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Re:Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption by theshrike79 on Saturday January 23, 2021 @04:32AM (#25880939)
To put it another way: The average person can charge their EV for the same amount of power a top-tier gaming PC draws when playing a game =)
Re:Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption by tw04 on Saturday January 23, 2021 @09:34AM (#25882478)
Sure.. but for 980Watts you're talking a system with multiple RTX3090 GPUs and a threadripper CPU - and even with that it wouldn't be a 980Watt constant draw, it would spike based on the game and what was happening in the game.

I would be surprised if even half a percent of Americans have that kind of setup. If even 50% of Americans suddenly had that setup and all gamed every night for 10 hours a night, I would expect that would also cause the power grid to have issues.

Re:Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption by gnramires on Monday January 25, 2021 @01:09PM (#25906535)
There are two aspects to it: generation and transmission.

The peak power draw will lie somewhere between your estimate (11.5kW/vehicle) and the typical estimate (920W), which would assume everyone charging at home. Clearly not everyone would charge at home (or with a 1kW charger), so the number is in between.

Both transmission and generation tend to cost mostly their peak usage. Generation is likely easier to upgrade, given a few years. I would imagine transmission is significantly more costly and complex, since the last mile network is enormous, but transmission likely has much more overhead (it has a soft instead of hard maximum as well due to simply increasing losses and increased thermal stress). I would say we probably are nearly prepared (with significant generation investments) if everyone charges at home at low power -- a 1-2 decade transition would go smoothly (my guess/estimate is 65% more average usage by that date). If most people opt for fast charging, the system will need significant overhaul (with widespread use of buffer batteries helping). It seems very wise for State incentives to increase capacity as soon as possible, to anticipate market demand -- the energy sector is likely slower than the automotive industry.

Re:Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption by yongjik on Saturday January 23, 2021 @07:26PM (#25887519)
I think it's fair to assume that America's current grid cannot handle 50% of people switching to EV, so obviously we need to build more. However, it's not like they're switching to EV overnight - even with the best (worst?) scenario it will take years, so hopefully we'll be able to ramp up the grid in time.