BenSolar explained solar without battery but that does not give enough protection against blackouts. I believe lots of people will also add batteries. Managing the system is easy with AutoBidder.
The Captain
Don’t most EV owners charge their vehicles at home, overnight? The morning electric power ramp and afternoon peak power are 2 to 4 times the overnight base load. There’s plenty of electric power generating capacity already available to charge a big fleet of EVs overnight.
Duck curve
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Duck curve
Yes! I was looking for that and forgot what they called it.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=Duc…
intercst
Yes, because they will have to move “fuel taxes” from gasoline to electricity to make up for lost revenue.
I think that is unlikely. For example, fuel for off-road use (like for construction or farm equipment) is exempt from road taxes. I doubt any jurisdiction would tax all electricity to pay for roads. I think it is more likely we will continue to see what is already happening: jurisdictions are charging increased license fees for EVs.
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There are a lot of leased new cars and company expensed cars that in a matter of three years make it into the used car category and get replaced. People are often now going electric for the novelty of it in those categories. So you have new and used EV cars at a faster pace than being discussed.
Does anybody think we have spare generating capacity lying around equal to 42% of current consumption?
As someone else already pointed out EVs use less energy per mile than ICE cars, by at least a factor of 2 and more like 3-4 in most cases. So we don’t need 42% more.
But here is some quick math.
Let’s say every household gets one EV that gets 4 miles/kwh and travels 40 miles per day on average.
(That’s almost 15K miles/yr)
This requires an additional 10 kwh per day per household.
The average household (from memory) uses about 30 kwh/day.
Residential electricity usage is about 20% of all electricity.
Therefore the grid needs to supply about ~7% more electricity in total for one EV per household.
Two cars per household means we’d need ~14% more.
Add in some commercial vehicles, etc and maybe it is 20% more.
Mike
4 Likes
Leap, if 100% of the fleet were ev, at 17 million cars per year it would take 16 years to replace the installed base of vehicles. Since ev’s are massively less than 100% of new deliveries,and will be for some amount of years to come,20 yes sound optimistic for 100% ev. More than 50% should be reasonable.
I would believe that in 10 to 15 years 90% of new car deliveries will be non-ice. Mostly electric,with a smattering of hydrogen for certain applications,perhaps.
But faster adaptation just seems unreasonable because,math.
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Don’t most EV owners charge their vehicles at home, overnight? The morning electric power ramp and afternoon peak power are 2 to 4 times the overnight base load. There’s plenty of electric power generating capacity already available to charge a big fleet of EVs overnight.
Most people charge their EV in their garage or driveway at night. Some places even have a lower electric rate at off-peak times, and most EVs can schedule themselves to charge during that off-peak time. So you come home, after work, after errands, after going out, etc, and you park your car, and then you plug it in. Later that night, at 10pm or at 11pm, when the off-peak rate kicks in, it’ll start charging by itself. And it’ll even turn off charging at 6am or 7am, when the peak rates kick in.
I have 2 EVs right now, and when I charge at home, it is almost always at nighttime (though we have no off-peak rate here). BUT, one of our EVs is used for commuting, and there is a huge solar array above the parking lot at the office, and 2 [free] chargers connected to it. That EV has never once been charged at home, it is always charged while parked at work, and sometimes charged at the local supermarket or at the local movie theater (rarely). The other EV is periodically charged at home, and when going on long trips, it is charged at superchargers along the way. And a few times it’s been charged using chargers at our hotel.
The EV that I use regularly is a generic 4-door car, and it replaced an ICE generic 4-door last year. I used to get about 50 miles out of $10 of gasoline (now it would be less), and now I get over 200 miles (closer to 250) out of $10 of electricity. And even the superchargers, where I pay 3 times as much as home electricity, it is still way more efficient than the equivalent ICE car.
5 Likes
Jim,
Giving you 30 years we are at 2052. Just in time for government work. I will take it.
>>I had to go to a VW dealer for new wiperblades, because aftermarket ones that fit are no longer available.<<
They are generally available.
I first tried the grocery store where I have bought both Trico and Bosch blades in the past. They no longer carry the Trico part number, and were out of stock of one of the Bosches.
I went across the street to a major auto parts chain. Bought the Bosch blades their cross reference said would fit. They didn’t. The fittings on the blades were 16mm wide, the car requires 19mm. Back to the store. The guys were trying to help, went through two or three different models of Bosch and Trico that their fitment guide said would fit, and none fit.
