Quick Charge To The Rescue!

Several of the biggest obstacles to the wide-spread proliferation of all-electric vehicles—which circa July, 2011 means the Nissan Leaf--are these simple facts:

(1) Battery technology limits range to a maximum of about 50 miles which virtually requires drivers to adopt unrealistic techniques, such as carrying only a driver, little or no cargo, using no accessories—such as air conditioning, radio, turn signals, headlights—that drain electrical power, and accelerating and driving very slowly. Absent such methods, less range is a certainty.

(2) Charging times are excessive. A full charge takes as long as 12 hours, and virtually never less than eight with a fast charger which costs $2000.00, not including installation. And charging times are variable. It's not always exactly eight hours, but virtually never less.

(3) Cold weather reduces battery range to a fraction of its already small capacity. Adding such things as battery heaters may help overnight in the owner's garage, but such heaters require even more electricity, and unless the driver can plug in the heater wherever he parks the vehicle, it is of little use.

(4) There is currently almost no public charging infrastructure and no commonly accepted means of paying for (or generating) the power that will be used.

(6) EVs cost significantly more than conventional vehicles in their size class and are far less flexible.

(7) The resale value of EVs on the used car market is unknown, but unlikely to be good. Even new EVs are attractive only to a very small niche market.

(8) Even if a significant nation-wide charging infrastructure sprung up overnight, all of the other issues would still exist. If you run out of power, you have a very large and expensive wheeled paperweight on your hands for at least eight hours—if a quick charging station is handy. Oh sure, you could take a faster, partial charge—say four hours--and end up out of power somewhere less convenient…

But now comes AAA to the rescue with quick charge trucks! According to Chuck Squatriglia at Autopia (here):

"AAA is rolling out North America’s first fleet of quick-charge trucks that will rescue dead electric vehicles and get them back on the road."

One Paul Scott, who is a founder of "Plug-In America" which (surprise!) is an EV advocacy group, is enthusiastic:

“As an EV advocate-turned EV salesman, I applaud the AAA for taking the lead offering this service to EV drivers. Many people have asked me what would happen if they were to run out of juice on the freeway and now I have a very good answer: They get juiced up by AAA.”

Mirable dictu (wonderful to tell)! So AAA shows up, ultra-fast charges the depleted batteries of a distraught EV driver, and everyone leaves with smiles! Not quite:

"The service will be available to AAA members and provide Level 2 (220 volt) and Level 3 (440 volt direct current) quick-charging service, depending upon the vehicle. Although Level 3 charging can “fill” a depleted battery in as little as 30 minutes, not all EVs have the capacity for it. There are a couple of reasons for this, not the least of which is there is not yet a global standard for the plug."

Can I call AAA for this service in Buffalo Tongue, Nebraska? Not quite:

"AAA says it will deploy one truck in each of six metro areas later this summer: Portland, Oregon; Seattle; the San Francisco Bay Area; Los Angeles; Knoxville, Tennessee; and Tampa, Florida."

So, if you happen to live in one of those six cities, AAA will be there to have you on the road "in as little as 30 minutes!" Not quite:

"Don’t expect a full charge if you get yourself stranded. You’ll get 15 minutes with the truck. That’s not much, especially if you’re using Level 2, but AAA says it’s enough to send you three to 15 miles up the road to your garage or a public charging station."

So, if I happen to live in one of those cities—if I don't, too bad, so sad--and my battery runs out of juice I can call AAA, which will send out its single truck (which is, by the way, gasoline powered—the horror! I think that's called "irony.") which process would take--from my call to their arrival--oh, let's say 45 minutes just for fun, and if my car will accept a super fast charge to fully recharge my battery (which, by the way, does not exist—more on this in a moment), I'll be on my way within an hour! Except that AAA will only give me enough charge to limp another mile or three—if I'm lucky, except if it's cold, in which case it will be less. How much less? Who knows? Call me cynical, but this doesn't exactly sound like a great advance in service and EV practicality after all. But then again, I'm probably just some green technology-hating fuddy-duddy incapable of understanding how to win the future.

Please, gentle readers, if I'm wrong, provide the necessary links to illuminate me, but the current state of EV battery technology does not allow complete fast charging in 30 minutes or anything close. As I noted earlier, "fast" charging is a matter of four to six hours at best, not 30 minutes, and that's only with expensive fast charging equipment.

While advocates of EVs will no doubt see this as a great advance, it's rather like calling AAA when you run out of gas and finding them willing to provide only four ounces of fuel, and only in six cities. Very few people would consider that to be a real service, particularly considering the likely cost, and the fact that the people providing the service will need to burn fossil fuels to deliver next to no range.

I guess I'm just getting cantankerous in my old age, but I can't quite find the kind of enthusiasm some folks have for what the evidence indicates is a not-ready-for-prime-time technology. AAA's service is interesting, but even for EV owners, it will be of minimal utility, and no doubt AAA is hedging its bets that many years from now EVs will not dominate the market. In fact, they'll probably never be—at best—more than a tiny portion of it. I suspect that's a smart bet indeed.