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I'm interested in understanding how this will play out with the electrification of cars. As it stands now, the production and distribution infrastructure is mos

I'm interested in understanding how this will play out with the electrification of cars. As it stands now, the production and distribution infrastructure is mostly used for homes. But you could easily double your home's electric consumption with an electric car traveling just 10 miles per day. If we see a quick change in electric car adoption, our production and distribution systems are going to be massively strained. We might be keeping gas and coal powerplants online just for capacity reasons alone.

foota 7y ago
Really? A quick Google shows a Tesla gets ~3 miles per kwh, so 10 miles would only be about 3 kwh. A kwh is about ten cents where I live iirc. Power's like $50 a month. So I use about ($50/10 cents)/30 ~ 13-14 kwh a day. So 10 miles a day would be more like 20%. That said though, a quick search shows vehicle miles travelled per capita in the US is 10k, so closer to 30 miles a day, or 9 kwh. However, vehicles can be charged off peak in a lot of places (hot places peak during the day in the summer) so can be charged at night.
gibybo 7y ago
300 wh/mile seems to be about what most electric cars achieve. 10 miles/day * 300 wh/mile * 30 days = 90 kWh. The average monthly energy consumption per capita in the U.S. is about 1000 kWh[1], so in order to double that with electric cars every individual would need to drive an average of 110 miles per day. [1] https://www.worlddata.info/america/usa/energy-consumption.php https://www.worlddata.info/america/usa/energy-consumption.ph...
- mruts 7y ago
  1000 kWh/month? That seems like a buttload to me. I used to live in the US (though I never measured how much I used there) and currently, average between 6-15 KWh/day. I know this because I live in a 3rd world country and must pre-pay for my electricity by going down to the local equivalent of a corner store to add power. And I don't even turn off most of my lights at night.
fooblitzky 7y ago
Hopefully more people will start riding e-bikes, which are much more efficient. 10 miles ~ 200Wh.

foota 7y ago

Really? A quick Google shows a Tesla gets ~3 miles per kwh, so 10 miles would only be about 3 kwh. A kwh is about ten cents where I live iirc. Power's like $50 a month. So I use about ($50/10 cents)/30 ~ 13-14 kwh a day. So 10 miles a day would be more like 20%. That said though, a quick search shows vehicle miles travelled per capita in the US is 10k, so closer to 30 miles a day, or 9 kwh. However, vehicles can be charged off peak in a lot of places (hot places peak during the day in the summer) so can be charged at night.

gibybo 7y ago

300 wh/mile seems to be about what most electric cars achieve. 10 miles/day * 300 wh/mile * 30 days = 90 kWh. The average monthly energy consumption per capita in the U.S. is about 1000 kWh[1], so in order to double that with electric cars every individual would need to drive an average of 110 miles per day. [1] https://www.worlddata.info/america/usa/energy-consumption.php https://www.worlddata.info/america/usa/energy-consumption.ph...

mruts 7y ago
1000 kWh/month? That seems like a buttload to me. I used to live in the US (though I never measured how much I used there) and currently, average between 6-15 KWh/day. I know this because I live in a 3rd world country and must pre-pay for my electricity by going down to the local equivalent of a corner store to add power. And I don't even turn off most of my lights at night.

fooblitzky 7y ago

Hopefully more people will start riding e-bikes, which are much more efficient. 10 miles ~ 200Wh.