I can't forecast all the impacts. Some I highlight below. If you have other ideas—even guesses about the impact of electric vehicle's impact, email me at ericholdeman@ericholdeman.com I look forward to hearing from you.
Disaster Planning for Electric Cars
I see an electric storm brewing on the horizon. There are bolts of lightning thundering in the night air. Emergency managers need to be prepared for the coming storm. Electric vehicles!
How the advent of electric vehicles eventually plays out for the future is not totally known, but I do know that emergency managers will need to factor in the changes that electrically powered vehicles will have on our own operations and disruptions to how people responded to disasters.
Let me be clear that I totally support the move to electric cars as one way to implement climate mitigation as it applies to carbon. In doing so, we just need to be aware of unintended consequences.
The number one thing that comes to mind is that in many natural disasters we can have widespread power outages. If a person or family only own an electric vehicle how will that work? Today, the home might be without power, but people can jump in their cars and drive to work. If they are in luck, they know where gas stations are that might have generator powered backups so gasoline can still be pumped. If you have an electric vehicle, how many commute trips can be taken on one vehicle charge?
Then, I’m thinking about the dreaded order to evacuate that is typically given when a hurricane is approaching land. Today we are thinking about keeping fuel stations resupplied with gasoline and diesel to meet the demand from people who let their cars go to a quarter of a tank, before they refuel. How will that work with electric cars and what will be the planning assumptions that need to be determined. We need to anticipate these impacts before there is a total disaster with cars who have “run out of juice” scattering the evacuation route.
At this point if people have two cars and are looking for less carbon producing vehicles , why not have one be electric and the other be a hybrid vehicle, that can still be powered by gasoline when you need it.
I certainly don’t have all the answers or even some of them. I just know that what has been, will not be the same in the future as vehicle manufacturers produce more electric vehicles and the flexibility that a gasoline powered car provided is reduced.
