Banning the use of electric vehicles during hurricane evacuations is on the agenda of one Florida senator, based on the possibility of EVs running out of charge and blocking roads.
Senator Jonathan Martin (R-Fort Myers) wants use of electric vehicles for evacuation temporarily restricted, until more charging stations are constructed along Florida highways to make recharging during a long evacuation more feasible.
Martin argues “what might look like a two-hour trip might turn into an eight-hour trip once you’re on the road,” the Tampa Bay Times reports. Dense traffic fleeing an oncoming storm can slow packed vehicles to a crawl. This raises the possibility of running out of fuel while waiting to escape, whether that fuel is gasoline or stored electricity.
The senator’s contention is that gas stations are readily available, making it less likely ICE vehicles will run out of fuel, but “there’s not an infrastructure currently available in the state of Florida for the amount of EVs that might be used to evacuate.” Another lawmaker, Senator Tom Wright (R-New Smyrna Beach), supported Martin by pointing out many new gas stations are under construction along Florida’s roads.
Other officials pushed back against Martin’s assertions. The Florida Department of Transportation (DOT) is investigating support for EV drivers during evacuations. The Department already sends out “Road Rangers” in emergency assistance vehicles that bring gasoline to drivers during an evacuation to prevent cars from running out of gas and blocking the road.
The Florida DOT’s executive director of transportation technologies Trey Tillander says the Road Rangers will start bringing portable chargers along with the gasoline, remarking, “if an electrical vehicle runs out of charge, there are technologies.” The Florida DOT will also disburse about $198 million in federal grant money over the next half-decade to help develop charging stations along major routes.
Senator Tina Polsky (D) noted some people may own no vehicles except EVs, making it impractical to disallow such vehicles during an evacuation. Recent evacuations did not see traffic problems caused by EVs, which are reported to number only about one percent of Florida passenger vehicles.
GM is pushing ahead with an aggressive electrification strategy, with plans to raise annual EV sales to 1 million units by 2025. The General intends to debut at least 30 new electric vehicle models worldwide during the same timeframe. The company expects this initiative to cost at least $7 billion by 2025.
Last month, GM CEO Mary Barra described 2023 as a “breakout year” for the company’s electric vehicle production. Analysts say GM’s EV production volume may be lagging competitors because it focused first on development of its GM Ultium batteries, electric GM Ultium Drive motors, and its highly scalable BEV3 platform.
Now that these technologies are in place, however, GM can potentially use them as a springboard to rapidly overtake its rivals, those same analysts note, including current first-place U.S. EV automaker Tesla.
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Comments
The old gas powered generator in the trailer ploy.
States can do what they deem best – if this anti-EV measure passes, then the federal government or other states shouldn’t meddle with Florida’s new law – just as they should not interfere with California’s EV mandate.
The reds love consumer choice as long as it’s there choice.
Charlie, sadly you’re right. I’m a conservative leaning Libertarian and follow neither party, but find it hypocritical when Republicans cry about California’s BEV mandates as government interference, yet champion Wyoming and Florida’s equally intrusive anti-BEV or franchise dealership protecting mandates because they align with their beliefs. Let the states decide and if you don’t like it, don’t go there or move out of the state. This isn’t complicated.
Owning a ICE and electric vehicle I am confused. A charge in an electric car takes a long time to run out at a crawl. It depletes the faster you drive. Therefore it should last much longer on a charge going 10 miles an hour. This has nothing to do with breaking down. It’s just more political BS dividing people in our country. Drive and EV or an ICE I don’t care. We spend too much time worrying about what other people are doing.
He is a Trump fanatic.
One thing you can’t do when your EV runs out of electricity you can’t bring a gallon of electricity to get it going again. The range that they advertise is under perfect 70% weather. If you’re using the heater or air conditioning or if the temperatures are hot or cold the range has been tested by experts to drop 25 to 50%. I have been saying for years what would happen if there is an emergency evacuation in Florida or California forest fires. Not all EVs are going to be fully charged when they need to evacuate.
Its a good thing cars never run out of gas.
Yes,but when they do ,it a lot easier and quicker to refuel them and get them going.
Especially when millions of others fleeing a hurricane all need gas – definitely no long lines of 30 minutes or more (time needed to charge a Tesla) or gas stations running out of gas like occurred last time – look it up.
That’s if the Tesla doesn’t catch fire first.
What new law! Please read the article before commenting. It’s a concern brought up and it’s only a discussion. If you really think about it, how can it be enforced? During traffic jams, as long as the air conditioning is off and the EV is stopped or at a crawl pace, barely uses any energy compared to an ICE vehicle.
All batteries will discharge, even when not in use .
In this article there is a photo of an Ultium Charge 360 charging station. Is it an artist’s concept or a real station? It has no display screen visible? Also, what does the 360 refer to?…Could the max charge rate actually be 360 kW?
