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Our city is growing by leaps and bounds. There are over 300 apartments being built out in my area (which was rural until a few years ago) and 3 times as many within city limits. All of this because there is to be another influx of people to our area. We experienced our first rolling blackouts a few months ago due to a hard freeze for a few days. The grid overloaded. Now imagine what happens when they flip the switch to all of these apartments and the hundreds (of not thousands) of new houses they're building.
And we're supposed to depend on an already struggling grid to charge EVs? I'm not saying that one day EVs couldn't be the most common vehicle on the road, but by and large the U.S. electrical infrastructure just isn't there to support it.
I can't wait for summer when everyone cranks up the A/C. We are almost guaranteed to see rolling blackouts this summer because all of those apartments will be complete early spring.
There are 3 hours a day where electricity is potentially short. The other 21 hours it's a surplus, and for about 10 of them, a BIG surplus. We don't need "more" energy, just a better way to handle the ups and downs.
There are 3 hours a day where electricity is potentially short. The other 21 hours it's a surplus, and for about 10 of them, a BIG surplus. We don't need "more" energy, just a better way to handle the ups and downs.
Glad it works that way where you are. It's not the same everywhere. We went through rolling blackouts (each area had 30 minute interval blackouts spaced 2 hrs apart, 24 hrs a day) at 6 degree temps for 4 days straight. Just about the time your home gets warmed back up, there goes the power again. That's WITHOUT all of the new housing on the grid. Plug them all in and we will be told not to charge EVs. I can almost guarantee it.
Your focus should be on demanding that your political leaders force your service provider to bring Alabama into the modern age.
Nlambert is talking about Huntsville, Alabama. You know.....one of the top technological cities in the United States. Huntsville is The reason the grid was overloaded and they had to do a few rolling blackouts is because we had extremely low temperatures of around 4 to 6 degrees and most of our homes have electric heat pumps. What really exacerbated the issue is we have had massive growth with both people moving here from all parts of the country along with a lot of new manufacturing buildings and things like a facebook data center. They have been upgrading our grid and adding capacity as fast as they can. Our electricity is provided by TVA which is the largest public power company in the United States. We also had a massive tornado outbreak in 2011 that took out the main transmission lines and some of the primary grid so all of it was reworked and upgraded. I would imagine our service is probably one of the most modern in the country considering so much of it is new.
If that’s the case, someone in management should lose their job because growth doesn’t occur overnight and the power company is clearly involved in every new development for obvious reasons, meaning they know about it well beforehand.
in state use per person is a lousy way to look at it. It hides the true fact. CA is the 2nd largest consumer in the US. TExas is higher, BUT, they have converted nearly all industry to electric since they generate it for nearly free off the waste gas from refining.
I think CA is 2nd largest if you are considering all uses of electricity including commercial, industry and transportation. But just looking at residential, CA is 3rd (behind TX and FL). TX, FL, and CA use 25% of the residential electricity in the nation.
I did the calcuation per account, not per person. However, I disagree that per account or per person is a lousy way to look at it. CA has far more accounts than TX or FL, yet they use less overall residential electricity. However, they pay more money for less electricity than either TX or FL as the rate is nearly double. Data is for 2021 from the EIA.
155,075,136 MWh TX $18,772,300,000 11,815,251 accounts 12.11 cents per kWh
130,412,464 MWh FL $15,518,174,000 9,917,113 accounts 11.90 cents per kWh
90,284,143 MWh CA $20,604,392,000 13,883,994 accounts 22.82 cents per kWh
--
1,470,486,882 Mwh US $200,833,874,000 138,308,772 accounts 13.66 cents per kWh
Despite having the lowest consumption per account, California still is the greatest importer of electricity of any state in the nation. I realize it is a free market and states are not little kingdoms, but politicians are going to make sure that a state does not have rolling blackouts because too much electricity was exported to California. We've seen this for half a century when the Pacific DC Intertie was first built. The governors of Washington and Oregon passed laws to make sure that the needs of the home states were met before exporting electricity to SOCAL.
Offshore Wind is a largely untapped source of electricity for California. Unlimited budgets can do almost anything. California is going to find itself with more expensive electricity than Hawaii.
