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There are plenty of roads that pass under/over I-95. I saw video that showed cars driving on a road close to I-95 and a driver got out and walked over to I-95 to deliver food.
If you could do that why not park the car and call an Uber for a ride home. No need to spend the night in the car.

Just don't forget to go get the car later. I worked in the area in the 80s and we had similar snow. It took about 3 to 4 days to get the interstates clear, especially the bridges. They went on TV reminding people to pick up their abandoned cars or they would be towed and sold or crushed. Glad I left when it started to snow. The 120-mile drive home was tough, but I slept in my own bed.
 
If the Atlis XT ever makes it to market, it has a dedicated 50A 240V plug in the frunk as well as the bed of the truck for welding. Its slated to be one of the first 3/4 ton EV trucks on the market with a purported 15 minute 0~100% charge rate (on a 1.6 megawatt proprietary charger station) and 500 mile range.

I could see these being great roadside recharge solutions.
 
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Agree about heat pumps. When I lived in Virginia we had one and I hated it. I had to set to emergency (resistive) heat to get any warm air. That was in the 80s and I understand they are much better now and you can do things like underground coils. But, I will stick to gas.
You'll stick to 100-year-old technology that also is making the planet unlivable rather than find out how things have changed in the last 40 years? That seems, let's say, not fully thought through.

My house has modern heat pumps, and they work great without any backup heat. The coldest it's gotten here (Maryland) is -3° F and they kept the house warm just fine. They're rated to -14° F. Efficiency drops to as low as 200% at that outdoor temperature, but since they have variable speed compressors you can size the system for that case and still not have it oversized for when you need a lot less heating or cooling. Costs more up front but absolutely saves money over the length of a mortgage or home equity loan. That is, your loan payment plus heating/cooling cost is less than you're paying now for just heating and cooling.

You do even better if you use mini-splits. The hard part there (in the US) is finding a contractor who knows about them.
 
A lot doesn’t have to mean a high percentage. Whatever the actual percentage is, the absolute numbers are not trivial. It can take just 3 or 4 disabled vehicles to shut down a highway.

How would the response from authorities have been different in the future reality?
If they felt that the probability of people being dangerously stranded were much higher then the response would be different.

But the reality is that now only was this story misrepresenting reality, but any future with many more EVs would not be now + more EVs. Change effects change.
 
While simplified and slanted to support the thesis there are valid points. The most important being that gasoline or diesel powered vehicles can be trivially refueled while stuck like this. This happens on occasion in my neighborhood where people are somewhat used to unexpected storms. Of course there are a *lot* of snowmobiles in my part of New York and it's considered a civic good to provide aid to stuck motorists before the National Guard is deployed.
Where it's trivial to get a gas can to a stranded motorist.

But in that case you can get other help to them as well.
If it's ever a problem, then we'll find a solution.
 
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You realize a lot of people on I95 are on road trips, right? Like many are probably in the 20s (or maybe even less) battery percentage-wise as they approach their next SC?
number_of_people_trapped x P(being on a road trip in Virginia on a cold Monday evening in early January) x P(being < 30% on a 50 mile stretch of Interstate)

I get that the situation sucked, but we shouldn't over-state the volume.
 
You'll stick to 100-year-old technology that also is making the planet unlivable rather than find out how things have changed in the last 40 years? That seems, let's say, not fully thought through.

My house has modern heat pumps, and they work great without any backup heat. The coldest it's gotten here (Maryland) is -3° F and they kept the house warm just fine. They're rated to -14° F. Efficiency drops to as low as 200% at that outdoor temperature, but since they have variable speed compressors you can size the system for that case and still not have it oversized for when you need a lot less heating or cooling. Costs more up front but absolutely saves money over the length of a mortgage or home equity loan. That is, your loan payment plus heating/cooling cost is less than you're paying now for just heating and cooling.

You do even better if you use mini-splits. The hard part there (in the US) is finding a contractor who knows about them.
We have discussions over in the Tesla Solar forum on this all the time. You might want to take a look.

I do my part for the planet by running my home at a net negative electrical use. That is, with our SolarRoof and Powerwalls we don't use any net electricity and run a small surplus that goes to power other's homes. I like that and am sure that if I switched to heat pumps it would not be the case. The heat pumps would use a lot of electricity in the winter when my solar generation is very low and force me to get power from some power company,

In my case, the power company is PG&E. And we know how much carbon PG&E caused forest fires pump into the atmosphere each year. In addition, PG&E runs a lot of natgas turbine power plants, especially in the winter when hydroelectric flows are low. I am not sure if it is worse for them to burn natgas to power their turbines, ship electricity to me, suffer line losses, and then run a heat pump to heat the house; or for me to just run natgas through my furnace, where I can control the gas consumption by putting on a sweater and lowering the thermostat. Our winter lows average in the 40s. so on a sunny winter's day, the heater kicks on in the morning, and maybe a bit in the evening before we go to bed. It usually runs very little when we sleep since the thermostats drop to lower settings.
 
I always keep a blanket in the car in the winter. With a blanket over you, you could keep yourself warm with the seat heater for a week! The smartest way to do it would be to heat up with the seat heater, then turn the car OFF to minimize baseline drain, go back and forth as needed.
I do the same - I also keep a few bottles of water and granola bars In the trunk.
 
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We have discussions over in the Tesla Solar forum on this all the time. You might want to take a look.

I do my part for the planet by running my home at a net negative electrical use. That is, with our SolarRoof and Powerwalls we don't use any net electricity and run a small surplus that goes to power other's homes. I like that and am sure that if I switched to heat pumps it would not be the case. The heat pumps would use a lot of electricity in the winter when my solar generation is very low and force me to get power from some power company,

In my case, the power company is PG&E. And we know how much carbon PG&E caused forest fires pump into the atmosphere each year. In addition, PG&E runs a lot of natgas turbine power plants, especially in the winter when hydroelectric flows are low. I am not sure if it is worse for them to burn natgas to power their turbines, ship electricity to me, suffer line losses, and then run a heat pump to heat the house; or for me to just run natgas through my furnace, where I can control the gas consumption by putting on a sweater and lowering the thermostat. Our winter lows average in the 40s. so on a sunny winter's day, the heater kicks on in the morning, and maybe a bit in the evening before we go to bed. It usually runs very little when we sleep since the thermostats drop to lower settings.

@jboy210 as you probably already know in CA "true up" happens once a year. Even if you consume more than you produce in winter, as long as you make up for it in the summer you are still not buying power from your power company. And generally it is better to consume the power you overproduce than sell it to your power company (especially if you are buying power from PG&E). Combined with relatively mild weather in most of CA, heat pump instead of a natural gas furnace makes a lot of sense with an appropriately sized solar install.
 
I always keep a blanket in the car in the winter. With a blanket over you, you could keep yourself warm with the seat heater for a week! The smartest way to do it would be to heat up with the seat heater, then turn the car OFF to minimize baseline drain, go back and forth as needed.

For extended emergencies, it's best to leave the car powered up and the heat on a very low setting (especially the fan speed) and make sure Recirculate is activated.

The reason for this is all of the vampire drain is heat energy and most of it ends up in the cabin anyway. Cycling the heat is less efficient. Seat heat on low or medium is your friend for days!
 
Where it's trivial to get a gas can to a stranded motorist.

But in that case you can get other help to them as well.
If it's ever a problem, then we'll find a solution.
I don't understand your point. In five minutes you can provide fuel for many hours of idle or many miles of driving to an ICE vehicle. That's not possible in the near term for a BEV unless it supports rapid battery swapping and you have a national supply of such batteries that fit in a snowmobile trailer. So it's a BEV problem right now.
 
I mean gas heat makes a HUGE difference. Heat pumps don't work in freezing temperatures so resistive heating is used. in my house, my electric heater has a 15kW resistive heater for when the heat pump can't operate (it turns on below 40deg IIRC). My electric bill is easily 50% more when it's freezing outside.

