EV road tripping isn t going to ideal for everyone, but it doesn t have to be. If it only works for

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While following the he said he said back and forth between the New York Time s James Broder and Tesla s Elon Musk, over Broder s unsuccessful drive from New York to Boston in a Tesla Model S, it seemed to me that one important factor affecting consumer acceptance of EVs is being obscured by all the Sturm und Drang of the NYT and Musk both working this story for maximum bad publicity for their respectless enterprises. That factor, ironically, is why Tesla set up the media road trips in the first place, the fact that EVs will need a publicly accessible charging infrastructure if they are going to be seen as anything other than town cars. The Model S press trips from DC to Beantown were supposed to demonstrate short term apartment rentals in rome Tesla s expanding network of locations equipped with Tesla s Supercharger quick charging stations.
That need for public charging stations has been obscured by other issues in the discussion of electric cars, which it seems to me have been focused more on range than anything else. Tesla is not unwise to create it s own charging infrastructure for its customers short term apartment rentals in rome because the simple fact is that if you could recharge an EV as quickly and as conveniently as you can refuel a gasoline or diesel powered vehicle, and if you could find a charging station within your EV s range, range becomes more of a non issue. Let s face it, how many owners of gasoline cars really consider range on a single tank of gas when buying a new car? As long as you can get ~300 miles between fill ups, the vast majority of car consumers don t really care about range. Gas mileage yes, but I d bet that total range is only important to a minority of gas/diesel drivers.
This is nothing new . Like 3D photography and movies , this is not the first go-round with EVs. Electric cars and were marketed more than a century ago, at the dawn of the automotive age and soon enough electric car companies, electric component makers, trade organizations, tire and battery companies, short term apartment rentals in rome and publishers rushed in to help EV owners find a charge.
The EV side of the auto industry understood that drivers of EVs would need public charging facilities at the same time that it promoted electric cars as suitable for touring. The Electric Vehicle short term apartment rentals in rome Association of America even published a charging station short term apartment rentals in rome guide to the Lincoln Highway, short term apartment rentals in rome America s first attempt short term apartment rentals in rome at a coast to coast road. Since the longest short term apartment rentals in rome distance between charging stations was about 120 miles, well beyond the range of any contemporary electric car, it s doubtful than any early electric automobilists completed the entire route, but the EV industry did what it could to dispel the image that electric cars could not be taken on long trips. Tesla is doing the same today.
The fact that the Electric Vehicle Association agreed short term apartment rentals in rome on a standard charging short term apartment rentals in rome plug that was used by most EV makers made things a little easier. In the photo above, the charging port on a 1922 Milburn Light Electric is being held open so you can see the terminals in the photo above. The photo below shows a similar charging port, though closed, on a 1914 Detroit Electric runabout.
By 1912, the Detroit Electric Car company, the most successful of the first wave of EV makers (it has only been in the past year that the Nissan Leaf surpassed the Detroit Electric short term apartment rentals in rome as the most successful EV ever, in terms of total sales) had both standalone charging garages as well as combined sales branches and charging short term apartment rentals in rome stations in Detroit, Manhattan, Chicago , Boston, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Cleveland, Evanston, Kansas City, and Minneapolis.
In 1914, the New York Electric Vehicle Association, in conjunction with Automobile Blue Books started publishing route guides for electric short term apartment rentals in rome touring , that mapped the locations of charging stations and provided suggested touring routes.
While General Electric sold  mercury arc rectifier based residential chargers to EV owners, the majority of the more than 14,000 chargers that GE sold a century ago were sold to public facilities like hotels and parking garages.
The Exide battery company, perhaps the major EV battery maker in the early days of the automobile , set up its own storage and charging garage (many city dwellers didn t have residential parking for their cars) and battery depot in New York City.
As was shown 100 years ago, broadscale consumer acceptance of electric cars needs a publicly accessible charging infrastructure. short term apartment rentals in rome It s unfortunate that the war of words between Mr. Musk and the New York Times is obscuring rather than illustrating that need.
