> The USA installed Cable TV, why would charging cables be harder?
Because a TV coax cable is 1cm slim and can be installed very easily. Run it over the air on poles, dig it into a small trench, run it via the sewers. Whatever fits best.
A 10 kV or, worse, a 1 kA-capable 3x230V line, not so much. The 10kV (or more) line has special requirements in terms of distance to other cables, a 3x230V line at that capability is pure hell due to its sheer thickness and mass.
Also the charger station will require a transformer... which aren't tiny, and transforming 250kW produces significant heat loss. So either find some free place in earth where you can bury it, or deal with adjacent house owners to install the transformer in their basement.
> The USA spends $500Billion on cars and $400 Billion on gasoline every year. A onetime $trillon upgrade isn't an outsize amount.
Problem is, the car/gasoline spend is done by individuals on small-ish scales. A multi-trillion investment must be fronted by the state - the utility companies don't have nearly enough cash to finance this. But, as noted, the US can't get enough funds to replace Flint's potable water infrastructure or Puerto Rico's broken grid...
And it took many years and is still not universally available. (About 70% broadband penetration seems to be the current number although it may be available to some of the other 30% but just not bought.)
An electric car is at least a $20k investment. If you're buying a $20k car $2k of electrical upgrades are certainly a factor in the purchasing decision, but you can at least afford to upgrade your house and work parking. And realistically the cost is likely to be lower than that, and even not it pays off in lowered fuel costs.
Tesla has only added a few chargers though, and they carefully selected the locations to be places where there are newer upgraded power lines. If electric cars become common chargers will need to be everywhere including older neighborhoods where the power lines are not up to the load.
Yes, and standard chargers can be installed anywhere you can put a clothes dryer. You only need 120kW charging if you're going to be road-tripping. In the 2+ years I've owned an EV I've never had an issue, including doing 300mi+ in a single day about once a week.
Heck, when I bought my current house I didn't need to do anything since the previous owner already had a NEMA 14-50 outlet for their welder.
Yeah it's all so simple until you realize that means every house running a clothes dryer all at the same time between 5pm and whatever time in the evening everyone is done charging.
Los Angeles and parts of the Bay Area have had nearly annual brownouts for the last 20 years just from air conditioners during heat waves. How in the world do you expect that aging power grid (in the fifth/sixth largest economy no less...) to handle a clothes dryers in every house running 4+ hours a day?
Fortunately those "clothes dryers" are already connected to the internet, and have sophisticated power electronics hooked to the grid that can detect voltage sag and phase lag. Connected to a central server, each car (or stationary battery, for that matter) becomes BOTH a sensor that can monitor grid health AND a remote-control load that can be dialed up and down (so long as the car gets a full charge before 7am, or whenever the user chooses).
The internet allows entire neighborhoods of EVs to be controlled at once, so that the substation is at 100% power and no more, and so the distribution/transmission lines are at 100% power and no more.
Is that a hard control problem? Sure. BUT it's easier than overbuilding the electric grid by 2-3x (which is, after all, the largest machine ever built[1]). And given the very large opportunity cost, there's a lot of incentive to solve it.
Most people get off work between 4 and 6pm. (this is not 50% of the population, but it is still a large number). They all go home and plug their car in then take a shower. Many days the peak electric use for the day is at 6pm when all those people start cooking dinner (electric stove) or jump in the shower (electric water heater). When a significant number of people start plugging their car in when they get home the peak will go up much more.
Of course as has been pointed out repeatedly a smart charger can manage exactly when the battery starts to charge. However it isn't quite that simple: many of those people will go out again for their bowling league or whatever, and need enough charge in their car.
You know, it is funny that I have heard so many strange hypothetical against the future of electric cars that are contradicted by the current implementation of them. Its really strange.
Many Americans are really attached to the vision of hopping in their personal vehicle with no additional transaction friction and going on long road trips.
EV charging infrastructure isn’t yet well suited to medium to long road trips, so some people discard the whole idea because they’re upset by suggesting a different distribution of friction in their lives.
Whether the actual friction is big enough to matter is hard to say. I drive outside a 100 mile radius about twice a year, and I don’t mind renting cars when I do, so it doesn’t seem especially onerous to me, but don’t underestimate people’s love for their particular car/dislike of rental cars.
It's not so much dislike at rental cars--I rent them regularly when I fly someplace--it's that they're a hassle. In my largely Uber and Lyft-less area, there are a couple of rental car places that are only open during regular business hours. So renting a car for the weekend (very possibly a time when others are renting as well) would involve taking a taxi there before they close on Friday and dropping it off on Monday morning. That's a huge hassle for something I do at least every month so it's not a vision; it's something that I do on a regular basis.
As with all technological transitions, some municipalities will see the writing on the wall and invest. Others will not, and will see their local economy contract and young people flee.
“The grid to your home can’t even provide enough power to charge your car” becomes a decent reason not to move there.
Because a TV coax cable is 1cm slim and can be installed very easily. Run it over the air on poles, dig it into a small trench, run it via the sewers. Whatever fits best.
A 10 kV or, worse, a 1 kA-capable 3x230V line, not so much. The 10kV (or more) line has special requirements in terms of distance to other cables, a 3x230V line at that capability is pure hell due to its sheer thickness and mass.
Also the charger station will require a transformer... which aren't tiny, and transforming 250kW produces significant heat loss. So either find some free place in earth where you can bury it, or deal with adjacent house owners to install the transformer in their basement.
> The USA spends $500Billion on cars and $400 Billion on gasoline every year. A onetime $trillon upgrade isn't an outsize amount.
Problem is, the car/gasoline spend is done by individuals on small-ish scales. A multi-trillion investment must be fronted by the state - the utility companies don't have nearly enough cash to finance this. But, as noted, the US can't get enough funds to replace Flint's potable water infrastructure or Puerto Rico's broken grid...