Battery based electric vehicles of today and tomorrow.

[Snobdds]

That is not a concern in the USA outside of CALIFORNIA. In KY it is 3 cents a mile in my case. It seems like some people are under the misunderstanding that ev's use a lot of electricity.

I don't see the grid as much of a problem, but generation capacity will be quite a bottleneck. The only grid upgrades I see as necessary are connection points to incorporate distributed generating capacity. Urban growth power systems are paid for by the urban growers. Rural people are already used to having to pony up $60k for electricity to their new house.

Hydro is maxed. Nuclear is a bugaboo. Fossil is what we want to avoid. That leaves geothermal, wind, and solar. Geothermal is the only option for gigawatt point installations, though gigawatt capacity is possible with wind and solar.

The grid is our storage capacity in this nation.

The grid needs to be addressed long before we focus on generation.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

The average household uses 40kWh a day.
The average EV uses 30kWh per hundred miles.
The average distance each person drives 40 miles a day.

So if the average household will roughly use one and a half times more electricity than now that the grid will be expected to supply. I don't think there is a misunderstanding.

Maybe in Texas the average household drives 40 miles a day. Did you mean the average household, with 1+ drivers? It's a rare week that I put 40 miles on a vehicle, though my wife is more of a gadabout.

In my state, the average passenger vehicle mileage is about 12,000 miles/year, which works out to 33 miles, or 10 kWh per day. If I balance the 300 kWh/month against the 1000 kWh/month that I have reduced my electricity consumption over the years, it doesn't seem like a problem, or at least it's a problem small enough to be ignored.

BTW, 1 gallon of gasoline = 33 kWh. Pretty efficient electrical buggies.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

The grid is our storage capacity in this nation.

The grid needs to be addressed long before we focus on generation.

That is not my understanding.

 

[Snobdds]

That is not my understanding.

Let us know when you understand it.

 

[Snobdds]

Maybe in Texas the average household drives 40 miles a day. Did you mean the average household, with 1+ drivers? It's a rare week that I put 40 miles on a vehicle, though my wife is more of a gadabout.

In my state, the average passenger vehicle mileage is about 12,000 miles/year, which works out to 33 miles, or 10 kWh per day. If I balance the 300 kWh/month against the 1000 kWh/month that I have reduced my electricity consumption over the years, it doesn't seem like a problem, or at least it's a problem small enough to be ignored.

BTW, 1 gallon of gasoline = 33 kWh. Pretty efficient electrical buggies.

Your retired. Not a good example of usage.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Your retired. Not a good example of usage.

Even when I was working, commuting was only 30 miles a day, 150 miles/week, and I'm 15 miles out of town. The townies I worked with drove maybe 5 miles a day, 25 miles/week.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Let us know when you understand it.

That was a polite way of saying you don't know what you are talking about.

 

[bdhsfz6]

Any way you look at it, the grid WILL become an issue at some point as we convert to an all electric society.

Power outages are quite frequent in many parts of the country. Do you stay home when the power is out because you can't charge your vehicle? After hurricane Katrina, the power was out in many areas for over a month. Most of those poor people survived using portable gas generators which are too small to regularly charge a vehicle while powering a house. Most homeowners have the ability to store gasoline but not electricity.

Yes, gas stations can't pump without electricity but after Katrina, FEMA brought in generator trucks to power gas stations. Tankers of fuel were also imported. You can't import electricity without a working grid. You can always run out to a gas station for a can of gas but you can't run to the power plant for a can of electrons.

A more important thing to consider is this: Enemies and terrorists could easily cripple an all electric society with a few well placed charges at key points on transmission lines.

Sadly, our grid is aging and vulnerable. Major changes need to be made before we are completely dependent upon it.

 

[airbiscuit]

I agree that we need to make our electrical grid more robust, for a variety of reasons

 

[milkman636]

I’m a northerner with a job that I commute to every day, plus an average of 3 kids in sports during any given season. My wife and my oldest son are also drivers. We are mostly under 20 miles from home but drive over 100 miles a day between the three of us. Personally I would love to have some reliable/affordable electric vehicle options for a lot of our short runs. But I also want to maintain the ability to load the whole family in the extended 3500 express van, hook up a trailer full of gear, and take off on road trips too. My ideal world will have both types of vehicles and fuel sources available. Why does it have to be a one or the other type of proposition?