Los Angeles Fires Expose Serious Downside of Electric Vehicles
As wildfires raged across the greater Los Angeles area and forced hundreds of thousands to evacuate over the past week, many residents of California discovered issues with their electric cars, leading some to vow to sell them.
More than a week after the fires began, the Palisades and Eaton fires continue to burn, and there are still over 82,000 people under evacuation orders, per a Wednesday report from CBS News.
But evacuating in an electric vehicle can be a lot more difficult than fleeing in a traditional gasoline-powered car.
For starters, utilities in Los Angeles are shutting off power lines to avoid the risks of sparks starting new fires.
That could lead to the terrifying scenario in which a car is only partially charged when the time comes to leave home, meaning the car must be abandoned or the owner must fight for a spot at a charging station sure to be packed with other fleeing Angelenos.
Such were the fears expressed by California residents in comments to the Los Angeles Times about the crisis.
Matthew Butterick, a Los Angeles attorney, told the outlet that a gas-powered car “can evacuate in any direction on any road and still get fuel when needed.”
“The EV stations on evacuation routes would have massive lines and delays, gasoline stations less so,” he predicted.
“And the electric grid may not be available,” he added. “Power companies turn off power to avoid sparking a fire and also to avoid legal liability. This is probably the future of all the hillside neighborhoods.”
Val Cipollone, who lives in Berkeley, owns a fully electric Nissan Leaf with a range of 220 miles. As she watched the disaster unfold a few hundred miles to the south, she voiced a desire to sell her electric vehicle and get a hybrid car instead.
“Who knows how far you’d have to drive,” she told the Times. “I used to think I’d only need to drive to my place of work. But who knows, I might have to go much farther.”
Cipollone indeed said that she cares about buying at least a hybrid, which is “a good conscience thing” for the environmentally minded Californian, and that she “wouldn’t feel comfortable” buying a gas-powered car.
Edmunds, an automotive inventory website based in California, has found that hybrid vehicle sales are rapidly rising, according to data cited by the Times.
Edmunds analyst Jessica Caldwell noted to the outlet that electric vehicles “require a different relationship with your vehicle than people have had before” and “require a lot more planning,” such as establishing a home charger and dealing with longer wait times at charging stations.
Plenty of people enjoy their electric cars, and they are probably fantastic vehicles in some circumstances.
But they are far from perfect, and the nascent technology still needs some time to develop.
Even though the sorts of concerns outlined by these Californians are known to policymakers, both President Joe Biden and California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom have dumped money into electric vehicle incentives, while the latter has even passed mandates that will eventually end the sale of new gas-powered cars.
These disasters in Los Angeles merely serve as a reminder that the automotive market is not ready for that sort of shift and that government agencies most certainly cannot force that shift to happen.
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