Driving an electric car used to be a bit harrowing for Andrew Biviano. Not the safety aspect, mind you. But the battery gauge aspect.
"I had real anxiety," says Biviano, a Spokane County District Court judge. His Nissan Leaf's battery only had enough juice to get him 60 to 80 miles. "It really wasn't physically possible to drive your Leaf across the state."
It's called "range anxiety," says Lindsey Perkins, spokesperson for the electric vehicle advocacy group Plug In America. But as electric vehicles have become more popular and common, that problem has dwindled significantly.
For instance, Biviano's now on his third electric car, a Tesla Model 3 with an effective range of 200 miles, a common range for today's EVs. And so with a little bit of planning, he says, you can drive across the whole country — at least the north-south route.
"I drove to San Francisco and back," Biviano says. "It's actually very convenient."
Bit by bit, new networks of electric vehicle charging stations have been laid down across the country.
"They've got one in Ellensburg," Biviano says. "There's one in Moses Lake. One in Wenatchee."
To be clear, some of those are limited to Tesla owners — the charging station plugs don't fit other brands of cars, though the federal government is requiring them to abide by a power-sharing agreement in the future. But there's a lot more coming, too. The state of Washington obtained $71 million in federal funds to build out charging stations along I-90.
But there's no getting around it: Even the fastest chargers — superchargers — can take 15 to 20 minutes to reach the desired level of charge, a lot longer than it takes to fill up a tank of gasoline. The slower outlets can take hours. And if the station is already filled up with other EVs charging, add additional time to the schedule.
That creates a whole new requisite ritual: passing the time while you're waiting.
So while gas pumps are often just paired with, say, nomnoms or other convenience stores, electric vehicle charging stations are often placed near shopping malls and coffee shops.
In Ellensburg, Biviano grabs a coffee at Starbucks while his Tesla charges. He doesn't linger too long though. Some stations start fining you — up to a dollar a minute — if someone is waiting behind you after you're all charged up.
But other locations offer "destination charging" — slower charging, but often with free electricity to incentivize you to stay and shop a while. Plug in to a charging station outside Huckleberry's on the South Hill and grab a Mediterranean omelet while you wait. Charge up while catching an Indians baseball game at the fairgrounds. Plug in at Kendall Yards, and read the latest copy of the Inlander.
And for those who love the nostalgic magic of small towns, charging stations provide an excuse to, say, check out Newport on the Idaho-Washington border. Tonia Buell, a spokesperson for the Washington State Department of Transportation, gives a shout-out to the picturesque charging station in Rosalia on the way to Pullman.
"That one is really cool because it was one of the first gas stations in the state," Buell says. "Now it's a new age fuel [station] for charging electric vehicles." ♦