![]() If you can charge up at home, at work, at the local convenience store and even get a quick jolt at the local gas station, chances are you'll stop worrying about running on empty. Range will probably matter less and less, especially as public charging becomes more widely available. It makes sense as an alternative to more of everything. There's actually been a movement lately to "city" EVs that combine shortened range (60 miles or less) with a smaller battery pack and an equally small price tag. INCREASE CHEVY VOLT RANGE DRIVERSThat was the conclusion of a university study of 150 drivers of BMW's Mini E electric car - they said that 100 miles turned out to be enough. ![]() I think the Volt will do very well, at least initially, but its appeal could wear off if the public decides it's fine with limited range. (GM has lately been claiming the Volt could cover 350 miles, so maybe it should have been a 3,500-mile tour.) The drive starts in Seattle October 9 and ends in Chicago November 18-20. The trip covers 3,400 miles, which just happens to be exactly 10 times the Volt's long-distance range. The new plug-in car is, according to Volt product and marketing director Tony DiSalle, "The only electric vehicle able to drive such long distances under a variety of driving conditions and climates without having to stop to recharge." In case you missed the nuance there, DiSalle says on the tour website, "It's the only electric vehicle that could make a long trip like this." After all, most people's drive to work is a roundtrip of 40 miles or less. Once people spend some face time with their Nissan Leafs, Coda sedans and Wheego Whip Lifes, they may realize that 100 miles serves their daily commutes just fine. "Electricity has always been the best way to power a car, but unfortunately the battery technology isn't there yet." Leno was an early test pilot for the General Motors EV-1 electric car, and he says, "Whenever I had a longer trip I was sweating bullets."īut Leno, who has a few other cars, may not have driven his EV-1 enough to get fully used to its limited range. "Electricity will only take you halfway to wherever you want to go," he said. But I also think such anxiety will wear off relatively quickly, diminishing the GM advantage.Īmericans worry about running out of electricity in an EV, and Jay Leno made exactly that argument to me in a recent interview. That argument depends on the public developing "range anxiety," which I do indeed believe will be a significant factor in early EV sales. ![]() The Volt will have the edge on battery electrics, the company says, because when the other EVs are running out of charge at 100 miles it will still have at least 240 miles left. Chevrolet is publicly confident about the market prospects of the "range extender" Volt, with a gas engine that generates electricity instead of driving the wheels. ![]()
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