True that. The grid is not ready for EV's to be prime time. I'll use my own home charging as an example. Home charging is at near 10kW and is a lot less kW than roadside fast charging, but it's where most charging is done anyway. Thus, if talking about grid demand IMHO that's the Achilles heal of everyone switching to EV.
In the past 12 months we've consumed 5,335 kWh just for charging our EV at home. Granted that was for driving almost 18K miles this year (just on home charged miles in the past 12 months Nov - Oct). That comes out to an extra 15kWh per day that would have been pulled from the grid (if I didn't have solar).
And since virtually all EV owners schedule their EV to charge at night to be charged to 80% shortly before they leave for work or whatever, they're all charging at pretty much the same time at about 10kW .... every night .... when the sun isn't up powering the solar panels they expect the grid to depend on. The idea is that the longevity of the battery is enhanced if it's at 50% to 60% charged for more hours of the day. So when you get home with 50% or so charge, the EV owner would rather it stay like that until shortly before the EV is needed for the next drive. Thus, almost all EV owners are charging at around 3 AM to 6 AM every night/early morning. (Again, I'm an off case because I almost always charge mine at day when the sun is out.)
Almost every EV owner X 10kW or so for level 2 home charging would add up significantly to the grid demand if even 10% of car owners switched to EV. And that's without getting into taking the EV on trips and doing 200kW or more road side charging. (Our EV charges max 240kW on a level 3 fast DC charger. But even that is a fairly brief period in the charging process. If I get a 150kW charger I'll still be back on the road with an 85% charge in 10-15 minutes, which is about how long it takes to use the restroom and walk around a couple of minutes like I do anyway if I take the gas pickup on a road trip.) Of course, that's without taking road trips up north in the cold weather in which the charging would be a lot slower. The couple of posts I'm replying to is about grid demand, so we'll focus on optimum but realistic charging speeds.
IMHO, the grid demand for a fast road-side charging array is quite significant, but not as much as home charging for the reason addressed above. Most EV owners charge at home except for when taking long trips. The long lines at chargers is mainly during the intro period of getting a new EV when you get free charging for a year or two at a place like Electrify America (the EPA's version of forcing Volkswagen to pay penance for the dieselgate scandal). So some new EV owners were choosing to fast charger their EV even for local driving, but that free charging subscription lasts only a year or two. And the charging arrays throttled down the charging speeds if all chargers were being used simultaneously. Home charging doesn't have the automatic throttling down of charging speeds to keep from overtaxing the grid. So in the end, what we're talking about for grid demand is still back at home charging, even though it's slower per EV, it happens with almost all EV's at the same time...every night.
I hardly ever hear anybody mention the infrastructure itself being in need of upgrade.
Wires can carry only so much current before they become glowing fuses.
There are actual fuses in the system that will blow and save the wiring from melting down.
Wires of a certain size can carry only so much current before it becomes a red hot heating element.
The grid was never designed to carry the amount of current that will be necessary to charge millions of EVs simultaneously.
Ohm’s Law will not be ignored.
Most homes built before 2000 were wired for 100 amp service. That’s 12 kW per home. Newer homes are typically wired for 200 amp service, that’s 24 kW.
Now imagine every home in a 500 unit subdivision all having EVs charging at the same time, regardless of time of day.
Transformers, relays and the wires themselves will all need to be replaced with bigger and more powerful counterparts, else they will be burning out or popping line fuses all night long.
And this will have to happen all across the country.
The power utility companies will naturally have to pass along these upgrade costs to the consumers, even those that do not own an EV.
Utilities that are owned by local governments will have political problems with their electorate screaming for relief.
I was noticing this from the article:
“solid-state batteries will also allow for faster charge times—four to six times faster in some cases.”
So throw out whatever you know about charging currents and times. Because we will now be talking about 4-6 times more current for charging these new batteries from the grid.