Tesla’s network of chargers? Why bother?
As electric vehicles improve, it may be possible to calm range anxiety without costly infrastructure, writes David Booth.
I just spent 10 days driving around Santa Barbara in Chevrolet’s new Volt.
Much improved in many regards — interior, build quality and comfor — the one aspect that really piqued my interest was its new-found range. Thanks to a slightly larger battery — 18.4 kilowatt hour versus 17.1 — and a serious diet (the second-gen Volt is almost 100 kilograms lighter than the original), Chevy’s 2016 extended-range electric vehicle can now drive 80 kilometres on battery power alone.
That, in Yank-speak, is 50 miles, more than enough to spiff around California’s bucolic little coastal city for three days at a stretch without bothering to plug in. Tap into the guest house’s 110-volt line for an evening and, presto, three days more of combustion-free touring. Not a drop of gasoline used. Not a gram of CO2 emitted. Indeed, there was absolutely no internal combusting at all until we were forced to drive the 95 miles to LAX to come home and, even then, our hydrocarbon usage was minimal, because the first 40 miles or so — the Volt’s range, like all electric cars, is reduced when you’re throttling along at 70 m.p.h. — were battery powered. In other words, our carbon footprint was greatly reduced.
That got me to thinking — yes, I know, always a dangerous thing. Why are we falling all over ourselves to create an electricvehicle recharging infrastructure? According to its website, Tesla plans to build Supercharger stations along major highways to charge its Model S and Model X cars in minutes instead of hours. In fact, why build even one more charging station? We don’t need them.
Indeed, if transportation statistics are anywhere near accurate, we could probably reduce CO2 emissions by as much as three quarters without having to construct a single, solitary charging station. Better yet, we might even save money — at least in comparison to the high cost of current electric vehicles — by engineering our pure EVs with less range.
Less range? Are you kidding me? What about range anxiety? What about all the money being spent developing the 500-km electric car? What about Elon Musk and all his Superchargers? Where are you getting this hooey?
Well, let’s look at some numbers, shall we? Depending on who you’re listening to — the Ameri- can Automobile Association, for instance, or the U.S. Department of Transportation — the average commuter drives anywhere between 29 and 37 miles (45 and 60 km) a day. Whatever the case, as electric vehicle proponents themselves are fond of pointing out, the average North American’s daily commute is well within the purview of any EV, including, most assuredly, Chevy’s latest Volt.
Now, let’s examine what happens if this typical commuter takes one road trip per month. As an example, I regularly drive anywhere between 50 and 75 km a day, seven days a week. And then, ever the dutiful son, once a month I head from Toronto to Ottawa to visit the folks where, again, for the 48 hours I am there, I drive fewer than 80 km a day. Using the Volt’s new extended range, that would be 28 days of gasoline-free motoring combined with two 385.3-km stretches of road trip. (Add in another 7.6 km since, by tradition, we go see my mom at her nursing home as soon as I arrive; no time to recharge.)
Do the math and that adds up to 1,680 kilometres of batteryonly commuting and about 780 kilometres feeding the Chevy gas. Actually, that’s not quite right, since even the first 60 km or so of my road trip (factoring in that reduced range on the highway) would be gasoline-free. Do the math again and my average month in GM’s extended-range EV looks like 1,810 km plugged in and only 650 km feeding the little beast Esso’s cheapest 87 octane.
For those reaching for their calculators, that means 75 per cent of my motoring would be emissions-free. Indeed, this estimation is born out by the 6,000 kilometres I spent in the lastgeneration Volt: its 2.6 L/100 km average is about a quarter of my consumption in a typical gasoline-fuelled sedan. That would now likely be as low as 2.0, thanks to the 2016 model’s much increased parsimony when using gas (an observed 4.5 L/100 km at a steady 110 km/h).
Even factoring in the low end of the AAA’s daily commute projections — 45 kilometres — emissions would be reduced by some two thirds. But wait, as TV salesman Ron Popeil used to say, there’s more! Most households are two-car families. And most EVs are the second car in a household (even most EV devotees having something in their garage that burns hydrocarbons — just in case).
But what if, instead of one EV and one gas car, the environmentally friendly family of the future has one pure EV and one extended-range version for its road trips. In that case, it’s easy to envisage automotive carbon dioxide emissions being reduced by more than 80 per cent, all, I’ll take pains to point out again, without building even one more electric recharging station.
Our future EVs might even be cheaper to boot. Automakers are trying to calm consumers’ anxieties with promises of 500 km per charge (Audi, Porsche et al). It’s an extraordinarily expensive endeavour. At current prices, every three miles — or five kilometres — of range costs about US$200. In other words, the cost of increasing an EV’s range from 200 km (a practical number for an urban-only commuter) to 500 km costs about $10,000. Freed of range anxiety, that second, emissions-free EV just got a whole lot cheaper.
Admittedly, my projections are simplistic. For instance, they don’t account for those whose daily drive is a highway road trip (though pure EVs are not particularly well suited for that). Nonetheless, it does point to the possibility of dramatically reducing the automotive industry’s carbon footprint without the need for wholesale infrastructure change.
Even environmentalists — at least those not devoted to Tesla with religious-like fervour — should be pleased. While such a compromise wouldn’t mean the actual death of Big Oil, reduced to only fuelling cars on intercity highways, it be decidedly diminished. And with no internal combusting happening in urban centres, inner-city pollution might be greatly reduced. It would seem like a win-win for everyone involved.
So, again I ask, why are we bothering with Superchargers?