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While I'd love this to be the case, I suspect we'll hit limitations in our energy infrastructure that prevent this from happening quite as soon as the article s

While I'd love this to be the case, I suspect we'll hit limitations in our energy infrastructure that prevent this from happening quite as soon as the article suggests. Energy use for cars is substantial, a significant percentage of the energy usage of homes. If that energy use shifts from fossil fuels to home electricity supplies we'll need to substantially increase the energy delivery possible to homes. The total energy usage shouldn't be much of an issue as we'll move electricity use from refineries to charging batteries – I believe these are at least in the same ballpark. But "last mile" electricity delivery is not capable of supporting an electric car in every household (or even half of households) in many areas of the world. It will be interesting to see what the solutions to this are. Smart grids where cars cooperate to ensure they don't all charge at the same time, and increased use of public fast charging infrastructure (at sites with better grid connectivity) are the most likely I suspect.

logifail 5y ago
> The total energy usage shouldn't be much of an issue as we'll move electricity use from refineries to charging batteries Don't forget about the taxation aspect - as the sales of petrol and diesel fall, so does the tax revenue. In many countries tax represents over half of the end-user price of petrol and diesel. How will governments replace this as the revenue drops away?
- MaheshC 5y ago
  Tax on electricity?
  - novaRom 5y ago
    It exists in Germany and it drives electricity price to the top. Current price for private households is around 0.4 Euro per kilowatt hour (0.5 US Dollars). Large part of it are taxes. Household electricity prices in 2020: https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-prices-in-selected-countries/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-price...
    - imtringued 5y ago
      The chart you linked shows $0.36 per kWh.
      - Dma54rhs 5y ago
        Add VAT to it as well.
  - theshrike79 5y ago
    Taxing electricity will hit households first (electric heating + AC) before it makes a significant dent on EV costs.
- ljm 5y ago
  Increase road tax on currently subsidised cars and invest in public transport infra?
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  They could start actually taxing companies. In the Netherlands, extra taxes (on top of VAT) levied on fuel and vices like tobacco and alcohol put about 11 billion euros a year into the state coffers. Meanwhile, big tech companies funnel money through the country to tax havens. Uber had 50 shell companies in the Netherlands to dodge taxes on 6 billion in revenue (https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-tax-avoidance-50-dutch-shell-companies-5-billion-revenue-2021-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-tax-avoidance-50-dutch-...).
  - derekp7 5y ago
    I always wondered why human people have an alternative minimum tax (AMT), yet corporate people don't.
    - xvilka 5y ago
      Because all businesses will just leave to those countries where it isn't the case. Such policies should be subtle and introduced gradually.
      - derekp7 5y ago
        But the businesses will still need a presence in the countries in which they want to do business (or at least it is easier to do so -- that is how US companies get caught up in needing to comply with things like GDPR or whatnot). So the AMT can be legislated for any company that has a presence in a particular country.
- millerm 5y ago
  Regarding tax revenue. In many states in the U.S. they “simply” nail you on your yearly registration fee. It’s an awful system as it’s punitive at the moment. I now pay over $200 a year on that fee due to it being an electric vehicle. My car is 2 years old with < 12k miles on it. I pay way more in taxes than I would with a petroleum fueled car.
  - exhilaration 5y ago
    Just to play devil's advocate, why shouldn't you pay? Fuel taxes mostly go to road maintenance. You're using the roads so higher registration fees seem like a good way for you to help fund those roads. Also $200 is a pretty good deal, I pay way more than that in gas taxes each year.
- bserge 5y ago
  By taxing electric cars. (Back to) taxing per KW/HP or just raising the other taxes, I guess. Why would they give up that income?
- zip1234 5y ago
  In the US today usage based taxes such as gas fund only half the money spent on roads. They should probably add in some sort of usage tax based on weight/size/emissions/noise that will apply to all vehicles.
- neilwilson 5y ago
  "Don't forget about the taxation aspect - as the sales of petrol and diesel fall, so does the tax revenue." I'm amazed this myth persists for those in floating currency areas. Money doesn't stop at its first use. Instead the money is spent on something else, which is taxed. For every $100 a government spends it will get $100 back for any positive tax rate. It's a simple geometric progression, and looks just like a stone skipping across a pond. Do the maths and you'll see what I mean. What stops that tax turning up instantly is that it takes time to spend the money - sometimes a long time. Which is what we generally call 'savings'. None of that matters though in a sovereign currency area. Savings are functionally voluntary taxation - which from the other side of the balance sheet are called 'borrowing'. Once you have the causality straight in your mind fearing running out of tax revenue is like fearing you're running out of water in the hot tub just because you've turned the pump on.
- audunw 5y ago
  > Don't forget about the taxation aspect - as the sales of petrol and diesel fall, so does the tax revenue. That depends on whether people put the money they save in a savings account, or actually spend them on other taxable goods and services. And it depends on the tax rate on fuel and electricity in that country. Fun fact, the consumer tax on electricity is much higher than that on fuel in Norway (and the fuel tax is pretty steep already here). But electricity is so cheap that it's still extremely affordable. And obviously, an EV will spend much less money on electricity, so yes, the revenue from tax on electricity will be lower. But there's another side of the equation. Norway recently found out they could save millions on reduced ventilation requirements when building a new tunnel. It's also likely that health care costs will be reduced, although that's harder to measure. IMO, governments should just increase other taxes if they have budget troubles due to the shift to EVs. Preferably higher taxes on the wealthy. Then we can slowly work on finding ways to tax according to actual road use. Maybe more toll roads, or maybe a tamper-proof device that measures and reports miles driven.
