Electric Vehicles May Present Major Problem During Natural Disaster Evacuations: Experts

The push to transition the national road fleet to electric vehicles (EVs) is on and while increasingly popular with buyers, experts in the transportation space are examining potential problems with mass EV adoption.

One such issue involves EVs and evacuations during natural disasters.

A report from Transportation Research published in ScienceDirect headlined “Can we evacuate from hurricanes with electric vehicles?” found that Florida—which often bears the force of hurricanes—may not have enough power to cope during an evacuation.

“If the majority of the evacuating vehicles were EVs, Florida would face a serious challenge in power supply,” the report said.

First responders work together in extinguishing the flames of a wildfire near the Irvine Cove neighborhood in Laguna Beach, Calif., on Feb. 10, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

It added that could affect six out of the nine main power authorities, especially those in mid-Florida, and “could induce cascading failure of the entire power network” throughout the state.

In California, the two main natural disasters are earthquakes and wildfires.

Both are short-notice events that have the potential to knock out the power grid with no warning, making it especially difficult, if not impossible, to charge a Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV),” a case study from California Polytechnic State University found.

In 2020, sales of electric vehicles (EVs) reached a record 3 million, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). And, EV sales could increase to 23 million by 2030, thanks partly to the Biden administration’s stated goal of half of all new vehicles sold in 2030 being zero-emissions vehicles.

The increase in EV adoption makes the issue of natural disaster evacuations more pressing.

However, according to a panel of experts at the 2022 National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), the problem has yet to be solved.

Posing the Question

“What happens when people … run out of battery on the side of the road [during an emergency evacuation]?” an NCSL conference attendee asked.

“Early adoption is less than one percent. But when its 2035 or 2040 and we’re at 15–20 percent, it’s a whole new level of problem to deal with.

“What’s your vehicle evacuation plan at that point?”

State Sen. Jeff Brandes (R-Fla.), one of the panelists for “The Promise and Challenges of Electric Vehicles” at NCSL, acknowledged the problem and said Florida was examining the issue. It did not yet have a solution.

State Sen. Faith Winter (D-Colo.) said a “really creative company” in Colorado was examining the feasibility of putting chargers in crates and deploying them “like we deploy water, like we deploy firefighters.” Winter said Colorado is aware of this issue and is looking for a solution.

Alex Schroeder, interim executive lead for the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, didn’t attempt to answer the question.

During a Hurricane

In 2020, Dr Kairui Feng, a researcher at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Princeton University, along with her colleagues Dr Ning Lin and Dr Siyuan Xian, released a report with Dr Mikhail Chester, the director of the Metis Center for Infrastructure and Sustainable Engineering at Arizona State University, on the problem of evacuating from hurricanes with EVs.

The team used Hurricane Irma (2017) for its evacuation model,

“Hurricane Irma created the largest-scale evacuation in U.S. history, involving about 6.5 million people in Florida on mandatory evacuation orders and, consequently, 4 million evacuating vehicles.

“Severe travel delays happened throughout the state due to traffic jams; some highways [with a 75 mph speed limit] were experiencing a 15 mph peak traffic speed under a tripled traffic volume, compared to the usual conditions.”

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