The new standards are part of a broad push to get more Americans into electric vehicles, and reduce the environmental cost of driving.
The new standards are part of a broad push to get more Americans into electric vehicles, and reduce the environmental cost of driving.
It isn’t even the charging infrastucture, it’s the distribution infra. There are a lot of upgrades from the main HV transmission lines to the last mile that need to be taken up by an order of magnitude if everyone starts to drive EVs.
I mean, it’s not impossible, but we’d better start now. Hell, AC use alone has brought places like Texas to its knees, now add EVs to that demand.
Texas has those problems because they refuse to be a part of the national grid. EV charging/demand has little effect on a national sized grid. A fully electric water heater draws more power for long periods of time than any EV I am aware of. And those are everywhere in the US.
3-phase 240v service is already available in most modern homes and def available to most apartment complexes that have to supply power for hundreds of apartments.
240v is available in most homes but three phase is very rare for residential areas unless they are right next to an industrial zone.
Also a standard 4K heater runs about 3 hours a day and is usually the biggest power draw in a house depending on ac. That is about twice the draw of a class 1 home charger but the charger is probably being used for at least 6 hours for a daily driver. So it’s realistic to almost double a houses daily use with an EV.
EVs are great but we do need to upgrade the infrastructure to handle them. It’s still a lot less infrastructure then we use to distribute gasoline.
Not against EVs, because I would love to have a Hyundai N. and can’t wait for the EV revolution.
Now lets say the water heater defense is logical. Lets say we double the water heater load on the grid then.
There is no residential 3-phase anywhere that I’ve ever seen in North America. Maybe some place in Europe has it but not to my knowledge. I have seen people put it into something like an acreage or farm at great expense, but the idea that a house will have 3-phase by default is silly.
Maybe an apartment complex would have a 480 or 600V 3-phase high-leg supply, and I guess they could run that to the parking areas.
My uncle had 3-phase to his house for a heavy duty workshop, so it is possible, but I believe he had to pay a lot up front for it, significantly more than a single phase 240V hookup to a new house would have been.
But it’s really not. Sure, we need serious upgrades to support the end result, but that’s not a place we suddenly get to. The same years/decades it takes to get there are what we have to grow infrastructure to match.
Distribution infrastructure handles current power needs and has some buffer built in to handle expected growth, so no big deal to install more chargers. Distribution infrastructure already reacts to growth - as it approaches capacity, utilities have incentive to build more. In that sense, this is just like all other power uses, and no big deal.
The real difference is the speed. Most people are expecting a faster transition to EVs and electrification than distribution growth has historically supported. While this does need to be addressed, there’s no reason for it to block buildout of chargers. It’s fine in the short term and in the long term, the biggest driver of increased transmission will be that demand.