re: Electric Cars Are Now Being Targeted For Overloading The Electric Grids

I'm told by EV owners that I'm uniformed on the situation and they use the same amount of energy as the oven, hardly even noticeable.

I remember us in Texas used to laugh at the rolling brownouts in California years ago. Now we have become CA. Pumping money into wind farms instead of pumping money into infrastructure, distribution, and powerplants.
Thanks a lot greenies and the weak kneed Texas legislature and executive branch.

Seems like a Texas energy problem more than an electric car problem.

Unless stoves, central A/C, ovens, etc are also to blame..

Such a failure all around

They can’t see the big picture of the strain on the system

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That means solar panels and wind turbines on your house/property to generate your own electricity to power your house/EV and provide for your own electrical needs

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Yes, rely on completely unreliable sources is a great idea.

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Part of me believes the tech is available today to do this at a reasonable cost.

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We don't. Anyone with room temp IQ with respect to physical science knows this too. You probably have no idea how much power your house draws on any given day either, power that is always available and so reliable you have probably never thought to even measure and monitor such a thing yourself. The absolute best that photovoltaic cells, that are 100% efficient, can do on this planet is about 1kWh/m^2. That is the absolute best and for only a few hours/day during the peak and nowhere in the US does that even happen at all. Commercially available and reliable PV cells are around 10 - 15% efficient, which is why small solar farms require acres of land area to produce enough electrical power to match a gasoline generator you can fit in the bed of a pickup truck. Utility-size installations require hundreds to thousands of acres and still cannot match the annual output of a 20MW natural gas turbine that can fit in a facility only needing 1 or 2 acres. And that turbine will produce better than 90% of its installed rating year after year while solar and wind often barely hit 50%.

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Practical answer is to produce electricity at the source of it's use and no need for a grid. That means solar panels and wind turbines on your house/property to generate your own electricity to power your house/EV and provide for your own electrical needs

Part of me believes the tech is available today to do this at a reasonable cost. The other part of me thinks the electric companies that have spent trillions on a failing grid will never let that tech see the light of day or they will be bankrupt.

It would actually be very American to have the rugged independence to produce your own and take care of your own with no need for others.

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I disagree. Economies of scale come into play. We need more generation. I would prefer nuclear. Build them in areas not prone to seismic activity or tsunamis.

Upgrade the grid (lines, substations and transformers) to handle the needed power for EV. We should change from wanting the majority of cars to be electric in 15 years to like 35 to give us time to build the needed infrastructure. That extra time would also give up more time to refine the battery tech. It would give people time to upgrade their home power service to handle EV, but that can only be done if the upstream service (generation and delivery) are available.

It is a short sighted pipe dream to force everyone to EV when we are not ready for it. Its like sending a 4th grader to med school because we need more doctors.

Remember when Texas homers on this board claimed that people in Texas could choose where they get their energy from and that's why it is so awesome?

Why can't consumers just "choose" to get energy from fossil fuel plants and move on?

hint: it's an illusion of choice

In the future we won't need to worry about cars, we'll just be packed onto trains for our shift of running on the treadmills at the power plant to make electricity for the rich and get paid in Lentils so our families don't starve to death

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A gerbil wheel for every house! Think of all the electricity we can create!!!

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Since TD is powered by hamsters...