Unless or until the energy that is used to power these vehicles comes from renewable and low-carbon sources, building tons of EVs and forcing people to replace their existing vehicle withy an EV will largely shift the carbon burden, not eliminate it.
The infrastructure for large scale EV usage doesn't exist.. and it is going to take time…
Unless or until the energy that is used to power these vehicles comes from renewable and low-carbon sources, building tons of EVs and forcing people to replace their existing vehicle withy an EV will largely shift the carbon burden, not eliminate it.
The infrastructure for large scale EV usage doesn't exist.. and it is going to take time and investment for it to come into being.
The REAL auto manufacturers are going to eat Tesla alive with their EVs.. mostly because their vehicles will be more affordable, at least as good if not better, and Tesla (and Musk) won't have the cache it once had.
Tesla stock is going to continue its downward trend for a while. It will be interesting to see how long the company lasts and how long Musk remains associated with it.
"The infrastructure for large scale EV usage doesn't exist."
That is incorrect. Charging the average electric car takes about as much power as running an electric dryer for an hour. If every house did that, it would not strain the power grid as long as most did it overnight. Power consumption falls by half or two-thirds at night, so there is plenty of capacity. Power companies offer very low rates at night, especially for electric car owners (including me).
Electric power at night in Texas is free, because they have so much wind power. They charge a flat fee for the month. Electric cars are recharged with 100% renewable, carbon-free electricity.
My car is recharged with nuclear power, in Georgia, at night.
Only about 20% of US power generation is renewable. Nuclear power has it's own associated problems (like infrastructure cost and waste disposal)--about which I know a fair bit having been in the nuclear navy and having associates working in civilian nuclear power.
Is a large scale shift to EVs an improvement? Yes. But there is no larger infrastructure currently in existence (like the equivalent of gas stations) which severely limits the range of EVs and their larger functionality. Much like the functionality of IC engines was originally constrained in the shift from animal power.
I can fill a gas tank in minutes. How long to charge an EV at current state of art?
If you live in a metro area where travel ranges are short and you can recharge every night at home, no real problems. What if you don't? What if you are traveling on vacation? What if you are a long-haul trucker?
It is far more complex and we are far less ready for it than most people understand.
"I can fill a gas tank in minutes. How long to charge an EV at current state of art?"
30 seconds. You come home, plug in the charger, and go in for supper. The charger works in the middle of the night when rates are low.
It takes you much longer to fill with gasoline because you have to stop off at a gas station and wait around while the tank fills. Obviously, gasoline fueling delivers more megajoules of potential energy per second, but recharging an EV at home takes less human operator time. Most EVs are charged at home.
You do not need to charge every night unless you drive ~150 miles a day. Once or twice a week is enough for most people.
Long range trips on the highway are a problem. They will be until range reaches about 600 miles, which is about how far a person can drive in one day.
Well, Joe Manchin would still have been a Senator.... and the current energy sector would still have had the political pull it does. I am thinking not that much different.
You wrote: "Unless or until the energy that is used to power these vehicles comes from renewable and low-carbon sources . . ."
It all does come from low-carbon sources. Compared to gasoline, electric power generation produces far less CO2 per joule of useful energy. More to the point, even if electricity were all generated with coal or oil, electric cars would use 4 times less primary energy than gasoline cars per passenger mile, so they would greatly reduce CO2. As it happens, coal is now used for only 22% of U.S. electricity, and that is falling rapidly. No oil is used to generate electricity.
Electric power increasingly comes from renewable sources. This year, U.S. power companies are installing far more new capacity in solar and wind than any other source
It's rational for people to be doing everything possible to migrate away from FF. Waiting for optimum efficiency in the tech would be catastrophic and Tesla did light a fire (no FF pun intended) under the industry's ass to roll this out much more rapidly. But way too much credit is being given to Elon for this and "his" cars are no longer the cutting edge of anything. They have some advantages still with their batteries but the pack will soon catch up to the leader and then... well... it'll be just another car (with many many shortcomings that their bullheaded CEO is unwilling to relent on).
