We like our EV because it's green. But for escaping wildfires — maybe it's not the best option yet | CBC News (www.cbc.ca)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by otter@lemmy.ca to c/technology@lemmy.world

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When Jamella Hagen and her boyfriend planned a four-day road trip to bring his new electric pickup truck from Vancouver to Whitehorse, she anticipated challenges.

She knew the gaps between fast chargers in the North, so they planned stops in communities with EV charging stations.

What she did not anticipate were the wildfires.

"Our choice to drive an EV was an attempt to reduce our personal impact on climate change," she wrote in a CBC first person column. "But on the road, we encountered climate change disasters all around us, and we had to cope with them while learning to use a new and still fragile charging network."

Some of the routes Hagen planned to take were shut down and redirected to make room for evacuees leaving Kelowna and the Shuswap region.

Knowing the EV truck wouldn't make a long distance between chargers, Hagen made unexpected stops, like a hotel where a charger was a 20 minute walk away. Hardly unusual, she said, as she often finds EV chargers located in inconvenient places, such as the edges of town or behind buildings.

"If I was travelling as a single woman, I would have found myself missing the comfort of a brightly lit gas station on a lonely stretch of highway."

Overall, Hagen says she’ll still consider buying an electric vehicle herself while living in the north, but only if her family had an additional, fuel-powered car at the ready.

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[-] Kachilde@lemmy.world 51 points 1 year ago

I’m not sure I understand what is being said here. In a disaster situation, EVs are a risk because infrastructure is impacted? Is the same not true for petrol cars?

[-] Worx@lemmynsfw.com 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Petrol / diesel vehicles usually have a longer range than electric.. as long as they are topped up.

But to answer your real question, I also wonder what the point of the article is. It seems like the point is to dissuade people from buying EVs and to keep oil companies making as much money as possible. Since we are talking about hypotheticals (she might still buy EV if her family has a petrol car to borrow), why not discuss the hypothetical of a bus / train / car share network that makes a personal vehicle irrelevant?

Edit: maybe I'm just being too cynical but why would someone who's so passionate about the environment to buy an EV and talk to a reporter about it and her environmental impact miss out a chance to push systematic change? Maybe she's taken out of context, maybe the whole thing is made up maybe I'm just not understanding enough of other people's viewpoints

[-] otter@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 year ago

I was unsure at first, but part of it might be the type of article.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/first-person-faq-1.5927006

First Person columns are personal stories and experiences of Canadians, in their own words. This is intended to showcase a more intimate storytelling perspective, and allow people from across the country to share what they have lived through.

So it's one person's account of what they experienced and how they feel. There might not be a specific point to the piece, but rather you can take from it what you will. I saw it as advocating for further improving the charging network, in particular focussing on the issue of how forest fires might impact it.

It's also a bad title. The content is decent, but if you just read the title it's bad.

[-] Worx@lemmynsfw.com 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks for doing that research. I read the summary which is all written in third person and assumed that was the whole article. Less likely to be malicious if it's just the newspaper's equivalent of a personal blog..

[-] sik0fewl@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago

I think the point is that we need to continue improving our infrastructure.

[-] otter@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Not a point against EVs, but rather about the need to build out the network even more

I think infrastructure is still relevant (we need battery technologies so that power loss to a region doesn't shut down all charging stations), but the other point here is that the network is still very sporadic in BC. So when a part of the network is blocked off, because of closed roads, it might leave people stranded.

There's also this other point which is important outside of disaster situations, but probably made worse during a disaster with limited support for vulnerable people:

Hardly unusual, she said, as she often finds EV chargers located in inconvenient places, such as the edges of town or behind buildings. “If I was travelling as a single woman, I would have found myself missing the comfort of a brightly lit gas station on a lonely stretch of highway.”

this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023

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