$200,000 a year spent at Disney?

RCMAC:

In this part of the country Sheetz has superchargers. And much like Wawa they do more than gas- carry out, fast hot food, potty stop, etc, so there’s a good reason visit while charging. They run .25 a minute.

Yup, Pennsylvania is loaded with them. It's a great place to people watch too. We ended up waiting a half hour for a charger in Scranton on our road trip, but it wasn't because the chargers were full. We couldn't get in the parking lot. They were giving away gas for $1.776 on July 4th.

Sheetz is in the MTO business. The gas they were charging $1.76 for was below 87 grade.

GoBucks89:

...the supply doesn't exist...

While you're not wrong, currently, everyone other than Tesla has inventory outstripping demand, for a number of reasons, mostly that every OEM decided to ramp up simultaneously. Demand is still soaring, it's a really good time to buy. As I said, there are Model 3's available for $28k right now after the tax credit.

Also, the suggestion that a lack of supply to respond to an instantaneous demand by everyone for EV's is... I dunno what that is or what point it makes. I don't think anyone is suggesting that could or should happen.

This piece in USA Today is timely, though the reporter sees the point only to lean back into public charging. But it also shows that the Biden administration doesn't understand the real problems. Public charging is mostly right-sized given the demand in most places in the world. The problem is education, the understanding that home is your "gas station." The cars are basically 70kWh cell phones. To get hung up on the 1% of most Americans' driving habits is to completely misunderstand EV's. It is a very rare time when either once of us gets home with less than 150 miles of range left. The only examples I can give is round-trips to Tampa or the Space Coast, which I would call "local plus."

i'll concede that it's not as simple if you drive a non-Tesla, but in the next year or two, that divide will no longer exist.

83% of EV charging is done at home. Electrify America's network is a mess but it is largely Volkswagen's doing. They built out the network at a cost of $2 billion as part of the "clean diesel" settlement but haven't maintained it well. Consistently we have had issues with stations with broken chargers or incredibly slow charging speeds. I also think that their network has an artificially high demand because of all the free charging on the network that comes with a new EV purchase. Many of those owners will either migrate to the Tesla network, or more likely charge at home. We have saved $1700 by occasionally using the EA network. At $0.40/kWh we won't be using the network when our free charging runs out in July.

Touchdown:

we need more lithium (if everyone in the US wanted to convert today they couldn’t because we literally don’t mine enough lithium.)

Salton Sea seems to have a bit..

https://www.energy.gov/eere...h-domestic

Brian Noble:

I vaguely recall seeing an argument that renewable is unlikely to be able to replace all of fossil, but I can't remember why.

Long haul air travel is one of the areas where it's going to be tough to do that.

Sustainable Aviation Fuel is a thing, but the world isn't even close to being able to produce enough of it. IATA suggest production will triple in 2024, which should cover roughly 0.5% of the current need, assuming no increase in demand.

Jeff:

When the manufacturers all switch to NACS, then Tesla chargers will just be chargers. That'll fundamentally change things.

Europe requires manufactures to use CCS – and as of right now only a subset of Tesla chargers on this continent are open to other vehicles.

Thus the "North America" in NACS. 🙂

There are a number of different studies that look at replacing all fossil with all renewable. Challenging to do that in terms of what technological changes will bring (on demand and supply sides including storage).

https://www.nature.com/arti...21-26355-z

This one goes through 39 years of wind/solar history and 42 countries. Looks at impact of having sufficient generation capacity, excess capacity, storage capacity and ability to share excess capacity within various regions. Ignores economic feasibility and assumes excess capacity can shared without loss. Still a very complicated study even with ignoring those factors.

Also, the suggestion that a lack of supply to respond to an instantaneous demand by everyone for EV's is... I dunno what that is or what point it makes. I don't think anyone is suggesting that could or should happen.

If you don't have enough supply, having some people who are hesitant to buy isn't as significant. As supply increases over time, expect number of people who are hesitant will decrease.

As a general matter, there is a tendency for humans to avoid change. Not unique to electric vehicles. Particularly in a country that has a decades long well publicized love affair with the automobile.

Chinese government clearly makes it easier for them to implement policy. Comply or die goes a long way in that regard. But at the same time it has been building solar/wind capacity and production, China has been building/permitting huge amounts of coal. Not clear what their actual commitment to the environment actually is.

The biggest flaw in that study is that they appear to approach generation as a centralized endeavor (given all of caveats about transmission), which is not a sensible model. It also makes no mention of reducing demand and repeatedly discounts storage for demand shifting. It's great data about when the sun shines and the wind blows, but that alone isn't how systems are designed.

China's commitment is just to make as much energy as possible. They seem to be getting that burning coal isn't great for their air, but to your point, since they don't care about incumbent industry and pull all of the strings, they can do whatever they want. But let's not pretend "free capitalism" in America doesn't do the same thing. The US provides tax subsidies by the billions to fossil fuel producers, and only in the last few years has it been doing so for renewables.

A Former United States President:

...All Electric Car Lunacy, and so much more, are looking to destroy our once great USA. MAY THEY ROT IN HELL. AGAIN, MERRY CHRISTMAS!"

Rip Ride Rockit > Holiday Greetings From Mar A Lago

Really embracing the Christmas spirit with that message…

By ignoring transmission costs and assuming energy can be shared without loss across various regions, the study effectively assumed energy generation would be 100% decentralized. Transmission costs are only relevant to the extent its centralized. And the US has large numbers of people living where the best wind/solar aren't so likely there will continue to be a lot of centralized generation which will made transmission costs relevant.

Studies I have seen project worldwide energy consumption will increase at least through 2050. Not sure how some type of reduced demand would be factored in.

Pivot from authoritative government in China to "free capitalism" in America to fossil fuel subsidies is an odd one. But be careful what you wish for in terms of reducing/eliminating "subsidies" of fossil fuels.

Again all this hand-wringing over personal consumption is precisely us giving into the oil companies, and corporate pollution being ignored.

British Petroleum, the second largest non-state owned oil company in the world, with 18,700 gas and service stations worldwide, hired the public relations professionals Ogilvy & Mather to promote the slant that climate change is not the fault of an oil giant, but that of individuals.

It’s here that British Petroleum, or BP, first promoted and soon successfully popularized the term “carbon footprint" in the early aughts. The company unveiled its “carbon footprint calculator” in 2004 so one could assess how their normal daily life — going to work, buying food, and (gasp) traveling — is largely responsible for heating the globe. A decade and a half later, “carbon footprint” is everywhere.

“This is one of the most successful, deceptive PR campaigns maybe ever,”

https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sham

The plastics industry has done the same thing. The truth is, it's hard to recycle plastic, and find places that will do it outside of the usual milk jugs and 2-liter bottles. But when it isn't recycled, they blame it on the consumers.

More timely data:

https://arstechnica.com/sci...ions-free/

The interesting part is about how overall electricity demand is actually down in the US, despite the rising EV use. Like I said, there are a lot of levers. Total non-emitting generation is 40%. It's not clear if this counts primarily owned solar plants on roofs.