Smart scheduling of battery recharging is done automatically. The power company remotely turns on or off the charger. This can be done with a modern electronic power meter. It is usually done at night.
No, you do not. All of the power meters in Atlanta have been changed over to smart meters. 65% of meters in the U.S. are now smart meters. The distribution grid is the same.
Smart meters are cheaper and easier for the power companies to poll, and they allow varying rates by time of day or season, which benefits customers.
Its specialized infrastructure. It is just already partly in place. Not fully.
See how there are all these little things that kind of have to come together for all of this to work? Including the things that people haven't discovered yet that we are going to discover going along this pathway?
This will include things like actual expansion and investment in power distribution and control systems. Expansion of non-home facilities for EV charging. People being both willing and able to pay more for a vehicle up front.
Can it be done? yes. Will it be done--most likely at some point... but I think you are more than a decade away from it at this point.
Change is hard and often fiercely resisted--no matter how logical or necessary it might seem to be. especially if the change is inconvenient and costs money.
The infrastructure is not not specialized. When they converted Atlanta to smart meters, they made no other changes to the infrastructure. They came by each house and changed out the meter. It took only a few minutes per house.
There is no need to expand the power distribution or control systems to accommodate electric cars. As I said, the average car uses as much electricity as running a clothes dryer for an hour, or an air conditioner for 2 hours. If every household in the U.S. did this mainly at night, it would not call for any change to the infrastructure, because power consumption at night is far lower than day. There is plenty of spare capacity. This would consume more natural gas, but far less primary energy than gasoline does.
It would consume about ~4 times less primary energy and emit ~8 times less CO2 per passenger mile. You can do the numbers and see for yourself. Start here at the Lawrence Livermore flowchart, bottom right. Most of the 24.3 quads of petroleum transportation energy is for motor vehicles. Read the text box describing end use efficiency, 21% for transportation. Bear in mind that generators and electric cars are far more mechanically efficient than internal combustion engines.
Again. based upon historical examples and how humanity reacts to these kind of things, it isn't going to go like you think it is going to go.
The technology is the tip of the iceberg (and the easy part).
You are expecting people and corporations to be much more rational and less selfish than they are. You are expecting people to give up a lot of convenience and familiarity.
You are expecting people to actually have an idea about costs (long and short term) and for them to privilege long term costs over short term costs (which is generally NOT the case).
And sections of our current distribution system cannot handle existing loads, already, especially in deteriorating environmental conditions. I have this vague memory of an energy emergency in Texas (and didn't prices skyrocket there at the same time)?
There is more work and prep to be done than you think--and a lot of it doesn't have much to do with the tech.
You are severely underestimating the ability (and desire) for people to F things up.
As I have said, all of this IS coming at some point--it is going to take longer than you think, it is going to be messier than you think, and it is going to be more expensive than you think... and there is going to be a lot of cultural kickback.
"And sections of our current distribution system cannot handle existing loads, already, especially in deteriorating environmental conditions."
Other than Texas, that simply IS NOT TRUE. And Texas's problems are because of stupid decisions by Republicans.
The only fly in the ointment is that environmentalists are also trying to force everyone to convert to electric heat as well. That really WILL overload the grid in the winter, and if we are talking about resistance heat, the only electric heat that works in cold climates, it also means economic devastation for the poor and working class.
You wrote: "You are expecting people and corporations to be much more rational and less selfish than they are. You are expecting people to give up a lot of convenience and familiarity."
On the contrary, I am counting on people being more selfish. That is, wanting to save money. Electric cars are marginally more expensive now, if you don't count fuel costs and insurance. They will soon be far cheaper. They are much cheaper to manufacture and maintain, so it is just a matter of time before the purchase price falls below gasoline cars. Competition ensures that. Toyota may not want to sell them cheaper than gasoline cars, but Ford and GM will force their hand.
