California power outages: What do EV drivers do when this happens?

Same thing a ICE drivers do, except without the long lines at gas stations. Fuel up ahead of time.
BTW, media in California has warned EV owners, not just Tesla owners.

Tesla did send out in car warnings to affected individuals to fully charge in advance.

That said, if you needed a charge, and couldn’t get one at home, worse case you could drive out of the affected area to fuel up.

For me personally, in the event of a power outage I’d just continue to charge at home on solar

 

Gives what?

Power will be proactively shut off to try to prevent a repeat of last year's conflagrations that killed 85 people and bankrupted a utility or two. Nearly everyone, not just BEV drivers, will be inconvenienced or worse. Gasoline powered cars generally won't be able to pump fuel in the blackout zones either. But these problems should be less serious than those mass fatalities.

 

Is your PV with battery back-up? Or is it off-grid system?

 

their infrastructure is so bad, they're afraid of causing more wildfires

 

i suppose it would depend on your commute, or essential driving vs optional.

i wonder how many gas stations have back up generators? if it's not a large percentage, it could make for some very long lines, and higher prices.

 

Aren't such generators very unusual? Absent prior knowledge of such a station, it may well be more time and distance efficient, and deterministic, to head directly out of the blackout zone for refueling. There are online outage zone maps such as this: PG&E power shut-off map: Bay Area electricity outage details by address

BEV drivers could do the same for public charging stations.

This isn't a matter of rapid battery self-discharge. "Days" will be very highly variable depending on individual use, and most drivers should have a reasonable idea of their own needs. Some with still-operating workplaces will need to recharge daily. Others may be able to skate through the whole week without.

 

It comes down to the persons daily miles, and the BEV's range. There are people here that have a very large percentage of their miles on a Prime be on electric. They could go at least a week without a charge with a 200+ mile BEV. A generator is a fall back for BEVs.

Getting gas was an issue in some areas after Sandy.

No power increases gasoline demand because of the generators, which could lead shortages on top of stations without power.

 

As a PHEV owner with a choice of fuels, I'd use both.

I bet this and future outages are going to spark (pun intended) many solar roof sales.

 

We are on grid, with a battery backup system. While the battery backup is nice, the real benefit is that our solar array can generate power during the blackout.
Without, our panel would also be shut down by the blackout.

 

NICE! I have been working on numbers to put PV on our roof, but what I really want is off-grid with battery back-up. Total independence from the utility. The off-grid part is not hard to do, but the battery back-up part makes the system so expensive it just makes no financial sense to me for the house we currently own.

 

After Hurricane Harvey in 2017, commercial grade gensets on wheels were towed in to a couple of local stations. BEV users were on their own as power wasn't restored for weeks (months in some cases) but I bet most evacuated beforehand.

The "What do EV's do?" discussion has been covered in previous storm threads. Just like a hurricane, folks in these outage areas in California had (limited) time to prepare. Those that didn't will learn the hard way. I bet generator sales are through the roof.

 

how far reaching will each blackout be? maybe it won't be that difficult for tesla owners to drive outside the blackout area and find a supercharger

 

It’s expensive as a whole-house endeavor.

It can be surprisingly inexpensive if you can divide the load.

The setup I’m looking at would let me move a significant load to the PV system, but not the whole house. It would be enough to allow significant savings when operating normally. During blackouts, it would be enough to matter.

If I do it the same way I did the beach house, the battery bank would cost around $1800. The big wildcard is that I’m not sure how long they would last. We get very long lifetimes from the beach house installation, but we also don’t hit it for a lot of power.

 

And in the case of hurricanes, tornadoes, and severe windstorms, so do chainsaws. Especially when the tree is laying on your vehicle!