Preparing a Home for the Electric Car

henry ford model T electric cars adoption

Henry Ford with his Model T

As my electric Porsche Boxster reaches the final stages of construction, I've been working on preparing my home for the car. Bringing home an electric car is a different experience than trading in an old Volkswagen for a Toyota Prius. The Prius takes the Volkswagen's place in the garage or driveway with the only disruption being the fanfare and excitement of having a new car.

Preparing for the evBoxster requires thought about such things as length of commute, where to charge the car, type of electricity at the point of charge, etc. These thoughts naturally lead to contemplating the bigger picture of how our nation will prepare a home for the electric car.

The early adopters of electric vehicles have the same spirit and enthusiasm of "living on the edge" that owners of the first motor cars had when they purchased the first mass-produced autos of the 20th century. However, will these electric car owners have to overcome the same obstacles?

In September of 1908, when the first mass-produced motor cars went into production, new owners had to make a place in their home for their Ford Model T. There were no gas stations for fueling, no auto parts stores for buying oil and no local repair shops every few miles to troubleshoot problems and service your car. Owners had to outfit their homes with the tools and equipment to fuel and maintain their vehicles and learn how their vehicles work to keep them on the road.

first filling stations electric vehicle adoption

An Early Gas Station circa 1920

The Model T didn't have a battery or starter. Owners had to hand-crank the car and then a magneto supplied electricity for the ignition system.

The cars did not have a water pump since Henry Ford understood that hot water would rise to the top of the radiator where it would be cooled by air flowing through it. This created a circulatory flow without a pump and is known as convection.

The cars also lacked a fuel pump. The gas tank was located under the seat - higher than the carburetor so gravity caused the flow of fuel to the engine. Owners had to learn to go up steep hills in reverse when there wasn't enough fuel in the tank to feed the carburetor.

They had to buy gasoline at the hardware store from a barrel or from some pharmacies and grocery stores that sold gasoline as a side business. This often required having storage space at home for fuel and a way to transfer it from a barrel to the gas tank.

Imagine how carefully owners would have to plan for a trip in the motor car? A long trip on dirt roads built for horse-drawn wagons made it difficult to calculate range between refueling stops in towns that sold fuel. What if the car broke down or had a flat tire from the muddy, rutted roads that were the only paths available? These first car owners had to carry tools, parts and tires in case the inevitable happened away from home.

So how does this compare to early adoption of the electric car? We have paved roads built for cars that make it much easier to gauge range between charges. The entire country is electrified and there are power outlets in 99.9% of all structures in the country. We have AAA for nationwide towing capability and lots of other infrastructure that caters to the automobile.

electric charging station electric vehicle adoption

Electric Vehicle Charging Stations

I would wager that if you asked the average homeowner in 1908 if they could see a future of millions of automobiles traversing the country on paved roads at speeds of over 70mph, over 120,000 gas stations covering the nation and accessories sold in almost every type of store, they would have smiled and chuckled. This is the same smile and chuckle I've witnessed when visionaries speak of our nation dotted with charging stations and electric cars whizzing down the roads silently in every city and town across the country.

We have a lot of work to do to prepare for the coming of the electric car. We have to adapt our infrastructure to this new fuel source but this seems like a much easier hill to climb than those that Model T owners climbed in reverse over a hundred years ago.

However, I did check with the engineers working on my evBoxster and it does have a reverse gear. ;-)

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Comments

Anonymous (not verified) Sat, 05/12/2012 - 22:00

Some errors- - fuel is easily transportable at low cost. Electricity is transportable too via batteries (lots more expensive). Yes the USA has a wired infrastructure but it's of no use when your vehicle NEEDS charging. - liquid-fueled vehicles are quickly 'recharged'. How long will the Porsche take to charge from 10%? - Have you ever called AAA? My customers tell me average response time in metro Atlanta is ~4 hours. - A towing company may require specialized information handling an EV. How would you know they have this knowledge before trusting their service?

psmith Sun, 05/13/2012 - 08:50

Thanks for the comments Jim. Here is more info: - fuel is easily transportable at low cost. Electricity is transportable too via batteries (lots more expensive). Yes the USA has a wired infrastructure but it’s of no use when your vehicle NEEDS charging. My point on the wired infrastructure is that having it is an advantage over first adopters of the Model T. Infrastructure had to be built from scratch for fueling stations in 1912. Today, we need to just add "refueling devices" to existing infrastructure and fueling stations. If you compare electric transportation to natural gas, the latter is much closer in scale to building out the fueling infrastructure for the Model T. The "fueling devices" can be as simple as a NEMA 220v 40a outlet for the Tesla Model S and my Porsche or a J1772 Level 2 charger for the Nissan LEAF, Ford Focus Electric, etc. Unfortunately, we don't have a single standard for Level 3 HVDC fast charging. The Nissan LEAF uses a ChadeMo connector and the Tesla has a proprietary HVDC fast charger. Once we have a standard here, charging an EV with around 100 mile range will take about 30 minutes. (see article on EV chargers at Cracker Barrel in Tennessee) - liquid-fueled vehicles are quickly ‘recharged’. How long will the Porsche take to charge from 10%? Since the Porsche is LiFePO4 chemistry and has about 32kWh of storage, it takes about 5 hours at 220v 40a to go from 20% to full charge. The lithium battery chemistry can't go below 20% State of Charge (SOC) If I add HVDC fast charging to it then it's about 30 minutes. - Have you ever called AAA? My customers tell me average response time in metro Atlanta is ~4 hours. Yes. I called AAA for the Porsche when a CV joint let loose on I-85. It was about an hour during morning rush hour. - A towing company may require specialized information handling an EV. How would you know they have this knowledge before trusting their service? True, but once they are more common, this will be less of an issue. It's similar to the Hybrid vehicles. EMTs didn't have the skill to do an extraction from an HEV at the beginning. Also, towing companies didn't know any special needs when towing HEVs. Now that they are more commonplace, it's less of an issue. Actually, my Porsche Boxster does require special towing needs but not because of the EV drivetrain. The AAA driver asked for the special tow hook that screws into the front bumper after he popped off a little panel. I wondered what that little metal "thingy" in the trunk was for! :)

Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 03/23/2010 - 23:32

Sorry bud...but the blog home page sucks! Move the latest news to the upper left frame if possible.

psmith Wed, 03/24/2010 - 14:48

Hi Warren, I'd like to get some more specifics on what you don't like about the layout. (it's hard to find people that will give candid feedback) May I email you for more information? -Powell (Mapawatter)

Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 04/02/2010 - 23:47

You sure can. Don't get me wrony you have a lot of great content. Check out the guys at 37signals, buy the book REWORK and follow some of their advice.

Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 04/05/2010 - 01:16

I think the best part about electric vehicles is the increased efficiency of the electric grid. More demand at night will balance out the fixed costs that power companies maintain (ie they have to run the power plants 24/7, but having massive turbines just spinning with no demand on them at night is wasteful). Granted, less demand helps increase nighttime air quality if the source of electricity is a coal-fired power plant...hopefully more energy in the future will come from renewable energy sources. With any luck, having a few million EV's charging a couple billion kWh every night will balance out the fixed costs, and reduce overall costs to the consumer, especially in reduced demand for gasoline.

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