Hurricane evacation and electric vehicles
 

So what's the plan?

Worse case scenario you live in southern Florida, something like a tesla isn't going to get you out of there, not even close with out having to stop for an extended charge up.
Even living some where like Houston with the much more common garden variety leaf, it will get you away from immediate danger with its range but that is only about 1/2 to 1/3 of the way to ideally where I think you would want to ride out a really bad one. Obviously a tesla could easily get you away from the coast no problem. But most people can't afford a tesla and most people that can probably evacuated via first class air plane ticket and doesn't care about their house or vehicles because it's all insured.

Don't leave your pets or electric vehicles behind. It's cruel and inhumane.

https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1694625165

What about stopping for gas and no stations have any?

If you waited until the last minute to leave, what do you expect?

A very potent question. Hope that the water goes less than 100mi by road from your current location at the moment of the evac order and that your not at work with a partial charge.

Hire a crew to drive the highway to clear the road way of dead/turtle mode EV's to facilitate the continued Evac of ICE rigs .

Slightly related, What do they do with city transport? Could the city deploy busses to evac people?

That could be an option.

My plan? A good captain always goes down with his ship!

Hadn't thought about this. Harvey didn't make a dent 200 miles north (where I live, clouds, much cooler, but no wind and literally just sprinkles), but Irma surely will. Seems to me Florida would have some infrastructure for this, though I'd not have a clue where to start looking.

I read about some people in Houston parking their cars on the upper levels of parking garages to keep them above water, so that could be an option.

For EVs trying to outdrive the storm, there's always charging with 120v if no L2 or L3 chargers are available. Hopefully you gave yourself enough time that ~4 miles of range added per hour is enough. At least if the roads are packed, an EV should squeeze out more miles/kwh than usual.

Regardless of vehicle type, it's always better to have an emergency plan in case of living in a disaster-prone area. But anyway, I'd still rather get a conventional ICE, and if I had an EV I'd probably also keep a portable genset readily available.

If you were smart enough to fill up you should at least have tesla like range. If not then you have been making poor life choices.
Then when you do find gas again it will take you less than 10 minutes to restore full range again.

Yes the ev should have the performance advantage at interstate parking lot speeds as long as the driver leaves the heating and air conditioning off.

Filling up in advance and stockpiling Jerry cans would be the minimum to expect from any reasonable-minded person intending to leave. Not to mention ready-to-eat food which would also become important, to avoid stopping at the diners along the escaping route.

I wonder if anyone's stuffed a generator in the back and run an extension cord to charge while driving :D

All manufactured electric vehicles have a charge immobilizer so they can't be driven away from the charging station while plugged in.
This seems like a fine idea most of the time. But might make more sense if it could be disabled as needed.

Sounds like a solution in search of a problem. Conventional ICE cars do not have a similar shut-off mechanism.

Maybe they should so the hose wouldn't get ripped off or people forget to put the gas cap on and close the door.

Chevy did! They stuck it up front, though

Having quick-releases for both gas and electric stations seems prudent. I wonder why they have not implemented that. I know fuel hoses snap off, but I do not believe you can reattach them.

Shoutty Kilmer keeps posting videos about flooded cars. Someone tried to start a 300 and blew holes in it. Scotty got the water out of an older car and it started, but the computer was ruined, and that was too expensive a repair to be worthwhile for that car.

Ben Nelson bought that flooded iMiev. I keep wondering how flooded electric cars will work out.

Who leaves during the storm?

I always park my cars somewhere safe the day before the storm is scheduled to hit.

Most likely the same people who scream bloody murder that their ____ (fill in the blank with whatever) is ruined because its junk (not because they failed to plan).

Right, and if there is no electricity, the pumps don't work.

Right, waiting till the last minute is dumb regardless of what vehicle you own...

But, I could siphon gas from my other cars/motorcycle/lawn equipment and take those gas cans with me. Plus, my Civic will go 700 miles on one tank.

This really only becomes a concern if your only car is an EV, I would guess most people in this scenario would just take their other vehicle.

Cowmeat, will you please provide us with more information?

He was referring to the Volt, which, while it's technically a PHEV instead of a range extended EV, functions like an EV with a range extender gas engine.

