[patryn20]

Seriously. Just give me a NORMAL car with a modern electric drivetrain and I’ll be happy. I have my 4Runner for longer trips and “electric grid down because Texas is a 3rd world island in a 1st world country” situations.

These electric cars are going for full gimmickry and just look like a giant long term ownership nightmare. Built to be disposable status symbols for your average American trying to appear wealthier than they are instead of practical vehicles for the mass market.

[everdrive]

If you can get a very base model Nissan Leaf, they're pretty basic. Bonus points if it's a bit older. Ours is extremely old fashioned, and except for the sound when driving is basically indistinguishable from a mid-2010s Honda Fit.

[checkyoursudo]

My 2012 Leaf is amazing. It has sadly lost a lot of battery capacity, and I think there is something funny going on with the brakes, but it is still a great car. Just can't go very far anymore. But I only drive it around my small town anyway, so it doesn't need to go very far.

[epistasis]

One minor comment, but if the electric grid is down, then it's likely you won't be able to pump gas either. At least, most gas stations have not planned to be functional without electricity.

[patryn20]

Yeah. But I can still fill an ICE car manually with a can or hand pump.

Also hurricane evacuation with mass electric adoption is going to be an interesting situation to observe. It may be better than with an ICE. We’ll see.

[epistasis]

Perhaps, but how many gas stations are going to let you pay cash and use a hand pump? And do you keep spare gas in cans ready, before the outage?

I've never spent enough time in Texas to experience an outage, maybe Texas gas stations are far different than the rest of the US?

[wepple]

> And do you keep spare gas in cans ready, before the outage?

A lot of folks keep a 5 gallon for their lawn mower… although gas powered mowers are going the way of the dinosaur too

But yes, I tend to keep 2-4 5 gallon containers of 4 stroke gas. I’m almost certainly an outlier, but in more rural areas where you have to be self sufficient it’s not rare.

Heck, a lot of pickup trucks have diesel tanks with 12v pumps built into the bed.

[someuser2345]

I'm pretty sure you can pay cash in most gas stations. You just have to pay to the clerk, instead of at the pump.

[epistasis]

But then you also have to meter the gas to know how much to pay. Most gas stations have no plan for a power outage, and little incentive to plan for such a situation.

[aftbit]

I believe you but this never made sense to me. A random internet search shows that there are on the order of 100k gas stations in the USA. It seems like FEMA could come up with on the order of $20M to buy generators for all of them and make them come up with a plan to operate without electric power.

Although maybe it costs more than I think? This "industry lobbyist"[1] claims $40k PER PUMP which seems much more expensive than the ~$2000/station I was estimating.

1: https://www.cnbc.com/id/49667864

[epistasis]

There needs to be two components: a transfer switch to get off grid power and onto a generator, and then the generator itself.

It looks like Florida started to require installation of transfer switches on stations on evacuation routes, after hurricanes in the early 2000s:

https://www.simplemost.com/gas-stations-pump-without-electri...

However they do not require generators on site, and only require companies with a 10 or more stations in a county to have generators available, but then only within 24 hours.

This is more regulation than I had expected!

There was great article on HN years ago about a Canadian (New Brunswick, maybe?) gas station run by a former software engineer, and how he had planned for an outage by getting a generator for his station. But when the power outage happened, he was too far away to get back to his station, and couldn't find a place to fill up to get back. Wish I could find it again...

[LtWorf]

Normally a manual pump is present.

[jjav]

In (most?) areas which typically experience longer outages (e.g. due to hurricanes) gas stations have their own generators to keep operating.

[agloe_dreams]

You want a Chevy Bolt.