Post-Apocalyptic Driving

Tesla Model S EV

I was watching Zombieland the other day (mostly) because it's funny (mostly). But it makes a mistake almost every post-apocalyptic movie makes: people driving cars. 

(Zombieland also has electricity and I don't know how that was supposed to happen.)

The problem with cars in a post-apocalyptic environment is that gasoline has a shelf life. I asked Grok about this and it said that gasoline has an approximate three-month shelf life without additives due to oxidation. If you do add stabilizers, it can last up to two years but in a post-apocalyptic environment, who's going to do that?

Diesel is a little better. If it's stored properly it can last up to twelve months and with stabilizers up to two years. 

Gasoline and diesel don't suddenly go bad. They degrade over time. Eventually, they won't work.

So how can people drive cars after the apocalypse? I had an idea:

Propane! Good old C3H8. It's a hydrocarbon and it's flammable.

According to Grok, propane if properly stored has a near-infinite shelf life. You could convert cars to run on propane but also according to Grok, it's very technical. Finding the parts might be difficult, especially if you have to walk everywhere (better do it before the gasoline goes bad).

I had another idea: electric cars. There are electric generators that run on propane. According to Grok, the largest propane generators are industrial and in that case, you're limited by how fast the car can charge. But that's also very technical as you'd need transformers, switchgear, and a high DC charger. Grok says, "It's not plug and play." 

With a 30 kW home standby generator (like these), it would take about four hours to charge up a 100 kWh battery. (It doesn't take 3.3 hours because of inefficiencies in the system.) And it would be a lot simpler set up. Hook the power to a Level 1 or Level 2 home charger and it would do the work. Pretty simple. Depending on the car, you can get 300 miles out of a 100 kWh battery (in good weather; lithium-ion batteries lose range in both hot and cold weather). You could do that until the batteries in the car give out or you run out of propane.

What do you think? Would propane work for post-apocalyptic commuting? Let me know in the comments below.