America, where they are pulling models. I have PHEVs and enjoy them, but I am aware that many people are not going to buy EVs with their current specs. Either they live somewhere cold, where range will fluctuate and not be sufficient at times of the year, or they live somewhere that has power outages frequently enough (or at times of emergency) that they do not consider pure EVs. This is especially true for people with only one car. Families that have multiple cars are obviously more open to having one car that's an EV.
EVs are actually great during power outages. Many have power outlets so you can run your fridge, charge devices, etc. while the power is out. Any gas station without its own backup generator will be unable to pump gas during an outage.
If you have home charging, it's more likely that you'll have a mostly full battery than that the power outage will occur when you have a mostly full tank of gas.
It's a bit more work and expense but some EVs can even act as automatic or manual whole-home power backups.
Unless you live somewhere that regularly loses power for a week+, an EV might actually be a net benefit.
I don't understand the argument, wouldn't you _want_ an EV if you have frequent power outages?
You could run your house for weeks off a 100kWh traction battery with V2G.
I looked into this and discovered that most EVs don't support it, and the ones that do require even more electrical retrofitting to make it possible.
The people I know who are afraid of outages/EV usage are ones in CA, where an earthquake could knock out power, and they'd need to go a very long distance to get somewhere safe/stable.
If there's a charging station with power within 200 miles then you're fine. That's a pretty big radius.
If power is out in that large of a radius you would also likely have trouble getting gas.
And you don't need the expensive equipment to just run an extension cord from the EV to power critical appliances.
If there's a charging station with power within 200 miles it will be overloaded by everyone freeing. There are way more gas stations than charging stations, and they only take a few mins per person, so they would not be nearly as overloaded. Also, there would not be a "run on the bank" mentality since everyone knows gas is pretty available, even in emergencies.
As for powering critical appliances, I'd need a super long heavy duty extension cord to power my fridge, and I don't even know if my vehicle is capable. I'd also have to have my garage door open while it's plugged in, which is not ideal to say the least.
In real world examples (places that get hurricanes, for example), the charging stations generally come back online before the gas stations. And an EV is way better in stop-and-go evacuation traffic, too.
> need a super long heavy duty extension cord to power my fridge
Why on earth would you need a heavy duty extension cord for something which pulls so little power?
I otherwise agree with the sentiment, however, it is way more convenient to set up your panel so you can backfeed it to power the whole house (or a nice chunk of it, at least). My Lightning will power all the important bits of my house for the better part of a week, all from the plug in the bed of the truck.
I would need a heavy-duty extension cord because I would have to run it 60 feet from my garage all the way into my kitchen. I also have no idea how I would actually plug the fridge in because the power cord is hidden way in the back.
That it would be more convenient in the long run if I could backfeed to my panel, but almost no EVs in the U.S. are actually capable of this. The F-150 Lightning that you have is quite unique in this regard.
I have absolutely experienced the “run on the bank” effect on gas in areas under hurricane warning, as well as weeks afterwards.
FWIW, it always requires retrofitting because otherwise you'll kill the guy trying to get your power back. That, or power your whole block…
Norway proves that cold is not a problem—it’s a matter of incentives
Norway is a small country and most people are not making long distance trips there. Despite being far and far north, they're also close to water and so large parts of the country have a much milder climate than you would expect for their latitude.
Don't get me wrong. The electric cars work just fine in cold weather. As long as your trip isn't too long. I however discovered the hard way last winter about a week after I got my electric car that when the weather is below zero Fahrenheit it gets about half the expected range and I had a trip that was just a little bit over half the expected range - I'm lucky there was a slow charger along that trip, there were no fast chargers anywhere along the route. (An hour charge over lunch got me the 10 extra miles I needed to get home - I didn't eat at my first choice but it worked)