What would happen to the power grid if we all started driving electric cars?

Question

I know that we would have less pollutants in air and environment, and take the power away from the oil companies/opec...but wouldn't that put a heck of a lot of drain on our electric system? I imagine if everyone had an air conditioner in their home and turned it on at the same time. It would basically be the same thing. Would we have brown outs when everyone is charging their car batteries? Or even black outs?

Answer 1

Not likely.

Its most cost efficient to power with electricity, thus because it is a renewable source. We can produce electricity a heck of a lot easier than we can fossil fuels. Believe it or not, charging an electric car works the same way as charging a car battery in a gas car. Im pretty sure that even if an entire city charged all at the same that it would have any effect to the power grid.

Answer 2

They've raised electric rates in Tennesse $95 during summer and $150 during winter.With electric cars they will raise more.

No one is going to let someone save a dime.

Answer 3

People work different shifts and have commutes of different lengths, so they wouldn't all start charging at the time.  Even if they did, it wouldn't be any worse than a hot summer day when all of the air conditioners actually do come on at about the same time.  Nice try, but that's not a good enough reason to reject electric cars.

Answer 4

never fear, the electric companies and government would raise prices and the brown outs would go away.

Answer 5

you are correct.  We will need to build more coal fired plants to make the electricity, making the electric car even dirtier in a sense.  The only solution would be to plug your car into a special outlet that is connected to a computer network of wifi that will only charge the car up when your power company says it can.  Some cars will be charged at different times depending on load.  You could go in to the computer network to over ride the charge because you need it charged right now.  In that case the power company would charge 20% premium.

Finally, electricity will be deregulated and the price of electricity will be based on supply and demand.  When that happens, gasoline will be cheaper than electricity.  That's how supply and demand works.  

Answer 6

1..most elect car would b charged at night when excess electricity is being made and wasted

2.pollution is easier to control at a power plant rather than 100,000,000 cars

3 you would NOT b taking power away from oil co/opec...today many utility's are power by NG [natural gas] and coal... integrated oil cos have their fingers in coal/nuclear/solar and everywhere they can make a dollar

Answer 7

might rust....ha  ha