Supposedly all of use will be using self-driving electric cars by 2030. Although I don’t believe that to be the case for a number of reasons, assume that it is. What kind of investment, if any, will we need to make in generating plants and transmission lines, and how will this affect electric rates?
The theory is that most of the charging will happen at home off-peak/overnight, so that shouldn’t drive a change in plants or transmission.
That breaks down for people with street parking/apartments, and I’m not sure where they are expected to fuel up.
London borough switches on lamp post chargers: https://www.zap-map.com/london-borough-switches-on-lamp-post-chargers/
And I’m having trouble finding stats on people’s parking situations. I’ve certainly never had a parking spot where I had or could install charging, but I’m not everyone.
I have a Tesla Model 3 now. Even in extreme cold conditions, with a 20km commute each way, it uses about 100km of range (depending on the amount of stop-and-go traffic and outside temps. (A lot less on an expressway, cabin heating energy used is a function of time not speed). So it takes about 2 to 3 hours of charging overnight - adding 46km per hour using 32A on a 240V/40A circuit (basically a stove plug). When we get back to normal temps, I assume it will be more like regular range, and I’ll need less than an hour. I have scheduled the car to start charging at 1AM, despite that I don’t have peak meter or time-sensitive billing.
Yes, people who live in apartments are going to have a problem. They can’t add a 40A circuit to their parking spot the way I did. But, I presume sooner or later landlords will get enough enquiries to consider that as an option. I have read comments form people who use tesla superchargers a few times a week to get around this problem. A supercharge can fill a car in about an hour, vs. 5 to 7 hours at a regular charger, and days at 15A/120V.
Plus, with the surge of Teslas in some areas of the USA, there were photos of the line-ups at supercharger sites on the Thanksgiving weekend. there are some areas of especially Canada which you can’t get to.
So you are correct, it will take a decent amount of more development before the infrastructure to support all-electric exists- but it’s getting there. Already most routes across the USA are covered by Tesla charges. The other issue is that more battery tech development may mean much faster charges - another issue holding back adoption. Plus - the need to standardize the plug itself…
But the short answer is - the infrastructure will appear when there’s a need for it. Tesla has sold over 200,000 cars now, has the capability now to make (is making) over 250,000 model 3’s a year, and plans to make 500,000 a year when they get up to speed. They became the best-selling luxury sedan in the USA last year. I figure the $70 in electricity I spent in extreme cold weather driving over the last month would have cost over $200 in my other car.
As for power generation - in fact, it’s a plus. The current issue with power infrastructure is that there’s a surge in evening use (cooking dinners) and a surge in use during the daytime on hot days to accommodate air conditioning. Power companies have standby power plants that only run during these peaks. By creating an additional load overnights, it helps pay for these additional otherwise idle power plants.
If we assume that everyone is using self-driving electric cars by 2030 (which is wildly out of touch with reality, IMO), there will be a concurrent major shift away from private ownership of cars. The model will be more car sharing/ride sharing. Instead of charging stations for every domicile, there will be large charging lots where all the shared cars are charged throughout the day or night, whenever they need it.
Someone was joking that given the cost of parking in some downtowns, there will be hordes of riderless self-driving cars circling the blocks for hours waiting for their owner to come out of the building.
My understanding is that the supercharger reduces the life of your battery. Not enough that the yearly drive to Grandma’s house with two supercharges required will make a noticeable difference, but doing it consistently instead of a normal charge rate will affect it.
I guess you are saying that the lack of personal charging infrastructure (apartments, etc) coupled with a growth in Uber/Lyft will lead to a decline in personal car ownership? It could happen - although my sons (in their 20s) all have cars, I think they wouldn’t be that hard to swing towards an all Uber lifestyle, possibly renting a car for long trips.
As I understand it - supercharging is a bit more detrimental than slow charging. However, there was an article about a company that was using an EV taxi service between LA and Vegas, and it took 3 or 4 years and 350,000 miles before the battery needed replacing - despite sometimes supercharging 3 or more times a day. So yes, don’t supercharge just because it’s there, but don’t avoid it completely either.
Tesla superchargers are something like 400 volts and 250 amps (a little bit less in practice, I believe).
