[natch]

Please stop downvoting the above comment. Sure, it is wrong thinking imho, but it is a doubt that a lot of people have, and it needs to be seen and addressed.

If we just downvote questions like this into oblivion, it kills the discussion and people continue on with their misconceptions, which never get addressed.

[ypcx]

OP here. The second sentence came out all wrong and the downvotes are deserved. What I was trying to ponder, was - given the summer blackouts (in certain areas) due to people running their ACs (more than on average) - how do we plan to cope with the advent of EVs.

So I did some googling[1] and apparently, until 2030 there's only 1 million EVs planned to hit the roads in the US, which is quite shocking given the dire trends of climate change and toxic pollution on this planet.

Another interesting fact is that the costs of extending the power grid will be passed on to all its consumers in the form of increased rates (as it should, because if you don't drive an EV, you should be "taxed" on the extra pollution your car creates).

[1] https://www.bcg.com/publications/2019/costs-revving-up-the-g...

[ben_w]

I’m not sure why your link makes such a low assumption given total EV sales in the USA already exceeded 1 million a year before the publication date:

https://insideevs.com/news/340135/plug-in-electric-cars-sale...

[handrous]

Can confirm that this is a real concern In The Wild—even if it's not a good one—my (boomer, yes) uncle was just complaining to me a couple weeks ago that, "no-one's thought about how we're going to have enough electricity for all these electric cars".

[rootusrootus]

In my experience, many of the people who say things like this don't just have misconceptions, they have an axe to grind. In that case, preventing the spread of their misinformation may have more value than trying to 'educate' them.

[natch]

It's not so much to educate those who have an ax to grind, and I tend to agree on where (many of) these people are coming from.

It's to allow everyone else to see under the open light how weak the ax is, and what a dull blade it has, and what poor metal it was forged out of, and how it was never a good ax to begin with.

Instead of just saying (not that you directly said this, but downvotes kind of say it): "let's not talk about that."

[rootusrootus]

I think I agree with you, but I may have less faith in the ability of random people to get past the first argument and make it to the counterpoints. I'm probably being uncharitable; especially somewhere like HN.