A Reality Check on Electric Vehicles

I found this on a comment board:

REALITY CHECK: At a neighborhood BBQ I was talking to a neighbor, a BC Hydro Executive. I asked him how that renewable thing was doing. He laughed, then got serious. “If you really intend to adopt electric vehicles, you have to face certain realities.”

“For example, a home charging system for a Tesla requires 75-amp service. The average house is equipped with 100 amp service. On our small street (approximately 25 homes), the electrical infrastructure would be unable to carry more than three houses with a single Tesla each. For even half the homes to have electric vehicles, the system would be wildly over-loaded. This is the elephant in the room with electric vehicles. Our residential infrastructure cannot bear the load.”

[snip]

Eric test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors and he writes,

"For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine.” Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range including the 9-gallon gas tank and the 16-kwh battery is approximately 270 miles.

"It will take you 4.5 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road trip, your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph.

"According to General Motors, the Volt battery holds 16 kwh of electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery. The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned, so I looked up what I pay for electricity.

"I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh. 16 kwh x $1.16 per kwh = $18.56 to charge the battery. $18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery. Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine that gets only 32 mpg. $3.19 per gallon divided by 32 Mpg = $0.10 per mile.

"The gasoline powered car costs about $25,000 while the Volt costs $46,000 plus. So, the Government wants us to pay twice as much for a car, that costs more than seven times as much to run and takes three times longer to drive across the country."

A thoughtful comment I saw from "Bobc," on a comment board.

"You're crazy," you say. "The Tesla supercharging station can recharge your battery in an hour. You don't have to wait 10 hours."

Sure, but who can afford a Tesla? Certainly not working class and most middle class families. even more important, where does the power to run the EV superchargers come from? Mainly from the grid.

They still get almost all of their energy from the grid. Most superchargers do not even have solar panels, and in practice the idea is totally impractical with current solar technology.

A supercharger gives an 85kWh model S a half charge in 20 minutes. That equates to a power output of around 120kW. With 1kW per meter square solar panels, which is typical, that's about 120 square meters of panels. That's nearly ten times the size of a typical parking space (about 16 square meters)

I love Tesla, but the solar canopies on the superchargers are marketing bullshit. Unless you see a field of solar panels next door, the power is from the grid."

https://www.quora.com/Where-do-Tesla-charging-stations-get-their-electricity?share=1, Simon Kinahan, Leaf owner.

There are some other interesting responses on this page, well worth reading.

I'm all for getting rid of fossil fuels. They are clumsy and inefficient. BUT, because of the established energy grid and distribution system, they are reliable. Government regulations that mandate green energy systems and ban fossil fuel plants are, at this time, irrational and will cause massive economic damage to working class and middle class families. Let's apply common sense and gradually phase out fossil fuel energy and gradually phase in clean energy.

People think that EVs are totally green, but that's just not true. To discover where the materials to make EV batteries come from, read this:

https://theconversation.com/politically-charged-do-you-know-where-your-batteries-come-from-80886

Moreover, if EVs become government mandated, there will be a huge pollution problem because recycling of batteries here in the US is not robust, and EV car batteries only last about ten years.