Ronnie Schreiber edits  Cars In Depth , a realistic perspective on cars car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can dig deeper at  Cars In Depth . If the 3D thing freaks you out, don't worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks for reading – RJS
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Thank you, Ronnie. Your posts are always interesting and informative. Your point about a charging short term apartment rentals in rome infrastructure is lost in the chatter surrounding the Musk vs. NYT kerfluffle, yet is probably the single biggest factor in the general overall acceptance of EV s by the driving public.
An electric vehicle would suit my needs perfectly, with the exception of weekend jaunts further afield. I drive a maximum of 500 kilometers (300 miles), or approximately 12 miles a day, during weekdays in a month, but weekends we ve traveled upwards of several hundreds of kilometers. If I had access to quick-chargers during short term apartment rentals in rome excursions, then range-anxiety is no longer a fear. It s the single biggest factor why we haven t considered a Leaf. At the price of electricity here in the Great Frozen North, an electric vehicle short term apartment rentals in rome makes a lot of sense, given the presence of quick-charging stations.
Yes, this was an excellent short term apartment rentals in rome article. Thanks Ronnie! I think Tesla s problems in NY were due to the low temperature. I wonder if the battery actually ran out, or if the charge estimator just miscalculated? Either way, Californians short term apartment rentals in rome don t do cold. Maybe they should add a propane fired heater to the thing?
They could re-purpose an Espar style Diesel Fired Block and Bunk Heater used on Long Haul Semi Tractors and Heavy Equipment. There is plenty of room in the Frunk. Figure a 2 gal tank is good for a week of driving.
I can t wait to see Tesla s supercharger network up and running. They should put em next to Walmart s, BJ s and Costcos so people can charge and shop simultaneously helps the charge time go by quicker.
EV road tripping isn t going to ideal for everyone, but it doesn t have to be. If it only works for a fraction of the population, it can simultaniously deploy cool new technology for those of us who value that, and also extend the oil party.
Conventional vehicles are better for the traveling salesman duty cycle. I used to drive that much (and I was able to justify the payment on a VW TDI based on projected fuel savings at the time), I don t drive that much anymore. Most people never drive that much.
Hey, big truck, I bet there will be so many Wal-Mart and BJ s shoppers liining up to charge their Teslas that we ll need extra police details to control the traffic. It s reassuring to know that we live on different planets.
It s always ironic short term apartment rentals in rome whenever EV charging stations and Costco are mentioned since they actually had them installed as far back as 2006, but then had them all removed two years ago, citing lack of usage:
Although the plugs of the older Costco chargers were virtually obsolete, an EV charger manufacturer short term apartment rentals in rome (Clipper Creek) would have upgraded them with the new, universal J1772 plug at no cost, but Costco determined they didn t want them anymore.
One of the largest hurdles that I see that must be overcome before EVs will ever be fully accepted as mainstream alternatives to ICE vehicles is the charging time. An hour for a rapid charge to gain 300 miles of drving range will not be acceptable for the vast majority of motorists when you can brim the tank in a mid- size sedan in under five minutes. Trickle charging an EV for eight hours at night while you sleep is great for use as a daily commuter vehicle, but for EVs to reach mainstream acceptance, they have to perform as good or better than their ICE competitors with no compromises when it comes to convenience.
Consider the worst case scenario that many of us have faced or will face at some point in our lives: a family member who lives two or three states away struck gravely ill and a phone call in the middle of the night asking you to rush to their bedside. If my ICE car has only a quarter tank of gas, it s no big deal because I can still hit the road, stop at the nearest service station and fill up on the way out of town with little delay in my journey. When the tank gets low, I pull into another 24 hour service station, fill up again, and keep moving.
If my only vehicle is an EV and I only have a quarter of a charge when I get that midnight phone call, then I m stuck for several hours until the batteries recharge. Even if I take off and go to a rapid charger, then I m still delayed for an hour until the rapid charger fills up the batteries.
Now, obviously such a scenario is blessedly rare. But it does happen. If the answer to the question is that I should have a second ICE powered short term apartment rentals in rome car, then we re admitting that EVs are ultimately niche vehicles with restr