Power outages another EV weakness...

[jeffhre]

Do gas pumps work if the power is out?

[voltage692]

Do gas pumps work if the power is out?

Usually not. But it's different with an ICE because you can already have 400 miles of actual range in the tank and you can drive to a place with electricity for their pumps to fill up quickly. A BEV doesn't fill up quick. And you can stock pile gasoline a lot easier/cheaper than electricity.

[pavers123]

If they're expecting an outage, or believe that they are in an area prone to them, they will likely have a generator - which could also be used to charge the car, especially if they got one of the 240v plug converted EVSEs...

Actually, for my Volt I see this as a strength - not only is it of course fully able to drive to work on gas, but it is more likely to have a mostly full tank than a standard gas car would (since I'd mostly only use gas on road trips, I'm more likely to stop to "top it off" compared to gas cars that I routinely ran to the low fuel light.)

I admit that I leave it close to empty for a while as well. In fact I recently left it on "Low Fuel" for a couple of days much to my wife's concern. That said, this is not a good strategy if the SHTF or TEOTWAWKI, for those that subscribe to those theories. I think it is a good idea to have half gallon of gas in the tank if you are anywhere near a metropolitan area, particularly DC and NYC.

[Lee Willis]

I'm not worried about outages with the gasoline backup but it is possible that in the height of a snowstorm, outage or not, I might not want to drive the Volt, plus frankly the heater is anemic in really really cold weather. I have gasoline cars (a Ferrari w 3500 m., a '66 Sunbeam with so many the odo has lost count) but they are not appropriate for winter, so I bought a '99 Chrysler 300 today in reasonable condition as a 'contingency car' for $1800, with new snow tires on the front. It will sit \around back of the garage under a car cover, come the bad storm.

[voltage692]

$1800 sounds like cheap insurance, but a Chrysler that old that will sit for long periods of time sounds like an expensive repair bill waiting to happen.

I'm not worried about outages with the gasoline backup but it is possible that in the height of a snowstorm, outage or not, I might not want to drive the Volt, plus frankly the heater is anemic in really really cold weather. I have gasoline cars (a Ferrari w 3500 m., a '66 Sunbeam with so many the odo has lost count) but they are not appropriate for winter, so I bought a '99 Chrysler 300 today in reasonable condition as a 'contingency car' for $1800, with new snow tires on the front. It will sit \around back of the garage under a car cover, come the bad storm.