A Florida lawmaker wants to ban EVs from evacuating during hurricanes
A Florida state senator told the state’s Department of Transportation that he thinks EVs could run out of charge and block traffic during hurricane evacuations.
EVs in Florida hurricane evacuations
State senator Jonathan Martin, a Republican who represents Fort Myers, sits on the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources and also the new Select Committee on Resiliency.
The Select Committee on Resiliency met with the Florida Department of Transportation’s (FDOT) executive director of transportation technologies, Trey Tillander, in late February. They discussed Florida’s plans for the $198 million it’s going to get from the Biden administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for EV charging infrastructure over the next five years.
The federal EV charging infrastructure program requires EV stations to be 50 miles apart and open to all EVs. For the first round of grants, stations must be within a mile of the interstate, and rural and underserved communities must be given consideration.
Grant agreements will be in place in Florida by the end of 2023.
The News Service of Florida reported what Martin said about EVs in evacuations during the discussion:
With a couple of guys behind you, you can’t get out of the car and push it to the side of the road. Traffic backs up. And what might look like a two-hour trip might turn into an eight-hour trip once you’re on the road.
My concern is there’s not an infrastructure currently available in the state of Florida for the amount of EVs that might be used to evacuate, on evacuation routes, during a time of emergency.
Tillander replied in so many words that the FDOT isn’t so hot on the idea of an EV ban during hurricane evacuations:
Some of the things we’re looking into … is portable EV chargers.
So, if an electrical vehicle runs out of charge, there are technologies. We have our Road Rangers. We have our emergency assistance vehicles that we deploy during a hurricane evacuation that have gas. …
We need to provide that same level of service to electric vehicles.
Oakland, California-based FreeWire makes mobile EV power stations. FreeWire’s director of regulatory affairs, Renee Samson, told Electrek today in an email:
Instead of restricting certain residents’ ability to evacuate during a natural disaster, state leaders should consider investing in resilient technology to build out Florida’s EV charging infrastructure network, such as battery-integrated DCFC, which enables charging during power outages.
Gas pumps also need electricity to operate. Battery-integrated bidirectional charging technology can push power back to gas stations and other commercial buildings in an emergency, providing the ability to charge EVs and also power gas pumps during power outages.
Electrek’s Take
Martin’s ignorant comment was just that – a comment. Not a bill. But he has influence. Seeing how he sits on two committees that require more than a rudimentary knowledge of EVs and EV infrastructure, he has a responsibility to Florida residents to educate himself – like, now – since he has a direct influence on EV infrastructure rollout in the state that’s ranked second in the US for highest EV ownership.
Just as gas car drivers fill their tanks to prepare for threatening storms, EV drivers also charge up their cars, and they usually do it at home.
If there’s a storm coming, we plug in. I did it in Florida, and now I do it in Vermont. If I had to evacuate in Florida, I’d evacuate on a route that had chargers. I think most EV drivers know this, just like gas car drivers are thinking about gas station accessibility.
“What if the power goes out?” Ah, yes, that old chestnut.
When people are evacuating, the power is still on. One generally evacuates ahead of a storm.
Gas stations also don’t work when the power is out. And when the power comes back on, it’s on. You don’t have to wait for the fuel truck to show up at your local gas station. Have you ever driven from gas station to gas station, looking for gas that hadn’t shown up yet due to supply chain problems, long after the power came back on? I did during Hurricane Irma. My power came on days before the gas stations were replenished.
And as my colleague Jameson Dow pointed out after Hurricane Harvey in 2017:
An EV can be charged from a gasoline generator, but also from any other source of electricity. This is not true of gas cars – they can fill with gas, but not with anything else.
Hope that helps, Sen. Martin.
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Germany’s largest offshore wind farm under construction, EnBW’s He Dreiht, just hit a big milestone: The first enormous turbine is now up in the North Sea.
He Dreiht – which means “it spins” in Low German – is using Vestas’s massive 15 megawatt (MW) turbines, the first project in the world to install them. Just one spin of one of the rotors can generate enough electricity to power four households for an entire day.
When it’s finished, He Dreiht will have 64 mega turbines cranking out 960 megawatts (MW) of clean power – enough to supply around 1.1 million homes. And it’s being built without any government subsidies.
