The RACE Is On For Juice — GM, Porsche And Tesla Are Doing Battle As We Speak...

When it comes to electric vehicles, the biggest fear — and rightfully so — is range anxiety. When you've got to seriously worry about your driving style, the changes in the weather and the battery's range depletion over time, it sounds like a lot to be concerned about.

That's because it is.

I've been weighing these problems lately and, frankly, it has me hesitant.

The good news is that automakers are working on some facets of these challenges. According to a report from Bloomberg, General Motors is seeking to collapse the time required to charge an EV to obtain a fresh 180 miles.

This is no easy feat. We know Porsche is tackling the same problem and Tesla is well-known for its deployment of superchargers to enable long-distance travel.

Whether or not GM has the juice to deliver the juice is to be seen. Stay tuned, Spies.

Electric cars developed by General Motors Co. may be able to recharge their batteries with 180 miles of driving range in less than 10 minutes, a quicker juicing up than drivers can get at Tesla Inc.’s superchargers.

The Detroit-based automaker and one of its research partners, Delta Americas, are developing the fast-charge system as part of a three-year project. GM has said it’s readying 20 electric cars for sale by 2023 that will be capable of rapid charging...

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TomM - 9/3/2018 7:34:46 PM

+2 Boost

While range anxiety is the biggest EV car problem - it is not the biggest EV problem - clearly complete lack of Infrastructure is.

If you do not have a dedicated place to park where you can have your own charging station - in most areas - you may as well not buy a plug-in Hybrid ir an EV- because you cannot depend on public systems availability when YOU need it. People who live in apartments with street parking - apartments with parking lots - houses with street parking only and no garage - literally cannot set up their own charging station - and do not know how long the LINE will be for the nearest public charger.

BUT an even bigger problem is - in most metropolitan areas - we are already stretching the electric grid to the max on warm summer days - where electric utilities have reverted to Brown outs - and actually cutting off some customers. WE do not have the Electric Generation Capacity to feed a large number of electric vehicles. And we certainly do not have the availability of large open areas of land in those metro areas to set up solar systems - so we must us Oil/Gas/Coal fired plants - defeating the green purpose of the EVs. WE cannot accept simply moving the emissions crisis to where the electric plant is -and it takes DECADES to get all the Federal, State, and local approvals needed to build power plants - and they are not in the pipeline.

TheSteve - 9/4/2018 3:41:58 AM

+2 Boost

+1. Add to that 4 standards, meaning your EV is compatible with only one kind of charging station :-/

Looking forward to a single "smart" charging standard. Why don't car companies do what computer consortiums do, like with USB standards? (Rhetorical question)

SanJoseDriver - 9/3/2018 8:19:17 PM

-4 Boost

Infrastructure is a 100% nonissue in California metros at this point. 4 of the people in my office building have EVs with no garage. Every individual office building on the street has between 4 and 16 chargers, which is now the norm in Silicon Valley. Google, Apple, and Facebook have literally hundreds of chargers available. Every major shopping center also has dozens of them.

As for the grid, this could "easily" be fixed with grid storage. The quotes are because it won't be cheap, but utilities could easily recoup costs by running plants 24/7 and storing the unused electricity at night. Most EV users also charge at night coincidentally.

SanJoseDriver - 9/5/2018 2:35:14 AM

-1 Boost

Go to chargepoint.com and zoom into any part of Santa Clara County or San Francisco to see how many chargers there now are. These aren't even Superchargers, any EV can use them. Many let you charge for free.