Quote:
Originally Posted by bella
i'm concerned about the extra strain on the uk power grid considering we don't have much room for power use growth as it is and there doesn't seem to be much ambition from the govt to do anything about it.
but from a personal perspective, electric cars can't cover my really long journey in one hit habits, so i can't consider them for now. however i can fully see the merit and if i was rich i'd be all over a tesla even if they do look a bit like a jag  |
It takes 6kwh of energy to refine a gallon of petrol, purely from the refining phase. This does not include the energy required to support the refining, such as feeding workers on site, running the sites facilities, transporting the petrol to the petrol station, running the petrol station, and the wear and tear on roads from tankers. Once that's calculated in, refining petrol takes significantly more energy than powering an electric car.
If everybody was to stop using petrol cars and start using electric overnight, the grid would have less overall strain on it. It would see a different peaks and troughs pattern though. Charging overnight might be higher but that could also balance out the problems we have with peaks during the day and needing to shutdown energy production at times. But even if there was extra strain, that's no reason not to progress. Progression should never stop because governments are lazy. When electric cars take off, improvments will be made to the grid.
Once an electric car can do 300 miles on a charge and recharge in 30 minutes, that's the magic number for extended long journeys. And Teslas can do that. Teslas are currently expensive but the Model 3 is $35k, and the Model Y is rumoured to be cheaper. At that point, suddenly it is viable. And those days are coming within a decade.