Quote:
Originally Posted by Redsoxx1918
The only problem is that electricity isn’t free. Where I live, electricity rates have already seen a sharp increase and they were just approved for another 10% increase. As EVs grow in number and the demand for the electricity spikes, rates will follow. It will soon cost you more to charge your EV than it does to fill up at the pump. And the mining it will take to produce the metals to make these billions of batteries will dwarf drilling that occurs for fossil fuels.
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Where I live electricity prices have been declining - in real dollars, pre-inflation. We also run on 100% renewable energy nearly all the time. That story is increasing accurate for most of the US, at least nearly everywhere that is politically red or purple. The only significant outlier in the US is Nebraska, which has a government-owned statewide grid - they are paying more and are very late to the wind/solar investment.
That is not meant as a political statement as much as an observation - Texas, Midwest, Rockies have all had flat or declining electricity costs while seeing an increasingly greened grid. California and the Northeast see increasing costs but really no greener electricity sourcing.
Noting the Rhode Island location, the villain is mostly New York State. Gov. Cuomo has been holding his New England neighbors hostage. No new electric lines and no gas pipelines (necessary as a backup power source to renewables).
As noted, the ability to integrate a large number of home-based vehicle chargers is not good either. Without market forces that incentivize re-engineering the grid to support new loads in new places, there will be pinch points and some places at the end of the line, such as Rhode Island, that will be big losers.