Charging An Electric Car In Montana Becomes Front Page News - CleanTechnica

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Chad Lauterbach is a noted taxidermist who lives in Los Angeles. A few weeks ago, he drove to Ekalaka (population 400) in eastern Montana to volunteer at the Carter County dinosaur festival, something he has done several times before. He normally drives a Toyota Land Cruiser that gets about 10 miles to the gallon, which means gasoline for the 3000-mile journey would have cost him more than $1000. So, he decided to drive an electric car — the Tesla Model Y owned by his girlfriend Allis Markham –instead.

According to the Montana Free Press, Ekalaka is a two-hour drive from the nearest Walmart — and the nearest electric car charger. Lauterbach and Markham told MTFP reporter Eric Dietrich the navigation system in the Tesla warned them as they drove east from Gillette, Wyoming, that they were headed into an area with no EV chargers available.

Eastern Montana is not a place where EV chargers are likely to be found. Credit: Google Maps

“It kept throwing warnings and red banners and stuff,” Lauterbach said. “It was trying to protect me from doing something stupid.” But he wasn’t worried. An electric car can sip electrons from any available electrical outlet, assuming it has the right adapter for its charging cable.

Even if all he could find was a standard 110-volt wall outlet somewhere, he could still add some miles in an emergency — if he and Markham were patient. At best, a Tesla can add about 3 miles for every hour it is plugged into a wall outlet, but since they planned to stay for the weekend anyway, 3 miles times 48 hours would get them enough battery charge to get back to a Walmart with an EV charging station, at the very least.

Charging An Electric Car In The Middle Of Nowhere

When the intrepid adventurers arrived in Ekelaka, the Tesla was in desperate need of electricity. As they drove down Main Street, Lauterbach noticed an electrical outlet mounted to a utility pole. The cover was unlocked and underneath was a 50-amp outlet of the kind usually found in RV camp grounds. “It was just sitting there, so I plugged in,” he said. Fortunately, Markham happened to have an adapter for her Tesla charging cable that fit the outlet, so the couple plugged the car in and then went to check in at the museum.

Markham said she warned him he shouldn’t leave his car charging at a random outlet without getting permission, in case the locals assumed he was “just some jerk from California, doing what jerks from California do.” Lauterbauch said he did in fact consult the museum director and assumed he wouldn’t be too hard to find if someone had concerns they wanted to share with him.

A few hours later, when they returned to the car, a local resident drove up and showed them a photo of their car plugged into the outlet. It was featured prominently on the front page of the Ekalaka Eagle, the town’s local newspaper. Beneath the photo was a headline announcing “Borrowed Volts.”

It seems the editor of the Eagle, who is also the assistant editor, copy editor, ad manager, and head of distribution, had taken a photo of the unattended Tesla charging and printed it above the fold next to stories about an upcoming pet parade and the Thursday night cribbage games at the Carter County Senior Citizen Center. Must have been a slow news day in Ekalaka.

The photo caption labeled the car a “UEV (unidentified electric vehicle)” and suggested it might be the first time an electric vehicle had been charged in town. The Eagle also reported that it wasn’t clear as of press time whether the car’s owner had paid for the electricity.

Markham said that as soon as she saw the paper, she rushed over to the local power utility, the Southeast Electric Cooperative, which has its headquarters a block off Main Street. She walked in and told the front desk staff she was “here to pay for the crimes of the UEV,” which was met with howls of laughter.

The co-op staff initially told her not to worry about the bill, Markham said, but after some back and forth, the couple ended up paying $60 for access to the electricity. That sum also covered the electricity used by the musician who plugged into the outlet for the dinosaur festival street dance on Saturday night, and much more. The couple paid in cash because the electric co-op wasn’t able to take a credit card. They received a handwritten receipt in return. Lauterbach and the co-op staff also exchanged autographed copies of the Eagle. “Having an ‘I told you so’ on the front page of the paper is very validating for a woman,” Markham said.

Lauterbach said the round trip drive from LA totaled roughly 3,000 miles and ended up costing about $300 in charging fees, not counting the impromptu bill from the electric co-op. He also thinks there’s a possibility the electric co-op could install a real charging station for any electric vehicle owners who might be interested in adding Ekalaka to their itinerary.

Tye Williams, the manager of the electric co-op, said this week that the outlet exists primarily to supply power to vendors during fairs and other events on Main Street. It’s typically unlocked a few weekends a year, he said, and Lauterbach just happened to catch it open between events.

Williams said the utility has been kicking around the idea of installing a formal charging station in Ekalaka for awhile, but hasn’t made any definitive plans. While the state has some grant money available to help install charging stations, he noted that backroads like the route that runs through Ekalaka aren’t anywhere near the top of the state’s priority list. “We’re going to have to do something in the next decade, or some amount of time,” he said.

A search of the Ekalaka Eagle website for Tesla, EV, electric car, and charging station found no results. This appears to be breaking news that the newspaper would just as soon forget about.

Charging An Electric Car

Credit: Tesla

The lesson here is, we are surrounded by electricity wherever we go, but there are many different kinds of electrical outlets. Every driver of an electric car should have a collection of adapters to fit a wide variety of outlets, because you never know what issues you may encounter during your travels. And never assume the natives are all that happy to have you and your electric car come to visit.

Tesla sells a set of 9 adapters for its charging cable that will fit just about any outlet you are likely to come across in your travels. It costs $245 and is well worth the peace of mind it provides. Campgrounds have either 50-amp or 30-amp outlets available. Having an adapter for a standard dryer outlet is always a good idea, since many people have a dryer near the garage.