EnBW, one of Germany’s major energy companies, has been working in offshore wind for more than 15 years, but He Dreiht is their biggest project yet. “It will play a key role in helping us to significantly grow our renewable energy output from 6.6 GW to over 10 GW by 2030,” said Michael Class, who heads up EnBW’s generation portfolio development.
The project is a win for Vestas, too. “With the installation of the first V236-15.0 MW, we have reached an important milestone for both the He Dreiht project and our offshore ramp-up, which helps Germany build a more secure, affordable, and sustainable energy system,” said Nils de Baar, president of Vestas Northern & Central Europe.
He Dreiht is located about 85 kilometers (53 miles) northwest of Borkum and 110 kilometers (68 miles) west of Helgoland. At peak times, more than 500 workers will be out at sea building the farm, using a fleet of more than 60 ships. EnBW’s offshore team in Hamburg is running the show.
The installation process is a major operation. The 64 foundations were already set in the seabed last year. Parts for the turbines are loaded onto the installation vessel Wind Orca in Esbjerg, Denmark, and shipped out in a 12-hour journey to the construction site. From there, the turbines are lifted into place. Meanwhile, crews are also working on internal wind farm cabling.
A partner consortium made up of Allianz Capital Partners, AIP, and Norges Bank Investment Management owns 49.9% of the shares in He Dreiht.
Read more: Trump admin halts $5 billion NY offshore wind project mid-build
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Tesla has released a quick update about its Tesla Semi factory in Nevada. It says that it is on track for volume production of the electric semi truck in 2026.
The Tesla Semi was first scheduled to go into production in 2019, but it has faced numerous delays.
Now, it appears that there is finally some momentum to bring it to volume production.
For the last two years, Tesla has been working to build a new factory next to Gigafactory Nevada, where it builds the battery packs and drive units for most of its electric vehicles built in North America.
Today, Tesla released a “progress update on the factory, confirming that it finished building and it’s now working on deploying the production lines:
Tesla had previously mentioned aiming for volume production by 2025, but it is now only talking about starting production toward the end of the year and ramping up next year.
The automaker reiterated its planned production capacity of 50,000 units.
We recently reported that an early Tesla Semi customer, Ryder, stated that the electric truck program is experiencing more delays and a price increase described as “dramatic.”
They now expect to take deliveries of their first trucks later in 2026 and said that the price has increased “dramatically,” leading them to scale back their pilot program from 42 to 18 Tesla Semi trucks.
When originally unveiling the Tesla Semi in 2017, the automaker mentioned prices of $150,000 for a 300-mile range truck and $180,000 for the 500-mile version. Tesla also took orders for a “Founder’s Series Semi” at $200,000.
However, Tesla didn’t update the prices when launching the “production version” of the truck in late 2022. Price increases have been speculated, but the company has never confirmed them.
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Vietnamese solar panel maker Boviet Solar just opened the doors to its first US factory — a huge new PV module plant in Greenville, North Carolina.
The company dropped $294 million into the state-of-the-art facility, which will pump out Boviet’s Gamma Series monofacial and Vega Series bifacial solar panels. They’re using advanced PERC and N-Type solar cell tech, which basically means these panels are built to deliver higher efficiency and better performance across residential, commercial, industrial, and utility-scale projects.
The Greenville factory’s first phase is now online with an annual PV module output capacity of 2 gigawatts (GW). For Phase 2, which is scheduled to come online in the second half of 2026, Boviet will invest another $100 million to add 600,000 square feet and ramp up to another 2 GW. It will make high-efficiency solar cells.
Once both phases are complete, Boviet’s campus will cover more than 1 million square feet of manufacturing and R&D space. It’s one of the biggest clean energy manufacturing projects North Carolina has ever seen.
The jobs impact is significant, too. The first phase will create 460 skilled local jobs. Phase 2 is expected to add another 908, bringing the total to over 1,300 direct jobs, plus nearly 2,000 more indirect jobs across the region. That’s good news for Pitt County’s economy, real estate market, and workforce training programs.
“This facility is not just creating jobs, but creating opportunity, innovation, and a stronger foundation for eastern North Carolina,” said Senator Kandie Smith. Governor Josh Stein added that Boviet Solar’s move shows how North Carolina is leading the way in clean energy growth.
Read more: Thomas Built Buses debuts its next-gen electric school bus
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