  - logifail 5y ago
    > That depends on whether people put the money they save [..] Talking about the money people will save could be termed somewhat off-message given that it appears EVs cost significantly more up-front than the ICE equivalent... "Switching to an electric vehicle still has many barriers, including high upfront costs"[0] "Expensive prices for electric cars could hold back the UK’s transition from fossil fuel vehicles, the industry has warned, amid signs that demand for electric vehicles (EVs) is waning"[1] Over the entire lifetime of the vehicle it may be a completely different story, but how many vehicle purchasers are really planning five to ten years ahead? [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56441639 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56441639 [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/04/higher-price-of-electric-cars-a-concern-for-more-than-half-of-uk-consumers https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/04/higher-p...
peteretep 5y ago
> It will be interesting to see what the solutions to this are. I imagine that battery prices are going to be driven down by the cars, and come into their own in terms of supporting old grids
pydry 5y ago
Last mile infrastructure can be upgraded incrementally. It doesn't have to be upgraded immediately. The cost won't be unmanageable when it does get upgraded. In addition, solar panels are localizing production and already taking load off the grid. Smart charging is already here and can be adjusted to charge when the sun is shining and wind is blowing hardest. The future is here already it's just not widely distributed, but the capital to do all of these things is cheap and readily available. I don't see any insurmountable challenges here.
- paganel 5y ago
  > and readily available. Capital is readily available for the middle-class people living in middle-to-high-income countries (most of those people also happen to be white), the rest of the world (mostly non-white people) don't have easy access to capital in order to improve their electric grid.
  - pydry 5y ago
    I'm not sure exactly where you are referring to with your ominous vague racially charged allusions, but if it's Africa or Asia then China is already supplying capital, know how, materiel and building out infrastructure.
    - paganel 5y ago
      China is not supplying capital for the suburbs of Kinshasa to upgrade their electrical grid the same way as a Tesla-loving white suburb from the Valley can get easy money by just issuing some muni bonds. I’m not insinuating, I’m telling it as is easy, this is a regressive policy that hurts the poor more and helps those that already have (money and political influence). It so happens that the latter cohort is mostly white while the first isn’t.
      - imtringued 5y ago
        What if it pulls poor countries out of the dutch disease trap?
Retric 5y ago
In aggregate total energy generation needs to increase, but last mile delivery simply isn’t a major issue. EV’s don’t need that much energy daily and they can charge at night when residential use is low. Assuming ~100% home charging, 1kW per car * 10 hours ~= 40 miles per day ~= 15,000 miles per year. Drop that to 80% home charging and you’re at 8 hours x 1kW per car. However, even if car sales go 100% electric it would take ~15 years before 99% of cars in use are electric. That’s a lot of time to ramp up a measly 1-2 kW of load at most houses.
- tda 5y ago
  I wouldn't be so sure about that, but I tried to look up some numbers and couldn't find any for the capacity planning of last mile delivery. 10 kWH per day is about the average electricity use per home in the Netherlands, so the aggregated impact will definitely be huge. Especially as more an more homes are switching to electric heating and cooking (until recently pretty much all homes here used natural gas). So household electricity consumption will take a huge leap in the coming decade(s), and I would think this will also affect last mile. Also take into account standard home chargers here are 16A@230V=3.7kW, but 3 phase chargers that can do 3x16A, 10kW are gaining popularity. Only if the chargers remain 'dumb' and all start pulling max current when everyone gets home at dinner time that will be an issue here for sure
  - Fronzie 5y ago
    On the other hand, solar panels on the roof are also taking off. That's probably not enough for heating, but might be for everything else.
  - Retric 5y ago
    Daily electricity is highly correlated. Consider, people rarely microwave anything at 3AM. This also means houses get wired to allow multiple loads at the same time as you might only turn on the Microwave for 5 minutes a day so that’s adding 0.083kWh to your daily total, but you don’t turn off the lights just because you want to use 1.2kW heat up some leftovers. Further, several people in a neighborhood might all microwave something during the same commercial break. Unlike most things the grid is built for peak instantaneous demand. As such distribution needs to account for huge local demand spikes. EV’s increased demand will result in some new distribution infrastructure, but it’s mostly regional not last mile.
helloguillecl 5y ago
A solar farm is capable of producing 350 Mwh per year/per acre and it takes 18 kwh to power a Tesla for a 100km ride [1], so a single acre of solar power can produce enough energy for 19,000 of those rides, or power 190 cars (10.000 km per year) just by putting a bit more than the roof of their parking lots in solar cells! Maybe you don't need that much of a grid update at all, and even maybe quite the opposite if you consider that you car could power your house indirectly using solar power. Best case, you'd be actually the grid even less than you do with out an electric battery in your garage...
- LunaSea 5y ago
  > Maybe you don't need that much of a grid update at all Besides the tons of batteries that are needed? > if you consider that you car could power your house indirectly using solar power Well besides the times where you drive your car. Also the car's batteries wouldn't last very long due to constantly being cycled.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    >Besides the tons of batteries that are needed? They are inside the car and that is pretty much the point. >Well besides the times where you drive your car. Also the car's batteries wouldn't last very long due to constantly being cycled. If there are people that want a 200 mile range car, then there are people that want a 600 mile range car with 66% degradation.
