Featured Gen 6 Prius engine will be a “game changer,” achieve a 53% thermal efficiency

Are you missing the fact that residential electricity usage is about 20% of all electricity usage in the US?

Mike

 

On my recent road trip out west, I experimented with some of those speed limits (I don't think I saw a posted 85, but I did see 80 in a couple states).

It was fun, but I noticed on the consumption bar graph I was cutting my MPG about in half. So I mostly did true 55 to 60, so that I would not have to double my fuel budget for the trip.

On most of those roads, traffic was light enough nobody even cared. Somebody "coming up on me" could see they were coming up on me for about 5 miles, and went right by me in the passing lane, and didn't even bother rolling coal.

I did a lot of the trip on two-lanes (like US 20), but passing was just as easy there because hardly ever was there any oncoming traffic. All of the passing was routine and nonconfrontational.

When I get into a more-congested area, I do think more about matching others' typical speeds. Out in the wide open where passing is super easy, it really wasn't ever an issue.

 

Im going to guess the other is for industrial, in which case you can bet everything else will get expensive as well as a result. But even at 1/5th, if 2.5% of EVs rise by 10x to 25% of registered vehicles, thats very significant. If housing is 20%, and EV is 5x of that, thats 100% increase.

20% housing
80% all else
100% EVs (hypothetically 25% of all vehicles registered)

So 200% in total demand, which turns to doubling the price IF supply does not increase. (Also not factoring future inflation, the real number will be a lot higher if we did). Electricity used to be .13 cents in 2020, now its .16 cents. Per KWH. Nothing changed, just inflation. If we had 200% demand today, it would be .30 cents.

It would cost less for 10gal for a car at 50mpg (500mile range) than to charge an EV. Gas being $3/gal. 10x3= $30. EVs get 3 mile per 1kwh, so 500 miles /3= 166x .30= $50. Right now its $25 only slightly cheaper than prius but almost insignificant.

And i dont think gas prices will go up if people switch from gas to electricity. It just means either gas will be used elsewhere (to produce electricity), or jobs will decrease and supply will scale down to meet demand. Im not worried about gas, im worried about government intervention and meddling in it. Thats what will push gas costs up.

 

Am I the only one who thinks that since new cars are a small portion of cars being used and being sold, with the average car life being some 15 years now, that it wouldn't be that quick of a change if 100% of all new vehicles sold in a country like the USA were EV? It still would take some 15 years for nearly all vehicles to become EV's.

 

Why in the world would EVs consume 5x that of residential housing.

You yourself stated:

This number is far closer to the actual use of EVs.

Using your numbers from earlier in this thread and the total electricity use and capacity posted earlier.

Total capacity 9000 TWh (annually)
Total use. 4000 TWh (annually)
Residential use: 800 TWh (annually).

So if we assume 2.5 cars/household and all of them switched to EVs, that increases residential use by 2.5X50% or 125%.
125% of 800 TWh is 1000TWh.
Add that to the original 800 TWh and you get 1800TWh.

This brings total electricity use to 5000TWh which is still much less than grid capacity.

Now, upgrades to infrastructure will be required. Mainly along the lines of local transformers.
Some areas need desperate help today and some areas willl likely continue to need help, but not due to EVs.

 

Somehow, I don't think grid problems in places like Texas are due to EVs.