Is this really goin to happen?, 2035 Phase Out all new gas cars Options

[horizontally-opposed]

20" box fans fitted with 20x20 MERV13 electrostatic filters using bungee cords.

What's going to be your average monthly electric bill after the $11 is added in?

Not if there's no electricity.

Electricity bills here aren't pretty—typically ranging from a little under $100 to over $300 a month in our neighborhood—but the delta is what matters, and we can afford the extra $132 a year…which is a tiny percentage of the overall annual cost and will likely flip to a savings within 1-3 years because the trend with PG&E rates only goes one way.

What is laughably bad is the rate PG&E pays you for any excess electricity you generate against what it charges you for the same electricity…even at the lower rates.

Have I mentioned my love for PG&E? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif)

Btw, I looked at generators of all kinds, from just enough to keep the refrigerator going to whole-house NG generators. The latter are, all in, less attractive than solar (at least here in CA) from a financial standpoint while the former present too many downsides for me between noise, fire hazard, storage, fuel storage, runs to a gas station (that may not have power to pump fuel), and emissions. To be sure: I am no solar expert. Just another longtime skeptic who was won over a few months ago.

[Tdskip]

The power grid will NEVER support a massive switch to EVs. Maybe if they bring ALL of the coal fired generating plants back on line and build plenty of new ones. Start building them now. Not LATER.

Generating enough power isn’t the issue - overnight storage is. We frequently already generate a surplus amount of electricity during points in the day. In fact, our being ahead of schedule is a challenge;

“This oversupply of solar is occurring because California has added vast amounts of renewable-energy generation in recent years, mainly to meet policy mandates requiring half the state’s electricity to come from carbon-free sources by 2030. With additional generation coming online in the next few years, the state is on pace to reach that target a decade ahead of schedule.“

Good overview from MIT;

https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/05/24...-climate-goals/

[chrisg]

Can somebody post up a link to California’s plan to upgrade the grid, please. And I’m not talking generation, I’m talking transmission. They do grid shut downs in hot windy conditions because the lines and transformers get over taxed and start fires (especially in areas where they are not allowed to clear combustibles due to environmental reasons). Santa Ana’s happen every year. With a 15 year time line for a massive influx (edited) of electric vehicles state wide, there must be at least a 10 year plan for the grid. No?

P.s. I have questions about Lithium production and recycling too.

FYI: I’m not an EV hater. I like a lot a aspects and positives about them

[Krieger]

Generating enough power isn’t the issue - overnight storage is. We frequently already generate a surplus amount of electricity during points in the day. In fact, our being ahead of schedule is a challenge;

“This oversupply of solar is occurring because California has added vast amounts of renewable-energy generation in recent years,

I guess you forgot about the three or four days we had rolling blackouts statewide a few weeks back because of UNDERsupply...

[andrewb]

I'm really enjoying this thread because people are engaging with the issue - whilst maintaining a healthy dose of scepticism. I'm learning too - I was very surprised to learn about California's power supply problems. I think most of the world has this rose tinted view of CA as a land of milk and honey where everything is perfect (I've been over a couple of times to my buddy in Long Beach - and it was perfect !) so the fact you lose electricity on a regular basis came as quite a shock.

I wish there was a 'like' button because there are so many thoughts and comments I agree with. And even @Superhawk996 - I totally get that an EV doesn't suit you ......yet. But only 5 years ago it wouldn't have suited me either so in another 5 years who knows what ranges will be possible. And just do the sums on what you spend on fuel doing those monster mileages (hats off to you) compared with what you could be spending if you had the full set of EV, solar power and battery storage.

There have been comments about reliability and repair costs - well it stands to reason that an engine bay containing effectively only has one moving part is going to be more reliable than one containing several hundred parts. Then consider that that one part just rotates in air whereas the 'several hundred' are spinning and reciprocating in an ever degrading bath of oil. No comparison is there ? You know that feeling when you've rebuilt an engine and with every revolution you're visualising every close tolerance, every adjustment and the pistons and valves hurtling towards each other at 5000ft/min ? All that disappears when you just have one big fat electric motor spinning away. It wasn't until I'd been driving a Leaf for a couple of weeks that I realised how relaxing it was because of the absence of that 'engine paranoia'. AND I can still hoof it away from the lights if the mood takes me (it does, a lot) without worrying that hard use shortens the life of the motor.

Sorry if I sound EVangelical (!) but it gets you that way. But don't worry - I'm still playing with these at the moment.





If anyone hasn't yet driven an EV - just give it a try. Even a family shopping trolley like a Leaf will surprise you with it's acceleration off the line. The smoothness and power delivery is really something else. Even if you don't want to buy one - just give it a go.

