I heard that California's electric grid could not handle charging them all at once. They had to say don't charge your EV. It takes a lot of lithium to make batteries for the EVs. Which ruins the environment. Might as well drive a gas powered car until they can fix the problems with EVs.
back
3 comments
Was that intended as irony? Those are exactly the kind of arguments the article is debunking - so I think we'd at least need to see references...
Clearly the grid in Cali couldn't handle charging all the EVs if every ICE vehicle on the road today was magically replaced with an EV, but that will take decades to happen, during which the grid will be built up.
But who will pay for the upgrade in today’s economic climate? Do politicians have the will or even the interest to put their seat on the line?
You(we) are already paying right now by delaying, deferring and not acting. We are all paying in terms of environmental climate and all the consequences of that, to the environment, human health and yes, the economy too.
How does this have anything to do with politicians? The grid is run by private companies. If there's profit, it will happen.
You have too much faith in PG&E and SDGE. They have, through politics, gained long term contracts, increased prices, plenty of profit yet maintenance is still poor and flex alerts are frequent. And are squeezing the benefit of solar to customers that bear to cost to benefit themselves.
I mean, i don't think we're disagreeing? It's all about the profits?
PG&E is a monopoly that went through multiple bankruptcies. I'm grateful that they are not completely dead and there is still power, but this is about as far from a free-market goldmine as it gets.
From the first paragraph of the article:
> You've probably heard it all, too: A Prius is worse for the planet than a Hummer. EVs are coal-powered cars. Electric cars produce more CO2 than internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. Lithium mining is uniquely bad for the environment. Cobalt mining relies largely on slave labor, if not child slave labor. Actually, that last part is sadly true. But the rest? Lies.
Later:
> Sure, more EVs will mean more batteries, but unlike gasoline, which always has to be burned, battery production can become (and is becoming) greener. Another way to look at it is the energy required to produce an average EV's battery is equivalent to about 74 gallons of gas.
I heard that all you have to do is skip the facts and offer innuendo on the Internet.
What happens when everyone pulls into a gas station “all at once?”
Hey, google before commenting: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/01/us/california-heat-wave-f...
Throwing a load on a system at max is a bad thing. Switzerland is trying to make preparations: https://www.electrive.com/2022/12/02/switzerland-rumoured-to.... There’s only so much power out there right now and it’s often “elsewhere” than the major population centres (or mountain fastnesses).
It’s way overblown as air conditioning was a larger issue for the electric grid than EV’s will be. Average demand for an 15k mile per year EV is only 430 watts, and people don’t all fast charge them at the same instant. Generally people charge when costs are low because demand is low to save money.
Meanwhile everyone’s AC is going full blast at noon on a hot summer day meanwhile EV’s generally charge when rates are cheap.
There’s a units problem, as googling this finds : Generally, electric cars charged at home use about 7,200 watts (W) of electricity, which can vary depending on the mode and home charger. Most electric car chargers use between 32 and 40 amps, and connect to a 240 volt outlet in your home's breaker box.
A microwave takes 1000+ watts.
That’s peak not average, 7,200 W is only while actually charging. EV only need about one and a half hours at that rate per day and can be scheduled for low demand periods.
7,200 W * 1.5 hour/day = 7.2 kW * 1.5h * 4 miles per kW hour * 365 days ~= 15,768 miles per year.
7,200 W * 1.5 h / 24h/day = 450 W on average.
Plenty of EV home chargers are already internet connected and let you schedule when to start charging. Tesla for example let’s you specify to wait for low rates or use a specific time. https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/models/en_us/GUID-BEE08D4...
This level of flexibility let’s EV’s maximize the use of the grids existing infrastructure which will likely lower average costs per kWh.
I'm not sure if you're trying to tell a joke or not. The amount of effort you took to explain the post says you aren't joking, but choosing the average as the number you base your case on says you are.
That confusion you feel stems from a misunderstanding about the electrical grid.
Hundreds of millions of people aren’t all living in lockstep and many of them are trying to save money using demand pricing. A family might go on a long trip and use fast charging, but every family in the country isn’t going to be going on a trip that same weekend and try to charge at the same second.
The system is very rarely at max. So rare it made headlines. They asked people to conserve power anyway they could for a few hours. The other 8755 hours in the year you can do whatever you'd like.
I charged just fine to my normal 90% battery every day of that heat wave. Turns out that it's cheaper to charge overnight, so why would I charge during the peak anyway?