People ALWAYS want to pay less. Familiarity means nothing. People have no loyalty to ExxonMobil.
"And sections of our current distribution system cannot handle existing loads, already, especially in deteriorating environmental conditions."
There may be a few places like that, but most places can accommodate 1 hour of clothes drying per night.
"You are expecting people to actually have an idea about costs (long and short term) . . ."
When the sale price of a new electric car falls below the cost of a gasoline car, everyone will know. People are not stupid. The car manufacturers will tell them, in any case.
The car companies are rushing to convert to electric cars. Not as a public service but because they know gasoline cars will not be competitive for long. Car companies are not run by idiots. Those people can do arithmetic and they can see the writing on the wall.
"There is more work and prep to be done than you think--and a lot of it doesn't have much to do with the tech."
No work at all. I had an electric car which I gave to my daughter. She got a charger in downtown DC for $150 including the 220 V outlet installation A piece of cake.
"I have this vague memory of an energy emergency in Texas (and didn't prices skyrocket there at the same time)?"
That was caused by cold weather shutting down nuclear plants and natural gas pipelines. Wind power was the most reliable. It would never happen in a place like Minnesota where the equipment is winterized. They could winterize it in Texas, but such cold weather is rare, so they didn't. At the time, right wing politicians blamed wind power. As you say, people do not know much about technology, so they believed it. People do understand when one car is cheaper than another, and costs much less in insurance and maintenance, and much less to fuel.
This works as long as we don't force everyone to switch to electric heat for their homes. New York is trying to do that and it is one more reason why Zeldin might beat Hochul.
Unless or until the energy that is used to power these vehicles comes from renewable and low-carbon sources, building tons of EVs and forcing people to replace their existing vehicle withy an EV will largely shift the carbon burden, not eliminate it.
The infrastructure for large scale EV usage doesn't exist.. and it is going to take time and investment for it to come into being.
The REAL auto manufacturers are going to eat Tesla alive with their EVs.. mostly because their vehicles will be more affordable, at least as good if not better, and Tesla (and Musk) won't have the cache it once had.
Tesla stock is going to continue its downward trend for a while. It will be interesting to see how long the company lasts and how long Musk remains associated with it.
"The infrastructure for large scale EV usage doesn't exist."
That is incorrect. Charging the average electric car takes about as much power as running an electric dryer for an hour. If every house did that, it would not strain the power grid as long as most did it overnight. Power consumption falls by half or two-thirds at night, so there is plenty of capacity. Power companies offer very low rates at night, especially for electric car owners (including me).
Electric power at night in Texas is free, because they have so much wind power. They charge a flat fee for the month. Electric cars are recharged with 100% renewable, carbon-free electricity.
My car is recharged with nuclear power, in Georgia, at night.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us.php
Only about 20% of US power generation is renewable. Nuclear power has it's own associated problems (like infrastructure cost and waste disposal)--about which I know a fair bit having been in the nuclear navy and having associates working in civilian nuclear power.
Is a large scale shift to EVs an improvement? Yes. But there is no larger infrastructure currently in existence (like the equivalent of gas stations) which severely limits the range of EVs and their larger functionality. Much like the functionality of IC engines was originally constrained in the shift from animal power.
I can fill a gas tank in minutes. How long to charge an EV at current state of art?
If you live in a metro area where travel ranges are short and you can recharge every night at home, no real problems. What if you don't? What if you are traveling on vacation? What if you are a long-haul trucker?
It is far more complex and we are far less ready for it than most people understand.
"I can fill a gas tank in minutes. How long to charge an EV at current state of art?"
30 seconds. You come home, plug in the charger, and go in for supper. The charger works in the middle of the night when rates are low.