Finally, and this is more for fun and not really part of the mainstream EV future, someone linked to Lunaz Design, based near me at Silverstone GP circuit. Lunaz do phenomenally expensive conversions (£750,000 !!) to already expensive classics (Rolls Royce and Jag XK150) but there are now several companies in the UK who fit Leaf and Tesla drive trains to more attainable cars. One of the best - and most imaginative - is https://www.electricclassiccars.co.uk/ . Take a minute to enjoy what they do.

Cheers cousins, Andrew

[Chris914n6]

RE: CA power grid.

I read an article a couple days ago, didn't save it, but it stated iirc...

CA currently produces extra solar power, but no place to store it.

In 2035, there will be a 9.5% shortfall in capacity, because at the end of the day, while it's still hot, people are getting home from work, turning on A/C and plugging in their cars and drawing more than the grid is supplying. The proposed solution was to power the grid from the cars for a few hours then recharge in the wee hours.

In 2050, when most of the now 15 yo gas burners have been replaced with EV, the grid will be 25% under, but by then Tesla should have an affordable home battery, plus rooftop solar, meaning most of you will be off grid anyways.

Vegas is STILL 10f over normal this month and I'm paying an extra $600 this year for AC, so not only is solar on the todo list but off grid is starting to make sense $$.

FYI, the CA supply shortfall is so bad us in NV were told to cut back for a few of those hot afternoons.

[Superhawk996]

duplicate

[Superhawk996]

And just do the sums on what you spend on fuel doing those monster mileages (hats off to you) compared with what you could be spending if you had the full set of EV, solar power and battery storage.

@andrewb

For a 2200 mile run (one way) that is about 100 gallons of gas at 22.0 MPG average which is very close to what I get running at 70-80 mph. So let's say gas is $3.00 / gallon (it's not). Gas has been a lot closer to $2.60/gallon average the last few years but is down right now due to COVID and perople not traveling much.

So we are at $300 each way in fuel cost. A plane ticket usually would run me $600 (coach) or $1200 (first class). So a round trip in a mid size SUV runs the same as Coach.

But. . . When I drive, the dog can come (saving kennel costs) and I can haul a bunch of gear one way or another depending on need.

So for two to three trips a year we're talking about $2k in costs, give or take. No way that is offset by tens of thousands of dollars for solar panels, battery storage, charging fees, higher upfront purchase cost for an EV, etc.

I also need to add that I live in climates that have no where near the number of sunny days my fellow teeners enjoy out in CA. I think this is part of what causes issues. Michigan has on average has between 30 - 75 sunny days a year. We get lots of lake effect cloud cover and snow. Places like Phoenix and CA are in the 200+ days per year range. Solar effectivity in MI is a fraction of CA.

CA Govt seems to assume the rest of the country should follow thier lead. Except, much of the rest of the country is nothing like CA either in terms of weather or population density.

[Coondog]

As I eluded to in my previous comment Calif has the space to build all the solar and wind they want, the problem is how to store that energy. It would literally cost 100s of billions of dollars for that with our best case results being a couple days of storage. Of course solar is dependent on the sun shining. I just went through 2 weeks of rolling blackouts so that’s not a option until battery storage technology advances.

I had lunch with a SoCal Edison district chief last year and he stated that during off peak times Calif makes so much elec. that they put it back into the grid for other States to have for free as there is no way to store it and during peak periods we now have to buy Elec from other States with that problem being the transmission lines can not supply the demand Calif needs because we put huge limits on our natural gas powered plants and lobbied to shutdown, not buy Elec or bought out coal powered plants in neighboring states.

And how is Calif going to supply all the water desalination plants they want to build, those take enormous amounts of Elec.??

I grew up in Southern Calif and remember smog alert days, burning lungs as a kid and not being able to see Mt Baldy which was 45 miles away. Those days are gone mainly due to a agency called the South Coast Air Quality Management District. Love them or hate them they made Southern Calif a better place to live. Not so much for business though and every time we go to the gas pump with are summer and winter blend gasoline prices.

[Tdskip]

I guess you forgot about the three or four days we had rolling blackouts statewide a few weeks back because of UNDERsupply...

Read the article then comment please, seriously, it is of little value to the discussion to make ill informed statements that show you didn’t read what you are criticizing.

