The electric grid cannot support everyone driving EVs and even if it could, the electricity is usually produced by coal plants or rare earth mined renewables that have an even greater environmental burden, just shifted out of cities and out of sight.
> The simple answer is yes. The highest peak electricity demand in the UK in recent years was 62GW in 2002. Since then, the nation’s peak demand has fallen by roughly 16% due to improvements in energy efficiency.
> Even if we all switched to EVs overnight, we estimate demand would only increase by around 10%. So we’d still be using less power as a nation than we did in 2002, and this is well within the range the grid can capably handle.
> In the US, the grid is equally capable of handling more EVs on the roads – by the time 80% of the US owns an EV, this will only translate into a 10-15% increase in electricity consumption.
> More and more of our electricity now comes from renewable, green or clean energy sources, and zero-carbon power in Britain’s electricity mix has grown from less than 20% in 2010 to nearly 50% in 2021. With the growth in onshore and offshore wind farms and the closure of a number of coal plants, transport is now the most polluting thing the UK does as a nation.
The reason to use EVs is not just based on the source of electricity. In a traffic jam, the quality of air I breathe would be so much better if all vehicles were EVs.
This is changing rapidly all over the world. UK hit a peak of over 90% renewable on one day last year, and that's only going to increase. Almost no coal generation left in the UK.
My local electric company is advertising that they install chargers.
I suspect they can handle any realistic levels of adoption.
I'm not sure that a hypothetical of an immediate switch with all the required vehicle and charger purchases and deliveries / installs happening like magic over night ... means anything.
A. Do you believe that they are not researching and developing ways to improve the grid for an increase in demand from EVs?
B. Coal has massively been replaced by Natural Gas. Regardless emissions outside of cities is better than emissions inside cities. There are growing alternatives that are either carbon neutral or produce no greenhouse gasses to generate electricity.
C. How is mining material worse for the environment if it lowers the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted?
This is by far the most persistent piece of misinformation about EVs. In the US in 2020, on average, EVs co2 emissions corresponded to an average ICE vehicle that got 91mph. On the highest carbon intensity (ie dirtiest) grid in the country that figure was 44mph in SERC Midwest. The best was in upstate NY at 246mph. So, even in the worst case when driving like vehicles its a lot cleaner to drive an EV. It is true that the dirtier the grid the longer it takes to overcome the higher manufacturing emissions.
The Union of Concerned Scientists had a study which shows the math on all this. Of course these are the 2020 numbers so everything is better now than it was then.
Even when charging on pure fossil fuels, generating in large plants with efficient turbines and delivering it to efficient electric motors is more efficient than pumping, refining, and delivering gasoline to millions of tiny piston engines.
But we don't charge on pure fossil fuels. The grid is increasingly powered by renewables and nuclear, which are less harmful to the environment than fossil fuels. Anthropogenic climate change could lead to mass catastrophe if we don't get it under control; it's already costing us billions and killing people worldwide.
And while our electric grid couldn't handle everyone switching to electric vehicles over night, the transition takes time, and we can invest in grid improvements as energy demand moves towards greater electric usage due vehicles.
Coal is now the third largest energy source in the US behind nuclear and natural gas. Solar accounts for 60% of added capacity. It’s just wrong to say that rare earth mining has more impact than energy production. And the grid needs shifting, so what? It needs to be updated anyway.
Chinese government subsidies, even for their own citizens' (i.e. non-exported) cars, which are sold to Chinese people in China at about half the cost that Europeans pay for the same models when imported, which is still enough undercut local brands, and European cars are mostly cheaper than American cars?
There's a lot of room for cheap EVs even without subsidies.
BYD Dolphin sells new in China for just under 100k yuan, which is about $13,800.