Personally, I don't think there is any solution except government control over home circuits including the power to tap the battery in your EV.
If I was a Dodge investor I would not be happy. They have an extremely popular (although aged) car lineup, of people who love big engines, and big cars. Obviously there will be some curiosity with the niche of electric, but I just don't see their customer base moving over.
Toyota the worlds largest automaker, doesn't see their customers going electric anytime soon and they are not doing converting cars to electric.
Who do you think will succeed, and who will fail?
I would bet with Toyota. Chrysler's had two bailouts; to my knowledge, Toyota has none. I have been a habitual Toyota buyer:
1983, a 1979 car;
1985, a 1982 model (stolen it was my favorite of all of them);
1997, a 1994 Camry (I think);
2001, a 2000 Camry (as a new model);
2009, a 2009 Camry;
2014, a 2014 Camry; and
2018, a 2018 Camry.
My older son drives my old 2014 Camry and we're talking about my buying a new model, he taking my 2018. We're definitely not buying a Dodge.
First of all Dodge is not going all Battery Electric. They are still going to sell the gas powered Hornet.
Second of all Dodge literally has no choice. The EPA would fine Dodge into bankruptcy if they didn't do something. It would make no sense to use the Dodge name and reputation to build 4 clinder gasoline vehicles. They have talked about this for many years already.
Dodge's only choice is to assume they can retain some percentage of their old customers and attract enough new ones to make up the difference.
Once Toyota replaces the engine in the 4 Runner, their biggest engine will be a 3.4 liter 6 cylinder engine (not counting the Lexus vehicles). Dodge's current smallest engine has 3.6 liters and 6 cylinder. There is virtually no overlap in the customer base of Dodge and Toyota.
Nlambert is talking about Huntsville, Alabama. You know.....one of the top technological cities in the United States. Huntsville is The reason the grid was overloaded and they had to do a few rolling blackouts is because we had extremely low temperatures of around 4 to 6 degrees and most of our homes have electric heat pumps. What really exacerbated the issue is we have had massive growth with both people moving here from all parts of the country along with a lot of new manufacturing buildings and things like a facebook data center. They have been upgrading our grid and adding capacity as fast as they can. Our electricity is provided by TVA which is the largest public power company in the United States. We also had a massive tornado outbreak in 2011 that took out the main transmission lines and some of the primary grid so all of it was reworked and upgraded. I would imagine our service is probably one of the most modern in the country considering so much of it is new.
Exactly!
Infrastructure has not kept up with the influx of new housing and new people moving here. (Same as the roads... but I won't open that can of worms)
There is no way that our grid can support a huge shift to EVs because we can't keep the lights on when it gets cold outside... and this is prior to all of the new apartments, houses, etc... being added to the grid. I would guess that there are many other cities going through similar issues as we are.
I'm not saying that EVs don't have a place and that we should never consider alternative fuel sources. What I am saying is that it's too soon. Heck, Elon even said we're not ready to go straight EV. All of these manufacturers are just trying to get in on the money from everyone who is on the EV bus right now. If demand for EVs dipped and demand for ICE vehicles increased we would see a shift in what they were building.
Dodge has a rather large cult following since the introduction of the SRT line of vehicles. Heck... my last 3 trucks have been Rams because I couldn't find a better option in any other brand. They will absolutely kill their market if they switch to EV. It's bad enough that they're dumping their V8 line for a turbo V6....
We tried a Ford Expedition with the Ecoboost and it was not a game changer. Fuel mileage sucked (18 mpg on the highway) and the 10 speed transmission (all in the name of fuel economy) was garbage. We have a V8 Nissan Armada that's getting 18.4 mpg in the city and close to 20 mpg on the highway. My Ram with the 5.7 Hemi gets 18mpg city and almost 22 mpg highway. That's respectable for vehicles of this size.
If that’s the case, someone in management should lose their job because growth doesn’t occur overnight and the power company is clearly involved in every new development for obvious reasons, meaning they know about it well beforehand.
No, the real solution is to burn oil forever, stay beholden to Middle Eastern tyrants, keep pumping CO2 in the air, then run out of oil and be screwed, just because Alabama can't get it's sh&t together.
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