AAA and the electric future of cars

I was sitting here daydreaming after eating a lot of Asian food for lunch. I just realized, how is AAA going to help give roadside assistance for someone that has ran out of energy?

Currently, when you run out of fuel on the road because your gas gauge sucks, 'cause you drive an ancient car, they come out with their little gas can, give you some fuel, and you are on your way.

What will they do now? Babysit you on the side of the road while the generator gives you a jump charge to get you to a charging station?

Maybe they'll move into battery swapping.

I think AAA would get a lot more expensive...

In reply to iansane :

Pretty sure a battery swap is out of the question for "roadside help"

Probably some version of a portable charger in a truck or something. Or they give you a supplemental one like a cell phone booster on steroids.

In reply to _ :

Kinda depends on the vehicle. Tesla was looking into swap stations for a while from the Bay to Reno. Not sure whatever happened to that actually. Still would have been a 45 minute stop though, the way they were talking.

Semi serious question, could you roll start electric cars that have regen braking? Like shove them down the road enough to kick on again?

Maybe just refuse "refuel" service for EVs would be my guess. Likely charge them a lesser rate since they'll only need tire and towing.

J/k. They'll still get the full rate.

I would guess the first stage is a tow to the nearest charging station. 
 

They will be adding 20kw generators on the back of the tow truck so you can get charged up, while the tow truck driver takes a break and does a few crossword puzzles and catches up with GRM forum posts, eats his lunch, polishes his truck, calls the DMV and waits on hold to see about registering his new EV swapped 65 Mustang.

Or just tow it to the nearest charge station.   

You just get a lift to a place with electricity. Same thing you'd do with a broken ICE but with a much shorter time to "fix". If you run out of battery in the middle of absolutely nowhere, then maybe you have to pay the price for your lack of planning with a long ride. More likely, you'll be pretty close to a charger because that's where you were going.

RevRico said:

In reply to _ :

Semi serious question, could you roll start electric cars that have regen braking? Like shove them down the road enough to kick on again?

You can charge an EV by towing it. People have played with it because you can but it's not very efficient.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

That's interesting. So the AAA driver in question may not need to actually tow you all the way to the charger. They'd just need to tow you far enough that you could drive the rest on the charge gained from the tow.

I should mention that you can get into some weird situations with electrics. I mostly know Teslas so my comments will be based on them.

The cars run a supplemental 12v battery that (I believe) does things like open the doors. You can get into a situation where the 12v battery runs flat and then you're locked out bigtime. There are jump points on the car to energize it enough to make that happen.

Teslas also have a specific "tow mode" and you really can't get the car on to a flatbed if you don't put it there. The instructions are available in the owner's manual, which is accessible in digital form on the center screen.

You may see the problem there :) Having a hard copy of how to put into tow mode or jump the car would probably be very worthwhile. Just don't put it in the glovebox that is opened via the center screen...

The failure modes for EVs are going to take a bit of adjustment on the part of the tow operators. It's no different than knowing how to attach a tow point on an E39 instead of bending the lower control arms, really. 

thatsnowinnebago said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

That's interesting. So the AAA driver in question may not need to actually tow you all the way to the charger. They'd just need to tow you far enough that you could drive the rest on the charge gained from the tow.

I have to think that he'd have to tow you a good percentage of the way there, to the point where it wouldn't be worth unhooking. Remember, this running out of battery thing isn't liable to happen a long, long way away from a charger in most cases.

But yeah, if you're at the top of Vail pass it might work out :)

I suspect out of gas calls are pretty minor for AAA , if they get called it's for a two or maybe a dead battery.

stuart in mn said:

I suspect out of gas calls are pretty minor for AAA , if they get called it's for a two or maybe a dead battery.

They never bring me gas. They always tow me to the nearest gas station.

In reply to _ :

I think this is just one of the myriad small issues with going all-electric. These will become apparent over the course of the next twenty years or so, and will result in "all-electric" being an ever-approaching but unreachable limit.

You might even see a rebound in internal combustion vehicles at some point. Inevitably, there will come a point where the value of used gasoline-powered vehicles starts to climb.

I have said that electric vehicles don't appeal to me, for reasons that tie back to state transition physics, but that I can't quite articulate all of the practical problems I have with them.

Well, there you go.

It's in the name. They'll just drop off some of these:

So would traveling with a gas generator be the equivalent of having a few 5 gallon gerry cans that wannabe overlanders like to prance around with? 

I don't understand this huge fear of running out of power on the road. Do you run your ICE on fumes all the time? Do you fill up every single day with fuel? No? Didn't think so. Then why the major fear with an EV that you can charge at home every single night if you want?

Seeing Teslas run One Lap has shown that even in a cross country road trip, you aren't really that far off the beaten path getting to a charger every day, and don't lose that much time charging. 

It won't be long until Choice, Hilton, and the other hotel chains start making charge spots standards at their hotels, making the already impressive in some spots charging network even larger and easier to get to. 

I mean I kind of get it, change is scary, computers are magic, but instant torque, no emissions inspections, special parking until they become standard are pretty nice fringe benefits of ditching ICE. 

In reply to vwcorvette :

I never brought anyone gas either. I'd rather load a car on the bed and go to the gas station instead of carrying a can, filling it when I get a call, listen to the owner bitch about not spilling on his car, then towing it anyway when that wasn't the problem.  Add in that I was on Long Island where every small town cop is looking to write tickets for laws they don't understand (I had a cop ask why I didn't have placards for an empty can, that was an amusing stop), and bringing someone has isn't worth the hassle.

DirtyBird222 said:

So would traveling with a gas generator be the equivalent of having a few 5 gallon gerry cans that wannabe overlanders like to prance around with? 

In order to jam in any significant range in any sort of time, you’re going to have to be able to put out, oh, 7 kW or so. Basically a Level 2 charger. That’s a couple of grand and you’ll still be sitting by the side of the road with it running at full bore for half an hour to give 10-15 miles of range. Far easier to hook it and drag it to a charger then move on to the next call. 

RevRico said:

Do you fill up every single day with fuel?

I mean, no. Not usually.

OK, occasionally. Sometimes. I can generally make it two days.

Wait... I don't think I've effectively made my pro-ICE point with this comment.

DirtyBird222 said:

So would traveling with a gas generator be the equivalent of having a few 5 gallon gerry cans that wannabe overlanders like to prance around with? 

Lmfao man. Living in PNW it's oh-ho-ho so true. 

In reply to dculberson :

I was ready to be disappointed that nobody went that way.

Keith Tanner said:

It's no different than knowing how to attach a tow point on an E39 instead of bending the lower control arms, really. 

judging by the number of bent LCAs on bmws, i'm guessing that memo didn't get widely circulated.

Which I think proves my point to some extent :) It's a piece of industry knowledge or the ability to read the big yellow warning labels. If your recovery guy has neither, you have a problem. It will be the same with electrics.