- kaydub 5y ago
  Where are you finding that an acre of solar will generate 350 Mwh of power? My local solar power plant is nowhere near that kind of output. http://newsroom.fpl.com/2019-03-28-FPL-announces-plan-to-build-the-worlds-largest-solar-powered-battery-and-drive-accelerated-retirement-of-fossil-fuel-generation http://newsroom.fpl.com/2019-03-28-FPL-announces-plan-to-bui...
  - HPsquared 5y ago
    Compare "megawatt-hours generated per year" to "megawatts of installed capacity". Very different measurements.
Torwald 5y ago
> The total energy usage shouldn't be much of an issue as we'll move electricity use from refineries to charging batteries – I believe these are at least in the same ballpark. That would interesting to figure out. How can we do that? Not all refineries will cease production. How many?
cataflam 5y ago
> The total energy usage shouldn't be much of an issue as we'll move electricity use from refineries to charging batteries – I believe these are at least in the same ballpark. I wouldn't be so sure. Back of the napkin estimate: for every 2M electric cars, you need 1 more nuclear power plant. - approx. 18 kWh per 100 km for a Tesla - let's say 15000 km per year (close to the average in France for example) - total consumption over a year for 1M cars is roughly 2.5 TWh - total production of a nuclear power plant varies, but is roughly 5-7 TWh per year on average That's a lot of extra power if you want to replace all the cars. For example in France, that'd be the equivalent of 20 extra nuclear power plants, or the equivalent in nuclear + solar + wind + coal/gas/...
- brightball 5y ago
  Those numbers are why I’ve always thought cleaner fuel options were the real future here (like natural gas and hydrogen).
  - headmelted 5y ago
    Natural gas is significantly dirtier than nuclear, and hydrogen (in terms of how we use it) is a component of an energy storage technology and not a fuel source.
    - brightball 5y ago
      But significantly cleaner than oil and abundant enough to make an impact much sooner.
      - jnwatson 5y ago
        Impact in what? It still releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
        nine_k 5y ago
        Way less carbon dioxide per joule produced, also, no sulfuric dioxide.
cblconfederate 5y ago
> they don't all charge at the same time, Battery swaps
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Tor3 5y ago
Where I live it's unlikely that the next car won't be an electric. Everyone I know who bought a car the last year bought an electric. My only concern is that I need a practical car, not something like a Tesla. I need ground clearance, for example (lots of snow here). It looks like that won't be a real problem, or at least it's getting there. At worst it would be a chargeable hybrid. Charging won't be much of a problem. Chargers everywhere, it seems (last summer's holiday was a long car trip through half the country, due to Covid), and I have 400V 3-phase at home (as most do in this town) so I can get a fast charging station. And we have charging stations at work already. I imagine the situation is different in the US, longer distances, for example.
- brightball 5y ago
  That new electric F150 looks pretty good for that use case.
  - benhurmarcel 5y ago
    It sounds like he lives in Europe, so the F-150 isn't an option. I don't think it's available, and it would be way too large for any use outside the very rural cases.
- solresol 5y ago
  The Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV might suit you. It's a 4WD SUV. You get 50km of battery range before the petrol motor kicks in, so it has a lot of the advantages of electric without paying all that much more for it.
  - hawk_ 5y ago
    does that mean maintenance costs of both the ICE and electrical parts?
- Brakenshire 5y ago
  The ID.4 has 8 inches of ground clearance.
- 5y ago
dzhiurgis 5y ago
A HVDC cable from Sahara to America would loose 50% of power, but still would charge your car overnight. As solar install itself is around 50% of it's cost, it's probably cheaper to do so in a dessert than over your house.
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  HVDC is expensive, solar panels are cheap, so it's usually cheaper to keep the solar panels local even if they're much less efficient than they are elsewhere. https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/12/27/the-future-of-electricity-is-local/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/12/27/the-future-of-...
  - dzhiurgis 5y ago
    HVDC saves on overnight batteries and is a hedge against weather and other factors.
- theshrike79 5y ago
  This is one of the places where hydrogen might actually be viable. Use a huge excess of solar power to generate hydrogen, transport hydrogen via oceans to ports, store it and convert it back to electricity locally when needed.
  - chipsa 5y ago
    Ammonia is probably better. Easier to liquify, and much more dense, even if not as much energy per kg. It's admittedly somewhat toxic, but hydrogen is also somewhat explosive when mixed with air.
  - Hypx_ 5y ago
    Hydrogen is viable anytime you need (or want) a chemical fuel.
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arbuge 5y ago
> The total energy usage shouldn't be much of an issue as we'll move electricity use from refineries to charging batteries So you'll have to build and bring online a whole new set of power plants in place of all those refineries then. I think this is definitely a very large issue and no trivial undertaking.
- theshrike79 5y ago
  We've got a good 15-20 years before EV density becomes an issue in most countries. Japan, with their 1-phase 110V network won't be converting to EVs soon. But here in the Nordics pretty much every house has 3-phase 230V and already wired for electric saunas and multi-kilowatt heaters. Adding a plug to charge an EV is a non-issue.
  - fomine3 5y ago
    To be precise, most houses in Japan pull 3 power lines (-100V, 0V, 100V) so they also supports 1-phase 200V by using -100V, 100V pair. Another problem is electric company offers only 6kVA max for normal family plan. If I need more capacity, monthly bill isn't getting much higher, but selectable plan is limited and I should pay replacement cost at once.
  - Tor3 5y ago
