My wife Kathy is back from San Jose today, flying the
not-as-tense-as-you'd-think-friendly-skies-of-Delta, after about a two-hour
delay. I drove the EV sans serpentine belt to the airport (about 20 miles
away) and was asked to move three different times, which means I cranked the
engine 5 times. When we got home, and I put the charger back on, it looked
as if the battery was at least 75% charged. Not bad. I would say if you
ever lose your alternator (ie, if the alternator itself fails or for some
reason you lose the serpentine belt) you could expect at least two hours of
drive time on a good battery (mainly for the ignition and the fuel pump, in
the day) before you'd need to recharge. That's a pretty good safety margin
imo.