Also, your house is well insulated. I'm not saying a Tesla can't handle it, I'm just saying it's not as trivial as you may think

That's false. Heat pumps designed to heat in freezing temperatures do exactly that. The mini-split I installed in my ski cabin is rated at 100% of its BTU rating at 5 degrees Fahrenheit and it has no resistive heating elements in it. At a very frigid -10 degrees F it will be well under its BTU rating but will still provide heat. Of course, it never gets -10 degrees there, I'm just saying it would still work. My cabin just went through two weeks of temperatures in the single digits and the teens and the only thing keeping the plumbing in the 1200 sq. ft. cabin from freezing was a single one-ton mini-split. Worked great and cheap to operate.

You need a heat pump designed for cold climates. The resistive element is a band-aid, the ones that work well in cold climates run higher pressures, different refrigerants and more efficient heat exchangers and fans. Even the valves are designed to maximize cold weather efficiency.
 
I don't understand your point. In five minutes you can provide fuel for many hours of idle or many miles of driving to an ICE vehicle. That's not possible in the near term for a BEV unless it supports rapid battery swapping and you have a national supply of such batteries that fit in a snowmobile trailer. So it's a BEV problem right now.

Except it's not a real-world problem, it's one you made up in your head.

I've spent 58 years on this planet in places like Syracuse, NY, Whitefish, MT and at numerous ski areas around the west and I've never needed my ICE vehicle fueled up so I could survive longer. If your imagination is active enough, you can call this a "problem". Ordinary people don't have that problem. If you can get fuel to the vehicle, you can rescue the people in it.
 
Agree about heat pumps. When I lived in Virginia we had one and I hated it. I had to set to emergency (resistive) heat to get any warm air. That was in the 80s and I understand they are much better now and you can do things like underground coils. But, I will stick to gas.

It's irrational to hate heat pumps because you had a crappy heat pump for cold weather. Heat pumps designed for cold weather are awesome! It would be like owning a Nissan Leaf with 80 miles of range and saying "I had an EV once and it was awful on road trips. EV's are not good for road trips".
 
Nobody will die in a case like described. First responders will offer assistance. First with advice and a bottle of water plus a snack bar. If you are in danger of freezing they will get you to shelter. They usually do not carry around cans of gas as they do not advise sitting in a ICE car with the engine running and the windows up. They will get those negativley effected to local transportation and a way home if an emergency.

Some say that billions of gassers on the road are negatively effecting the weather patterns, and could themselves be causing the extreme weather changes often seen.
 
A classic case of concern trolling. No effort to find out the real situation, just a flight of fancy about how dire it would be to be caught in an electric car in a snow storm. They attempted to head us off with a note about Norway but then said they all still drive ICE there anyway so…

What an absolute disgrace. Yes, let’s keep driving ICE vehicles so we get trapped in awful weather forever!

Huh? They said Norway motorists are all ICE? Um, no, in 2021 Tesla was the best-selling car in the entire country! Over 65% of auto sales are BEV's! Norway has the highest percentage of EV sales of any country in the world!

Yeah, EV's don't work well in the cold but Norwegians are gluttons for punishment, so they spend all their money on EV's to punish themselves some more! :oops:
 
I think you misunderstand. No, I'm sure you do or you're just deliberately missing the point. I certainly didn't say or imply that you can't ferry people out of expressways (or even cities) that have become snowy gridlock. But feel free to carry-on up on your high horse.

It's not a high horse, it's practical real-world knowledge. Gas cars are not the answer to getting stuck in a snowstorm. EV's are better in so many ways.
 
"Um, no, in 2021 Tesla was the best-selling car in the entire country! Over 65% of auto sales are BEV's! Norway has the highest percentage of EV sales of any country in the world!"

I didn't depend upon it, I asked for clarification. Get off your high horse!
I don't see any clarification requested but if you'd read the article (or the details of any properly research article about EV sales in Norway) you'd know that market share is irrelevant when it's overwhelmed by installed base. We'll all have to wait and see what happens when Norway stops subsidizing EV purchases