That’s hogwash, swapping 100% of new cars to EV’s represents roughly a 1% increase in electricity demand per year. We can quibble about how flexible the grid is, but historically demand has increased much faster than that in several periods.
As a sanity check. Cars last ~25 years on average. So 100% new EV’s represent roughly a 4% changeover per year. Average load per EV works out to roughly 450 watts, because they use a lot of power when their on but most people aren’t driving that long per day.
Actual use depends on various factors like charging efficiency etc but roughly 15,000 miles at 4 kWh / mile is only 3,750 kWh per year + charging inefficiency call it 4,000 kWh [per EV] * 282 million [cars] * 0.04 [% new cars per year] = 45 TWh per year vs ~4,000 TWh of total US electricity demand. (Edit: fixed units.)
By comparison demand increased by roughly 100TWh/year from 1985 to 1990. Demand only really leveled out between 2010 and now. https://www.statista.com/statistics/201794/us-electricity-co...
Do people actually replace the battery in cars once it dies and continue to use the car? Former Coworkers old Prius had the battery stolen out of it and insurance totaled the car. Wondering if the lifetime between ice and ev is valid.
Why would the battery die? This is not a smartphone. For LFP batteries I expect multiple decades of use, even the other Tesla batteries are holding up with only around 5-15% of capacity loss after a decade.
Yes, but its a "its cheaper than a new car" ... but if you're dealing with insurance it is "its more expensive than totaling it."
I had a Honda Civic hybrid that had its battery pack die back in 2009. It was going to be a $3000 repair with a 2 week "its in the shop" while waiting for the battery (it wasn't something they stocked).
I bought a new car (an Insight) because I needed a car (it was on a road trip). The value of the Civic as a trade in would be near zero - the value of the trade in was similar to the cost of the repair.
This can be seen even today with my Insight if I was to try to trade it in or repair it - my 2010 Insight has a trade in value of $2620 - $3707 (and it is in fine working condition).
If this was about a car that had a value of $3000 when working that needed a repair of $3000 to get it back into that range of working - that's the insurance definition of totaled.
A battery pack for the Honda is Insight is $2049 : https://bumblebeebatteries.com/products/hybrid-batteries/hon...
If the battery fails on my Insight, I'll be getting that repair rather than getting a new car because it's still cheaper than a new car. But if it was a "dealing with insurance" then it is by definition totaled.
I think you meant 4 miles/kWh (= 15.5 kWh/100km).
Yes that’s a typo, numbers still add up just fine.