Will the power grid be able to cope with the demands of EV drivers?
When I talk here of Electric Six, I refer not to my favourite disco-punk-garage band. No, the Electric Six I have in mind are the half dozen electric car-related issues that occasionally haunt me.
They are: power outages; prohibitively high retail prices for EVs; range and range anxiety; woeful under-investment in charging infrastructure; the often ignored human, environmental and production costs of EV tech and dead batteries; and WLTP testing procedures and quoted ranges that can still be wide of the mark.
The first of my Electric Six concerns – the increasingly common power cut – is in some respects the one to worry about least, because such outages don’t bother users of leccy on a daily basis. Or at least that’s what I thought before my working week beginning Monday, 14 June. I was in my home-office studio for one of my regular radio slots from noon to 1pm. Most callers had questions about EVs and the joys, frustrations, plus all-in costs of driving and charging one. Mid-sentence and mid-programme I was brutally cut-off. The reason? A power outage, which the culprit coldly and unapologetically assured me by text was “unplanned” and “unexpected”. It “didn’t know this was going to happen so providing prior notice was not possible”.
That’s all right, then; think nothing of it. No need for words of regret, apology or compensation, either. Let’s just forget about it and move on.
So that’s what I tried to do, but on Thursday of the same week, at the same office/studio, I suffered another “unplanned” power outage, and received the same heartless excuses. By the Friday, when I planned to watch my first full football match of the year I’d moved to a building many kays away, where I surely wouldn’t be on the receiving end of my third power cut in five days. But, you’ve guessed it, as the match reached the crescendo we craved, the TV and every other electric appliance died – and were not predicted to be resuscitated until the next day.
EV users of today and tomorrow have to think deeply about all this. The irrefutable truth is that individuals and businesses suffer from unplanned outages. So how’s it going to be when most of us are expected to buy EVs that’ll need regular recharging?
And in a further and final word on the Electric Six, I predict the following when unprecedented demand massively and inevitably outstrips iffy supplies: rationing the stuff might be necessary.
Mike Rutherford