I-95 Traffic Nightmare: What If You Were Stuck in an Electric Car for 24 Hours?

By Sean Tucker 01/25/2022 9:15am

A rapid early January storm created a unique traffic nightmare for hundreds of drivers in Virginia. Interstate 95, the East Coast’s primary north-south highway corridor, came to a complete standstill just south of Washington, D.C. Hundreds of drivers sat trapped in their cars for as long as 24 hours, waiting for tow trucks to clear away a series of accidents.

The incident triggered media reports nationwide. It also launched a debate. Did the standstill prove that America isn’t ready for electric vehicles (EVs)? Many assumed that EVs would run out of stored electricity long before gasoline-powered cars would run out of gas.

That could, the theory went, create medical risks for their drivers and passengers in the extreme cold. Even if drivers made it through the night safely, they’d need a tow, possibly very far, to the nearest charging station when the crisis ended.

A Washington Post columnist went so far as to write that the event “provides a reality check on the push by government and business to electrify cars and trucks.”

No one, it seemed, followed up with the EV drivers who got stuck in the crisis.

“Especially Grateful” to Be Stuck in an EV

“I am especially grateful that I was driving my EV when I got stuck on I-95,” writes Dan Kanninen.

Kanninen isn’t neutral on the subject. He told his story to the Zero Emission Transportation Association (ZETA) website, a coalition of companies working to advocate for pro-EV policies.

“While fellow drivers burned gasoline running their engines to stay warm, my EV intelligently directed power solely to temperature regulation,” he wrote. He “did not have to inefficiently burn fuel to power my entire engine” to keep himself and his passengers warm in the standstill.

Kanninen sat trapped for over 14 hours, he writes. But his Tesla Model 3 Standard Range “nevertheless made it to the charger with a 50-mile range surplus” when traffic moved again.

Tesla Driver Made it Home

A second Tesla driver trapped in the storm triggered that Washington Post column. Columnist Charles Lane wrote that a tweet sent under the handle My World Through a Windshield inspired his piece. The name belongs to a Canadian long-haul truck driver who sat stuck in the I-95 mess. The tweet expressed worry about a nearby Tesla driver, who knocked on the truck’s door and asked to borrow a blanket.

My World Through a Windshield later followed up with the Tesla driver. The man’s electric vehicle charge reportedly lasted through the night. His battery stood at 18% when traffic cleared.

A Home Test Shows 75% Charge After 12 Hours of Idling

A clever writer at Inside Hook last week decided to conduct an experiment to explore the question of how well an EV would perform stuck in the cold for hours. Alex Lauer borrowed a Ford Mustang Mach-E for his test. He drove the car for a few miles, then got “stuck on the highway” in his driveway in 13-degree-Fahrenheit cold.

A Ford spokesperson suggested he rely on the heated steering wheel and seats for warmth. But Lauer wanted to “keep the cabin warm enough that even backseat passengers would be comfortable.” So, he alternated “using only the footwell heating as well as the full-on blast from the footwell and dashboard vents, toggling between 70 and 75 degrees.”

After 12 hours of idling, Lauer writes that the Mach-E retained 75% of its charge and 132 miles of range.

Norwegian YouTuber Bjorn Nyland performed a similar experiment with a Tesla Model 3 Performance model, running its heater for 72 hours in a Norwegian winter before the battery depleted.

What It All Means

As America’s automakers shift to mainly building electric cars, drivers will develop a new understanding of how these cars function. The assumptions we’ve all learned from years of driving gasoline-powered vehicles can keep us from understanding how electric vehicles work.

At first glance, it seems perfectly reasonable to think EVs stuck in traffic are running out of electricity the same way idling gasoline-powered cars are running out of gas. But they’re not.

Running the heater in an internal combustion engine car requires running the entire engine. Each gasoline engine burns fuel at a different rate while idling, but there is no way to set an engine to use only as much fuel as necessary to run the heater.

An electric vehicle, it turns out, can do that. “Idling” in an EV means draining the battery extremely slowly, as only the heater uses electricity. An EV can stay warm with its motors off. That does gradually rob a car of range. But it does so so slowly that EVs stuck in Virginia’s traffic nightmare seem to have made it through the 24-hour traffic jam with enough juice to get their drivers comfortably to a charging station.