A sign of the times?

Setting aside, for a moment, the environmental, economic and technologoical benefits of electric vehicles, they have an important advantage over gas cars which might go overlooked. Floridians and others fleeing the path of hurricane Irma (September 2017) were seriously hampered in their attempts to evacuate by gasoline shortages. Due to increased demand many serivce stations were out of gas in various parts of Florida and elsewhere making a reliable evacuation from the storm's path by car problematic. But if electric vehicle charging stations were established and distributed as gas stations are now, electric vehicle owners could reliably charge their cars making an evacuation much less uncertain. That's especially so since EVs could be charged either at people's homes or at electric charging stations. Even with increased demand, electricity is much easier to effectively allocate than gasoline carried by tanker trucks. The experience of Irma shows the distribution of gas by truck to be positively awkward by comparison. Crude, even. Pun intended.

Of course, electric vehicle adoption itself has a long way to go. And deployment of electric charging stations is still in its infancy. But advancements in either of those drives the other. For instance the appearance of charging stations on interstate highways might enhance sales of cars like Chevrolet's new Bolt — a pure electric car which has a range of over 230 miles (and is priced at less than $38,000) — since a car with that kind of range could actually undertake a highway trip of considerable distance. I met a Bolt owner who did just that recently. And more trips like that demonstrate a demand for more charging stations on interstate highways and elsewhere. Taken together, cars like the Bolt and the appearance of highway charging stations seem to signal a jump in the long-range practicality of a new class of EVs. Compare the Tesla Model 3 which is similar to the Chevy Bolt in both price and range.

And as you've likely noticed, highway rest stops aren't the only places electric vehicle charging stations have started to spring up. Grocery stores, restaurants, parking garages, businesses, office parks and car dealerships now feature them.