That will be the key. 30 kWh for 100 miles is expensive and current grids couldnāt handle the requirements. Going to take a lot of capex.
Hopefully the rate for charging cars will be less than the rate for normal household activities. However, that would require a separate home installed charging station.
I made up a number there that seemed fairly conservative (toyota is claiming much faster speeds), but that isnāt a $ figure, itās time, which I suspect will be the new metric people care about. Price per KWh is already displayed on the pay to charge networks (EAs start at $0.31/kWh) including Electrify America which is deploying as rapidly as Tesla is lately (though not in charging speed. Not yet).
By the way, you can get an estimate of comparable gas vs e-gallon electric pricing here:
https://www.energy.gov/maps/egallon
Electricity is still currently roughly half of the already suppressed gas prices.
As much as I detest the arrival of electric for my car I canāt wait for it to arrive for my wifeās car and since I have daughters - theirs too. The decrease in maintenance and such is going to be nice with the vast majority of idiots on the roads.
MM makes a good point Iāve been thinking about for yearsā¦ We will absolutely have to increase power generation, and building tons of new power plants costs lots of money. Electric cars will be better for the environment, but they will end up costing about the same as gas to operate after we build out the necessary infrastructure to support them. Kicker, everything else you power will end up being more expensive as well.
I think EVs are cool, Iām embracing the future, would love to get one for my wife some day, but they have a lot of baggage attached to them as well that gets no press in the bright eyed bushy tailed world of EV.
Gonna be tough especially in blue states. They hate approving new power plants.
There are so many cars on the road in the US I donāt think there is any single energy source that can be used without creating an energy shortage & negative environmental impact. If we can get to a point where we cut the number of ICE vehicles in half & replace them with EV that would be more sustainable than trying to completely replace them.
The 30 kWh per 100 miles is the current average. So at .18 kWh (US average) to charge a car it would cost $5.40 per 100 miles.
A car that gets 25 mpg (US avg) would cost $8 per 100 miles based on $2 per gallon of gas. EV is much cheaper.
The biggest issue will be charging infrastructure. Both externally (power grid, public charging stations) and internally (home charging stations). Using just a standard outlet it can take 3 days to fully charge a car. Even with a level 2 charger it can take 11.5 hours to get a full charge.
So if I go on vacation and have an electric car I will be limited in my options of locations based on charging options. Both on the way and once I get there.
Even with a level 3 public charger itās going to take 45-60 mins to charge. So you can add a couple of hours to tour trip for charging. Some folks will then just decide to fly.
Working remotely has proven workers can live anywhere, and it has already led to net population losses in many of the high cost (blue) states/urban areas. People are moving to areas where building power plants is more acceptableālike Texas.
Yeah but they all keep voting like they did in their blue states.
Havenāt you seen how red all of the US is? /s
I just posted federal MPE to MPG cost data so Iām not quite sure why you are arguing with me.
No one is going to zero to 100 charge their cars at home. I have a friend who has had a model S for almost 2 years now and the deepest home charge he has ever made is 30% (his car basically lives between about 40 and 70% charge) and that was including his longer than average daily commute. Also, of course he has a level 2 charger, as does most everyone these days that has a similar car. Why spend all that money on a car like this and not spend a few hundred bucks on a level 2 charger? People routinely spend more on completely useless add on options to their ICE vehicles.
It is quite easy and already relatively quick to do a long trip in his car, as itās silly to charge past 80% anytime but the night before he leaves, because 20 minutes at any supercharger adds a large amount of range to the car.
They take about 20 minutes to charge to 50%, 40 minutes to charge to 80%, and 75 minutes to 100% on the original 85 kWh Model S.
Itās silly to sit for more than 30 minutes unless you absolutely have to (and he never has) because your charging efficiency begins dropping after about 20 minutes and drops like a rock after 80%. (PS, current long range teslas have 402 mile ranges on standard lithium ion batteries).
And all of this ignores the advancements in charging speeds and the coming solid state battery invention. If SSBs live up to anything close to their 10 minutes per 500 mile recharge rate, all of this is moot, because the difference between charging and gassing back up is negligible.
I am not arguing with you. Our numbers are roughly the same. I was just doing some quick math. I agree, EVs are cheaper to operate.
The inconvenience, additional upfront costs and behavior changes are huge barriers. Again, EVs are 2% of the market and we are 25 years in already. Long range batteries and shorter charge times will help.
Iām not against it at all but we are a long way in my opinion. Iām not sure Iāll ever see the day that EVs are 50% of the market.
Disclaimer, I drive a Jeep Grand Cherokee with a 5.7L V8 Hemi and I love that damn thing. 
25 years isnāt really fair.
Engadget: 2020 has proven that electric vehicles are the future of transportation.
The Verge: Volkswagen teases an electric car-charging robot with eyes.
Yes there are some great new options coming out. Letās hope infrastructure follows to support.
CarScoops: Price Of EV Batteries Has Dropped 89% In The Last Decade.
Iām waiting for the articles about the 50 new nuclear power plants.
Wonāt require that much. There is a lot of available capacity at night when most charging would occur.
Solar actually is the most economical way to meet necessary daytime spikes in electricity use, so continuing to build out solar will relieve daytime stress on the grid.
New power sources will likely be needed, but the energy market has changed enough that new sources are more likely to be cleaner than the older ones just based on cost to produce (more wind, more natural gas, more solar). Natural gas has issues related to leaks during extraction and transport, so hopefully itās not just a shift to gas, as that doesnāt help us as much in terms of carbon emissions (though it will cut down on other pollutants associated with coal).
Thereās always going to be drawbacks associated with energy usage, so we have to make decisions based on evaluating the trade-offs (see the environmental damage from lithium mining above, which is real but likely not as damaging as the alternatives).
