Range Anxiety

As the push comes to put more electric cars on the road (Obama wants one million by 2015) one problem is going to rear its ugly head: range anxiety.

That is, fear that the car will not go as far as needed and charging stations are few and far between.  Joel Schectman, an AP writer, tells us what the problem is:

Drivers want electric cars but worry they won't have enough juice to make long trips. After all, what good is going green if you get stranded with a dead battery?

It's a fear that automakers must overcome as they push to sell more battery-powered cars. So government and business are taking steps to reassure drivers by building up the nation's network of electric charging stations.

Range anxiety is a legitimate fear.  And partly because "refueling" takes so dang long:

Most public stations will take eight hours to juice up a car all the way, about the same as chargers in individual homes. These plugs could work for people who have chargers near their offices, but wouldn't work for quick refueling. Even a partial charge will take awhile — two-and-a-half hours to get 30 miles. A limited number of the chargers will be fast-chargers. If you can find one, it will still take 30 minutes for a full powerup.

Thirty minutes isn't bad (but a lot longer than the few minutes it takes to put gasoline in a car) but an 8-hour stop for fuel just isn't practical.

And that's the problem with electric cars.  They can still only remain commuter cars, driven short distances.  But when the family wants to drive to grandma's house or Disneyland, they are going to need an internal combustion engine to get there.  Which is why the Chevy Volt makes a little more sense but still people are probably going to need two cars.  And a lot of folks (especially after paying the premium an electric car requires) aren't going to be able to afford it.

So Obama will reach his goal only if there's enough rich fools to buy one million very impractical cars.