yvesvidal

You cannot skyrocket electricity prices. You will hurt so many large industries and government entities that it will not happen.

People charging cars at night is negligible on the network, with the current penetration of EVs in America. Now, if it was Norway, that would be another story....but the USA...? No way.
Besides, electric plants produce energy during the night which most of it goes unused (especially for Atomic power plants). Unused energy is normally sold to adjacent countries to recup some of the costs.

Yves

GoldenGorilla

Just like when we all moved from land lines to cell phones. Oh wait, that didn't happen.

The electrical consumption of charging batteries is nothing compared to AC running in Memphis or Phoenix. Electrical rates are unlikely to massively change for this reason. And actually they do make a good case for pv and the issues with the duck curve if workplaces/utilities install solar for employee charging stations.

There are plenty of reasons I don't want an electric car, but fear of maintenance and home charging costs are not the reasons.

I do however think that the free supercharger stations concept that Tesla deployed will not work over the long term. If adoption were at 10% it would become a pretty significant issue.

SpeedyD

Lots of non-expert, expert opinions but yes EVs will have a massive impact on the grid if they hit meaningful numbers (of the 200 million+ vehicles, if 25% convert to EV). This will drive electricity prices higher because the investment required to support will have to be paid for by consumers through higher rates. That is just how things work.

Also, if and when EV adoption hits such a high rate, the energy consumption patterns will likely look very different compared to today. Likely greater volatility (faster charging cars, broader set of use cases, more reliance on one electric car per household etc) and eventually a big push to make vehicles that could also feed into the grid (this will be more lucrative as electricity prices will have gone up, especially at different times of day).

Utilities have been looking at the potential problem (and opportunity!) for years now, to assess how much they could justify in additional capital investments off which to earn more income.

SpeedyD

BTW, as I stated before, I would not expect 25% of all cars in the USA to become EV in the next few years... maybe in 20+ years... and that is likely optimistic.

But IF and WHEN we hit 25%+ penetration, yes that requires major investments and major investments require major recouping of cost from us, the consumer.

jkoravos

I did some quick calcs for the New England region. It looks to me like the current grid has capacity for ~25% EV penetration with no major infrastructure changes. That's simply restricting charging to off peak hours.

Based on usage there's about 30GWh of off peak power available (seasonally variable, obviously) from ~10pm to ~7am. so...

Available daily grid capacity: 30GWh (30,000,000kWh)
Miles driven per day (total MA/NH/CT/RI/ME): 325,000,000
EV miles per kWh (Typical): 3.4
Charging efficiency: 80%
derated miles per kWh: 2.7
Miles available per day: 2.7 mi/kWh * 30,000,000 kWh/day = 81,000,000 mi/day
Theoretical EV penetration available: 81,000,000/325,000,000 = 24.9%

Obviously these are ballpark numbers but it should tell you there's a lot of runway. I doubt there will be any issue with the power distribution grid keeping up with EV growth. Like you said, EV growth will be slow; slow enough to add capacity as it grows. Everyone driving an EV car in 10 years is obviously unrealistic. As of today, new cars stay on the road for over 13yrs, on average. 98% of cars sold in 2019 were ICE...so that should tell you something. If 100% of people bought an EV for their next car there would still be a huge amount of ICE cars on the road in 10 years.

SpeedyD

Few quick points:
* Agree penetration rate won't be as high and so a lot of this becomes a deferred concern rather than immediate - on the same page here
* Agree if we restricted charging to only off peak it would not be as big an issue - but that would require a change in behavior (currently only around 65% of charging occurs in off-peak hours) --> this goes to one of my central points above that a way to manage the risk is to start putting restrictions on consumers and limiting freedom OR (more likely) charging much higher rates during certain times, etc. If we mandated EVs feed energy back into grid, that would also help solve a lot of challenges but that is not what Tesla (for example) currently provides... they likely should though!
* Disagree that your numbers imply the grid can handle 25% EV penetration today (it cannot without placing unnatural restrictions) - I also cannot rely on back of envelope calcs when there is going to be tremendous highly correlated volatility, and concentrated periods of high load that make daily average capacity less meaningful
* In the end, there are already billions being invested, and those costs (almost literally by definition) get cycled back to consumers as adders on their electricity bills. And remember that utilities have already been raising rates over time with normal demand growth (and despite massive improvements in efficiency in many areas, lighting, home appliances etc).

In any case, it will be interesting to see it all develop - but the grid in the US will require billions and billions of investment.

