Re: Whisper it…
a) a small genny can do wonders for an EV. The tech's been around a year or two. Still I personally think for many commuters a pure EV would be fine, see your other points.
b) Not everyone gets cheap over night tariffs any more, and if everyone was pulling enough electricity to move a ton of steel around 50km/day (I think that's a reasonably common commute, many are more and many are less) then the "peaks" would shift and you would no longer get off-peak overnight use. And the grid in many areas would need some upgrading. Smart meters may allow shifting of your charge time to lessen demand but 1) you need your car charged and 2) when enough people take up EV, there won't be much room to shift them while still fully charging them.
b2) Yes, you could perhaps do some of your own generation, and solar panels on the top of each EV would give them some extra charge when they're parked in enough light, but that's not guaranteed.
c) 800 miles in a single sitting is beyond the range of my car, however I have done those sorts of distances with as little time as possible. A meal takes a couple of minutes, as does stopping for toilet breaks. Lets say 2x 10 min meals and 3x 10 minute toilet breaks - that;s a whopping 50 minutes across the whole trip. How much charge is an EV going to get in that time? And that's assuming there is somewhere to charge it.
As to stopping times, for men a) we may just find a handy bit of bush or a quiet side road and b) we don't necessarily need to stop if we have suitable bottles around. I've often pulled up to a toilet/bush, hopped out for 30-40 seconds, and been under way again quickly. And that's even having time to rinse the hands.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
