Conservative pundits have had a lot of time on their hands recently. The sale of new gasoline-only cars began to be banned by a state agency in August. The California Independent System Operator, which manages the state’s electric power grid, asked residents not to charge their cars during peak demand.
The liberal-mocking pundits immediately pounced on the chance to mount a trumped-up case against California. EV owners will be begging for rides with friends if they have any who still power their vehicles by burning fossil fuels. Mass EV charging will crash the California grid at regular intervals. A lot of chaos will happen.
The pundits have it wrong for a number of reasons. It’s short term.
- Nearly all EVs and PHEVs cabe easily programmed to charge at any time. California’s “no charging” advisory was for peak hours of demand, from 4 to 9 pm. You simply plug in your EV when coming home and set it to start charging after 9:30.
- Most newer EVs can do a week of typical commuting on one charge. These high-heat, high-demand events are forecast several days in advance. You simply charge up your EV before the heat hits.
Over the course of a long period of time.
- Existing gas cars will not be banned. Many — if not most — households will have both gas and electric cars for years to come. For the past five years, we have had both a plug-in car and a gas car. We put most of our miles on the plug-in, but there are times when we revert to gas — but still use less than 200 gallons annually for two drivers, or about one-sixth the national average.
- New plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEV) still can be sold in California after 2035. PHEVs can run on gasoline indefinitely. With a PHEV, you save money and reduce your carbon footprint by putting all your short-range miles on electricity, but gas power is there if you need it.
- Cost for in-home electricity storage is dropping. That means if you have your own rooftop solar — or even if you don’t — you can have the equivalent of a five-gallon gas can stashed in your garage if you really have to charge up your EV now.
- Many EV owners already have home solar installations, with more coming. You’re in charge (sorry), so you can juice up your EV all day regardless of restrictions or outages. OK, if you want to charge at night, you will need the aforementioned storage.
I have had people ask me what to do if there is a power failure over a wide area. If your gas tank is nearly empty, what do you do?
I don’t know of any hand-crank gas pumps that are still functioning.
Bruce Borgerson teaches OLLI classes on purchasing electric vehicles and is a member of the board of SOHEVA.