MarkH67:

 

Fossil Fuel Burner sitting in a queue with the engine off, because the battery could go flat you keep everything off so you don't drain the battery.  Every now & then you start the car and move forward a few metres and turn the car off.  But starting the car is a huge load on the battery and if you turn the car off too quickly then there isn't enough time to recover the power that was lost.  In a very long queue waiting for hours you might deplete the 12V battery from all those starts.

 

EVs use the battery too, but there isn't the huge surge of current to start up an ICE engine.  You can turn the car on a move forward a few metres, with very little lost from the 12V battery.  You can also leave the car turned on and put it in park, maybe for 5 minutes every couple of hours - just to give the 12V time to charge up.  I think the EV would do better in a long queue for Covid testing than an FFB car.

 

An EV absolutely would do better in this situation because you'd just leave the car in ready to drive mode and if you had a smaller battery (less than 50kwh) then you'd turn the heating off and open or close the windows per the weather. That way, with the car in ready to drive mode the 12v battery is connected to the inverter which keeps it charged. as soon as the car is switched out of ready to drive mode and the High voltage contacts disconnect, anything you have connected to the 12v outlet for example will start depleating the 12v battery just like an ICE car that's got it's engine switched off.

advantage of an EV in this case is you can have the car 'running' without it using up all your fuel by idling and it's not polluting for no reason.

Source: I've had a leaf, zoe and a kia soul EV :)