A friend of mine has a 2016 Golf, one generation newer than my wagon. He says he has never been able to find aftermarket blades that fit.
Steve
Surely this is not about politics … or is it?
Incidentally, the announcement of additional, government created, demand for fuel ethanol, in the face of a grain shortage, was made in corn central: Iowa.
…the Environmental Protection Agency will issue an emergency waiver permitting year-round sales of E15 gasoline, which contains a 15% ethanol blend, on a trip to Menlo, Iowa, where he visited POET Bioprocessing, a biofuels plant that specializes in the creation of bioethanol.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/12/politics/us-gas-prices-waiver…
Steve
<Based on my experience, the EV that replaced my old car (both equivalent generic 4-door sedans) is at least 3 times more efficient (and seemingly almost 5 times more efficient). >
Please explain how you estimate the relative efficiency. I don’t understand this.
Thanks,
Wendy
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Please explain how you estimate the relative efficiency. I don’t understand this.
The EPA provides an easily comparable metric to compare EVs to ICE vehicles. That is the MPGe - miles per gallon of gasoline equivalent, in which they convert the amount of chemical energy available from burning a gallon of gas to the equivalent amount of electricity and compute how far an EV will go on that much electricity.
Comparing similar vehicles:
Tesla Model 3: MPGe 138 city/126 highway
BMW 3 series: MPG 26 city/36 highway
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Based on my experience, the EV that replaced my old car (both equivalent generic 4-door sedans) is at least 3 times more efficient (and seemingly almost 5 times more efficient).
Please explain how you estimate the relative efficiency. I don’t understand this.
Back of the envelope: A gallon of gasoline contains about 30/Kwh of energy. Let’s say you can travel 30 miles on that gallon of gas.
A typical EV can travel about one mile on 0.3 Kwh of electricity, so to go the same 30 miles it would take about 9 Kwh. So it takes an ICE about three times the energy to go the same distance.
Please explain how you estimate the relative efficiency. I don’t understand this.
I do it in a slightly different way than the EPA does. The way I do it can roughly be explained as “how many miles can I get out of $X?” because that is the essence of what I care about for that particular measurement. I used to get about 50 miles out of $10 of gasoline, and now I get about 250 miles out of $10 of electricity.
The way the EPA does it is with some sort of calculation that they create a number called MPGe, or equivalent MPG, so EV vehicles can be compared to ICE vehicles in some way. So, for example, the Tesla model 3 has an MPGe or 110 - 140. A typical comparable 4-door ICE sedan in the $45-55k range, say a Hyundai Genesis, has an MPG of 25 or so.
It is mostly explained here on the EPA site. I haven’t read the entire paper yet, but it looks like it explains their methodology regarding efficiency calculations.
https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyNET.exe/P100BAV0.txt?ZyActionD=Z…
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I went across the street to a major auto parts chain. Bought the Bosch blades their cross reference said would fit. They didn’t. The fittings on the blades were 16mm wide, the car requires 19mm. Back to the store. The guys were trying to help, went through two or three different models of Bosch and Trico that their fitment guide said would fit, and none fit.
That’s a bummer! I HATE when the parts selector says it’ll fit a particular model, but then it doesn’t! I remember years ago, having to shave down a small plastic part that was supposed to fit, but didn’t quite fit in reality. And that was after weeks of searching for an alternate part.
Corn up over 30% since the beginning of the year
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The war in Ukraine has a knock on effect for corn prices around the world. Ukraine is a major exporter of corn, but this year Ukraine is planting much more wheat and much less corn.
Jaak
We get very little power from solar in Nova Scotia, mostly cottage water heating in summer. We do however have a whole lot of wind … also due to our location stuck out into the Atlantic. I do own shares in Emera that owns NS Power.
Tim
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NS Power still has 4 coal fired power plants (over 1200 MW combined) generating electricity for Nova Scotia.
https://www.nspower.ca/about-us/electricity/producing
Jaak
Germany has installed lots of solar panels. However, the capacity factor is dismal (just over 10%).
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However, 10% of a extra large number is large! 
German renewables use knocked by lower wind output
FRANKFURT, June 28, 2021 (Reuters) - Renewable energy accounted for a smaller slice of German usage in the first half of the year as wind output fell, industry groups said on Monday, falling to 42.6% of the total, down 8.1 percentage points.
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The wind came back in the second half of 2021 and made up for the loss in the first half of the year.
Jaak