that burns trash, wood or coal sure would be. ;-)
All is not lost tho, hook up a hose and pump down to the main tank,fill your manual gas pump, and start selling gas again.
Indeed.
No issues about EV in general... In fact, I’ve read that the Leaf is probably the best one you can get right now. If it works for you, go for it. Gasoline doesn’t make someone a conservative... coal, nuclear, electric companies, etc., are darn good American industries also.
I guess you can’t carry electricity in a five gallon can.
Do you have a Romney bumper sticker on that thing? That would raise some eyebrows..lol
Partly right, but You might want to do a little more research on that.
Shucks. And I was hoping that they were going to come out with a pink Energizer Bunny Special Edition. LOL!
Not enough of it anyway....
They could jump start the car.
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