    Several years ago there were already more electric charging stations in Japan than there were gasoline pumps (of which there are many!). When I heard that I was very surprised because I hadn't noticed any. So I started looking, and yes they're there - just not so easy to spot. For some reason the ones in my own country are very visible, they are flashy and with lots of lights and big signs. The 100V (not 110V) network in Japan is indeed a lot of trouble for a lot of things, but it doesn't seem to be a hindrance for EV. It's just that it may not be as many home chargers there as in e.g. the Nordic countries.
bryanlarsen 5y ago
The grid is sized to handle peak loads in the early evening. Electric cars tend to be driven during peak hours and charge at night so while total energy used (kWh) will go up substantially, the grid itself does not need to handle substantially more power (kW) than it currently does.
- tachyonbeam 5y ago
  Car charging can also be scheduled to happen off peak if possible.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
In NL, they are hard at work upgrading the energy network everywhere; newly built neighbourhoods already have 4x the electricity capacity they would previously have. This is in part down to the shift to electric vehicles, in part due to the reduction or removal of dependency on natural gas (for both climate and political reasons, we get ours from Russia), and in part due to people generating their own power via solar panels. A report is at [1], tl;dr they need and probably will invest billions in the power grid to be nationally carbon neutral by 2050. I mean the nihilist in me says it'll be far too late by then and we'll be well into a cataclysmic chain reaction and consequent extreme climate shift, but hey. https://www.netbeheernederland.nl/_upload/Files/Samenvatting_rapport_Het_Energiesysteem_van_de_toekomst_198.pdf https://www.netbeheernederland.nl/_upload/Files/Samenvatting...
Jedd 5y ago
> Energy use for cars is substantial, a significant percentage of the energy usage of homes. If that energy use shifts from fossil fuels to home electricity supplies we'll need to substantially increase the energy delivery possible to homes. Will it, though? Earlier this year I had 12kW of PVC installed for about A$7k. That nets me, this time of year (3 weeks away from the winter solstice in AU) about 35kWh a day. In summer I expect an average of 50kWh / day. A Tesla 3 standard has a 50kWh battery - providing 350 km driving range. The 75kWh long range version provides 500km range. So worst case (winter) A$7k of residential grade panels can provide charge for 200km / day - and that's on a Tesla, which is definitely a premium EV in this part of the world. (A vanilla model 3 is A$63k - the long range version A$78k.) Add in off-peak grid charging (say A$0.10 / kW) and we're really knocking ICE out of the game. For a lot of people, not just in the same part of the world I'm in, factoring in some panels on the roof would be a proportionally small capex delta, but make the TCO hugely more compelling.
ben_w 5y ago
This more than anything else is why I am anticipating a lot of electric cars being tiled in PV. Putting the cells on the cars is absolutely not going to fully charge them in most cases, and the same logic that leads to comparative advantage says to do this after better locations already have PV, but such cells will get 50-90% of the average daily requirements of the typical driver depending on location, season, and car size, which in turn will reduce infrastructure needs elsewhere.
- nine_k 5y ago
  In any case, getting 5-10 extra miles just by parking your car under sunlight while you are shopping would be nice! The question is the cost.
  - Brakenshire 5y ago
    It would be 5-10 miles parked outside for the day, not just while you were shopping.
    - nine_k 5y ago
      18 kWh per 100 km means about 1.8 kWh per 10 km, so about 1.5 kWh for 5 miles. With 4 sq m of solar cells, 1 kW / sq m of sunshine at high noon, and 20% of conversion efficiency, it's 800 W. So it's about 2 hours to gain 5 miles under ideal conditions. Think really big shopping :)
  - theshrike79 5y ago
    The amount of panels you can put on a normal car is around 1-2 square meters max. That's not enough to give any kind of measurable range advantage. The thing they're good for is running AC in the car when it's parked, without affecting the range. (Prius does this, I think the new Ioniq 5 has this)
    - ben_w 5y ago
      Ground area of a Tesla model 3 is ~8.5 square meters, so I think you’re underestimating.
xvilka 5y ago
Combined with the increase of conditioning power consumption it might happen sooner than later.
maxsilver 5y ago
> suspect we'll hit limitations in our energy infrastructure that prevent this from happening. Energy use for cars is substantial, a significant percentage of the energy usage of homes. I'm not sure this is true. I've been driving a electric car in the US for multiple years now (approximately 50 miles of driving daily), it's only added about ~15% to my electric bill, if that. Charging the car only requires ~800 to ~1400 watts, is done for about 10 to 12 hours all overnight, and can be done on any regular household AC outlet. If your home has the electricity for a Desktop Gaming PC, or any Window Air Conditioner, then it already has enough electricity for a EV car. Similarly, if plugging in a new Window AC doesn't bring your grid service down today, a new EV shouldn't either. Obviously in aggregate, utilities will need more capacity. But it's not that much more, it should only be an issue in places where the grid is already unregulated, broken, underserviced and/or under-maintained today -- only an issue in places where brownouts/blackouts already regularly happen (places like Texas, California, maybe NYC).
pibechorro 5y ago
Swappable batteries. If the industry creates a standard you could swap full battery packs in seconds at existing gas stations.
- martin-adams 5y ago
  I was about to say that I don't see this happening due to the way batteries are being built into the chassis. Then I looked it up and it's being done right now with the Nio with a 3 minute battery swap in China. https://youtu.be/hTsrDpsYHrw?t=382 https://youtu.be/hTsrDpsYHrw?t=382 580km / 360 miles range. I'm very impressed!
- theshrike79 5y ago
  Trust is the issue that needs to be resolved with swapping batteries. I'd compare it to a parachute, would you use a parachute packed by some rando you met on the street? If I go in to swap a battery, what guarantee do I have that the previous user didn't drive it into a rock and puncture a cell? Can I be sure they didn't leave malware in the battery's software? If all these checks are being done at the swap station, will it still be cost-effective? Also: Modern EVs use chargers up to 350kW and have 400-500km range. A 15-20 minute break every 500km shouldn't be a dealbreaker for anyone.

