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Comment by guitarsteve | Hacker News Reader

In the Miami area after Hurricane Irma in 2017, we couldn’t find gas for our cars for about a week. I think the pumps for gas stations require electricity (which was also out) plus deliveries were disrupted by downed trees, traffic signal outages, etc.

Just an anecdote that gasoline is not always available during crises. We did have electricity at home but neighboring buildings and neighborhoods had outages for a week or more.

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I have also been through many hurricanes. A point you're missing is that places like a gas stations are prioritized to getting power back on over a place like your house. In one large hurricane as a kid, my house didn't get power back for almost a month.

With that said, many places on the coast have improved a lot by building power lines underground. We never even lost power in the last storm I went through a few years ago.

This is a good point. Do electric charging stations get the same prioritization, do you know?

Probably not, but seems like they would as more people begin to own electric cars. Charging stations also tend to be on main thoroughfares, which tend to get power back before neighborhoods.

But it's not uncommon for people to have at least a gallon of gas stored in a typical suburban home. That's 20-30 miles of emergency travel if needed. I don't think most people can easily store enough electricity to give them 20-30 miles of EV range. Maybe that's possible with a powerwall type setup?

I'd be happy to pick up a cheap(<$15k) EV for work commutes(range of 30 miles is fine), but it would be supplementing my gas vehicle(hybrid or conventional).

The math may change as gas prices spike over the next year. I think that will really drive EV adoption. Time will tell though. So far, I see EVs appealing to a certain type of consumer(pro-technology and/or affluent).

I think the EV would on average have a higher charge than your gas tank level since you charge every day rather than once a week.

You can store fuel even if you have an EV.

Just use it to run a generator, they're generally more efficient than the average gas engine anyway. You can use the electricity generated to power your house and charge your car in an emergency.

And with a tri-fuel kit, you can run that generator on gasoline, propane, or natural gas depending on what's readily available. Even if the gas pumps are offline due to a power outage, you could hook up one of those prefilled propane cylinders that near every gas station seems to sell these days.

Modern EVs can have bidirectional charging so they can charge each other. Hence if you run out and the grid is down you may be able to buy electricity off somebody else’s car. Don’t see this flexibility with gasoline.

That’s what my jerrycan and hose is all about.

Well, you can put gas into a canister and manually refill it. That’s not possible with electric cars unless you want to use a hometrainer with a generator to charge your car.

And even if gasoline is available, it will most likely be prioritised for logistics first. Trucks moving actual goods, buses, ambulances etc.

Also: People coming in with their Ford F-one-million with an umpteen-gallon fuel capacity and hogging all the fuel.

The trucks and buses probably run on diesel.

(In most countries so do the ambulances, but the US might be an exception here.)

Living in NYC after Hurricane Sandy, I spent a lot of time biking past mile+ gas lines. Gas stations ran out for a significant period of time and National Guard fuel trucks were eventually deployed, but didn't have enough for all comers.

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