Electric Vehicles and "Range Anxiety"

Craig, I'm so glad you brought this up. When I met with Austin Energy about its plans for how EVs will impact the grid, the representatives cited an interesting study. Apparently a study was conducted in Japan that showed that EV drivers with a 100-mile range and no external charging stations would drive less than 40 miles before going home and recharging. When the study introduced external charging stations, drivers ventured about 70 miles from home but still went back home to charge! In other words, drivers needed the external charging stations to feel better about venturing further but they didn't actually use them to charge.

The takeaway for Austin Energy was that if it wanted to seriously encourage EV adoption, it would need to put charging stations all around the city, even though the utility is pretty sure drivers won't use them all that much. The city-wide charging stations would need to be there just to alleviate range anxiety.

definitely a problem. When on the golf course I'd rather have a gas vs electric cart because, more than one time, I've had an electric cart barely get back to the clubhouse w/o a struggle. And, I keep thinking of a small cross town trip on a freeway where there's a 1 hour+ unexpected traffic jam, and I'm caught in the stop and go, anxiously watching the power meter.

Range anxiety is just another excuse for not going EV. It's the same as "If it worked everybody would be doing it".My answer to it is, everybody is doing it, what's stopping you? No, seems to be a very popular word these days.

rich - sitting in a traffic jam will make no difference to your range unless you need the heater or AC on. On the other hand I can remember when I've sat in a traffic jam on a hot day and watched the temperature gauge inexorably climbing to destruction levels as I inch forward!

Installing charging stations knowing that nobody will use them is just what you would expect out of government. Knowing there are charging meters scattered randomly about the city certainly would not get me to drive longer distances and I have my doubts it really did in Japan. That study was probably done by a charging station installation company ; )

The utility of EVs would be greatly increased if they were designed to use an auxiliary charging system, essentially converting them to a hybrid when necessary. A small gas turbine genset and a 5 gallon propane tank would indefinitely extend range, (tanks could refilled or be bought for long trips), and these could be rented before hand or supplied by AAA for stranded EVers. The EVs would have to have a charging outlet and an exhaust port in the cargo area, but these additions would be cheap and the peace of mind invaluable.

I think that it's entirely possible we might see the EV version of hypermiling, where some miles-per-charge enthusiasts try to see how far you can really go in your '100 miles per charge' EV. Maybe some people will learn what driving efficiently really means.

Range anxiety is just another excuse. I ride an ebike to work every day. If I'm going to do some side trips, I just bring my charger. We do have brains. Let's use them!

I have an electric vehicle. I use it for around town trips. I don't get stranded because I know the limitations and rarely push the limits. Charging stations at this stage in the game will never be where you need them and take too long to charge. To spend tax dollars installing them is a waste. The market will install them once it detects profit to be made doing so. It takes time.

It would be helpful if the U.S. Government would end its viciously thorough suppression of new energy inventions. For example, to protect the oil and coal companies, the U.S. Patent Office has unfairly classified secret 5000 energy patents. See www.energysuppression.com.

For my advanced self-powered electric vehicle concept, see my somewhat obsolete compilation of "Advanced Technologies for Foreign Resort Project" which is in http://www.icestuff.com/~energy21/advantech.htm and http://www.linux-host.org/energy/advantech.htm.

http://www.padrak.com/vesperman/ has more energy sources.

Also see the New Energy Congress's top 100 new energy technologies.

Electric cars are rich peoples toys.

I can not afford two cars. Most of my driving is around town, less than 100 miles. But every couple of weeks I drive farther than 100 miles. An electric car will not do that.


Electric cars are not clean. The electricity to charge the batteries comes from coal fired electric generators, which are the most polluting around. And the electricity loss traveling over long distance transmission lines is in the 6-8% range, which makes electric cars less efficient than gasoline cars. Most people would charge their electric car at night when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow much, so you can't go green either.

If everyone had electric cars we would have to build hundreds of more coal electric generating plants, and the smoke would block out the sun.

Wow, sj_kac, congratulations--not just some of, but everything you said is wrong. I highly doubt you are that incompetent, so I'm curious if you are malicious or just trying to be ironic. Most likely a troll, I guess. 30 minutes with Google and you will find:

The Leaf is $20k in California, effectively $22k in WA, $25k in other states--you don't have to be rich to get one. It's not a toy anyways; almost all EV owners I know use them as their primary cars. People without EVs worry about range; EV owners prefer driving electric. It's different, but it's not at all hard.

Electric cars go way more than 100 miles. I took mine on a 3,000 mile trip last month. You refill them, just like a gas car. It takes a little more planning, but no big deal--I sleep every night anyway. If you don't think you can plan and you're a one-car household, fine, get a plug-in hybrid. That's just an electric car with a small messy electricity plant attached--not as good, but much better than driving straight gas.

Electricity comes from many sources; that's one of the big advantages. A lot of EV owners have solar panels. The US mix is only half coal; but even if it was all coal, an electric motor is about 4x more efficient than a gas one, way overshadowing any transmission losses, so worst-case (which I think is only true in one state) an EV is no worse than a gas car--but it's still really better, because then you have a chance to clean up the grid, and the car's usage automatically gets cleaner. That won't work with gas.

Wind does blow at night. Electrons are fungible anyway; it doesn't matter which ones you get. We need to make them cleaner, but that's really a separate problem. Add solar to take care of any change to the peak during the day; then charge at night when you have excess capacity that is being thrown away anyway (in all but a couple of places). Everybody wins.

Charging stations!!! What a load!!!

Charging equipped bays at malls and McDonalds and city parking stations and other parking areas. Put in a small number at a time and charge based on usual markup. Add more when you have too make people wait. On long trips drivers stop for a break every two hours as recommended for road safety and get a fast charge at the cafe where you stop. An incremental charging network at usual parking areas is the answer.

