But it's probably still a net win if that extra electricity is going to power electric cars, because a power plant is more efficient than thousands of internal combustion engines.
See: https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/06/how-tesla-will-change-your-li...
It is of course possible to make power plants even dirtier and less efficient, but it's also possible to make them cleaner and more efficient, which is of course what we should be doing.
For the record, I'm excited for the Model 3, and would buy a Model S if I could afford it.
That said, the claim in that reference is problematic for many reasons, which I didn't notice were addressed: 1) Thermal efficiency in a vehicle is converted directly to mechanical energy. A power plant must convert thermal energy into electrical energy (losses involved), transmit it long distances across an energy grid (more losses involved), store it in a battery (more losses), and convert it back to mechanical energy (even more losses). 2) EVs like the Model S lug around as much as >1,000s of lbs of batteries. That's monstrously inefficient when specifically compared to the energy density of gasoline. 3) Some power generators may emit more pollution than modern cars-1
From a public policy perspective, the low-hanging fruits in the fight for cleaner emissions are to get people in gas guzzlers into Civics and Accords, not to get people in Civics and Accords in to EVs. That, and public transportation, bicycling infrastructure, and raising the price of carbon to align with the public cost of it.
1-https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/electric-cars-are...
And it looks like New York peaks at around 4-5pm, with a drop off around 8-10pm. EVs will likely charge at night, meaning they won't have as much impact on the peak.
Edit: source for load http://mis.nyiso.com/public/htm/isolf/20170705isolf.htm
Even if you plug it in right at 5pm, it doesn't actually start drawing electricity until later at night.
This feature it set just one time only, and works automatically forever afterwards. It's been common on most electric cars since 2013.
I'm not too familiar with ny in particular, but there are systems that allow for metering based on peak/off peak usage. Looks like coned allows this.
In NYC, we get uncomfortably close to peak electrical capacity on hot summer days, to the point where the utilities beg us to reduce consumption (e.g., e-mails at work saying the power company is asking us to turn off computers and lights that we aren't using). Even at night, people are running their air conditioners full blast. When we've maxed out the nuclear and gas power plants, we fire up the dirty, old oil-fired power plants as the generators of last resort.
I can't imagine NYC being able to convert a significant number of cars to electric with the existing power infrastructure.