To EV or not to EV in CT?

I’ve been driving around in an electric vehicle. Even though I’ve been curious about them for years it’s the first time, and it was something that was more or less forced on me because they were the only rentals available. This no-choice aspect is what it’s going to be like for a lot of people if efforts to transform the way we get around hold sway, and my experience has me worried. You can look at it as an effort to save us from the dystopian consequences of climate change. What’s more important than saving the planet?

But consider that when you are using an all-electric car you are a slave to the plug, at the mercy of a system that takes its time, particularly compared to gas, and you wonder whether the general public will have the patience to learn how to make it work. Getting EVs from the fringe to the routine is thus among the greatest challenges of our time.

At the Department of Transportation in Newington there are a number of EV charging stations. The sign says you have four hours, but it’s a good guess you’re going to need more. What are you going to do with all that time? Have a friend pick you up so you can get things done? Call an Uber, or a Lyft? Does it make sense to have a car that can be unavailable, possibly for quite a while, when you need it? Does it make sense to have to commute to your car?

The goal of going all electric drives into that reality, which makes it no surprise that state lawmakers are finding adopting California regulations by 2035, which eliminates new gas vehicles, a bridge too far. The transition to EVs and hybrids may be inevitable, but how long will it take to get to inevitable? As House Speaker Matt Ritter, the Hartford Democrat, put it in a recent news story, “I just can’t tell you the timing of that.”

Consider the difference between pump and plug. Today there are gas stations everywhere, offering the opportunity to fill up whenever you like. You don’t have to think about it. Hybrid vehicles are less worrisome, but with EVs you have to think about it — a lot.

In the past I’ve had the opportunity to rent EVs and have strolled right past them. Your priority at such moments is to be on your way, as opposed to saving humanity. But the lot the other day had no gas cars. There were just EVs, which indicates I haven’t been the only one avoiding them.

So, I asked the guy. “That’s all there is,” he answered. It was a short conversation, and perhaps a harbinger.

I thought: How hard can it be? But it’s hard.

You find you need to read the manual, for one. Somewhere in the 1980s I had freelance work writing a user manual for a video game. In the decades since, nobody has learned to play a game that way. You learn how to play by playing. With EVs we’re at the stage of reading manuals.

“The Level 1-120V Cord Limit should be configured to match the electrical current rating for the electrical outlet that the charge cord is connected to,” reads a manual passage selected at random. There are three ways of charging, as far as I could tell, each taking different amounts of time. You’ll likely also need GPS to find charging stations, something you’re also not used to worrying about with gas.

Simply put, you have to organize your life around charging. If you have a charger in your garage I suppose that’s not a problem, but not everybody has a garage.

I found there was anxiety about considerations I’d never had to worry about before, like whether my car had enough juice to get me where I needed to go, or whether I’d be left stranded somewhere. Experts and enthusiasts can deal with this, maybe, but will the general public?

Maybe it’s good to have to think about energy this way, to no longer take it for granted. While we read about efforts in Hartford to bring us into an EV world we’re also reading about increasing electricity costs that are already among the nation’s highest.

The drive to a brighter future is going to be bumpy.