[Tdskip]

With a 15 year time line for all electric vehicles state wide

That isn’t what is being proposed

[barefoot]

Here's your answer, use a Diesel genset to charge your car. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/huh.gif)

[horizontally-opposed]

@andrewb , thanks for your inputs—really cool to have an international perspective in all this. Completely agree about the "relaxing" aspect of EVs, both for the occupants as well as everyone they pass—you can't realize this until you try an EV, and then spend a few days around them. As much as I love ICE, and that's a lot, thousands of explosions a minute x however many cars are going by creates a certain vibe. True, also, on number of moving parts. And don't forget not having to wait for the oil to warm up to get on with a bit of hooning. I'm still waiting for what I would term a truly fun EV. Taycan comes closest, but is both heavier and faster than I need to have fun. I'd like something more like the 500e but lower and with rear-drive—perhaps a bit more like a 356 or 901 or 914.

Not sure I'd call the outages here "regular," though I can't speak for all of CA. We were certainly affected by the 2019 "PSP" power outages, which were the result of a decision to cut power to avoid sparking the kind of fires that have wiped out whole towns. I think we dealt with 2-3 of those last year, but only one was prolonged (48 hours or so in our case). Some had it worse, and it was a truly surreal situation. Felt like failure on a massive level, and it was. In taking care of two elderly parents, one of whom needed an air mattress to avoid bedsores, you really saw the situation with clarity. And then there was everything else—the lost hours of work, tossing out the whole freezer (freezing slightly emptied water bottles was a pro tip that saved the contents of our fridge) and thinking about everyone else tossing the contents of their freezers, not to mention all of the grocery stores... The more recent blackouts (two of them?) were the result of the system not being able to keep up with demand in the afternoon/evening (usually hot weather, and everyone was running their A/C). So this has been limited to 2019-2020 around here at least, and the last time I remember dealing with this was a couple of months somewhere between 2000 and 2002. I was lucky to live next to a hospital at the time, and that meant no loss of power. But, even living here, I wouldn't call the outages "regular." It has, however, happened often enough that it's obvious we have to do something.

Really appreciate the inputs of others above. Yep, we've got to figure out some things—from storage to meeting peak demand to additional demands from desal plants to more EVs, etc—and, indeed, what works for CA or AZ or UT isn't going to work for MI or OH.

We're adding solar to our house because it's effectively free over the next 10 years and then saves us a lot of money for the 15-25 years after that. The battery is $8k~ out of pocket, but is a hedge against lost money in frozen food (minor) and our business (major). Home batteries seem like a way to deal with the peak usage issue, but I suspect there needs to be more incentive for widespread adoption. Don't love that, but starting to look at the cost of not doing it.

As for EV vs ICE cars/trucks, Superhawk makes a perfect argument for why a EV doesn't make sense for him right now. And, even in our current use case, I can't see replacing any more than 1 out of 3 cars with an EV. 914 stays put period, and I'd want to keep 1 of 2 "real cars" in gas because a) it's really fun to drive and b) I like the hedge from a safety and long trip standpoint. YMMV...

[Superhawk996]

I guess you forgot about the three or four days we had rolling blackouts statewide a few weeks back because of UNDERsupply...

Read the article then comment please, seriously, it is of little value to the discussion to make ill informed statements that show you didn’t read what you are criticizing.

@tdskip

I read the article but hesitate to comment. It has some assertions which are flawed.

1st:
"In a normally functioning market . . . ."

I don't want to get politial here but suffice it to say that when CA government is deeply involved in regulation . . . picking winners and losers. That is not a normally functioning markert by economist's defintion. CA Gov't is introducing market distortions of it's own making.

2nd:
"A study published this week in Environmental Research Letters found that it could be far cheaper for California to rely on electric vehicles to balance out renewable power instead of expanding stationary storage with, for example, banks of batteries."

That is an intersting premise. Cheaper for CA but yet CA citizens bear the capital investment costs for the battery storage mechanism rather than CA or PG&E.

3rd:
"Still another possibility is shifting the timing of demand itself, by setting up programs to encourage residential or business customers to draw on electricity at different hours. That could include getting residents to charge electric vehicles in the middle of the day, instead of at night."

OK. So who pays for chargine the cars in the day while people are at work? Are all employers small and large going to be forced to provide "free" charging for employees while at work? And what prevents an EV owner from wakeing up and the EV is too low on charge to get to work becuase PG&E sucked too much juice overnight didn't leave enough range. Who manages that? Presumably the EV by regulating outflow but I'll bet CA has other thoughts on that.

The main point is really is that an 800+ word Tech Brief doens't provide full context or a very deep analysis of the true problems at hand.


This thread has been hugely intersting. I'll revert to your previous statement that minds are largely made up on one side or the other.

I'm a beliver in economics. Human Action (Ludwig Von Mises) is a lenghty treatise of how human beings find value in differnt tranastions based on their own personal need and beliefs. Your need is differnt that mine and as a result we find different values in the same thing.

When an EV as a sufficient value proposition to me I'll buy one. I suspect there are millions like me. People didn't immediately switch from horses to cars overnight. They did so when there was sufficient value to do so. It will be the same for EV's regardless of what CA may try to mandate.

