Seattle area’s ‘bomb cyclone’ storm drives demand at EV charging stations – and gas pumps
A “bomb cyclone” storm with blasting winds and rain on Tuesday caused power outages for more than 640,000 utility customers in Western Washington, forcing electric vehicle drivers who lost power at home to queue up at public charging stations to juice their batteries.
“We’ve seen some chargers that are almost never used that are fully being used,” said Brian Grunkemeyer, CEO of FlexCharging, a startup providing EV charging software services for customers that include Electrify America.
A video post on the social media site X by KOMO-TV meteorologist Shannon O’Donnell captured a long line of Teslas on Wednesday night waiting for a spot at a fast-charging station in Seattle.
Byproduct of the wind storm’s power outages: Nick Abrams said “dozens of Teslas” were lined up trying to get a charge in the Northgate parking lot tonight. 🔌 #WAwx pic.twitter.com/XACClNY0vG
— Shannon O'Donnell (@ShannonODKOMO) November 21, 2024
But it wasn’t just EV drivers who were inconvenienced by the outages.
Many gas stations had their power knocked out by the rapidly intensifying storm, putting them out of service as well.
A second KOMO-TV journalist shared photos of more than a dozen cars lined up at a Fred Meyer southeast of Seattle, with drivers waiting to fill up their tanks.
“The gas lines at Fred Meyer in Covington as well as Costco and other places tell me that people should’ve really been paying more attention to the weather forecast,” quipped photojournalist James Scott.
By Thursday afternoon, more than 250,000 customers with Puget Sound Energy — one of the region’s largest providers — were still in the dark. The utility predicted that most customers would have electricity by Saturday at the latest.
The gas lines at Fred Meyer in Covington as well as Costco and other places tell me that people should've really been paying more attention to the weather forecast. The #BombCyclone effect still lingers. pic.twitter.com/5Gu4jARj1b
— Photog Jim KOMO (@Photog_Jim_KOMO) November 21, 2024
Drivers who heeded the deluge of storm warnings and fueled up in advance should largely be able to weather the outage — and that includes EV owners.
Most newer EVs have ranges of 250-300 miles, and drivers typically cover roughly 40 miles a day. So an EV that’s charged to 80-100% should have enough power to last multiple days.
And a couple of EVs — namely the Ford F-150 Lightning and Tesla’s Cybertruck — can even reverse gears and serve as a power source, allowing owners to plug into the vehicles’ battery to run refrigerators and other essential devices for a time.
Grunkemeyer lives in Redmond, Wash., and is among those still without power. He has solar panels and a Tesla battery wall, which kept him going until this morning. Now he’s limping along on a little bit of solar energy, but days are short and often overcast in the Northwest in November.
Luckily, he charged up two of his three EVs, which include a Tesla Model 3, a Model S and a Lucid Air that has a 450 mile range.
“A four-day power outage keenly focuses the mind on your battery state of charge,” Grunkemeyer said.