Chaostrain Loc: Hillsboro, Oregon

I was thinking about electric cars today and I got to wondering, what do you do if you're cruising down the road and the batteries run out of juice? I mean it's not like you call up your buddy and ask them to bring you a 5 gallon can of electricity.

battlebots

Dickwads run out of gas and the same dickwads will ignore the gauges and flashing lights to let em know charge is low in the batteries. Unfortunately as far as I am aware there is no cure for stupid.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

That is why there are way more hybrids than all electric. There is a tiny little internal combustion engine for when that happens or to keep the batteries charged while running.

Electric cars have been around a long time - at the car & truck shows we sometimes have at the Railway Museum there are some electric cars and one truck in the colors of a beer company that were made before World War I that have been there on exhibit.

manofhg Loc: Knoxville, TN

Tow.

Wellhiem Loc: Sunny England.

It sounds like something you'd do once.

chrissybabe Loc: New Zealand

I have been thinking about this the other day when I was driving a very secondary road and probably about 30-40km from any direct help. My conclusion was that if petrol you can walk or hitch a ride to get gas plus spend maybe $20-40 for juice (our petrol is way dearer than yours). Not so good if you are electric because however long the walk takes it will be 2 hours longer if you were driving electric. There are only two ways to charge up then - get a tow truck back to the service station (assuming they have a charger) or they send out to you their special truck to charge your car (either with a huge load of batteries aboard or a big petrol driven generator. Add in the time to recharge. And cost probably $200-300 because they can and you have no choice. Electric cars can suck. EVs are okay for local commuting (and if there are plenty of chargers around) but for the real world not yet.

Georgews Loc: Wellington, New Zealand

I was wondering that also. Read a report of someone driving an electric from Auckland to Wellington. Took 24 hours because of the charging required.. BTW for you non-Kiwis it is about 670 km last time I drove it and can take anywhere from about 8 to 10 hours depending on traffic and speed cameras. Ha,got cameras into a photo forum!

f8lee Loc: New Mexico

You're right - as that is a pretty stupid comment.

The OP's question is exactly the problem with electric vehicles that isn't discussed too much, because there is no good answer (other than wait for a tow truck). Battery life can depend on the speed at which you drive, so even if the car is "supposed" to get 100 miles of range perhaps on the highway that translates to 70. Add to that the possibility of being stuck in traffic (say, behind an accident that could not be anticipated) on a hot day where you really need to keep the A/C running, and what do you suppose might happen?

EVs can certainly be useful for short distance drives, but for taking longer trips in regions like the western US where there can be large distances between charge stations it can get a bit riskier.

Country Boy Loc: Beckley, WV

The tow truck never cares about the engine type. I have a friend that has a hybrid Toyota and was 20 miles out when he ran out of gas. His electric functionality got him a little ways but he had to call and have gas delivered. When they arrived, they found he had run the battery so low it would not start the car. They had to tow him to the dealer and told him it would cause about $300 to recharge the battery. They were going to have to have a charger shipped in from 300 miles away because no dealership in the area had a special charger required to charge the special battery packs. If you buy an electric car, make sure you know where a charger is located because a regular charger will not work!

manofhg Loc: Knoxville, TN

The Teslas are a little different than the Leaf, Volt, etc. There are charging stations across the US in about 100 mile spacings. They are free to the Tesla owners and take about 30 mins to fully recharge. Therefore, you could drive 150-200 miles, take a 30 min break, and continue. In general, the Tesla ("S") has a range of over 300 miles.

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

I have a Prius--a hybrid. We just returned from a trip to the southeast (from Indiana), through the mountains--twice, and my average mph for the trip was 54.7. That’s good enough for me. I was surprised at the power the little engine/transmission combination has in the mountains. Back here in the flatlands, I sometimes get as much as 65+.

johnst1001a Loc: West Chester, Ohio

You would have been ripped off. The battery that starts the car is different than the battery pack that is used to power the wheels with electric motors. I have a lexus 300h which is similar to the Avalon and Camry. The cars starting battery is in the trunk. Jumping this battery should not have any affect on the battery pack used for the electric motor (s). Check owners manual.
Now a second point, the battery pack used for the motors never drains that low. In fact, it still has quite a bit of charge in it. The electronics for the hybrid batteries prevent total discharge to prevent damage to them.
One thing people should "practice" is how to open the trunk with the battery dead. For the Lexus, you cannot open the trunk with the pushbutton in the car with a dead battery. It won't work. On you key fob, you have a "valet" key built in, which allows you to open the trunk. Try it, open your trunk, locate the battery, and inform other possible drivers the same. Again, check your manual, but I am almost positive you can jump this battery the same as any other car to get it started.

wildimaginations

Had my Tesla for about 9 months. Never had a problem because I always plan to get it charged before going on long trip. The GPS will tell me if I can make it to my destination and what charging stations are along the way are there. Never at a Tesla Supercharger longer than an hour to fully charge the battery. If on any other charger, it would take longer and I would have to pay for it. That's why I bought a Tesla.

redlegfrog

There is a lot of "no thinking" going on with these new cars.

In my neighborhood there is at lease one car parked in the street for every house and what about apartment buildings? If these were electric How would all those cars get charged? Think we should go into the extension cord business?

Think of the fun kids will have unplugging those cars on the street! The next morning you're not getting to work on time! What if your town makes a rule "no cords across sidewalks.

Maybe this is a stupid line of reasoning but its good to start early before it hits you in the face!