If the power is out, can you still buy gas?

 

Go to a station that has a generator. That's what the kidz did when Paducky had that big ice storm a couple of years ago.

 

I guess it's pretty hard to walk with an electricity can to the nearest charging station when you run out.

 

I think there's a state law (or maybe it's a county ordinance) requiring gas stations to have generators now -- it's not clear how many actually do, though.

Grocery stores, too -- although they tend to be pretty low on everything except Vienna sausages (yum!) after storms. HPH

 

I remember that ice storm! I was living in Maine at the time and we were without power for 10 days.

 

And in an interesting twist on all electrics, new taxes, "Not So Fast, State of Washington Proposes 100 Annual Fee for GasDodging EV Owners
It seemed they figured out EV don't pay road use taxes collected by the sale of gas.

 

And (whether or not because of EV), the US Dept. of Transportation is studying a plan to either monitor (by requiring on-board GPS to report to them) or check (via periodic odometer readings) miles driven, so that they can convert the gas tax to a miles-driven tax -- or maybe just add on another tax. This seems unlikely to get traction any time soon, but the fact that they're studying it is a bad sign. HPH

 

Since there is no clear dichotomy right now between EV cars and petrol powered cars, it would be difficult to know, for instance with a Chevy Volt, how much of the mileage was on current from the grid and how much was on current from the on-board gasoline engine running on already taxed pump gas.

a couple of months ago an ice storm downed some grid lines in central TX and electricity in the Houston area was totally shut down and then continued on rolling black outs. I remarked to my +1 Chris at the time that I hoped the energy planners were not expecting us to convert to EVs if they couldn't even handle current loads and demands.

 

I don't see any great difficulty.

Basically, electricity from the gasoline engine (or mileage driven on the gas engine in some plug-in hybrids) was taxed at the fuel pump; just add the road use tax to the cost of electricity from the charger. There could be some argument about the correct price, how to separate the charger usage from the rest of the electric load at the house or business, and when/how to collect. But EVs should not get a free ride: if they use the roads they must pay their fair share to the maintenance and construction of the roads. Collect the road use tax on electricity put into the charger. Fair, accurate, and certainly within our technological capability.

But that is certainly no more difficult than collecting a "per mile" tax on mileage driven.

 

How about the Feds leasing precharged electrical storage pods on a trailer for all EV's.

You could trade them off at each gas station for a charged one. that way you could make a transcontinental trip without waiting to charge. Obama could put a bunch of just printed bucks behind it and recover all our investment with leasing and mobile charge taxes and voodoo economics. Naturally it could have a solar panel on it and a small wind turbine that popped up only when you're decelerating. That would be very politically correct.

It could look something like this.



or this


hahahaha

drill baby drill

fltsfshr