The takeaway from this is to never assume you are welcome to plug in somewhere just because you see an outlet. Always ask permission and be prepared to offer payment. It’s just common courtesy, unless you are some jerk from California doing what jerks from California do.

[Note: Tesla no longer supplies a charging cable with its new cars, a decision that we at CleanTechnica think is unwise and wrongheaded. Investing in a charging cable and a set of adapters is strongly advised.]

 

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Focus: Ocean shippers playing catch up to electric vehicle fire risk - Reuters

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LOS ANGELES/AMSTERDAM, July 27 (Reuters) - Electric vehicles are crisscrossing the globe to reach their eager buyers, but the battery technology involved in the zero- emission automobiles is exposing under-prepared maritime shippers to the risk of hard-to-control fires, industry, insurance and emergency response officials said.

That risk has been put under the spotlight by the burning car carrier drifting off the Dutch coast. The Dutch coastguard said the fire's cause was unknown, but Dutch broadcaster RTL released a recording in which an emergency responder is heard saying "the fire started in the battery of an electric car."

While all logistics companies deal with the risk of EV lithium-ion batteries burning with twice the energy of a normal fire, the maritime industry hasn't kept up with the developing technology and how it creates greater risk, maritime officials and insurers said.

There were 209 ship fires reported during 2022, the highest number in a decade and 17% more than in 2021, according to a report from insurer Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS) (ALVG.DE). Of that total, 13 occurred on car carriers, but how many involved EVs was not available.

The European Maritime Safety Agency said in a March report the main cargo types identified as responsible for "a large share of cargo fire accidents included ... lithium-ion batteries."

There were 3,783 new cars on board, including 498 electric battery vehicles, a spokesperson of ship chartering company "K" Line said on Friday. Initial reports had put the number of electric vehicles at just 25.

Japan's Shoei Kisen, which owns the ship, said it was working with authorities to get control of the fire.

The cause of the fire, while still officially undetermined, has raised questions about "what blind spots there are when transporting electric cars powered by batteries - which when they catch fire can't be extinguished with water, or even by oxygen deprivation," said Nathan Habers, spokesperson for the Royal Association of Netherlands Shipowners (KVNR).

"The first question that comes to mind is: Does the current code stack up against the risk profile of this type of goods?" he added.

One hazard in lithium-ion batteries is "thermal runaway," a rapid and unstoppable increase in temperature that leads to fires in EVs that are hard to extinguish and can spontaneously reignite.

Fire extinguishing systems on the massive ships that haul cars weren't designed for those hotter fires, and shipping companies and regulators are scrambling to catch up, said Douglas Dillon, executive director of the Tri-state Maritime Safety Association that covers Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Recent fire-related losses are resulting in increased insurance costs for automakers shipping cargo and costs are likely to increase for vessel owners as well, said John Frazee, a managing director at insurance broker Marsh. As ship owners seek to limit losses by legally pursuing automakers whose vehicles are determined to have caused a fire, automakers are buying additional liability protection, he said.

Exacerbating the risks is the business model used by the companies that includes tightly packed ships. Auto carriers like the burning ship are known as RoRos, which stands for roll-on/roll-off - the way cars are loaded and unloaded.

RoRos are like floating parking garages and can have a dozen or more decks carrying thousands of vehicles, industry officials said. Unlike parking lots, however, cars are parked bumper-to-bumper with as little as a foot or two of space overhead.

Firemen typically put out EV battery fires on roadsides by clearing the area around the burning vehicle and flooding the underside with water, something difficult to do on a RoRo, Dillon said.

"There's no way for a firefighter in protective gear to get to the location of a fire" on a ship, he said, adding the cramped conditions increase the danger getting trapped.

While trains and trucks also transport EVs, isolating and extinguishing fires is easier as workers can unhook a rail car and a trucker can pull over, said Frazee.

Frazee expects insurers to lead the charge on strengthening safety systems on ships. Options being worked on include new chemicals to douse flames, specialized EV fire blankets, battery piercing fire hose nozzles and proposals to segregate EVs.

"I see no quick solution," Frazee said.

The International Maritime Organization, which sets regulations for safety at sea, plans to evaluate new measures next year for ships transporting EVs in light of the growing number of fires on cargo ships, a spokesperson told Reuters.

That could include specifications on types of water extinguishers available on boats and limitations on the amount a battery can be charged, which impacts flammability.

With EVs here to stay, KVNR's Habers said his group is discussing tightening regulations to account for the additional safety risks.

"There is already a whole lot of communication underway about this," he said, "but with this incident it becomes apparent we might need to speed up the process, especially when you consider that the number of this sort of cars is only going to rise."

Global auto sales last year totaled 81 million vehicles, 9.5% of which were EVs, according to EV-Volumes.com. China and Europe have been the most aggressive regions in pushing automakers to shift to EVs, and U.S. President Joe Biden's administration has proposed rules that could result in as much as two-thirds of the new vehicle market shifting to EVs by 2032.

Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles and Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam, additional reporting by Victoria Waldersee in Berlin, editing by Ben Klayman and Diane Craft

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Lisa Baertlein

Thomson Reuters

Lisa Baertlein covers the movement of goods around the world, with emphasis on ocean transport and last-mile delivery. In her free time, you'll find her sailing, painting or exploring state and national parks.

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