I think this article sums up most of the relevant issues most effectively: https://www.wired.com/story/electric...electric-grid/
On the cost side, this is instructive: https://www.spglobal.com/marketintel...-in-california

Omnigeek

Yes, the EVs are simpler as far as everyday wear and tear goes BUT ... ever try to diagnose intermittent electrical problems? or fix them? Water pumps and oil systems can fail and need maintenance/replacement but when they DO fail, it's relatively easy to diagnose and repair. When your electrical system gets wonky ...

California loves to blame their electrical grid issues on greed or speculators or whatever but the reality is that all they've done for the past 30 years is pass "feel good" legislation for tree huggers and ignored the deteriorating picture of their infrastructure and future economy. EVs ARE the future for daily driving ... I could easily see myself switching from my 997 to an electric version of the Macan when it become practical (which is when said electric Macan is 7+ years old given Colorado's confiscatory driving fee structure) for daily use. For road trips, it's just not practical IMO until I can do long road trips similar to the way I do them with my 997: 2-3 fuel stops between Colorado and Tucson each way with about 5-15 mins per fuel stop. 20 minutes every 170 miles is a non-starter as far as I'm concerned -- but I'm sure they'll get there. We're learning more every year about things like storage using Buckytubes. Having said that, the more we migrate toward high density electrical storage, the less inclined I am to do any work on it myself.

snaphappy

Pretty sure my OP was dead wrong. Car prices are already dropping all around Europe because of the EV scare. My thinking was: mainstream EV's would make 997's more uncommon, and therefore special, leading to higher prices. But it seems like mainstream EV's = farewell gasoline cars + people who drive gas powered cars are evil

Steph1

Came back to share an update.... Political talks up here in Canada, are steering towards an illegality of internal combustion vehicles starting 2030 on all roads. Just heard that in the last month. I know it will most likely be pushed back, but still, we have an idea of where we're heading.

So given this information, it is realistic to say that within the next 20 years, our 997s might be worth the same as paper weights.

On another note, I think those new models, taycan and C8 will kill our values, since quite a few owners sell their 997 to move over to the C8, and I believe the taycan will do the same. To my big surprise, I know of 3 guys that have their 997 up for sale to buy a C8. 2 of which are running from PDK due to too many failures/problems.

So I think that taycan will do the same, unless it quickly shows to be problematic.

Petza914

This cracks me up. 2 guys are leaving Porsches due to PDK problems on a tried and tested transmission that has had few failures in order to buy C8s that only come with the same exact type of transmission, but in a first year car with no track record, and no MT option available. If they thought Porsche PDKs were problematic, won't they be surprised once C8 owners start showing all their friends the 2.8 second 0-60 time of their cars. At least they'll be under warranty, unless GM does something like Nissan does with the GTR and limits how many launches are covered under the transmission warranty.

cwheeler

This 100%. Not to mention how very different the cars are. They are completely different ethos.

Cw

Steph1

Hey, maybe I should have explained a bit more...

As far as getting into a worst transmission with the C8, I'll let them deal with the outcome.

I am just repeating what they said was the reason for selling their 997.2 to buy a C8. I must add, that they both had complete PDK failures, and one of them twice and 2 years apart!!!! And it is apparently acting up again. So they want out. They both already have a deposit on their C8, after considering finding 997.2 with manual trannies.

So their turn-off with Porsche has nothing to do with PDK rumors.... They lived it first hand... Both of them, and one of them twice. So I don't blame them.

They are actually the reason why I went with a 997.1 rather than a. 2. I couldn't find a. 2 with a manual tranny. I hated the tiptronic on the. 1 and I knew better than go PDK because of their experience.

It is easy to nevermind something that you read on the net, but when you actually know people that lived it, it brings a whole new meaning to things. Just like watching the news from another country and you are kind of detached from their problems.... As opposed to things that happen near you.

jkoravos

Daily driver type cars will definitely be significantly de-valued due to EVs, I'm not sure that's the case for "enthusiast" cars. You're not going to be able to buy a Huracan for $10k in 10 years because of EVs. 911s are in the same category IMO, there will always be demand for nostalgic sports cars. Look at air-cooled 911s, performance wise they pale in comparison to the 997 let alone the 992, but it's the experience. Fuel type, HP, stability contrrol, etc. None of that matters. In any case, it's a long transition. It's going to take 30+ years to turn over the vehicle stock in the US to primarily EV. Gas cars being bought now are still going to be on the roads in the 2030s. 5-6 years down the road the gas cars being sold will still be on the road in the 2040s. It's going to be a LONG transition.

EDIT: Barring regulations that force transition to EV, which I really hope does not happen.

Fined

this stupid crap has me trying to figure out how to add Steph1 to an ignore list.

Steph1

Hey, what did I do???? Ouch!!