That can build all the charging stations that want ,until the cows come home. If you are evacuating and have a EV stopping at a charging station is going to take you 30 minutes or more to charge up . There goes the idea of getting out out town in a hurry.
well it depends, soe of todays EV can be charged up to 100 miles in maybe 20 mins
but it wil make a lot better use of that charge since ICE vehicles ta best are %20-40 efficient in using the fuel they burn (and yes they burn it, and its where a lot of the power they use goes into, as opposed to moving the vehicles….its why they are called internal combustion engines). while EVs use about %90 of their power to move the vehicle, and sop and go is no problem, being stopped just means no power is being used, but an ICE vehicle doesnt like stop and go (more efficient at speed than stop and go). now if you need HVAC on, then both will do worse than when moving. that 0 mpg for ice will not be your friend
Ms Barra’s ‘Breakout YEAR’ is almost one-forth over….. I wonder what Whoppers she’ll spew in the coming months?
Still no new battery plants or even a settled design………
i find odd that the learned senator isnt prohibiting using ICE vehicles during a natural disaster, since most of those that hit Florida, will also hit the electrical grid, so that electricity is out in large areas where the disaster hit. and guess what happens to the gas stations without power? they cant fill up ICE vehicles either.
ELECTRIFICATION the greatest ruse of our lifetime. Unless a cleaner battery technology is developed we are just moving pollution around like a shell game.
Yup, from tailpipe to smokestack.
oddly enough it seems that some will ignore what either vehicle type has for pollution? are Evs perfect, but then nor are ICE. they each have pollution in production of their ‘fuel’. so unless someone has a magical way to make power, they neither have a leg to stand on.
but we can at least count every step that leads to the vehicle moving. an EV requires a battery (thats different than an ICE vehicle’s, and oddly enough both have a 12 volt battery too). and those large batteries require materials to be mined and transported to where they can be made into batteries. all of which requires digging into the ground, and moving the materials to where they are made into batteries. now ice vehicles also require acquiring materials (i.e. drilling) to power the vehicles, and transportation to where those materials can be made into fuel (refinery) . and moving the materials can itself be hazardous, as spills can pollute as can just transporting the materials ( we hear of spills it seems like very day. but not so much for the battery materials, maybe its that one is liquid and the other is soldi?) . course i dont recall hearing of any trains blowing up or spilling battery materials, but oil, is a different story. and many stories comparing the pollution form just making them ignore all of this part of production of vehicles. course then there is that you have to make sure to keep ICE vehicles inspected and sometimes tuned, usually at least once a year, to make sure they arent polluting . oddly enough EVs dont need this, but the power plants do (course dont forget that ICE vehicles need power plants too…to dispense fuel). but in many ways it easier to control may 10,000 power plants compared to doing that for millions of ICE vehicles. and we know how hard its been to control millions of vhicles. seems there is even a few times that the inspection process has been corrupted too
and in way reducing the number of inspections to just power plants is much easier to do that try to do that for millions of vehicles
I’m not a diehard EV person but what a dumb idea. ICE run all the time whether moving or not. EV’s drain energy when moving. More likely for an ICE vehicle to run out of gas before a charged will EV run out of charge due to stop and go traffic.
In either event, push the vehicle off the road and move on.
Ray, you’re spouting common sense
cant have that can we?
You can push an EV to the side of the road just as easy as an ICE vehicle. But not only that an EV isn’t wasting energy while stopped like ICE vehicles do their energy usage goes to almost zero. How will it go when there are more EVs than ICE. It’s funny how GM cries foul when it was them and other’s saying the sky is falling EVs will never take over. Now, even Toyota who for years has begged governments to not try to go to EVs or at least extend it until the 50s or so has seen the light and now says they will be all EVS by 2030. Which, I might add said was impossible until just recently. These companies have had their heads stuck in the sand and now want laws to keep them from paying for their stupidity. Someday not too far off in the feature there will be a lot of buyers of 50 or more thousand Dollar ICE vehicles see the market fall out from underneath them and like GM Toyota and others they will cry for help.
For those who do not live in Florida, Florida has a state statute Sections 0526.143 that defines where gas station must have backup generators or a transfer switch for portable generators. The is also rules that portable generators must be stored within a certain distance or the number of gas stations one owner owns. I’ve seen most new stations to have on site generators. The statue took effect 2006 after five hurricanes hit Florida in one season.
Eventually gas stations will become charging stations and in Florida the statue will have to change a bit since the statue is written for “liquid motor fuels”.
cool, i guess getting so often by hurricanes taught the state it needs a law
i do wonder who validates that the backup generators actually work, and are fueled up and useable by the ‘near by’ stations?
and yes, being an EV charging station is probably what gas stations will do (and some are doing already). after all, selling gas isnt what makes the station profitable any more, its the other products they sell make them profitable. hard to make a business work when every week the price of the product changes, some time large increases and decreases