logifail 5y ago

> The total energy usage shouldn't be much of an issue as we'll move electricity use from refineries to charging batteries Don't forget about the taxation aspect - as the sales of petrol and diesel fall, so does the tax revenue. In many countries tax represents over half of the end-user price of petrol and diesel. How will governments replace this as the revenue drops away?

MaheshC 5y ago
Tax on electricity?
- novaRom 5y ago
  It exists in Germany and it drives electricity price to the top. Current price for private households is around 0.4 Euro per kilowatt hour (0.5 US Dollars). Large part of it are taxes. Household electricity prices in 2020: https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-prices-in-selected-countries/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-price...
  - imtringued 5y ago
    The chart you linked shows $0.36 per kWh.
    - Dma54rhs 5y ago
      Add VAT to it as well.
- theshrike79 5y ago
  Taxing electricity will hit households first (electric heating + AC) before it makes a significant dent on EV costs.
ljm 5y ago
Increase road tax on currently subsidised cars and invest in public transport infra?
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
They could start actually taxing companies. In the Netherlands, extra taxes (on top of VAT) levied on fuel and vices like tobacco and alcohol put about 11 billion euros a year into the state coffers. Meanwhile, big tech companies funnel money through the country to tax havens. Uber had 50 shell companies in the Netherlands to dodge taxes on 6 billion in revenue (https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-tax-avoidance-50-dutch-shell-companies-5-billion-revenue-2021-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-tax-avoidance-50-dutch-...).
- derekp7 5y ago
  I always wondered why human people have an alternative minimum tax (AMT), yet corporate people don't.
  - xvilka 5y ago
    Because all businesses will just leave to those countries where it isn't the case. Such policies should be subtle and introduced gradually.
    - derekp7 5y ago
      But the businesses will still need a presence in the countries in which they want to do business (or at least it is easier to do so -- that is how US companies get caught up in needing to comply with things like GDPR or whatnot). So the AMT can be legislated for any company that has a presence in a particular country.
millerm 5y ago
Regarding tax revenue. In many states in the U.S. they “simply” nail you on your yearly registration fee. It’s an awful system as it’s punitive at the moment. I now pay over $200 a year on that fee due to it being an electric vehicle. My car is 2 years old with < 12k miles on it. I pay way more in taxes than I would with a petroleum fueled car.
- exhilaration 5y ago
  Just to play devil's advocate, why shouldn't you pay? Fuel taxes mostly go to road maintenance. You're using the roads so higher registration fees seem like a good way for you to help fund those roads. Also $200 is a pretty good deal, I pay way more than that in gas taxes each year.
bserge 5y ago
By taxing electric cars. (Back to) taxing per KW/HP or just raising the other taxes, I guess. Why would they give up that income?
zip1234 5y ago
In the US today usage based taxes such as gas fund only half the money spent on roads. They should probably add in some sort of usage tax based on weight/size/emissions/noise that will apply to all vehicles.
neilwilson 5y ago
"Don't forget about the taxation aspect - as the sales of petrol and diesel fall, so does the tax revenue." I'm amazed this myth persists for those in floating currency areas. Money doesn't stop at its first use. Instead the money is spent on something else, which is taxed. For every $100 a government spends it will get $100 back for any positive tax rate. It's a simple geometric progression, and looks just like a stone skipping across a pond. Do the maths and you'll see what I mean. What stops that tax turning up instantly is that it takes time to spend the money - sometimes a long time. Which is what we generally call 'savings'. None of that matters though in a sovereign currency area. Savings are functionally voluntary taxation - which from the other side of the balance sheet are called 'borrowing'. Once you have the causality straight in your mind fearing running out of tax revenue is like fearing you're running out of water in the hot tub just because you've turned the pump on.
audunw 5y ago
> Don't forget about the taxation aspect - as the sales of petrol and diesel fall, so does the tax revenue. That depends on whether people put the money they save in a savings account, or actually spend them on other taxable goods and services. And it depends on the tax rate on fuel and electricity in that country. Fun fact, the consumer tax on electricity is much higher than that on fuel in Norway (and the fuel tax is pretty steep already here). But electricity is so cheap that it's still extremely affordable. And obviously, an EV will spend much less money on electricity, so yes, the revenue from tax on electricity will be lower. But there's another side of the equation. Norway recently found out they could save millions on reduced ventilation requirements when building a new tunnel. It's also likely that health care costs will be reduced, although that's harder to measure. IMO, governments should just increase other taxes if they have budget troubles due to the shift to EVs. Preferably higher taxes on the wealthy. Then we can slowly work on finding ways to tax according to actual road use. Maybe more toll roads, or maybe a tamper-proof device that measures and reports miles driven.
- logifail 5y ago
  > That depends on whether people put the money they save [..] Talking about the money people will save could be termed somewhat off-message given that it appears EVs cost significantly more up-front than the ICE equivalent... "Switching to an electric vehicle still has many barriers, including high upfront costs"[0] "Expensive prices for electric cars could hold back the UK’s transition from fossil fuel vehicles, the industry has warned, amid signs that demand for electric vehicles (EVs) is waning"[1] Over the entire lifetime of the vehicle it may be a completely different story, but how many vehicle purchasers are really planning five to ten years ahead? [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56441639 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56441639 [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/04/higher-price-of-electric-cars-a-concern-for-more-than-half-of-uk-consumers https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/04/higher-p...

