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Many have mentioned why this isn't going to work from the perspective of practical charging of batteries. What must also be understood is that our electrical g

Many have mentioned why this isn't going to work from the perspective of practical charging of batteries. What must also be understood is that our electrical grid simply cannot handle massive numbers of electric vehicles hyper-charging, to coin a term. I have said this many times: The problem is power. Many think about electrics in terms of energy. However, power is the problem. If a million cars need to charge in 5 minutes you will set transmission lines on fire and explode transformers (not really, just being dramatic). This is because the energy has to be delivered very quickly, which means we need the capacity to deliver power we simply do not currently have. A full transition to electrics will likely require more than double the production capacity we have today. The models I've used to understand this say we need between 900 and 1400 GW over the current capacity of 1200 GW. And you can't do it with solar. I don't know how to put it yet. There's an inequality developing with regards to electric vehicles. As their numbers increase they will use more and more of a resource that is truly scarce. We don't have enough power generation capacity. I haven't done the math on the threshold yet, but it is there. And so, everyone driving electric cars today and in the next, say, 5 to 10 years, is and will be abusing of a limited resource. This, in a sense, isn't any different from using too much water. We have a limited supply. Some of us have removed most of our lawns and replaced them with either zero water alternatives or very low water plants and shrubs. Others have huge, lush, green lawns both in front and in the back of their homes that consume ridiculous amounts of water. It looks great, but they are doing it at the expense of others who respect the shared resource. This aspect of electrics is going to become a political mess. It isn't there yet, but it will be at some point. My guess is that's the moment when politicians will come out of the woodwork and tax the shit out of electrics. It will be interesting to see what happens then. Nothing is simple.

bryanlarsen 5y ago
Large charger banks don't pull directly from the grid. Utilities charge massive amounts for high current draws, for good reasons. They buffer using capacitors or batteries. The vast majority of EVs charge at night when rates are low due to low demand. So while EVs will increase the energy demand on the grid, the peak power demand goes up less. If all of transportation and industry switches away from fossil fuels towards electricity, it'll double energy requirements. But that transition will take decades. Even if all new cars are electric, turning over the entire fleet would take 20 years. Industry is even slower. Luckily wind solar and batteries are cheap, and decreasing in price 10-15% per year, so meeting that demand is going to be relatively easy. Grids are expensive, which is why power generation is going to become increasingly localized.
- robomartin 5y ago
  > The vast majority of EVs charge at night when rates are low due to low demand. Not true. If you actually model 300 million vehicles across all of our time zones and with different utilization modalities, you soon find out power demands become very much constant throughout the day. That's not to say people cannot be incentivized to charge at certain times. However, you can't mandate that because everyone has different utilization patterns. If you have 15 million vehicles in California all charging between 6 PM and 6 AM you are going to have a serious power availability and deliver problem. Solar? Well, that would require two things. First, sufficiently large batteries at home. Second, TWICE the generation and storage capacity anyone has at home today. I have a 13 kW array. If I wanted to use it to charge two electric vehicles I would have to at least double the size of the array and probably get something like 8 Powerwalls (haven't done the math, maybe more) to support the vehicles. Why? Because solar systems are sized to supply what the home needs, not twice or three times current needs. Nobody is going to double their installed solar capacity just for the heck of it. That said, if the utilities didn't steal excess generation capacity as they do (they pay you 1/10 what they charge you per kWh) there might be real incentives to install additional capacity because you could actually make money with your installation. Not a simple problem.
  - bryanlarsen 5y ago
    People average 30 miles a day and the EV is usually plugged in for over 12 hours. So the car only had to charge for an hour but can choose any of the 12 to do so. My car chooses to charge when its cheapest. That's an easy algorithm now, but if it gets more dynamic I'm confident my car will adapt. And I'm not talking rooftop solar, I'm talking industrial solar, the type that is currently building at $10/MWh right now. Lots of that will get built because it'll be profitable to do so.
guerby 5y ago
This is not a concern, here for example is the study for France on the worst possible days (most cars on the road): https://www.rte-france.com/actualites/mobilite-electrique-longue-distance-developpement-bornes-recharge-rapide-autoroute https://www.rte-france.com/actualites/mobilite-electrique-lo... Modeled 2 to 5GW additional peak demand wost case increase from EV charging, compare with normal peak (in winter) 83 GW. RTE is the high voltage grid operator in France (public monopoly). I don't understand why people keep saying on forums that EV charging is a big issue for grids, it's clearly not and the grid operators themselves are saying it.
- robomartin 5y ago
  > I don't understand why people keep saying on forums that EV charging is a big issue for grids, it's clearly not and the grid operators themselves are saying it. You have to do the math or you will never understand. Alternatively, don't believe a word I said and go watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESIjxVudERY&t=3680s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESIjxVudERY&t=3680s I think he knows what he is talking about? And, interestingly enough, it confirms the results my model predicted years ago pretty much exactly. Current generation capacity is 1200 GW. We need to more than double that if we are going to make a full transition to electric ground transport. Not only that, we need to revamp and retrofit our entire grid and distribution system all the way to each and every building. Yeah. He said it. I just happened to have done the math on this many years ago, you can find my comments on this on HN going back a while. Too many people form strong opinions on myriad topics without ever bothering to spend a few days researching and quantifying the matter. I am not anti-electric vehicle or anti-renewables, I am just saying "We are not having the right discussion". Same applies to climate change, it's an absolute political circus. If we lie to ourselves we are never going to solve any real problems and everything becomes an emergency because so much time is wasted on absolute nonsense. Do the math. Don't form opinions unless you truly understand a problem.
  - guerby 5y ago
    You said "And you can't do it with solar." He says it's possible in the very video you pointed at, his exact words "... unless we have subsequent power generation at houses". EV are the perfect demand shifting and averaging tool for the grid, which is why Elon Musk says what he says, you can reduce peak demand on the grid this way. All that is in the report I cited, multi year study by lots of engineers on the case of the French grid. Now of course the US electrical grid is not in real good shape compared to other developped countries, but full EV and end of fossil fuels is at least 3 decades away. Australia went from zero to 25% of homes with solar in a decade, 2.4 times increase in the last five year according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Australia For yearly energy: USA vehicules drives about 3200000 millions miles per year, at 0.25 kWh/mile (TM3 LR) that's 800 billions kWh. Current electricity production in USA is 4000 billions kWh. Plus twenty percent is not that much.
aitchnyu 5y ago
Are there any studies on which kind of cars are kindest to power grid in the future? Should we incentivize 8 PHEV of 50 km range or 1 BEV of 400 km range?

