novaBBS - alt.politics - Re: Electric cars have a road trip problem, even for the secretary of energy

Too bad she didn't try to suck on the charging cable.

"Electric cars have a road trip problem, even for the secretary of
energy"

<https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2023%2F09%2F10%
2F1187224861%2Felectric-vehicles-evs-cars-chargers-charging-energy-
secretary-jennifer-granholm>

"When Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm set out on a four-day
electric-vehicle road trip this summer, she knew charging might be a
challenge. But she probably didn't expect anyone to call the cops.

Granholm's trip through the southeast, from Charlotte, N.C., to Memphis,
Tenn., was intended to draw attention to the billions of dollars the
White House is pouring into green energy and clean cars. The
administration's ambitious energy agenda, if successful, could
significantly cut U.S. emissions and reshape Americans' lives in
fundamental ways, including by putting many more people in electric
vehicles.

Enlarge this image
Granholm approaches a charging station to charge the Cadillac Lyriq she
was riding during a four-day road trip through the southeast early this
summer. The electric vehicle had charging problems due to an "isolated
hardware issue," Cadillac says. But Granholm's team encountered plenty of
not-so-isolated problems too.
Camila Domonoske/NPR
On town hall stops along her road trip, Granholm made a passionate,
optimistic case for this transition. She often put up a photo of New York
City in 1900, full of horses and carriages, with a single car. Then
another slide: "Thirteen years later, same street. All these cars. Can
you spot the horse?"

One horse was in the frame.

"Things are happening fast. You are in the center of it. Imagine how big
clean energy industries will be in 13 years," she told one audience in
South Carolina. "How much stronger our economy is going to grow. How many
good-paying jobs we're going to create � and where we are going to lead
the world."

Going along for the ride
The auto industry, under immense pressure to tackle its contribution to
climate change, is undertaking a remarkable switch to electric vehicles �
but it's not necessarily going to be a smooth transition.

Not every vehicle in Granholm's caravan was electric. The Secret Service,
for instance, rode in large traditional SUVs.
Camila Domonoske/NPR
I rode along with Granholm during her trip, eager to see firsthand how
the White House intends to promote a potentially transformative
initiative to the public and what kind of issues it would encounter on
the road.

Granholm is in many ways the perfect person to help pitch the United
States' ambitious shift to EVs. As a two-term former governor of
Michigan, she helped rescue the auto industry during the 2008 global
financial crisis, and she's a longtime EV enthusiast. (Her family
recently switched from the Chevy Bolt to the Ford Mustang Mach-E.)

That makes her uniquely well positioned to envision the future of the
auto industry and to sell the dream of what that future could look like.

But between stops, Granholm's entourage at times had to grapple with the
limitations of the present. Like when her caravan of EVs � including a
luxury Cadillac Lyriq, a hefty Ford F-150 and an affordable Bolt electric
utility vehicle � was planning to fast-charge in Grovetown, a suburb of
Augusta, Georgia.

Her advance team realized there weren't going to be enough plugs to go
around. One of the station's four chargers was broken, and others were
occupied. So an Energy Department staffer tried parking a nonelectric
vehicle by one of those working chargers to reserve a spot for the
approaching secretary of energy.

As carbon removal gains traction, economists imagine a new market to save
the planet
PLANET MONEY
As carbon removal gains traction, economists imagine a new market to save
the planet
That did not go down well: a regular gas-powered car blocking the only
free spot for a charger?

In fact, a family that was boxed out � on a sweltering day, with a baby
in the vehicle � was so upset they decided to get the authorities
involved: They called the police.

The sheriff's office couldn't do anything. It's not illegal for a non-EV
to claim a charging spot in Georgia. Energy Department staff scrambled to
smooth over the situation, including sending other vehicles to slower
chargers, until both the frustrated family and the secretary had room to
charge.

This charging station in Grovetown, Ga., was overcrowded. An electric
school bus that was driving on a statewide clean-energy road show needed
one charger; another charger was broken.
Camila Domonoske/NPR
Getting it together
John Ryan, a driver of an electric BMW, pulled up after everything was
settled. It was his turn to wait.