peteretep 5y ago

> It will be interesting to see what the solutions to this are. I imagine that battery prices are going to be driven down by the cars, and come into their own in terms of supporting old grids

pydry 5y ago

Last mile infrastructure can be upgraded incrementally. It doesn't have to be upgraded immediately. The cost won't be unmanageable when it does get upgraded. In addition, solar panels are localizing production and already taking load off the grid. Smart charging is already here and can be adjusted to charge when the sun is shining and wind is blowing hardest. The future is here already it's just not widely distributed, but the capital to do all of these things is cheap and readily available. I don't see any insurmountable challenges here.

paganel 5y ago
> and readily available. Capital is readily available for the middle-class people living in middle-to-high-income countries (most of those people also happen to be white), the rest of the world (mostly non-white people) don't have easy access to capital in order to improve their electric grid.
- pydry 5y ago
  I'm not sure exactly where you are referring to with your ominous vague racially charged allusions, but if it's Africa or Asia then China is already supplying capital, know how, materiel and building out infrastructure.
  - paganel 5y ago
    China is not supplying capital for the suburbs of Kinshasa to upgrade their electrical grid the same way as a Tesla-loving white suburb from the Valley can get easy money by just issuing some muni bonds. I’m not insinuating, I’m telling it as is easy, this is a regressive policy that hurts the poor more and helps those that already have (money and political influence). It so happens that the latter cohort is mostly white while the first isn’t.
    - imtringued 5y ago
      What if it pulls poor countries out of the dutch disease trap?

Retric 5y ago

In aggregate total energy generation needs to increase, but last mile delivery simply isn’t a major issue. EV’s don’t need that much energy daily and they can charge at night when residential use is low. Assuming ~100% home charging, 1kW per car * 10 hours ~= 40 miles per day ~= 15,000 miles per year. Drop that to 80% home charging and you’re at 8 hours x 1kW per car. However, even if car sales go 100% electric it would take ~15 years before 99% of cars in use are electric. That’s a lot of time to ramp up a measly 1-2 kW of load at most houses.

tda 5y ago
I wouldn't be so sure about that, but I tried to look up some numbers and couldn't find any for the capacity planning of last mile delivery. 10 kWH per day is about the average electricity use per home in the Netherlands, so the aggregated impact will definitely be huge. Especially as more an more homes are switching to electric heating and cooking (until recently pretty much all homes here used natural gas). So household electricity consumption will take a huge leap in the coming decade(s), and I would think this will also affect last mile. Also take into account standard home chargers here are 16A@230V=3.7kW, but 3 phase chargers that can do 3x16A, 10kW are gaining popularity. Only if the chargers remain 'dumb' and all start pulling max current when everyone gets home at dinner time that will be an issue here for sure
- Fronzie 5y ago
  On the other hand, solar panels on the roof are also taking off. That's probably not enough for heating, but might be for everything else.
- Retric 5y ago
  Daily electricity is highly correlated. Consider, people rarely microwave anything at 3AM. This also means houses get wired to allow multiple loads at the same time as you might only turn on the Microwave for 5 minutes a day so that’s adding 0.083kWh to your daily total, but you don’t turn off the lights just because you want to use 1.2kW heat up some leftovers. Further, several people in a neighborhood might all microwave something during the same commercial break. Unlike most things the grid is built for peak instantaneous demand. As such distribution needs to account for huge local demand spikes. EV’s increased demand will result in some new distribution infrastructure, but it’s mostly regional not last mile.

helloguillecl 5y ago

A solar farm is capable of producing 350 Mwh per year/per acre and it takes 18 kwh to power a Tesla for a 100km ride [1], so a single acre of solar power can produce enough energy for 19,000 of those rides, or power 190 cars (10.000 km per year) just by putting a bit more than the roof of their parking lots in solar cells! Maybe you don't need that much of a grid update at all, and even maybe quite the opposite if you consider that you car could power your house indirectly using solar power. Best case, you'd be actually the grid even less than you do with out an electric battery in your garage...

LunaSea 5y ago
> Maybe you don't need that much of a grid update at all Besides the tons of batteries that are needed? > if you consider that you car could power your house indirectly using solar power Well besides the times where you drive your car. Also the car's batteries wouldn't last very long due to constantly being cycled.
- imtringued 5y ago
  >Besides the tons of batteries that are needed? They are inside the car and that is pretty much the point. >Well besides the times where you drive your car. Also the car's batteries wouldn't last very long due to constantly being cycled. If there are people that want a 200 mile range car, then there are people that want a 600 mile range car with 66% degradation.
kaydub 5y ago
Where are you finding that an acre of solar will generate 350 Mwh of power? My local solar power plant is nowhere near that kind of output. http://newsroom.fpl.com/2019-03-28-FPL-announces-plan-to-build-the-worlds-largest-solar-powered-battery-and-drive-accelerated-retirement-of-fossil-fuel-generation http://newsroom.fpl.com/2019-03-28-FPL-announces-plan-to-bui...
- HPsquared 5y ago
  Compare "megawatt-hours generated per year" to "megawatts of installed capacity". Very different measurements.

