I know many people new to electric cars are worried about being stranded if the car runs out of charge. This is very, very unlikely. Here is story of when I ran out of charge.
Many years ago, I was trying to stretch dollars and a few times I would run out gas. I would then either push my car or get a gas can and walk to get some gas. Nowadays, you could use your cell phone and call roadside assistance. So, what happens when you run out of off electric charge in your battery? Will this ruin your car? Will you be this be a traumatic experience? The dashbord will give you plenty of warnings. No and No. If you pay attention to the dashboard warnings, this will not happen. How do I know? As an engineer I did some testing on how much I could push the car beyond its warning. This is what happened the one time I ran out of charge in seven years.
The dashboard clearly told me I was extremely low and needed a charge. * I ignored the warnings. I passed a public charger trying to squeeze out some extra miles so I could charge at home. The car gave me a warning that it was going to shut down and I pulled over to the side of road one mile from home. My first idea was to see if I could push the car. That did not work. Electric cars are very heavy to push. Also, when it shut down, I could not put it in neutral. Next idea would be a portable charger that would serve like a gas can would. These are just coming to market but did not exist at the time.
So I called for a tow truck. The tow truck pulled my car a mile to my home and backed it into the garage so I could charge it. I charged it up and the car was fine. I spend an hour waiting for a tow truck and about $150 to tow it.
Here is the wisdom I gained from this.
- Pay attention to your dashboard and the warnings
- Plan your trips so you know where the chargers are.
- Don’t push it to save time from a charging stop. Waiting for a tow truck will take longer.
- Having “Range Anxiety” is a waste of time. You will probably never run out of charge and if you do it is no big deal
*This happened on an early electric car that had only an 85 mile range. With my newer car with 200 plus miles of range, I have never been below 20 miles of charge. I cannot imagine running out of charge with my new car.
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