Don't need pumps/ electricity to empty a gas can gravity is awesome. ICE 1 EV 0
ICE dose not lose speed till the tank is empty tank. EV has 20% battery in reserve for turtle mode. ICE 2 EV 0
ICE reduced mpg in stop and go. EV same range at 5 or 60. ICE 2 EV1( POINT GOES TO ICE if A/C, Defrost, or heat is used)
EV 900lbs total people and life possessions (subtract extras to charge in rout) . ICE from equal capacity through duce and a hafe. ICE 3 EV1.
Well looks like living in this world (disasters hit all people and palaces) means EV is for the rich or the soon to be dead. Many east coasters went west . Now must go north ,so much for planning ahead

My diesel suburban with 40 gallon tank can get 800 miles of range. Put a huge trailer on the back, maybe cut the range in half. Still 400 miles of range.
Each 5 gallon diesel can is +75 miles, plus I saw that gas was running out, not diesel.

good thing my russian banger can withstand E85 stock, it'll just run badly.

if finland was ever hit by disaster, theres a crapton of abandoned cars laying around here where you can siphon gas from....

Were you ever able to test a higher ethanol content? BTW what would it be running badly? Just a rough start or does it remain bad after that? Eventually, an auxiliary cold-start gasoline injection, such as used in Brazilian dedicated-ethanol and earlier flexfuel cars could help overcoming that issue.


Though I would be quite concerned about contaminations in old gasoline, such as humidity and even algae growth (despite it being by far more frequent with Diesel than gasoline), at least it sounds better than nothing. Anyway, once I accidentally added a small amount of tap water to the fuel tank of a Chevrolet Celta and it actually ran better, but it only did so because of the ethanol content in Brazilian gasoline that solubilizes the water in the gasoline.

I would think that when people noticed a new abandoned car they would siphon the gas.

Free fuel!

If the vehicles get abandoned on the interstate it's probably because they are out of gas.

Anybody actually siphon gas out of new cars lately? Since about MY 2000 American manufacturers have antisiphon filler necks. You can get a quart but that's it.

I've watched them in a scrapyard punching holes through the bottom of the tank! I stood W-E-L-L back.

Newer cars tend to have long snaking small hose that connects the filler neck to the tank, good luck sending a suction tube down to the tank.
Most vehicles don't have short large filler neck to tank tubes like cars and trucks had up until the 80s.

When the gas pipeline went out and gas prices went up fifteen years ago someone mentioned getting a drill and a siphon to pull gas from their boat.

Perhaps they could not simply siphon it out, but a large gas can sounded like a far better solution.

Is there anything hard and durable enough to punch holes that is not metal?

It was a hammer and chisel these guys were using!

Right.

How many gas tanks have drain plugs? Why punch a hole when you can just open the drain?

Why look for a spanner of a particular size when you have a hammer and chisel to hand. We are talking scrappies here. Not mechanics! Hammer and chisel works on everything from a bike to a big truck!!

I don't think I have ever seen a fuel tank for an on road vehicle with a drain plug, besides a motor cycle, but they usually have a drain valve.

(The stunt of high mpg is just that. And meaningless in this situation. I've a post in the thread, "Economics of Modding" which goes towards thinking of what practicality means. Specifics to this thread, then, are):

No, sir, you have maybe 120-150/miles of range in an evacuation with that Suburban. Safer to call it 100 for planning. 3-5/mpg average for crowded Interstate. All cars, same problem. Biggest integral fuel tank for the win.

150-miles is the magic number. At this point, traffic should have fanned out or thinned enough beyond the range of the affected area to be able to find fuel.

This assumes one has looked into a plan far in advance of need. And tested it.

When I lived in Corpus Christi I made a fairly comprehensive survey of this and related topics. Based on historical accounts thru FEMA and state/city sources.

My route out of CC was to bypass the Edwards Plateau to the west as everything east of IH35 from Laredo to San Antonio (to the Louisiana Coast) would have been inundated by vehicles.

Given that even half my planned distance could be accomplished at a 30-mph average, I would be well within my known figures for a 18,000-lb combined vehicle to reach fuel stations outside of the heavily-trafficked areas.

Boys, if you don't know this kind of thing about your vehicle -- fully laden via scale numbers, how then to achieve best FE, total distance versus reserve, etc -- just remember you've had these examples stating you in the face. It needn't be a hurricane to want to get out of Dodge.

An electric vehicle is sacrificial by its nature. Being stranded out on the road and unable to use easily transported liquid fuel is the cue card for "stupid".

Besides, the Mazda SkyActiv HCCI engine has now killed the electric car. An economic argument can no longer be made in use of tax dollars and societal gain, not just individual "savings".

.

Still, no reports of stations running out of diesel, only running out of gas.
Diesel, the other fuel the gas station never runs out of.

Aye, right.

Also haven't seen drain plugs in the fuel tank of any car, but many have an internal access under the rear seat where the fuel pump is mounted. So, siphoning fuel from those cars is not totally out of question.