Rockin' Down the (Electric) Highway: It Could Happen Sooner Than You Think
The 100-mile electric car is fine for picking up the groceries or commuting, but longer trips are a challenge. Electric-vehicle (EV) advocates think they can address this issue with "green highways" -- networks of fast charging stations along major interstate corridors. It's a beautiful idea, embraced in linked federally supported state plans in Washington and Oregon (with the latter one announced Wednesday) and a private one in California.
But this embryonic west coast greenway also faces some significant hurdles before it becomes routine reality. The main problem is that EV charging doesn't easily translate into the gas station model we're all familiar with. The filling station is five-minute gas and go -- but a 480-volt fast charge takes up to 30 minutes.
A timely idea, at least
If electric cars are going to take off, the plans for charging networks have to be in place now, and the U.S. is ahead of the rest of the world in that regard. The fact that California, Oregon and Washington are visionary led to a lot of EV rollout there. But the plans have some blank spaces that will need to be filled in later.
The boredom factor of waiting around for an EV to charge is important. It's like watching a file download. That's why there's some consensus that a lot of fast charging will be done at destinations like movie theaters, malls and Starbucks -- we're there anyway, so why not get a charge out of it?
Steve Gitlin of charging company AeroVironment, which is installing the Oregon stations, says they've thought about the thumb-twiddling problem:
The plan is for these stations to be at convenient locations where there are restaurants and recreational facilities so people will have something to do. They won't necessarily all be at highway rest stops.
There are also concerns that a steady diet of fast charging will damage expensive battery packs, and the tiny problem that the U.S. has so far failed to unite around a common charging standard for 480 volts -- and most of today's EVs aren't equipped to plug in to it. Other that that, it's a go!
But don't look for inspiration at California's much-ballyhooed "hydrogen highway" -- that one crashed headlong into funding realities. Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger promised "hundreds" of stations in 2004, but the plan had crashed and burned by 2008, with only a few built.
Where the plans stand
Industry veteran AeroVironment, which installs in-home chargers for the Nissan Leaf and the BMW ActiveE, is Oregon's partner in putting 480-volt stations along 150 miles of the I-5 corridor, from the California line to the Willamette Valley by late fall. That should allow it to hook up with Washington State's "border-to-border" network that leverages $1.32 million in federal Recovery Act funding. And it should be no big deal to also connect those highways to a California corridor, sponsored by Rabobank, between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
That's the whole West Coast right there, with a few blank spots. But don't plan a road trip in your Nissan Leaf just yet. First, only some of them even have a fast-charging port. Second, the Society of Automotive Engineers is still grappling with what a U.S. port should look like. The highways will have DC fast chargers designed to work with a protocol called CHAdeMO developed by Tokyo Electric Power (yes, the nuclear power operator), but only some cars (including those built by Nissan and Mitsubishi) are equipped to plug into it.
CHAdeMO could shortly become obsolete in the U.S. market, but Gitlin says AeroVironment is ready for this, too, and that its chargers are designed to be quickly updated.
Danger: high voltage?
And the issue of whether batteries will be damaged by repeated fast charging (because of excessive heat build-up) is still not fully resolved. Nissan's Mark Perry told me it won't be an issue unless cars are heavy users of fast-charge ports -- more than once or twice a day. EV companies claim that built-in advanced battery management software would shut down the charging process before any damage can be done. But 480 is a lot of volts, and concerns remain.
So expect some speed bumps on the electric car highway. Fast charging on the interstates is a great idea, but still a work in progress.
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Photo: Flickr/WSDOT