Guest essay by Eric Worrall(wattsupwiththat) – An ice storm and accident stranded drivers in freezing conditions on the Virginia I-95 overnight on Monday. My question – what would have happened if they were all driving electric vehicles? 27-hour commute: Virginia officials pelted with questions after hundreds of drivers were stuck on I-95 overnight Ryan W. MillerDoyle Rice USA TODAY The winter storm blanketed several states in the mid-Atlantic and South on Monday, closing schools and causing power outages.
In Virginia, drivers were stranded in a 50-mile stretch of Interstate 95 near Fredericksburg overnight. Five deaths across three states were caused by the weather. Drivers survived the Monday traffic jam by periodically running their engines to stay warm. When the traffic finally started moving again, most vehicles had enough gasoline to finish their journeys. President Biden is pushing everyone to switch to electric vehicles, as part of his Net Zero plan. But EV batteries suffer severe performance drops in freezing conditions, and are more likely than gasoline engines to fail completely in severe conditions. Even if the EV batteries don’t freeze, an EV battery contains nowhere near as much energy as a tank of gas, so the safety margin is a lot thinner, for people stranded in severe weather who are using the stored energy of their vehicle to stay warm. In my opinion, if everyone stuck on the I-95 had been driving an EV, the I-95 ice storm traffic jam could have become a mass casualty event.
