Electric Car question....

[JasoninDenver]

Originally Posted by michaelodonnell123

My electric utility company PSE&G keeps sending out notices to conserve electricity, yet our government is telling us to use electricity.

I think we are at the tipping point here to benefit from point source renewable generation. The utilities will benefit from off loading generation to residential and business customers in many areas (obviously not highly dense downtowns) but this will also bring increased costs in transmission line upgrades. However, anyone in California and Texas will tell you this is greatly needed regardless of the generation source. Fires and grid collapse are here now.

The benefit of point source generation is that it requires much shorter transmission distance and results in much less wasted in transmission. Typical power plant generated energy loses up to 35% over long distance transmission.

So, for those of us who can install solar, an electric car may be ideal for the vast majority of our driving at the present time. Our family is the exact perfect target for solar and ev use and we are seriously considering it now. My wife’s commute is 25 miles RT. We drive 180 miles RT to our mountain home. This means that 95% of our driving will be well within home charging and/or generation capabilities.

We have been seriously debating the cost/benefit of a plug in hybrid versus pure ev. Honestly, while the initial cost of the ev is still off putting, the non existent ICE maintenance issues with ev is starting to look more and more attractive.