“Tesla can recharge to 80% in 30 minutes.”
And in the scheme of things, how you go about your daily business, this would be acceptable? I don’t intend to degrade my life by this sort of retrograde “improvement.” Electric cars may, in the short term, fill a niche market for some people, but they are just that with present day technology. Also, if, as you suggest, there is a large overcapacity of electric energy at night, this is just another capitulation to our country’s inability to provide for its citizen. It’s like the nonsense that you need to wash your clothes in the middle of the night to “preserve our environment.” Which is nonsense.
Stopping once for a 30 minute top off on a 500 mile trip wouldn’t inconvience most people. True it isn’t as convienient as a 5 minute gas top off, but then again you are talking about $3-5 for 300 miles of electricity vs. $40-60 for 300 miles worth of gasoline. Since after driving 300 miles, I would trade the extra 25 minutes grabbing a cup of coffee for the $50.00 savings any day.
I don’t understand your point about “capitulation to our country’s inability to provide for it’s citizens.” I don’t want the country to provide electricity for me, I would prefer to purchase it myself from a private power company. That said, these power companies must maintain the generator capacity to cover the time of peak demand during business hours. Of course, this means that outside of business hours, there is an excess of capacity and anytime that supply exceeds demand in a free economy, the price of the product in question (in this case electricity) is discounted. Therefore, a smart person would plug his car in at night while he slept to take advantage of the much cheaper electricity rates at night. Of course, if I happen to ocassionally need a quick charge, or a charge during business hours, I would just pony up the extra money to pay for the convienience.