It takes you much longer to fill with gasoline because you have to stop off at a gas station and wait around while the tank fills. Obviously, gasoline fueling delivers more megajoules of potential energy per second, but recharging an EV at home takes less human operator time. Most EVs are charged at home.
You do not need to charge every night unless you drive ~150 miles a day. Once or twice a week is enough for most people.
Long range trips on the highway are a problem. They will be until range reaches about 600 miles, which is about how far a person can drive in one day.
Also:
https://insideevs.com/news/549267/manufacturing-evs-70percent-more-emissions/
https://insideevs.com/news/444542/evs-45-percent-more-expensive-make-ice/#:~:text=The%20E-drive%20adds%20%E2%82%AC2%2C000%20to%20the%20production%20expenses%2C,is%20pursuing%20new%20ways%20to%20manufacture%20a%20car.
Well, Joe Manchin would still have been a Senator.... and the current energy sector would still have had the political pull it does. I am thinking not that much different.
You wrote: "Unless or until the energy that is used to power these vehicles comes from renewable and low-carbon sources . . ."
It all does come from low-carbon sources. Compared to gasoline, electric power generation produces far less CO2 per joule of useful energy. More to the point, even if electricity were all generated with coal or oil, electric cars would use 4 times less primary energy than gasoline cars per passenger mile, so they would greatly reduce CO2. As it happens, coal is now used for only 22% of U.S. electricity, and that is falling rapidly. No oil is used to generate electricity.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us.php
Electric power increasingly comes from renewable sources. This year, U.S. power companies are installing far more new capacity in solar and wind than any other source
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=50818
It's rational for people to be doing everything possible to migrate away from FF. Waiting for optimum efficiency in the tech would be catastrophic and Tesla did light a fire (no FF pun intended) under the industry's ass to roll this out much more rapidly. But way too much credit is being given to Elon for this and "his" cars are no longer the cutting edge of anything. They have some advantages still with their batteries but the pack will soon catch up to the leader and then... well... it'll be just another car (with many many shortcomings that their bullheaded CEO is unwilling to relent on).
With "smart" scheduling of battery recharging, intermittent power generators like wind and solar are much more useful.
Expecting people to be smart is a bit of a stretch.
Smart scheduling of battery recharging is done automatically. The power company remotely turns on or off the charger. This can be done with a modern electronic power meter. It is usually done at night.
And you need specialized infrastructure for that.
The specialized infrastructure is a new meter. Big deal.
No, you do not. All of the power meters in Atlanta have been changed over to smart meters. 65% of meters in the U.S. are now smart meters. The distribution grid is the same.
Smart meters are cheaper and easier for the power companies to poll, and they allow varying rates by time of day or season, which benefits customers.
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/us-smart-meter-penetration-hits-65-expanding-utility-demand-response-reso/611690/
Its specialized infrastructure. It is just already partly in place. Not fully.
See how there are all these little things that kind of have to come together for all of this to work? Including the things that people haven't discovered yet that we are going to discover going along this pathway?
This will include things like actual expansion and investment in power distribution and control systems. Expansion of non-home facilities for EV charging. People being both willing and able to pay more for a vehicle up front.
Can it be done? yes. Will it be done--most likely at some point... but I think you are more than a decade away from it at this point.
Change is hard and often fiercely resisted--no matter how logical or necessary it might seem to be. especially if the change is inconvenient and costs money.
The infrastructure is not not specialized. When they converted Atlanta to smart meters, they made no other changes to the infrastructure. They came by each house and changed out the meter. It took only a few minutes per house.
There is no need to expand the power distribution or control systems to accommodate electric cars. As I said, the average car uses as much electricity as running a clothes dryer for an hour, or an air conditioner for 2 hours. If every household in the U.S. did this mainly at night, it would not call for any change to the infrastructure, because power consumption at night is far lower than day. There is plenty of spare capacity. This would consume more natural gas, but far less primary energy than gasoline does.
