3 ms·

The biggest electric-car disruption that nobody seems to be talking about is that the national electricity grids of all nations do NOT have the capacity to be c

The biggest electric-car disruption that nobody seems to be talking about is that the national electricity grids of all nations do NOT have the capacity to be charging millions or hundreds of millions of electric-cars overnight. You'd have to double or triple even, the capacity of electricity generators and high-voltage transmission lines to enable all of those vehicles to be charged. I don't see any forward planning for the construction of that extra capacity yet.

tuatoru 5y ago
Grid upgrades soon will also be needed for further wind and PV rollout. Upgrades to transmission grids and distribution grids are being modelled and planned. And IIRC Biden's infrastructure bill had a line item for grid upgrades. Yeah, it's hard to see. We're used to everything being instantly accessible on the web, but an awful lot of work happens off it. You'll read about it when the NIMBYs start going to court.
jmakov 5y ago
Perhaps future "gas stations" will charge their huge batteries at night, when the electricity is cheap and sell it to you, when you'll charge, at a higher price. Only when their batttery will be empty will they need to access the grid.
- simonblack 5y ago
  That's not a solution. It makes no difference whether the electricity is charging a 'gas station' battery or hundreds of equivalent car batteries. That volume of charging capacity all works out in the wash. (it's just the equivalent of filling up at your local gas station or the one in the next town- you're still using the same amount of fuel - you're getting it in a different place.) The fact remains that there is going to be the need to charge (around) 150 million electric vehicles in the US every night. That's a lot of drain on the electricity grids that is not happening now because we're using oil-products for transport instead.

3 ms·

The biggest electric-car disruption that nobody seems to be talking about is that the national electricity grids of all nations do NOT have the capacity to be c

by simonblack 5y ago

tuatoru 5y ago
Grid upgrades soon will also be needed for further wind and PV rollout. Upgrades to transmission grids and distribution grids are being modelled and planned. And IIRC Biden's infrastructure bill had a line item for grid upgrades. Yeah, it's hard to see. We're used to everything being instantly accessible on the web, but an awful lot of work happens off it. You'll read about it when the NIMBYs start going to court.
jmakov 5y ago
Perhaps future "gas stations" will charge their huge batteries at night, when the electricity is cheap and sell it to you, when you'll charge, at a higher price. Only when their batttery will be empty will they need to access the grid.
- simonblack 5y ago
  That's not a solution. It makes no difference whether the electricity is charging a 'gas station' battery or hundreds of equivalent car batteries. That volume of charging capacity all works out in the wash. (it's just the equivalent of filling up at your local gas station or the one in the next town- you're still using the same amount of fuel - you're getting it in a different place.) The fact remains that there is going to be the need to charge (around) 150 million electric vehicles in the US every night. That's a lot of drain on the electricity grids that is not happening now because we're using oil-products for transport instead.