- A power outage makes the prospect of charging an EV sound scary, but consider: Most last only a few hours.
- You’re no worse off than your neighbors, since gas pumps don’t work during a power outage either.
- Learn the public-charging options within 25 to 50 miles as a fallback.
Not everyone can charge an EV at home—but if there’s a power outage, almost no one can charge an EV. What do you do if you need to leave home but the lights and the power have gone out?
First, think about preparedness. If you’re up a mountain, or in a rural area, or somewhere the power regularly goes out, you’ve likely planned for that—whether it’s keeping your gas tank filled or having a backup generator for essential home electric functions like the fridge.
If you normally gas up your car before a storm, do the same with your EV: Charge it every night, rather than just every few days when it gets down to 20 or 30 percent of battery capacity.
Second, don’t freak out—it likely won’t last that long. Most power outages are brief and will end long before an overnight EV charging session is ruined. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) says the average American experienced fewer than six hours of power interruptions over the entire year in 2023—made up of many shorter cuts added together. Some are planned outages for maintenance; others are more unexpected events, such as equipment failures or damage from major storms.
If you happen to experience a truly major power outage—such as the 2003 Northeast blackout or the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area—let history be your guide. In the Northeast, power was restored for most users within seven hours; in the Bay Area, within eight.
Third, know your public-charging stations within, say, a 25-to-50-mile radius. In rare cases, for a small number of households, power may go out for several days. But that’s exceedingly unusual—and even more so across wide areas that stretch, say, 20 miles or more. So, you should know where to go to recharge in that rare case.
Identify both DC fast-chargers and the more plentiful public Level 2 sites—especially ones near facilities like food outlets or convenience stores, for the bathrooms.
Unless you’ve managed to run your EV right down to something like 10 percent of battery capacity, you’ll have enough battery range (20 to 45 miles) to escape the immediate outage area to get to a public-charging option.
Fourth, you can use a generator if you have one (or perhaps your neighbor’s electric outlet!). If you have a home generator, make sure your house is wired so that the electric circuits fed by the generator include an outlet near where you park, even if you have to charge at a reduced rate to keep from overloading the generator. Or you can plug the EV’s portable charging cord directly into the generator if it has an outlet. No, 120-volt outlet power won’t charge your EV as fast as a 240-volt Level 2 charging setup—but two to five miles of range for each charging hour can make a difference until power is restored.
Hurricane Milton: Positive Charging Experience
How did that all work out during the evacuations before Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida and crossed the state in October 2024? According to data from Stable, which helps its customers plan and operate EV charging networks, Florida’s “charging infrastructure held up pretty well in spite of widespread power outages.”
Specifically, Stable said, charging-station outages were mostly concentrated in areas near where the hurricane made landfall—locations where shelter-in-place orders were in effect and residents were asked not to evacuate by car. More than 85 percent of charging points were back online within two days of the hurricane, whereas gas stations that did have power reported long lines and limited supplies of fuel. Finally, there was little crowding at EV charging stations along evacuation routes.
That can always change, but the growth of charging stations continues unabated: From only a handful 15 years ago, we now have about 233,000 charging ports at over 84,000 EV sites across the U.S. and Canada, according to the Department of Energy Alternative Fuels Data Center. In other words, if there are more EVs on the roads during the next blackout, there will be more charging stations by then to serve them.
Finally, it’s worth reiterating: If there’s a widespread power outage, none of your neighbors driving gasoline cars can fill up either—gasoline dispensers at gas stations require electricity to pump the gas from the underground tanks to the hose. If bad weather is forecast, plug in more often than usual. You’ll be fine.
John Voelcker edited Green Car Reports for nine years, publishing more than 12,000 articles on hybrids, electric cars, and other low- and zero-emission vehicles and the energy ecosystem around them. He now covers advanced auto technologies and energy policy as a reporter and analyst. His work has appeared in print, online, and radio outlets that include Wired, Popular Science, Tech Review, IEEE Spectrum, and NPR’s “All Things Considered.” He splits his time between the Catskill Mountains and New York City and still has hopes of one day becoming an international man of mystery.
Source: www.caranddriver.com