The transmission lines to neighborhoods and industrial areas are something colossal in the tens of thousands of volts, so they’ll have to step it down regardless, and I’m sure that the amperage is nothing special either.
So while your average house may have to make do wth 220 volts/200 amps, there’s no reason that much higher voltage/amperage charging stations couldn’t be put nearly anywhere if there was a market for it.
It seem people have an exaggerated view of how much power an electric car uses. We have a Chevy Volt which is used for daily commuting and errands, about 20 miles a day, and charged every night. In our house (small 3-bedroom house, married couple, no kids), in December the car accounted for 11.7% of our electricity usage. That’s way less than the water heater (23%). It’s about the same as the clothes dryer + fridge.
I seriously doubt we’ll be using Lithium batteries in 2030. Better/cheaper/safer/faster alternatives will have replaced them.
As to the electrical grid, we would have to install local peak-use natural gas generators in the short term to avoid having to reinvent the grid. After that some mix of nuclear/wind/solar to even out long term needs.
I see a decentralizing power system over the next 50 years which will work in our favor against massive power outages.
It depends where you live. California can barely operate as it is. Adding anything to an overtaxed system is a problem.
Peak-use generators can install in 6 months so it doesn’t take a lot of planning to fill in short term needs for a lot of places.
You’d think so, but I probably would have said the same about ten years ago for 2020. Yet they’re still the batteries for EVs. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but no one’s come up with a better one yet. At least not one suitable for an EV. (Flow batteries will probably be the way to go for grid-sized stationary batteries.) Also, they keep making minor improvements to Li-ion cells, which makes for a moving target.
AIUI, batteries are cheaper than NG for that purpose. Especially for microgrids.
But that’s the point - car charging is off-peak, mostly - or can be scheduled so. As a result, the problem is not capacity, these cars actually make the existing infrastructure more cost effective by allowing it to be used (generate revenue) for more time.
My car is consuming copious quantities because it requires heating in very cold weather - and still costs significantly less than gasoline. 1 hour of charging at 240V/32A adds 46km range, so I expect to typically charge less than an hour a night in warmer weather. Just right now at -20C/-4F and stop-and-go traffic of about 10-15mph (20-30km/h) I’m using 3km range from the battery for each 1km travelled. As I said, power for heat is by the minute not the distance. The faster you go, the less proportion of range is consumed by heat.
Another less discussed aspect - at least in Canada, about 50% of the cost of gasoline - possibly more - is taxes. EV’s are getting a free ride so far. I have heard that at least one US state actually makes it more expensive to register EV’s since they don’t collect gas taxes from them.
We have a Volt and a plug-in Prius Prime. I didn’t notice any difference in our electric bill after buying either car. (normal monthly fluctuations based primarily on weather)
Washington has a $100 EV surcharge. Applies to my hybrid Volt but not our hybrid Prius (for some reason).
I just looked it up. The reason is the Volt can go over 30 miles and the Prius goes around 26.
In the northern part of the country, much of this infrastructure is already built. It was put in years ago, to power engine tank heaters. (And it’s still there, and workable – I used it a week ago today, when the overnight temp here in Minneapolis hit -29ºF). It’s even not uncommon to see these circuits in employee parking spots at businesses.
Somewhat underpowered (mostly 20 Amp, rather than the 40A circuit mentioned), but that just means it takes longer to fully charge the car. Or that you have to upgrade the circuit, when that gets annoying.
Don’t underestimate the power needed either. 300mi. (500km)for aModel 3 is a 70Kwh battery. That’s 230Wh per mile or running a 1200W hair dryer for 11 minutes minutes. Now multiply that by your typical days 30 miles or so driving.
Not actually a joke. A study published a few weeks ago predicts that “a fleet of 2,000 autonomous cars in downtown San Francisco could slow traffic to 2 miles per hour” for exactly that reason.
Now, personally, I’m skeptical of the conclusion, because I’ve also seen studies coming to the opposite conclusion: autonomous vehicles can drop passengers off at their destination immediately, then park themselves three or four miles away in inexpensive parking lots, thus eliminating the “circling the block looking for parking” traffic in high congestion areas. So what will happen? The truth is that nobody really knows, because it depends on how consumers and governments and utilities and landowners will actually respond to the growth in autonomous/electric/whatever vehicles, and that is so complex as to be essentially unpredictable.