How would you prep with an EV?

sewknot - November 2, 2022

Scenarios

Background 

I was listening to the radio this morning and they were interviewing a Norwegian pop star about a campaign in the 1980’s to promote electric vehicles. 

During the piece they mentioned that the Norwegian government has plans to phase out sales of all petrol and diesel vehicles by 2027 (just 4 years time). Many other nations in Europe have similar plans.

This got me thinking about how this would effect preparedness, especially as my own country is looking at rolling blackouts and I had just been researching what times and days I was likely to be without power.

If you have a diesel or petrol vehicle it’s possible to keep extra fuel for those ‘just in case’ scenarios BUT what would you do instead if you had an Electric vehicle?

I’m interested to hear what you do if you have an EV or would do! 

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We are still learning and becoming aware of issues with electric vehicles even as recently as last month.

https://www.dispatch.com/story/money/cars/2022/10/26/electric-vehicle-fires-florida-flooding-what-happened/10553207002/

After Hurricane Ian plowed through Florida, some electric cars that had water damage later caught fire, probably because salt and water corroded connections and wires. They may have to waterproof batteries and components better on EVs in the future.

Pretty sure hurricane flood damage is not good for even gas cars, but I think they are just more likely to rust or not start rather than be a fireball.

The article above states that there are 25 fires for every 100,000 EVs each year, and 1,530 fires for every 100,000 gasoline powered car. So don’t write off EV’s yet, because gas is a much more dangerous chemical to be driving around with.

 

Thanks Sir Henry – I had heard about the car fires post Ian.

I am not writing off EV’s (although I admit I probably am due to change my car soon but I’ve been saying that for 3 years!), I guess I’m just curious to what the EV equivalent of having 20 gallons of gas in Jerry cans in the garage is? 

I keep power packs to charge small electronics during a power cut so what’s the EV equivalent? Is it a battery you can charge from? (I’m envisioning something like a Tesla power wall that you can recharge using home solar or wind) How does that work if you have to evacuate? Do you just abandon ship when you run out of charge? How would that then change how you plan?

I know they are talking about symbiotic EV’s that can charge your house in a power cut but personally I’d rather sit in the dark and know my  car was ready to roll than run to the car and it not start!

 

To be honest, I think the closest equivalent of having 20 gallons of gas in jerry cans in the garage for an EV is having 20 gallons of gas in the garage with a large generator. I just don’t see how it’s possible to store the amount of electricity needed to power a EV that isn’t a huge setup.

Gas certainly has a lot of power for such a small transportable package that can be refilled quickly which is why it’s been so popular. 

I’ve been holding off on even considering an EV because of things like number of charging stations but I had not even thought about how I would charge it during an emergency. 

Perhaps solar panels on the roof of your house could also work to power it during the day. I’ve looked into solar panel packages and was quoted $10,000 just for the panels and that didn’t include any batteries. For 10% of that I can store 20 gallons of gas and a large generator.

 

Do you know having a generator didn’t even cross my mind – it’s not something that’s part of my preps!

Not that I haven’t considered one but I just feel there is little gain for me in having one – we tend to be more old school! 

 

So my truck can power another EV, it’s just sloooooooowww. There are companies working on adding recharging to roadside assistance. They aren’t quite there yet, but I’m of the opinion that the best way to build infrastructure is to create a need. Necessity being the mother of invention and all. 😊

 

Honestly, I think the mass use of EV in the UK is a none starter at the moment.  The infrastructure is in place yet and thats before we consider the production of electricity.

Saying that I do think there is a place for EV’s at the moment as small delivery vehicles around cities (the old milk float proves they work).  The next logical step, presently, is Hydrogen powered vehicles.  But even if we stop the production / importation of petrol & diesel powered vehicles in the next five years, those we do have should last through to the mid 2040s.

While I would like to move away from fossil fuel, I can not see that happening very soon.

 

I’ve considered Hydrogen to be a better solution since I first heard about it a few years ago but the infrastructure isn’t there yet and probably won’t be for a while.

I think EV’s definitely have a place and are actually really well suited to the more energy independent island communities who have the advantage of their own electricity generation (I’m thinking Eigg who actually pioneered wind/solar combination and Gigha who produced all their own energy needs and then some).

My current vehicle is diesel which I will need to replace at some point in the next few years so this isn’t an immediate ‘how do I do this?’ Situation just that as society transitions away from fossil fuels how does this reflect in the ways we prepare. 

 

My family recently went all EV. We’ve had a Tesla for four years, and we just got an F150 Lightning. Driving the Tesla for so long has helped us overcome our EV anxiety.

We have chargers on the house, and the vehicles are set to charge overnight. So we wake up each morning with a “full tank.” We have charging adapters and accounts for all the major charging networks, so if we have to evacuate we have multiple options to recharge. We can also recharge at RV parks or camp grounds (which is what we do when we go camping.)

Our house has solar panels and Tesla Powerwalls. We could recharge from the solar, but we have a small roof with a small array. On a good day we generate 25 kWh, and the car full is 75, the truck 135. The truck is advertised as having the ability to power our house (and has more storage capacity than the Powerwalls), but our electrician looked at our current set up and backed away. The city says we’ll likely need a commercial rather than residential electrician. We can run an extension cord to the truck from the house, haha.

I live in Texas, and we’re all still shell shocked from the week without power 2 years ago. The most asked question we get is what will we do if it happens again. Well, gas stations don’t work without electricity either, and either of my vehicles can make it to Oklahoma if Texas’s grid crashes. I also don’t have to worry about the next manufactured gas shortage when another hurricane hits the refineries in the Gulf