[Tdskip]

I guess you forgot about the three or four days we had rolling blackouts statewide a few weeks back because of UNDERsupply...

Read the article then comment please, seriously, it is of little value to the discussion to make ill informed statements that show you didn’t read what you are criticizing.

@tdskip

I read the article but hesitate to comment. It has some assertions which are flawed.

1st:
"In a normally functioning market . . . ."

I don't want to get politial here but suffice it to say that when CA government is deeply involved in regulation . . . picking winners and losers. That is not a normally functioning market by economist's defintion. CA Gov't is introducing market distortions of it's own making.

Good morning and thank you for the reply.

Do you believe that the price of gasoline represents a normal functioning market and is absence government subsidies?

Picking and choosing what part of the economics you choose to reference is a touch dubious, no?

[Superhawk996]

Do you believe that the price of gasoline represents a normal functioning market in his absence government subsidies?

@tdskip

Short answer No. However, EV's are hardly a normal functioning market when US taxpayers were forced to subsidize $7500 of a $100K Tesla.

Regardless, it doesn't matter. People react to the economic realities in front of them. Gas / oil costs are surely not full, true costs inclusive of Military and foreign policy interventions. Regardless I'm forced to bear those "hidden" costs one way or another via Federal Taxation, budget defecits, and deflation of my dollars of which I have no choice. Much the same where CA residents will be forced to bear hidden costs they can't control.

Humans will still make the decisions that are most valued to them given their present econmomic state and the moment in which they have to decide.

Is an ice cream cone more valuable in July or December? In either case, it's the same ice cream cone. Here in MI, people value the ice cream cone more in July. So much so that many ice cream stands close for the winter because it's not economically viable for them to remain open all winter. Maybe not the same in San Diego with beautiful weather year round? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Tdskip]

Do you believe that the price of gasoline represents a normal functioning market in his absence government subsidies?

Short answer No.

However, it doesn't matter. People react to the economic realities in front of them. Gas / oil costs are surely not full, true costs inclusive of Military and foreign policy interventions. Regardless I'm forced to bear those "hidden" costs one way or another via Federal Taxation, budget defecits, and deflation of my dollars of which I have no choice.

That doesn’t come anywhere near to representing the full market cost of gasoline use.

So - once more with feeling - it is a touch dubious to make assertions based on “economics” while not actually using the real economics.

Here is the thing gentlemen - physics and math don’t care about your personal beliefs or personal ideology. They are what they are - ignore the reality they represent and you are choosing to self inflect bad outcomes on yourself, and worse, future generations.

It is what it is.

[Rav914]

Ok, we get it. Big bad oil and their subsidies. This is getting very close to politics.

[horizontally-opposed]

^ Reminds me: EVs, solar, batteries, etc and subsidies around them are one discussion, fires we've been having in the west are another.

If we could wave a wand and everyone had battery backup (and solar) on their homes, or even most of us and then the rest benefitted from micro grids, that might solve the transmission-line-sparked fires that have caused some to lose their homes, and some far more than that. But it won't fix fires started by trailer wheels, lightning, arson, etc. Still, it's worth pursuing from a standpoint of the fires it can prevent, emissions, and resiliency. It's a step, and a good one.

Forest management is another, and it looks like they've been working on plans to do prescribed burns of 2,000,000 acres a year, and now have those plans ratified (downside is it'll take ten years to get to where we should be).

But one of the other things CA (and OR and WA?) need is to reconsider all of the people who apply for, and get, special waivers to build houses in places that were ruled too dangerous due to frequency of fire. There's a part of me that says, it's a free country and they can do what they like and take their chances—but there's another part of me that asks why firefighters and everyone's tax dollars should be put at risk as a result of their choice when those tax dollars (and life and limb, in the case of firefighters) could be better applied elsewhere. How many more acres burn while firefighters fight to protect each and every structure that should have never been allowed? Don't know what the answer is there, but I do know I'd rather see my tax dollars applied to things that have benefits for everyone.

[horizontally-opposed]

Ok, we get it. Big bad oil and their subsidies. This is getting very close to politics.

^ I don't think anyone on this forum wants to see gasoline go away. Unless they've got an electric 914 (which isn't an idea I am interested in). And I'm under no illusion that electricity companies (whether solar or anything else) are any better than oil companies. Right now, PG&E ain't looking good in that comparo…and I am sure some crows will come home to roost in the solar and wind power industries, from waste to blades that have to be buried, etc.

But a discussion about EVs and solving a legitimate problem—together—doesn't have to be political, and I've been really impressed by this thread as a shining example of that.