Great points. Just like running out of gas there are many options. If you feel you go over 100 miles of your range you could get a Tesla S $50K with 300 mile ramge, pull over for 10 minutes and batteries recover for more range, slow down and use less energy or have a plugin hybrid and use a tiny bit of pollutiing imported fuel.

There are lost of solutions. One of my friends even has 600 watts of solar over his light VW rabbit pickup EV and it can recharge and add lots of range during the day. Let's look at solutions instead of possible problems.

OIL=leaks, pollution, spark explosions and fire, fumes, imported trade deficient, global warming. Why not look at the problems we can avoid.

RE: Comments from sj_kac and RedmondChad. One part of sj_kac's comment is correct; if the electric car is not very efficient and the elec comes from coal, there is as much CO2 produced, and more of other pollutants such as SO2 and mercury, than a gasoline car.
That is why we must change to huge amounts of renewables to get off both our oil imports and elec from fossil fuels at home. Concentrating Solar Thermal Power (CSP) has great potential to replace traditional power plants due to its smooth stable output and storage capabilities. Yes, we need a new national transmission grid to send renewable energy to all parts of the country, but it can be done at very small additional cost per kwh.
Bruce Michael
CoolerEnergy.org

RE: Bruce-michael comment. Bruce, unfortunately lack of quantification completely invalidates your first sentence. It is a major problem that many derive quantitative conclusions from vague qualitative ideas. You say "IF the electric car is NOT VERY efficient there is AS MUCH CO2 produced..." but appear unaware that electric cars are MULTIPLES more efficient than gasoline or diesel, not just a few percentage points better. Even if the electric did come from coal, which Redmond correctly points out is irrelevant, the pollution of an electric car is far less than gasoline or diesel. Note that you use "NOT VERY" which is vague non-quantitave to draw a quantitative conclustion "AS MUCH CO2 AND MORE other... " which are both definite comparative statements. The logic is false and also the whole premise of electric cars being not very efficient is also false. That this type of nonsense influences public discourse is perhaps the main reason why we cannot, politically, make much progress since most people are helpless both to make or analyze statements quantitatively unless they are specialized in a given field and are swayed by the seeming "logic" of any wild thing said regardless if it adds up or not.

OK, WFD, so you don't like statements without lots of facts. However, you stated that "...the pollution of an electric car is far less than gasoline or diesel" without any supporting facts. Yes, an electric motor is very efficient, but efficiency of the VEHICLE is in miles per gallon or miles per kwh, and that is what the CO2 emitted depends on. So here are some facts and calculations.

A June 2009 GAO report estimates that for compact sized vehicles, even when the electricity source is coal, there would be a 4-5% decrease in carbon dioxide emissions switching to electric vehicles. However, that will depend on the efficiencies of both types of vehicles, which are not stated in the report.

Here's a simple example. First, the gasoline car. Many compact cars can average 25 mpg or greater, or .04 gallons of gas per mile. Burning each gallon of gas yields 19.4 lbs CO2. So that car produces 0.78 lbs CO2/mile. A 30 mpg car would emit 0.65 lbs.

A coal fired power plant emits 2.117 lbs CO2 per KwH produced (source DOE). The "California Cars Initiative" estimates electric cars will get about 3.3 miles/KwH in real word driving. At 3.3 miles/KwH, an electric vehicle would produce 0.64 lbs CO2/mile, which is nearly identical to the 30 mpg gas car.

But what about a hybrid electric car vs an all electric car. A Prius can average over 40 mpg. It would only produce about .49 lb CO2/mile. To compare favorably, the electric car would need to get at least 4.3 miles/KwH, which is above the current estimate for electric vehicles. And don't forget burning coal produces other very harmful pollutants.

Therefore, if your electricity currently comes from coal fired power plants, you are "greener" by buying a hybrid or other vehicle which gets high gas mileage- until you can convince your power company to switch to renewable energy!

Bruce,
I have to eat my words and thank you for leading me to check out and clear up a long-held misconception. I had heard info from various sources (I no longer remember exactly where) that led me to think that EVs were perhaps 4 - 8 times less GHGs than fossil counterparts. One such assertion I just found on Tesla Motors web page
http://www.teslamotors.com/performance/well_to_wheel.php
which says
"How can you know, with certainty, how efficient one car is versus another? We conducted a "well-to-wheel" accounting for all fuel efficiency and emissions of several types of high-efficiency cars, including an estimate for the Tesla Roadster, based upon performance prototypes. Here's what we found: the Tesla Roadster offers double the efficiency of popular hybrid cars, while generating one-third of the carbon dioxide. Compare the Tesla Roadster against other sports cars and the results get better still: it is six times as efficient and produces one-tenth the pollution, all while achieving the same performance and acceleration."

But I didn't stop there. I did my own analysis of miles per gallon, miles per kWh, carbon content of gasoline/diesel and fossil production of electricity in the USA and came up with essentially the same numbers you state. Going further, I looked at Alternative Fuels and Advanced Vehicles Data Center
http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/vehicles/emissions_electricity.html
and found :
"A more recent study, Full Fuel Cycle Assessment: Well-to-Wheels Energy Inputs, Emissions, and Water Impacts by the California Energy Commission, shows that with the electricity fuel mix in California, EVs reduce GHG emissions by 74%." (http://www.energy.ca.gov/2007publications/CEC-600-2007-004/CEC-600-2007-004-REV.PDF)
That would imply a 4-fold improvement by EVs for the California electricity fuel mix, but I didn't immediately see it in the report.
So, I concede that you are right and thank you for your diligence. - WFD