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I've been trying to wrap my head around this as well. You look at the repeated rolling brown-outs that seem to happen in places like California every few years
by tw04 6y ago
I've been trying to wrap my head around this as well. You look at the repeated rolling brown-outs that seem to happen in places like California every few years, and I wonder how throwing 10s of millions of cars that all need to charge at extremely high rates is going to be absorbed.
Sure, SOME of those people might also install things like solar panels and batteries, but I just don't see how the math works right now.
- onlyrealcuzzo 6y agoIf a Tesla battery is 100kWh and it gets like 350 miles - and you can get 6 hours of sun on a 350 watt panel per day on average - that means 2 panels could charge your car about once per month, right?
- athms 6y agoDo you thinks everybody lives in a single family home with lots of disposable income?
- theshrike79 6y agoIf someone already has a Tesla with a 100kW battery, I don't think the extra $3k for a solar panel will break the bank =)
- athms 6y agoI rent an apartment, where would you like me to put the solar panel?
- theshrike79 6y agoDo you have a 100kW Tesla?
- xsmasher 6y agoAlternate numbers: typical home solar installation delivers 10-15 kWh per day. Tesla model 3 has 50kWh battery and 220 mile range. 15kWh * (220 miles / 50 kWh) = 60 miles of charge a day. If your commute is less than 30 miles each way you don't touch the grid to charge. Of course if you plan on getting or have an electric car you can always get a larger system.
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 6y agoSimple: most people charge at night. Sure, fast charging will add some day-time demand, but it's not much. Cheap night-time pricing keeps the charging demand off-peak. More even demand curves make generation more economical. It becomes trivial to upgrade distribution where needed.
- tw04 6y agoI still don't see how that works when you're talking EVERYONE charging. Here's a quick example from New England in 2010: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=830 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=830 During "peak" hours they're using roughly 17Gw total, and during off-peak, it's at 15Gw so we've only got 2Gw total to buffer electric cars charging. Feel free to tell me how my math is wrong, but let's assume worst case scenario: a tesla charger lists 11.5kW max draw. There are roughly 14m people in New England, if we assume even half of them were charging overnight, that's 86Gw of power draw. Even if you back that off to 25% of the population and half the power draw from the charger, you're at 21.5Gw of power, which is 10x what is available, and more than the total power usage during peak hours. If someone else has some different math I'm all ears but I don't know how we're going to more than double the total power capacity in 10 years - even if you assume we can get there with renewables, the backend infrastructure can't handle it.
- yongjik 6y ago2021 Tesla Model S has a 100kW battery and 402-mi range. I searched for "average driving miles per year" and Google says 13,500 miles - assuming this, we have about 37 miles per day, which would mean our Tesla S only needs to charge 9.2kW every day. If they're sitting on a charger 10 hours per day, they can take a leisurely 920W per vehicle (less than a good hair dryer), not 11.5kW.
- tw04 6y agoI'm not sure I agree with that math for a number of reasons. For starters if you want to go strictly by averages, the average household has two cars, so your 9.2kW goes to 18.4kW out of the gate. Additionally that average includes teenagers which drives the mileage down, but households with teens tend to have more cars, so that means either they come out of the average or the 18.4 jumps to 27.6kW/day. The average household uses <1200kWh per month. Adding another 18kW per day increases power usage by almost 50%, which goes back to: the national power grid doesn't have anywhere near 50% spare capacity.