Torwald 5y ago

> The total energy usage shouldn't be much of an issue as we'll move electricity use from refineries to charging batteries – I believe these are at least in the same ballpark. That would interesting to figure out. How can we do that? Not all refineries will cease production. How many?

cataflam 5y ago

> The total energy usage shouldn't be much of an issue as we'll move electricity use from refineries to charging batteries – I believe these are at least in the same ballpark. I wouldn't be so sure. Back of the napkin estimate: for every 2M electric cars, you need 1 more nuclear power plant. - approx. 18 kWh per 100 km for a Tesla - let's say 15000 km per year (close to the average in France for example) - total consumption over a year for 1M cars is roughly 2.5 TWh - total production of a nuclear power plant varies, but is roughly 5-7 TWh per year on average That's a lot of extra power if you want to replace all the cars. For example in France, that'd be the equivalent of 20 extra nuclear power plants, or the equivalent in nuclear + solar + wind + coal/gas/...

brightball 5y ago
Those numbers are why I’ve always thought cleaner fuel options were the real future here (like natural gas and hydrogen).
- headmelted 5y ago
  Natural gas is significantly dirtier than nuclear, and hydrogen (in terms of how we use it) is a component of an energy storage technology and not a fuel source.
  - brightball 5y ago
    But significantly cleaner than oil and abundant enough to make an impact much sooner.
    - jnwatson 5y ago
      Impact in what? It still releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
      - nine_k 5y ago
        Way less carbon dioxide per joule produced, also, no sulfuric dioxide.

cblconfederate 5y ago

> they don't all charge at the same time, Battery swaps

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Tor3 5y ago

Where I live it's unlikely that the next car won't be an electric. Everyone I know who bought a car the last year bought an electric. My only concern is that I need a practical car, not something like a Tesla. I need ground clearance, for example (lots of snow here). It looks like that won't be a real problem, or at least it's getting there. At worst it would be a chargeable hybrid. Charging won't be much of a problem. Chargers everywhere, it seems (last summer's holiday was a long car trip through half the country, due to Covid), and I have 400V 3-phase at home (as most do in this town) so I can get a fast charging station. And we have charging stations at work already. I imagine the situation is different in the US, longer distances, for example.

brightball 5y ago
That new electric F150 looks pretty good for that use case.
- benhurmarcel 5y ago
  It sounds like he lives in Europe, so the F-150 isn't an option. I don't think it's available, and it would be way too large for any use outside the very rural cases.
solresol 5y ago
The Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV might suit you. It's a 4WD SUV. You get 50km of battery range before the petrol motor kicks in, so it has a lot of the advantages of electric without paying all that much more for it.
- hawk_ 5y ago
  does that mean maintenance costs of both the ICE and electrical parts?
Brakenshire 5y ago
The ID.4 has 8 inches of ground clearance.
5y ago

dzhiurgis 5y ago

A HVDC cable from Sahara to America would loose 50% of power, but still would charge your car overnight. As solar install itself is around 50% of it's cost, it's probably cheaper to do so in a dessert than over your house.

bryanlarsen 5y ago
HVDC is expensive, solar panels are cheap, so it's usually cheaper to keep the solar panels local even if they're much less efficient than they are elsewhere. https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/12/27/the-future-of-electricity-is-local/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/12/27/the-future-of-...
- dzhiurgis 5y ago
  HVDC saves on overnight batteries and is a hedge against weather and other factors.
theshrike79 5y ago
This is one of the places where hydrogen might actually be viable. Use a huge excess of solar power to generate hydrogen, transport hydrogen via oceans to ports, store it and convert it back to electricity locally when needed.
- chipsa 5y ago
  Ammonia is probably better. Easier to liquify, and much more dense, even if not as much energy per kg. It's admittedly somewhat toxic, but hydrogen is also somewhat explosive when mixed with air.
- Hypx_ 5y ago
  Hydrogen is viable anytime you need (or want) a chemical fuel.

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arbuge 5y ago

> The total energy usage shouldn't be much of an issue as we'll move electricity use from refineries to charging batteries So you'll have to build and bring online a whole new set of power plants in place of all those refineries then. I think this is definitely a very large issue and no trivial undertaking.

theshrike79 5y ago
We've got a good 15-20 years before EV density becomes an issue in most countries. Japan, with their 1-phase 110V network won't be converting to EVs soon. But here in the Nordics pretty much every house has 3-phase 230V and already wired for electric saunas and multi-kilowatt heaters. Adding a plug to charge an EV is a non-issue.
- fomine3 5y ago
  To be precise, most houses in Japan pull 3 power lines (-100V, 0V, 100V) so they also supports 1-phase 200V by using -100V, 100V pair. Another problem is electric company offers only 6kVA max for normal family plan. If I need more capacity, monthly bill isn't getting much higher, but selectable plan is limited and I should pay replacement cost at once.
- Tor3 5y ago
  Several years ago there were already more electric charging stations in Japan than there were gasoline pumps (of which there are many!). When I heard that I was very surprised because I hadn't noticed any. So I started looking, and yes they're there - just not so easy to spot. For some reason the ones in my own country are very visible, they are flashy and with lots of lights and big signs. The 100V (not 110V) network in Japan is indeed a lot of trouble for a lot of things, but it doesn't seem to be a hindrance for EV. It's just that it may not be as many home chargers there as in e.g. the Nordic countries.