bryanlarsen 5y ago

Large charger banks don't pull directly from the grid. Utilities charge massive amounts for high current draws, for good reasons. They buffer using capacitors or batteries. The vast majority of EVs charge at night when rates are low due to low demand. So while EVs will increase the energy demand on the grid, the peak power demand goes up less. If all of transportation and industry switches away from fossil fuels towards electricity, it'll double energy requirements. But that transition will take decades. Even if all new cars are electric, turning over the entire fleet would take 20 years. Industry is even slower. Luckily wind solar and batteries are cheap, and decreasing in price 10-15% per year, so meeting that demand is going to be relatively easy. Grids are expensive, which is why power generation is going to become increasingly localized.

robomartin 5y ago
> The vast majority of EVs charge at night when rates are low due to low demand. Not true. If you actually model 300 million vehicles across all of our time zones and with different utilization modalities, you soon find out power demands become very much constant throughout the day. That's not to say people cannot be incentivized to charge at certain times. However, you can't mandate that because everyone has different utilization patterns. If you have 15 million vehicles in California all charging between 6 PM and 6 AM you are going to have a serious power availability and deliver problem. Solar? Well, that would require two things. First, sufficiently large batteries at home. Second, TWICE the generation and storage capacity anyone has at home today. I have a 13 kW array. If I wanted to use it to charge two electric vehicles I would have to at least double the size of the array and probably get something like 8 Powerwalls (haven't done the math, maybe more) to support the vehicles. Why? Because solar systems are sized to supply what the home needs, not twice or three times current needs. Nobody is going to double their installed solar capacity just for the heck of it. That said, if the utilities didn't steal excess generation capacity as they do (they pay you 1/10 what they charge you per kWh) there might be real incentives to install additional capacity because you could actually make money with your installation. Not a simple problem.
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  People average 30 miles a day and the EV is usually plugged in for over 12 hours. So the car only had to charge for an hour but can choose any of the 12 to do so. My car chooses to charge when its cheapest. That's an easy algorithm now, but if it gets more dynamic I'm confident my car will adapt. And I'm not talking rooftop solar, I'm talking industrial solar, the type that is currently building at $10/MWh right now. Lots of that will get built because it'll be profitable to do so.

guerby 5y ago

This is not a concern, here for example is the study for France on the worst possible days (most cars on the road): https://www.rte-france.com/actualites/mobilite-electrique-longue-distance-developpement-bornes-recharge-rapide-autoroute https://www.rte-france.com/actualites/mobilite-electrique-lo... Modeled 2 to 5GW additional peak demand wost case increase from EV charging, compare with normal peak (in winter) 83 GW. RTE is the high voltage grid operator in France (public monopoly). I don't understand why people keep saying on forums that EV charging is a big issue for grids, it's clearly not and the grid operators themselves are saying it.

robomartin 5y ago
> I don't understand why people keep saying on forums that EV charging is a big issue for grids, it's clearly not and the grid operators themselves are saying it. You have to do the math or you will never understand. Alternatively, don't believe a word I said and go watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESIjxVudERY&t=3680s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESIjxVudERY&t=3680s I think he knows what he is talking about? And, interestingly enough, it confirms the results my model predicted years ago pretty much exactly. Current generation capacity is 1200 GW. We need to more than double that if we are going to make a full transition to electric ground transport. Not only that, we need to revamp and retrofit our entire grid and distribution system all the way to each and every building. Yeah. He said it. I just happened to have done the math on this many years ago, you can find my comments on this on HN going back a while. Too many people form strong opinions on myriad topics without ever bothering to spend a few days researching and quantifying the matter. I am not anti-electric vehicle or anti-renewables, I am just saying "We are not having the right discussion". Same applies to climate change, it's an absolute political circus. If we lie to ourselves we are never going to solve any real problems and everything becomes an emergency because so much time is wasted on absolute nonsense. Do the math. Don't form opinions unless you truly understand a problem.
- guerby 5y ago
  You said "And you can't do it with solar." He says it's possible in the very video you pointed at, his exact words "... unless we have subsequent power generation at houses". EV are the perfect demand shifting and averaging tool for the grid, which is why Elon Musk says what he says, you can reduce peak demand on the grid this way. All that is in the report I cited, multi year study by lots of engineers on the case of the French grid. Now of course the US electrical grid is not in real good shape compared to other developped countries, but full EV and end of fossil fuels is at least 3 decades away. Australia went from zero to 25% of homes with solar in a decade, 2.4 times increase in the last five year according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Australia For yearly energy: USA vehicules drives about 3200000 millions miles per year, at 0.25 kWh/mile (TM3 LR) that's 800 billions kWh. Current electricity production in USA is 4000 billions kWh. Plus twenty percent is not that much.

aitchnyu 5y ago

Are there any studies on which kind of cars are kindest to power grid in the future? Should we incentivize 8 PHEV of 50 km range or 1 BEV of 400 km range?