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.
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.
Nissan Leaf and Chevy Bolt are already cost competitive.