I heard that if we ALL had electric cars then we wouldnt be able to support the amount of electricity needed?

Question

to make sure we could all "charge" our cars everynight, so we couldnt drive everyday. Is this true?

Would you plug in your car everynight if it meant you would get 100 miles per gallon, but your electric bill tripled?

Answer 1

There is barely sufficient power generation to supply electrical demand today. If everyone had electric cars then we'd have brown outs and the price of electricity would soar.

Tripled? You have no idea. During the California energy crisis wholesalers were paying up to $1400 per megawatt-hour, or about $1.40 per kilowatt-hour, up from $45 per megawatt-hour a year before.

I currently pay about 6 cents a kilowatt-hour.

The greens would still be out in full force protesting the construction of hydro dams, wind turbines, nuclear plants coal plants and solar plants and delaying until we are all too poor to buy cars and heat our homes.

Answer 2

it's absolutely true.  We just don't have the infrastructure to replace gads of gas motors with chargable electric ones.

But seriously... why throw away 80 years of technology when there are alternatives to 'reinventing the wheel'.

Answer 3

I can't imagine anybody buying a car and then being limited to 100-200 miles per day.  But a plug-in for around town, and a onboard generator for long trips might work. Even if it was a Honda type generator that could slide in and plug into the battery. If they made the car from carbon fiber instead of steel, maybe.

Answer 4

POWER IS MADE FROM FRESH WATER, THEN WHY IN OUR COUNTRY ARE ALL THE GOVERNORS LETTING ALL THE RUN- OFF FRESH WATER GOING OUT TO SEA, INSTEAD OF STOPPING IT AND HARNESSING IT. MAN CANT LIVE WITHOUT WATER.

Answer 5

If everyone switched to plug-in electric cars tomorrow we would indeed have trouble suppling all of them with electricity.

But not everyone is going to run out and buy a brand new plug-in electric vehicle tomorrow.

Thus there will be time to build the infrastructure needed.

Why spend thousands of dollars on a vehicle getting a 100 miles per gallon when you can spend hundreds of dollars get the equivalent of over 600 miles per gallon. (See link)

Answer 6

If everyone switched from gas to electric (or pluggable hybrid) cars then we would require additional electric generation capabilities.  But there are several ways to do that cleanly (geothermal, nuclear, wind, tidal, solar).  Even if we used coal (which we shouldn't), it's a lot easier to capture the emissions from a few coal plant than it is from 100 million cars.

At current electric rates, while your electric bill would go up a little, it would be be far cheaper than paying $4/gallon for gas.  And our nations wealth wouldn't be going to unstable oil producing regions.

Answer 7

Your electric bill would not triple, unless of course it is extremely low now. By using an electric car, you would effectively be paying 2 cents per mile according to most estimates.

Cars that charge overnight take advantage of off peak electricity, and would use energy that is currently just discharged into the ground.

Answer 8

That is a good trade-off but this would a hybrid car, it would still require gasoline, it would be preferable to develop a totally eclectic car, we would find a way to cope with producing more electrify.