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by natch 1350 days ago
We can store plenty of energy in car batteries as EVs become more common.

And that is energy that whether it’s available for putting back in the grid or not, (usually not, which is fine) replaces a gas pump.

2 comments

Take number of cars, multiply by storage capacity of an EV battery, compare to daily energy requirements, fall incredibly short.

This is not a solution.

> Take number of cars, multiply by storage capacity of an EV battery, compare to daily energy requirements, fall incredibly short.

This argument falls incredibly short by assuming every EV gets 100% drained daily.

not to mention given today's technology and growing opposition to car centric cities, there won't ever be as many BEVs as there are cars today.
Fewer cars, less need for energy. It works out, so no problem even if your theory is correct.
So are you claiming it’s not part of the solution? If not, then what is your point?
It's clearly not part of the solution as napkin math demonstrates, and that's not even including losses into and out of the batteries, which pushes the numbers into the realm of ludicrous.

If you want to argue otherwise, demonstrate it with an estimate of the energy amounts used.

Because I did the check. I don't think you have.

The energy is used to drive the cars, replacing gasoline.

I suspect your napkin math is probably calculating a different use case which is not the most common intended use case of car batteries, but rather, if even practical at all, only a trifling convenience, the scale of which will be lost in the noise when compared to actual driving usage.

Again, what was your point?

I have yet to find ANY EV owners who are willing to let the power company slash their car's already pitiful range by draining their battery (at the grid's convenience) to power the grid. The greediest people I know are EV owners, whose lives must center around keeping their car's batteries constantly topped off.

I've got better things to do with my life that worry about that crap - I can just refill in well under 5 minutes nearly anywhere, and even adding an unreasonable number of chargers (at about $500K/POP, BTW) doesn't get EV users to that kind of worry-free transportation.

My charger cost $0 — its a regular 220v outlet that came with my house.

Where do you get the $500k number btw?

I saw the Chargepoint price list a while back when they still had it posted and a single Chargepoint charger station with two connectors was around $11k and a fast charger with two connectors was around $50k.

You utterly misunderstand, but you’re not alone. Cars will store energy in the form of electricity instead of storing gasoline. Whether they give some back to the grid or not, this represents a huge storage of energy.

Your refill takes you 5 minutes but my refill takes me 5 seconds. Which is faster?