So you think the USA is ready for EV's ?
 

We often hear the naysayers claim the USA Electric Grid can't support a major conversion to EV's.

& many think that's a load of baloney.

We're converting a 200 Room Hotel, with 20,000 sq ft of event space, to a 300 unit Condominium. It's locate on a major US Interstate, in a sophisticated, wealthy suburb of Boston, less than 20 miles outside the city.

The electric grid/distribution system can't supply sufficient electricity to the site, without a infrastructure upgrade to the property line. They sent us the cost estimate on Friday.

$21,129,000. $70,000/unit. Total cost to provide electrical service, so each unit can run some lights & a toaster, is over $100,000.

How much would you have to price each unit at to make a profit and cover these costs?

Without the details it's difficult to know what work is being done but in general, infrastructure is expensive.

What would have been the cost to run a larger water line or larger sewer line to the property? What about a larger access road to handle the additional traffic? You chose electricity but expansion of any of those would have come with a cost too.

Is the USA ready for EVs? One estimate said there are 10 million on the road today. Either the USA is ready for 10M EVs or there are 10M customers with very heavy, immovable statues in their garages.

Is the US infrastructure robust enough today to support thousands more EV charging stations? Probably not. Will it ever be? Yes, but when that will be and what it will look like is unknown. Who knows how many EVs can the US support with its current infrastructure? We may find out soon.

I'm from Boston. Just curious what town this Condo project will be located?

I don't know that the US will ever have the electricity or infrastructure such as charging stations, enough for the nation. I also don't think that level is necessary and believe a blend of both type vehicles would be best. We strictly drive gas powered vehicles at this point but wouldn't rule out one electric vehicle and one ice vehicle for our household in our younger days. Given our ages, it probably will be more of a decision for the next generations to make since we need reliability. I'm totally against mandating electrical vehicles for everyone since they bring their own bucket of problems and aren't green energy clean either.

The condos are projected to be in the $500,000 range. We're estimating that our "contribution" to the electrical infrastructure will be in the $5M range or about $20,000/unit.

I changed out my 20 year old AC and cut my bill in summertime in half.
All my neighbors still have their original units.
Think of the pressure it will take off the "grid" when everyone has ultra efficient units.
Plenty of room for cars

I think saving the world, one Air Conditioner at a time, is a great start. Try to get your neighbors on the program, in case someone in the neighborhood buys an EV. I think the ratio is about 3 AC's to 1 EV.

Electrical demand is actually increasing after being stagnant for a decade. AI data centers are a big factor. Changing AC's won't help much.

Ahhh but, the immigrants cleaning those rooms is in short supply!

Whatever comes for EV's in the future I can't predict.
What surprises me is people paying $80.000 + for their EV and thinking their saving the planet.

Most EVs are cleaner than most ICE vehicles. Whether that matters is a personal decision.

I wish an EV had been a valid option when I was commuting to workplaces, it would have saved me a lot of money. As it was, we really benefited from the Prius hybrid. Today, we take long driving trips that would be difficult in an EV.

Long distance power transmission over fixed infrastructure is what hurts us today. In order to move more power the infrastructure needs to be improved and that becomes prohibitively expensive. We would have the same problem if we had to move gasoline to the stations via pipelines; it would greatly limit when and where we could build new stations, new cities, and new roads.

What we don’t have today is a means of delivering power any other way, either it’s on a wire from an existing power plant or it doesn’t happen. What we’ll need is a more efficient delivery system or more local power plants. Then we can start building EV charging stations as easily as we build ICE fueling stations. I’ve not kept up with any advances in those areas.

Well then, I guess EV's aren't the problem

And none of this even begins to address the process of producing electricity. We all don't live next to Hoover Dam. We can't cover all vacant ground with solar panels which may be damaged in storms not to mention the cost of charging stations. There is a much larger picture that has never been addressed as to how, where and when will such massive electricity be available.

Really too early to tell. If you google “ are EV’s cleaner than ICE vehicles” plenty of theory’s in long run it may or may not be better? IMO it really doesn’t matter to us over 70 we will be long gone before electric vehicles will be norm. Or something else comes along better?