Jako
Spends too much time on here
Nice job on the electrical grid - something that seems to be left out of the conversation. This Old House had a show on the various outlets that could be installed in a garage bay and the charge times. It appeared to be four types with various charging times and mileage.That's actually a really good point. Realistically an electric vehicle that's just designed to carry 2-4 passengers could probably operate just fine on streets with under 100 HP, even with all the safety and creature comfort stuff. A pretty good argument could be made that no one on public roads *needs* to be able to go 0-60 in 3 seconds, and if you're talking about environmental preservation why produce the power for one passenger vehicle that could probably power 3-6 vehicles instead?
I'm not trying to argue either point. I love the environment and I also love having a V8 engine that's not dragging *** when I have it loaded to the gills with construction materials. If there was a reasonable electric truck that could do the same as my Ram without the limitations that exist with electric right now - few charging stations, long wait times, limited range, crazy costs - I wouldn't be against it; nor am I against electric cars that are coming out, as development and utilization will drive the technology so that it can improve. At the same time, the current state and condition of the electric grid is a valid argument that electric proponents need to consider. Our electric grid is highly inefficient, as a large amount of the electricity that is produced just ends up wasted as heat as it's transmitted very long distances. It's a legacy infrastructure designed and built when electric consumption wasn't terribly high and there were more options for local generation (coal, small hydro, etc). The most reasonable switch from gasoline to electric for vehicles would be to first retrofit most/all houses to on-site/community solar generation, in order to eliminate all the transmission loss, and then to move to greater electric car use.
What happens beyond the house wiring when everyone starts putting these in and driving EVs?