A recent AAA survey revealed that 25 percent of Americans would consider buying an electric vehicle (EV), but most of their hesitation centered on concerns about charging.
Cost (60 percent) was also a big objection but concerns about the lack of charging places (60 percent) and running out of power while driving (58 percent) also ranked high among reasons people might not purchase an EV.
The hesitation is warranted as there are currently a limited amount of EV chargers available for use. The charger shortage can limit how far EV drivers can travel and could put them at risk of being stranded if their vehicle runs out of power. Having a sufficient amount of EV chargers could be years away.
Fortunately, companies are getting creative with more near-term solutions to this issue. For example, AAA partnered with EV information provider Recurrent last year to help ease people’s concerns about having limited range or running out of power while on the road.
“With this new partnership between ACA and Recurrent, we can provide AAA members who drive electric vehicles with personalized monthly battery reports as a benefit of Membership,” Colleen St. Leger, Vice President of Business Acceleration and Innovation, AAA Club Alliance, said in a statement.
Additionally, AAA will provide some of its stranded members with enough of a charge to get home or to a charging station—similarly to how it would for someone who ran out of gas, The Wall Street Journal reports. The service is currently available in 23 states with more to be added soon.
The roadside assistance company sometimes gets calls from EV driver members who had enough power to get to a charging station, but the chargers there were all broken, Greg Brannon, director of automotive engineering and industry relations for AAA said.
AAA is also exploring an electric tow truck that could charge members’ EVs with its own power. This would be an eco-friendlier option than the gas-powered generator AAA currently uses to recharge stranded vehicles.
Battery packs is another solution that’s helping offset the lack of EV chargers, The Wall Street Journal reports. Massachusetts-based SparkCharge sells mobile battery packs to rental car agencies and other companies with vehicle fleets that they can use. The packs are designed so fleet companies don’t have to set up permanent on-site charging stations.
Meanwhile, electric truck maker Xos offers customers mobile charging equipment. The solution came about when the company discovered its first customers had not made plans for onsite charging.
“They’re not aware of all the charging infrastructure that needs to come along beforehand, and the timeline that it takes to deploy a lot of that charging infrastructure Xos CEO Dakota Semler said.
“We recognized there’s going to be a need for a stopgap solution,” he says.
Researchers are also developing and testing a longer-term EV charging solution—electrified roads. This scenario would let EVs charge while moving or stopped. No charging stations or mobile chargers required; being on the road would be the power source. The tech has been deployed in a few locations, but it could take at least 20 years before wireless chargers will be added to main road, Francisco De Leon, a professor at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering, told The Wall Street Journal.
Israeli company Electreon Wireless recently tested the concept with a Toyota RAV4 hybrid (only using the battery power) on a partially electrified test track for 100 hours. The vehicle covered 1,200 miles without needing to stop or recharge with another source. Electreon Wireless currently has electrified parts of roads in Israel, Sweden and Germany and is building its first U.S. pilot in Detroit.
An electric coil is put a few inches below the road’s service and then wirelessly transfers power to a receiver that’s connected to bottom of the EV to charge the battery. The received would cost EV drivers approximately $1,000, but electrified roads could let vehicle makers use smaller, less expensive batteries, which could help lower vehicle prices without sacrificing how far they can travel.
“If we invest right, we can pull this off,” Stefan Tongur, vice president of U.S. business development for Electreon Wireless said.
Comments