It would consume about ~4 times less primary energy and emit ~8 times less CO2 per passenger mile. You can do the numbers and see for yourself. Start here at the Lawrence Livermore flowchart, bottom right. Most of the 24.3 quads of petroleum transportation energy is for motor vehicles. Read the text box describing end use efficiency, 21% for transportation. Bear in mind that generators and electric cars are far more mechanically efficient than internal combustion engines.
https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/sites/flowcharts/files/2022-04/Energy_2021_United-States_0.png
Again. based upon historical examples and how humanity reacts to these kind of things, it isn't going to go like you think it is going to go.
The technology is the tip of the iceberg (and the easy part).
You are expecting people and corporations to be much more rational and less selfish than they are. You are expecting people to give up a lot of convenience and familiarity.
You are expecting people to actually have an idea about costs (long and short term) and for them to privilege long term costs over short term costs (which is generally NOT the case).
And sections of our current distribution system cannot handle existing loads, already, especially in deteriorating environmental conditions. I have this vague memory of an energy emergency in Texas (and didn't prices skyrocket there at the same time)?
There is more work and prep to be done than you think--and a lot of it doesn't have much to do with the tech.
You are severely underestimating the ability (and desire) for people to F things up.
As I have said, all of this IS coming at some point--it is going to take longer than you think, it is going to be messier than you think, and it is going to be more expensive than you think... and there is going to be a lot of cultural kickback.
"And sections of our current distribution system cannot handle existing loads, already, especially in deteriorating environmental conditions."
Other than Texas, that simply IS NOT TRUE. And Texas's problems are because of stupid decisions by Republicans.
The only fly in the ointment is that environmentalists are also trying to force everyone to convert to electric heat as well. That really WILL overload the grid in the winter, and if we are talking about resistance heat, the only electric heat that works in cold climates, it also means economic devastation for the poor and working class.
You wrote: "You are expecting people and corporations to be much more rational and less selfish than they are. You are expecting people to give up a lot of convenience and familiarity."
On the contrary, I am counting on people being more selfish. That is, wanting to save money. Electric cars are marginally more expensive now, if you don't count fuel costs and insurance. They will soon be far cheaper. They are much cheaper to manufacture and maintain, so it is just a matter of time before the purchase price falls below gasoline cars. Competition ensures that. Toyota may not want to sell them cheaper than gasoline cars, but Ford and GM will force their hand.
People ALWAYS want to pay less. Familiarity means nothing. People have no loyalty to ExxonMobil.
"And sections of our current distribution system cannot handle existing loads, already, especially in deteriorating environmental conditions."
There may be a few places like that, but most places can accommodate 1 hour of clothes drying per night.
"You are expecting people to actually have an idea about costs (long and short term) . . ."
When the sale price of a new electric car falls below the cost of a gasoline car, everyone will know. People are not stupid. The car manufacturers will tell them, in any case.
The car companies are rushing to convert to electric cars. Not as a public service but because they know gasoline cars will not be competitive for long. Car companies are not run by idiots. Those people can do arithmetic and they can see the writing on the wall.
"There is more work and prep to be done than you think--and a lot of it doesn't have much to do with the tech."
No work at all. I had an electric car which I gave to my daughter. She got a charger in downtown DC for $150 including the 220 V outlet installation A piece of cake.
"I have this vague memory of an energy emergency in Texas (and didn't prices skyrocket there at the same time)?"
That was caused by cold weather shutting down nuclear plants and natural gas pipelines. Wind power was the most reliable. It would never happen in a place like Minnesota where the equipment is winterized. They could winterize it in Texas, but such cold weather is rare, so they didn't. At the time, right wing politicians blamed wind power. As you say, people do not know much about technology, so they believed it. People do understand when one car is cheaper than another, and costs much less in insurance and maintenance, and much less to fuel.
This works as long as we don't force everyone to switch to electric heat for their homes. New York is trying to do that and it is one more reason why Zeldin might beat Hochul.