海角大神

Pity the New York Times reporter who took a fancy Tesla Model S all-electric car on a long-distance winter journey, but ended up calling a tow truck. It seems that running the car鈥檚 heater in snowy Connecticut quickly ate up the extra battery power he needed to finish his trip.

That writer could have called me 鈥� or, better yet, my wife, who drives our Nissan Leaf most of the time. She could have set him straight. When you drive an electric car, you have to temper your gas-powered expectations.

Electric models aren鈥檛 the do-all, go-everywhere vehicles that conventionally powered cars are. They can meet 85 or 90 percent of your needs. The rest is compromise.

Take that heater that proved so troublesome for the Times鈥檚 reporter. Turning the heater down, as he did in the Tesla, doesn鈥檛 give you that much extra juice, at least in a Leaf. You have to turn it off completely 鈥� relying on the electric seat warmer and heated steering wheel to keep you warm.

Another compromise: You have to calculate precisely how far you can go. We were pushing into single digits remaining on the battery when we visited New Hampshire relatives last fall 鈥� a 90-mile trip in a 100-mile-per-charge car. Still, we made the return trip (after charging overnight) without a stop to charge.

How? By driving a little slower (about 40 to 50 miles per hour) on secondary roads instead of highways. It added 20 minutes to a two-hour trip and we saw smaller towns we liked.

It鈥檚 our second winter with our little electric Leaf and so far we haven鈥檛 run out of juice or called a tow truck. But for longer trips, we leave the Leaf at home and use our gas-powered van, instead.

Why make such compromises when we could own a gas-powered car for less money? Because there is something immensely satisfying about tooling around town in in electric-drive luxury with quiet, quick acceleration while passing every single gas station. That鈥檚 something even the popular Toyota Prius can鈥檛 do. (Leaf owners talk about having a 鈥淧rius superiority complex鈥� or PSC.)

And there鈥檚 also a satisfaction in driving on electrons generated in the United States rather than oil produced in foreign nations that sometimes profess to hate America.

With gas prices where they are, that stance may seem more foolish than patriotic. The latest Tesla debacle certainly has offered grist for electric-car doubters (although I should note that Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk tweeted that the Times report was a 鈥渇ake鈥� and that 鈥渧ehicle logs鈥� show he 鈥渄idn鈥檛 actually charge to max & took a long detour.鈥�)

鈥淭丑别 Obama administration鈥檚 electric-car fantasy finally may have died on the road between Newark, Del., and Milford, Conn.,鈥� opined the Washington Post under the headline 鈥淭丑别 Electric Car Mistake.鈥�

Even with some $5 billion in federal grants, guaranteed loans, and tax incentives for buyers, sales of electrified vehicles amounted to just 71,000 over the past two years, the editorial noted. President Obama鈥檚 goal of having 1 million plug-in vehicles on American roads by 2015 now looks wildly unrealistic.

The apt comparison, however, is not the prophecies of politicians but the history of the market. 聽Battery electric car sales grew by 20 percent last year and plug-in hybrid sales more than quadrupled, writes David Friedman, deputy director of the clean-vehicles program for the Union of Concerned Scientists. And that two-year sales total of 71,000 plug-in vehicles looks solid compared with the Prius, which took far longer to reach the same sales level. Nobody today is calling the Prius a loser.

The reality is that the fate of electric cars will not hang on a single reporter鈥檚 foreshortened test drive in Connecticut. It will depend on consumers鈥� calculation of value.

With gas averaging $3.60 a gallon, plug-in vehicles are an intriguing curiosity. But with improved technology and gas prices at $4.50 or $5 a gallon, more and more drivers would take a close look at the Nissan Leaf and its competitors.

And those electric-car compromises? They would loom small.