I’m an Engineer. One thing no one ever mentions is the effect these heavier electric vehicles will have on our existing infrastructure. Parking garages, bridges, culverts and even roadways are designed for regular gas powered vehicles. Electric vehicles are heavier than gas powered vehicles. As the article states in some cases twice as heavy. At some point the extra loads on our infrastructure will cause more stress, strain and fatigue leading to a more rapid failure of our structures. Think about it. The top floor of a parking garage is designed for a certain dead load relating to gas powered vehicles. You fill that parking floor with heavier EV’s, it is going to fail at some point. Same with bridges. You get a traffic jam and all that extra weight of EV’s sitting on a bridge, you are looking at a possible catastrophe. Yes, I know concrete and steel design has factors of safety in their calculations but are the safety factors high enough to account for the extra forces from the loads from technology that was not known 30-49 years ago?
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this. Thanks for laying it out so concisely. Also saw that EV’s are losing value at double the rate of gas powered cars. The arguments keep piling up.
One thing no one ever mentions is the effect these heavier electric vehicles will have on our existing infrastructure.
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I’m glad you brought this up. This needs to be talked about. If a parking structure has any deteriorated part, I fear the heavy EVs will collapse them like what might have happened in New York:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/new-york-city-shuts-down-4-parking-garages-after-deadly-collapse