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I'm no expert, but read up/debated enough to reach some basic conclusions I've not seen elsewhere. They could be wrong, but I don't think too far off.

Imagine that all personal vehicles immediately became EVs. Also, the net amount of driving remains the same. Household electric use would increase by about 20%. That doesn't seem a huge jump. But what is missing in the analysis? Lots of things. In the first place, there is much wider use of fossil fuel, for commercial and other transport and energy production. All that electricity must come from somewhere. In the USA, it currently comes about 80% from fossil (mostly coal). If you want a rapid recharge of an EV you need heavy duty wiring. A typical EV can hold energy equivalent to about 3 days of a typical home's total electric usage. You could charge the EV at home on traditional house wiring, but it may need 24-48 hours to do so.

If one proposes to put rapid charge points all over, you are talking an extensive and extremely costly upgrading of the electric utility infrastructure.

Even with the best (real world) cases, to fully charge that EV requires many times what the equivalent fill-up of a liquid fueled vehicle is today. There are about 160,000 gas stations in the USA. There are but a tiny fraction as many EV charge points. They further suffer from the scarcity multiplied by longer recharge times. The EV is a white elephant if there ever was one.

Some other doubts, many having little to do with technology: How fast will that Tesla charge when there is a line of a hundred autos waiting to use a limited supply of Superchargers? Or vandals stole all accessible wiring last night (have you checked the value of scrap copper and other metals lately???) How effective will law enforcement be in deterring such crime, especially given that EVs are most popular in places that have already proven themselves sanctuaries for such criminals due to ever-more-lenient penalties?

None of the above is to say that EV or non-fossil energy could never become more widely used. It IS to claim that they are simply not economically competitive with fossil fuels under nearly any set of realistic assumptions. Government mandates to increase their usage will merely distort a free market and often ignore exogenous costs (e.g. virtual slave labor in many countries where the lithium is sourced.)

By all means buy that shiny EV and a rack of solar panels for your home. But please do some background research. There are hidden costs to all those things, and they may exceed whatever benefits you imagine you are gaining. Nothing comes for free.

Mar 7, 2022
at
1:08 PM

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