Electric vehicles and travel
Recently, my wife and I traveled from Chicago to Nashville to celebrate my mother’s 85th birthday. It was a joyful occasion, and my mom surprised us by asking us to dance a waltz for her. There we were in my brother’s living room, waltzing to my rendition of “Tennessee Waltz” — just a bit of it. Everyone had a wonderful time celebrating a remarkable woman.
We rented a car from one of the major rental companies at Midway Airport. It turned out to be an electric vehicle (EV) made by Hyundai, an Ioniq. It’s a beautiful and reliable vehicle. The response was quick, the climate inside was quiet and comfortable and the ride felt fluid. There was no revving, purring or roaring engine noise. The design, appearance and feel of the vehicle and the ride experience were outstanding.
However, and this wouldn’t be Hyundai’s fault, it was a stressful trip. This was due to the need to recharge every 200 or so miles. As a result, our trip required several additional fuel fill-ups compared to a typical gasoline vehicle. We had to find a place to charge the car and get to it before the battery ran out. Not unlike running out of gas, perhaps, but there were relatively few options.
The vehicle's GPS was great. However, it guided us to places with very slow charging options, and once to a location with no charging station at all. As a somewhat experienced Google user, I searched for “fast charging” electric vehicle stations and found a provider that offered high-speed charging stations. They didn’t show up on the car's list of charging stations.
Charging in 90-100 degree Fahrenheit (32-38 Celsius) heat was very uncomfortable. Several stations were inside Walmart stores, and one was near a restaurant. The EV stations are usually in open air, with only chargers and a generator. We could go inside to shop or walk around.
The charging speeds varied, which was a major disappointment. To reach 80 percent, the target that the supplier seems to recommend as a fill point, took anywhere from 30 minutes in one location to 75 minutes in another. One station had a “congestion control” cap at 80 percent, so we couldn’t charge the battery to full capacity. None of this made us feel confident — there were too few options, charging took too long and we faced too much uncertainty.
The worst part of the experience was using the onboard engine calculator to determine the wattage remaining. On the last leg of our trip, we nearly ran out of electricity! The charge level when we filled up showed we’d have miles to spare. But as we reached Chicago, it became clear that we wouldn’t have enough. It was worrying and left us stressed out. We are members of AAA (American Automobile Association), but we’ve never had an experience like this before.
My wife wondered why there weren’t more stations and why traditional gasoline stations didn’t also have charging stations, imagining that such setups would become more common in the future.
We resorted, perhaps returning to common sense, to turning off the A/C and lowering our speed to the minimum accepted on a U.S. highway. That seemed to do the trick.
It feels like driving in EVs is a newly developing stage of driving culture. The technology isn’t fully developed, especially for identifying all charging options with GPS or for predicting when the battery will run out, such as how many miles or kilometers remain. Perhaps better said, I believe more information should be provided, like, “At your current average speed of xx miles, it is estimated you will run out of charge in xx miles. If you slow your speed to xx, you will extend that distance by xx miles.”
I read a Korea Times article on July 7 that reports EVs account for nearly 25 percent of car imports into South Korea today. In April, the car review site Edmunds, citing an Experian Automotive report, stated that there are over four million EVs in the US, which is only one percent of the total vehicles on the road. The number of EVs is increasing.
Yes, EV driving is still in its early stages, even when considering hybrid vehicles. The future will eventually shift away from gasoline-powered cars. It is already doing so for diesel vehicles. As a result, manufacturers of EVs and charging station providers need to improve their efforts. This presents a prime opportunity for study, investment and closing the service gap from traditional, gas-based automotive culture.
Bernard Rowan (browan10@yahoo.com) is associate provost for contract administration and academic services and professor of political science at Chicago State University. He is a past fellow of the Korea Foundation and former visiting professor at Hanyang University.