4 ms·

I can't answer your question, but i can tell you that engery prices will rise, if more people need more electricity to charge their cars. Electricity cost is so

• exelius 11y ago
  Well, if energy prices rise a bit, solar becomes much more attractive economically. So it's a feedback loop that solves itself.
• toomuchtodo 11y ago
  I don't have a link offhand (my apologies), but there is a DOE report floating around out there from 1-2 years ago stating that almost 80% of the current light vehicle (cars) fleet in the US could be converted over to using the electric grid solely with existing generating capacity. Combined with the relentless expansion of solar and wind in the US, I disagree with your assertion that energy prices will rise long-term. You'll probably see peaks and troughs as demand increases and supply comes online, but there is a lot of land left for renewables to be deployed to.
  • jpitz 11y ago
    Generating capacity isn't the only concern. Distribution capacity is another issue. Thankfully, the vast majority of the projected 30% increase in consumption will not coincide with summertime peak ( air conditioning ) loads, but it may be enough to worry some utilities, especially in the congested Northeast corridor of the US.
• lucb1e 11y ago
  Why would the prices rise? We will consume more, and then we pay more, but why would the price per kWh change? In general things become cheaper to produce at scale (though I guess the current energy consumption is already at a big scale).
• mikeash 11y ago
  Electricity costs are low because electricity is inherently cheaper to generate and distribute than gasoline. Big, centralized power plants enjoy economies of scale that allow them to be much more efficient and operate more cheaply. They can also use fuels that are impractical for mobile use (basically all of them). Cars don't use gasoline because it's cheap, cars use gasoline because it's dense. If you don't need density then you can use much cheaper stuff, like coal, natural gas, uranium, sunlight, water trapped in a big lake, etc. If everybody switched to electric cars tomorrow, electricity use would go up about 30%. This is far from trivial, but it's not the sort of thing that would cause prices to spike. Answering the grandparent, payment varies. At home, you obviously just pay it in your electric bill. When charging away from home, some chargers are free. Businesses often put them in to attract customers, and Tesla operates a vast network of chargers whose operating costs are covered by car sales. (These chargers only work on Teslas, and electricity costs are low enough that they can afford to provide lifetime charging for their customers.) Some chargers are paid, and that's typically done with an RFID card (either a regular credit card with RFID, or a card specifically for the charging network) or a smartphone app.
  • fizgig 11y ago
    Playing the "what if" game, has anybody discussed how large-scale adoption of charge-at-home EVs would change the collection of fuel taxes? The federal and state additions to a gallon of gasoline here in the US are non-trivial. Would home users eventually be expected to self-report or use a special meter for the purpose of paying equivalent taxes?
    • mikeash 11y ago
      That's a good question. We're already playing that game a bit. Virginia, for example, introduced an extra registration tax on hybrid and electric vehicles, with the rationale that they're not paying their fair share of road maintenance from fuel taxes. It was subsequently repealed under the theory that the benefit from not polluting so much outweighs the tax losses. My random guess is that we'll go to plain old mileage reporting. Fuel taxes for road maintenance may have made sense a long time ago, but fuel use and road wear are fairly weakly correlated now even among gasoline cars, since efficiency can vary so much now.