[whatnext]

The future is now. Or maybe not:

No charging spots and a strained electrical grid. Welcome to the electric vehicle boom.
-EVs are expected to boom in popularity by 2030. Whether that green switch will be without its problems is far from a sure thing.
By Jason McBride
December 13, 2021

....Level 2 chargers are quite common, but installing one wasn’t as easy as the Nelsons had thought. Level 2s have about the same electrical needs as a dryer or stove—240 volts/30 amps—and the Nelsons’ house, like most older Canadian homes, was only wired for 100 amps. They also have a pool and air conditioning, and in the middle of summer, with both the pool pump and the AC running, charging the Bolt could overload their electrical panel. They needed to upgrade to 200 amps, meaning several thousand more dollars and digging up their yard to lay in the proper electrical service.

Then the Nelsons’ contractor gave them worse news. If three or four houses on the block all did the same upgrade, he said, pointing to a nearby transformer, the system would blow. “Basically, he said that hasn’t changed,” Rob Nelson recalled. “This whole infrastructure would need to be changed if all these houses go to 200 amps.”....

....Meanwhile, the number of people charging at public stations may soon outgrow the number of spots available—and increasing that number will, obviously, tax the grid even more. Claude El-Bayeh, a researcher at Concordia University who’s developing algorithms for EV charging to optimize their energy use, argues that current, uncoordinated charging could lead to “blackouts” if millions of EVs charge simultaneously.....

https://www.macleans.ca/society/tech...-vehicle-boom/