[edb_123]

I guess you could say the same about fossil fuel cars and gas stations? I doubt that everyone keeps their tanks full at all times. And just imagine the amount of traffic on roads in such a situation, regardless of your preferred energy source. You'd be struggling to get anywhere at all, unless you're among the first few fleeing town.

[Sebb767]

Not to mention that EVs outmileage every other type of engine in a traffic jam. Also, power is much easier to get compared to fuel (with maybe the exception of fuel for old diesels that will run on everything - but this depends on circumstance). This is really a bad dig at EVs.

[jcgrillo]

> power is much easier to get compared to fuel

Only if your power grid is functioning, which I wouldn't expect to be the case in most major disaster situations. Otherwise you'll be stuck burning fuel in a generator to charge your car.

EDIT: the other great thing about liquid fuel is it doesn't weigh very much. Diesel is 7.1lb/gal so if your diesel car gets 32mpg (like mine does) you get 4.5mi/lb. With 1500lb on a trailer--let's say it only gets 20mpg or 2.8mi/lb towing--that's an extra 4200mi of range. That's enough to go from Boston to Anchorage without refueling. It's also a much more easily transferable energy source than electrons--all you need to do is pour liquid from one container into another. You don't need some fancy battery charger that needs stable power at such and such Volts, Watts, and Hz.. So, no, in a disaster or war situation I doubt the EVs will work at all.

[toast0]

> Not to mention that EVs outmileage every other type of engine in a traffic jam.

A hybrid will be very competitive and likely do better if it's cold (maybe a jam because of a blizzard)

[nucleardog]

Liquid fuels are relatively light and easy and quick to transfer.

When we had no power for a week, I drove a couple hours away to a gas station, spent 15 minutes filling jerry cans, and came back with enough energy to power my entire house for a week.

Yeah, in a continental or global disaster, we’re quickly going to be unable to get our hands on gasoline without the drilling and refineries and distribution, etc and electricity would be much more available. In the much more frequent and likely regional disaster… I’d prefer to be stuck with gasoline right now.

I could definitely see a future where instead of a noisy generator I power my house off of my car for a week until the charge is getting low, supplemented by some solar, then drive a couple hours to where the electricity is working and spend a half hour charging it back up.

I just don’t think we’re quite there yet. A typical long range EV right now, after the power to get me there and back, would have about 25kWh of power I could use for other things. That would be three hours of driving to replace 3 hours of generator output.

[vel0city]

I've actually lived through evacuations of a major metro area...twice.

Both times gasoline quickly became incredibly hard to come by. Electricity would have been a lot easier.

Also, there was massive amounts of traffic trying to leave. An idling car slowly creeping through a 100mi traffic jam still uses a good bit of gas. An EV uses very little energy slowly rolling in the same situation. Sure at normal speeds I would have easily had 300+mi in the gas cars, but my mileage in traffic was massively worse on the 14+ hour drive from Houston to San Antonio.

[throwaway2037]

    > spent 15 minutes filling jerry cans, and came back with enough energy to power my entire house for a week.

Wow, this really feels like a stretch!

How much fuel were you using to power your house for a week? I find it hard to believe you can pump more than 100 gallons of fuel in 15 mins.

    > in a continental or global disaster

Have you lived through any of these? If yes, can you provide a real world example, not a hypothetical scenario.

[jcgrillo]

If your gas or diesel engine is old enough you could build yourself a wood/coal gasifier[1] and get yourself down the road. With a fairly simple regulator engines can be made to run well enough on natural gas, propane, maybe acetylene? Diesels will burn just about any liquid hydrocarbon, at least for a time before they succumb to injector pump damage or excessive carbon buildup.

EDIT: sure would love to know why y'all're downvoting... Is anything I wrote incorrect? Speaking from experience having crossed the US more than once burning various waste oils I'm pretty sure everything I wrote above is correct and factually accurate..

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas_generator

[vel0city]

Because its massively impractical to think the average person is going to get the notice "you've got anywhere from an hour to an afternoon to evacuate" and be ready to convert their vehicle to goal gas and have plenty of wood/coal to actually get through the evacuation.

[TylerE]

Gas stations are independent. The energy is already on site. In a real pinch it can be pumped with manu labor.

None of that is true in the EV case.

[jdminhbg]

If you’re in the kind of Mad Max scenario where you are manually pumping gas, you might as well be hotwiring solar panels for your EV while you’re at it.

[fragmede]

you could imagine a mad max world having a bank of slaves riding bicycles so manual labor charges batteries to drive a cybertruck