Not long ago, President Biden declared his administration’s proposal to have electric vehicles (EV) making up half of new cars sold in the country by 2030. While his intentions are good, the reality is that the sources of current electricity production and transmission will most likely make this proposal unrealistic. Experts have already argued that the aging country’s electricity grid would need to have hundreds of billions of dollars invested to upgrade the grid in order to accommodate the increased electricity demands required for EVs and other domestic electricity needs. Today, electrical grids barely function in times of ordinary stress, and fail altogether too often for comfort, as recent widespread blackouts in California, Texas, Louisiana and elsewhere have shown. Apparently, fast chargers can replenish an EV in as little as 20 minutes but gulp huge amounts of electricity.
At the same time, the big challenge for policymakers and the utility industry is figuring out how quickly to invest in the grid while keeping the energy affordable. While the President’s intentions are worthy because of concerns over the impact of climate change on the environment and the need to reduce harmful greenhouse emissions, there is a real question as to whether the American public is able and willing to incur the associated costs. If one just looks at EVs, there are a number of factors to consider. Among these, the top three reasons consumers give for not buying EVs are the lack of charging stations, the time to charge, and the cost of the vehicles. In addition to spending on accessible charging stations across a country as large as the U.S., there is also the need for significant additional spending on long-distance transmission lines and power generating equipment like solar and wind farms. Given the current re-charging needs of EVs, charging stations will have to be available at most if not all existing gasoline stations, hotels and motels, apartment buildings and municipal facilities. Who is to pay for the installation and use of such charging stations? Plug-in electric cars accounted for just under 1% of all 146 million new light-duty vehicle sales between 2011 and 2019 in the U.S.
While climate change is an obvious greater concern among Americans in light of the deadly increase in severe weather patterns and natural disasters, is their concern enough to persuade the average person that the associated costs with converting to EVs and other electrical equipment (e.g. heating, appliances, etc.) are acceptable? Yes, many things can happen in the next ten years. However, having almost come out of a pandemic and its economic consequences and costs, will people be ready to seriously tackle the projected negative elements surrounding our current living standards? The answer is probably “no” at this time.
We will need major technological breakthroughs to make EVs much more reliable, energy efficient and cheaper before the average person could seriously consider the switch to EVs from combustion-engine cars. In addition, the current electricity grids will have to be seriously upgraded in the next few years. We must be ready to incur the associated costs with such major infrastructure upgrades. Overall, the country’s 20th-century point-to-point grid, delivering energy over long distances, will have to become adequate enough to serve this century’s needs. Hopefully, future electricity needs will be increasingly provided by green technology, such as that provided by hydro power, solar energy, wind power, and even nuclear power. None of these sources alone can provide enough electricity to meet the needs of American communities and to replace the current use of fossil fuels, including natural gas. In conclusion, plug-in cars are the future, but realistically the current grid isn’t ready.
FROLITICKS 
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