bryanlarsen 5y ago

The grid is sized to handle peak loads in the early evening. Electric cars tend to be driven during peak hours and charge at night so while total energy used (kWh) will go up substantially, the grid itself does not need to handle substantially more power (kW) than it currently does.

tachyonbeam 5y ago
Car charging can also be scheduled to happen off peak if possible.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago

In NL, they are hard at work upgrading the energy network everywhere; newly built neighbourhoods already have 4x the electricity capacity they would previously have. This is in part down to the shift to electric vehicles, in part due to the reduction or removal of dependency on natural gas (for both climate and political reasons, we get ours from Russia), and in part due to people generating their own power via solar panels. A report is at [1], tl;dr they need and probably will invest billions in the power grid to be nationally carbon neutral by 2050. I mean the nihilist in me says it'll be far too late by then and we'll be well into a cataclysmic chain reaction and consequent extreme climate shift, but hey. https://www.netbeheernederland.nl/_upload/Files/Samenvatting_rapport_Het_Energiesysteem_van_de_toekomst_198.pdf https://www.netbeheernederland.nl/_upload/Files/Samenvatting...

Jedd 5y ago

> Energy use for cars is substantial, a significant percentage of the energy usage of homes. If that energy use shifts from fossil fuels to home electricity supplies we'll need to substantially increase the energy delivery possible to homes. Will it, though? Earlier this year I had 12kW of PVC installed for about A$7k. That nets me, this time of year (3 weeks away from the winter solstice in AU) about 35kWh a day. In summer I expect an average of 50kWh / day. A Tesla 3 standard has a 50kWh battery - providing 350 km driving range. The 75kWh long range version provides 500km range. So worst case (winter) A$7k of residential grade panels can provide charge for 200km / day - and that's on a Tesla, which is definitely a premium EV in this part of the world. (A vanilla model 3 is A$63k - the long range version A$78k.) Add in off-peak grid charging (say A$0.10 / kW) and we're really knocking ICE out of the game. For a lot of people, not just in the same part of the world I'm in, factoring in some panels on the roof would be a proportionally small capex delta, but make the TCO hugely more compelling.

ben_w 5y ago

This more than anything else is why I am anticipating a lot of electric cars being tiled in PV. Putting the cells on the cars is absolutely not going to fully charge them in most cases, and the same logic that leads to comparative advantage says to do this after better locations already have PV, but such cells will get 50-90% of the average daily requirements of the typical driver depending on location, season, and car size, which in turn will reduce infrastructure needs elsewhere.

nine_k 5y ago
In any case, getting 5-10 extra miles just by parking your car under sunlight while you are shopping would be nice! The question is the cost.
- Brakenshire 5y ago
  It would be 5-10 miles parked outside for the day, not just while you were shopping.
  - nine_k 5y ago
    18 kWh per 100 km means about 1.8 kWh per 10 km, so about 1.5 kWh for 5 miles. With 4 sq m of solar cells, 1 kW / sq m of sunshine at high noon, and 20% of conversion efficiency, it's 800 W. So it's about 2 hours to gain 5 miles under ideal conditions. Think really big shopping :)
- theshrike79 5y ago
  The amount of panels you can put on a normal car is around 1-2 square meters max. That's not enough to give any kind of measurable range advantage. The thing they're good for is running AC in the car when it's parked, without affecting the range. (Prius does this, I think the new Ioniq 5 has this)
  - ben_w 5y ago
    Ground area of a Tesla model 3 is ~8.5 square meters, so I think you’re underestimating.

xvilka 5y ago

Combined with the increase of conditioning power consumption it might happen sooner than later.

maxsilver 5y ago

> suspect we'll hit limitations in our energy infrastructure that prevent this from happening. Energy use for cars is substantial, a significant percentage of the energy usage of homes. I'm not sure this is true. I've been driving a electric car in the US for multiple years now (approximately 50 miles of driving daily), it's only added about ~15% to my electric bill, if that. Charging the car only requires ~800 to ~1400 watts, is done for about 10 to 12 hours all overnight, and can be done on any regular household AC outlet. If your home has the electricity for a Desktop Gaming PC, or any Window Air Conditioner, then it already has enough electricity for a EV car. Similarly, if plugging in a new Window AC doesn't bring your grid service down today, a new EV shouldn't either. Obviously in aggregate, utilities will need more capacity. But it's not that much more, it should only be an issue in places where the grid is already unregulated, broken, underserviced and/or under-maintained today -- only an issue in places where brownouts/blackouts already regularly happen (places like Texas, California, maybe NYC).

pibechorro 5y ago

Swappable batteries. If the industry creates a standard you could swap full battery packs in seconds at existing gas stations.

martin-adams 5y ago
I was about to say that I don't see this happening due to the way batteries are being built into the chassis. Then I looked it up and it's being done right now with the Nio with a 3 minute battery swap in China. https://youtu.be/hTsrDpsYHrw?t=382 https://youtu.be/hTsrDpsYHrw?t=382 580km / 360 miles range. I'm very impressed!
theshrike79 5y ago
Trust is the issue that needs to be resolved with swapping batteries. I'd compare it to a parachute, would you use a parachute packed by some rando you met on the street? If I go in to swap a battery, what guarantee do I have that the previous user didn't drive it into a rock and puncture a cell? Can I be sure they didn't leave malware in the battery's software? If all these checks are being done at the swap station, will it still be cost-effective? Also: Modern EVs use chargers up to 350kW and have 400-500km range. A 15-20 minute break every 500km shouldn't be a dealbreaker for anyone.