The folks who would end up with an uncharged EV when they need to evacuate are the same folks who would also have 1/8 of a tank of gas or diesel.ģ) In hurricane country, the heater will be the last thing you’d need to run in your vehicle during an evacuation. Since you’re interested in facts, here are a few more to lay on you:ġ) Hurricanes have been difficult to predict for, let’s see… “ever”.Ģ) People who live in hurricane country are used to planning for them and their vagaries. I lived in hurricane alley for a long time, and I’ve been through many hurricanes beginning with Frederick in 1979. Internal combustion engines will remain common in the South and the Midwest even beyond the necessary ” improvements in infrastructure,” because we know from experience that even the existing infrastructure sometimes just stops working in bad enough weather. I’m not suspension engineer (please chime in and tell me how wrong I am, if you are) but I’d assume that designing appropriate suspension for such a rig would be a bit of a challenge and/or it would need to be electrically/pneumatically controlled somehow, but it would open a lot of possibilities… Imagine having a vehicle that could literally “walk” up ledges.īut then again, maybe that takes all of the fun out of it?Īny kind owned in the deep south/hurricane country, where power outages can last for days or weeks after a nasty storm.įor all the justifiable worry about “what the grid can handle” with regard to an explosion in electric vehicles, Southerners and Midwesterners have a separate worry altogether: what if the grid, exactly as it exists today, is not powering your house at all for the rest of the week? What if you have to evacuate, and your batteries don’t have enough juice in them to safely get you to the next nearest charging station outside the “cone of uncertainty”? What if you get stranded on the side of the road in the middle of the storm as it is coming ashore? What if you had only been able to top off your tank at a little country store in the middle of nowhere and keep moving? We’re a long way from having the right kind of software to handle that, and we don’t have great control systems to handle that amount of flexibility right now, but I think that’s what the endgame would be… Though likely with a diesel backup generator for extended/camping trips. We’re definitely not there yet, but having totally independently controlled suspension and power to each wheel would be great… Having independant steering for each wheel could be even greater. I’d argue that “the best” offroaders will eventually be direct-drive EVs that don’t even have axels to deal with. “But even a basic EV is sooo much faster and more powerful than many of those ‘muscle’ cars!” Well, let’s just let Corvette Man take the mic here: As for muscle cars and sports cars, you already get it: the sound and feel of an ICE engine is massive part of the car’s personality and the satisfaction of the driving experience (even more so when coupled to a manual gearbox). But if you’re also burning up battery to run your campsite night after night, and don’t plan on being anywhere near a form of civilization that includes a charging network, maybe ICE power and a large-capacity fuel tank (and/or extra containers of fuel) is the better recipe for extended adventure in the wild. Yes, the effortless torque and precise throttle control of electric power makes EV off-roaders spectacularly capable machines, and there’s plenty of range to keep you rolling. (Pssst, you can read about the Lexus rig pictured above right here, and Thomas has the 2024 Mustang GT review here). Here are two categories of possible ICE holdouts that come to mind: overlanders and muscle/sports cars. But that doesn’t mean everything with a fuel-burning engine will soon be carrying a battery and motor, or that the millions of ICE cars and trucks on the road today will be pried away from those who prefer them, or that every type of vehicle than can be electric-powered will be offered exclusively so if there are sufficient customers who want or need a fuel-burning model. If anyone out there is still thinking or hoping EVs are going to go away–surely no one who visits this site regularly–rest assured EVs are here to stay. I just saw Oppenheimer (pretty good, but it’s no Barbie), and naturally the film included the phrase “you can’t put the atomic genie back in the bottle.” Thankfully that genie hasn’t done much (bomb-wise, anyway) since WWII, but the electric-car genie? Well, that guy has been busy.
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