"It's just par for the course," he shrugged. "They'll get it together at
some point."

Federal money is now headed to states for building up fast EV chargers on
highways
BUSINESS
Federal money is now headed to states for building up fast EV chargers on
highways
"They" would be the government, the automakers, the charging networks
like Electrify America and ChargePoint, and the companies like Walmart,
Shell and 7-Eleven that are entering the charging game.

And they are, in fact, desperate to get it together. Carmakers have
hundreds of billions of dollars of investment on the line, and they are
embracing Tesla's technology and teaming up with rivals to try to tackle
the charging problem. Meanwhile, the U.S. government is pouring billions
into a nationwide network of electric chargers, trying to fix the very
problem Granholm was encountering.

I drive an electric vehicle myself, and I've test-driven many more as
NPR's auto reporter. I know how easy it can be to charge when everything
goes well and how annoying it can be when things go poorly.

Riding along with Granholm, I came away with a major takeaway: EVs that
aren't Teslas have a road trip problem, and the White House knows it's
urgent to solve this issue.

Solving the road trip problem
The road trip has long loomed large in the American automotive
imagination.

Road trips are a tiny fraction of the trips Americans take; drivers
mostly commute or drive around town. And at home, charging an EV is much
easier (not to mention cheaper) than fueling up with gasoline; you just
plug in overnight, and you're good to go every morning.

On a practical basis, making sure everyone can charge at home would seem
much more important than building road trip chargers. And this is a real
concern for some drivers.

But for many drivers, it's not charging at home that worries them: It's
what they'll do on the road.

An electric vehicle charger stands in front of an International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union hall and training center in
Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Camila Domonoske/NPR
According to the auto-data giant J.D. Power, worries about public
chargers are the No. 1 reason why would-be EV buyers are reluctant to
make the switch, even outranking concerns about high prices. And driver
satisfaction with public chargers is getting worse, not better.

Tesla chargers are significantly better than the competition, and most of
the electric vehicles in the U.S. are Teslas.

Tesla is opening up its exclusive network to more vehicles, which could
transform the charging experience as soon as next year, but not all
automakers have embraced Tesla's technology. And although Tesla dominates
the EV market, the Biden administration wants every automaker to go
electric quickly and every driver to have access to fast, reliable
charging.

"Ultimately, we want to make it super-easy for people to travel long
distances," Granholm told me.

But as she knows, long-distance travel in non-Tesla EVs is not always
"super-easy" today.

Problem 1: Planning is cumbersome
The secretary's trip had been painstakingly mapped out ahead of time to
allow for charging. We stopped at hotels with slower "Level 2" plugs for
overnight charging and then paused at superfast chargers between cities.

That required upfront work that a gas-powered road trip simply doesn't
require. My car can hypothetically locate a nearby charger on the road �
as with many EVs, that feature is built into an app on the car's
infotainment screen � so I shouldn't have to plan ahead. But in reality,
I use multiple apps to find chargers, read reviews to make sure they work
and plot out convenient locations for a 30-minute pit stop (a charger by
a restaurant, for instance, instead of one located at a car dealership).

At a stop in South Carolina, Granholm told audiences she recognized the
importance of making chargers easy to find on apps.

For chargers to qualify for new federal money, the energy secretary
explained, "they have to be every 50 miles and within 1 mile off the
charging corridor, and they have to be app enabled. So you have to be
able to see with your phone, is this charger available so that I can go
use it, right?"

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Subject	Author
Electric cars have a road trip problem, even for the secretary of energy	Paul Ragna
Re: Electric cars have a road trip problem, even for the secretary	pothead
Re: Electric cars have a road trip problem, even for the secretary of energy	John Doe

Rome was not built in one day. -- John Heywood

interests / alt.politics / Re: Electric cars have a road trip problem, even for the secretary of energy

interests / alt.politics / Re: Electric cars have a road trip problem, even for the secretary of energy