How Many Times Has Your EV Been Towed

How many times have you been towed in your Nissan Leaf, Tesla or other Electric Vehicle? Fortunately for me I have never ever had to be towed in my Nissan Leaf. I always use the Plugshare app to make sure that I know where the charging stations are prior to me leaving if my destination is outside of my normal Leafs range.

The reason this is happening now with electric cars like Nissan LEAF and Tesla Model S is because of the infancy of our US based charging station infrastructure. The Plugshare app has been an invaluable resource, as well as some others from private networks such as ChargePoint that have location services built into their apps and some built-in services like the car CARWINGS app inside the Nissan Leaf that help you see where the next charging station is during a journey.

Since I’m an experienced electric car pioneer and been driving a full Electric Car since 2008 I always want to do pre planning before I venture outside my normal Nissan Leaf’s range. I don't take this lightly because of the infrastructure's current state of development. Even with adequate planning you can still find yourself in a tight spot should an EVSE actually not be functioning or an EV is already there or an inconsiderate gas car parked in the EVSEs spot making it impossible for you to charge. To read about my close call of “almost” needing a tow in my Nissan Leaf you can read about it here.

Here are 3 reasons why your electric car may be towed

So the real question is this: have you ever been towed in your gas car? A friend of mine I work with wrote in an email to us last week that his car ran out of gas and that he would be late. So there is a perfect example of a reason on when a tow would be necessary except that his wife went and got him a gas can to fill up the car without it needing a full tow. Here are some reasons I have been towed: I have been towed because of a blown tire and no spare in the car. I have had water pumps break in my old gas cars. I’ve had alternators break so I was stranded and needed a tow. Anyway there are quite a few reasons why gas cars would need to be towed. But with our new electric cars we have today, there really isn’t a good reason to need a tow except for a few possible exceptions.

1) Software malfunction in the EV. – I’ve read about a couple of these in the I3 forum.
2) Spouse forgets to plug in the car. – I have read of this before but it is extremely rare in my house.
3) Flat Tire – no spare in the Leaf so it would have to be towed if this happened in my Leaf.

Overall, there are reasons to be towed in gas cars and in electric cars, but hopefully never because of the lack of a public EVSE. (Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment).