Beschrijving
The retirement of my current car, which is a 2010 Subaru Outback 2.5i partial zero emissions vehicle that gets only 29 miles per gallon on the highway, has been postponed because Toyota has just predicted that the electrical grid in the US will not be able to handle the load if most people switch to driving EVs within the current decade. Originally, I planned to retire the Outback early in just 2.5-3 years, because it was calculated that it emits more CO2 in that time period than a plug-in hybrid over 30 years with my CURRENT local power generation mix. The grid will only get cleaner with time. I trust Toyota because the pace of construction in the US nowadays is glacial and that Toyota has the best track record on reliability and market predictions by far. I am now somewhat certain that the ban of sales/registration of all new cars that can't be plugged in by 2035, with an intermediate mandate of 80% in 2030, will fail dramatically. Parts of the country already have rolling blackouts to prevent damage to the grid when everyone is using their air conditioner at the same time.
Granted, if everyone only charges their EVs at night, this wouldn't be a problem at all, because an EV uses much less electricity than a running central air conditioning unit during the standard charging mode of Level 2 or lower, combined with the higher capacity of transmission lines at lower temperatures. However, it is virtually impossible for almost everyone to only charge at night.
My family's next car, when we eventually need an extra one, will be a plug-in hybrid anyway because it saves money and that there aren't that many around to cause power outages. Plus, we live in Sacramento where there aren't rolling blackouts because the grid is in much better condition here. It's just that it's pointless to retire the car that we already have early when the grid in much of the country isn't ready to handle mainstream adoption of electric vehicles yet.
The early retirement was mainly for CO2 reduction, but if the grid in many parts of the country isn't ready yet, then those people wouldn't switch to EVs. Thus, the CO2 reduction from only people in NorCal switching to EVs would be negligible and an absolute waste of money from people retiring their fossil-fueled vehicles early. Granted, if Northern Californians are looking to buy another car anyways, then they should indeed buy a plug-in hybrid as it already saves money even when ignoring the environmental benefits. The main problem with pure EVs is that they are still too expensive and their ranges still aren't good enough yet.
Also, economists are warning about an economic collapse if everyone switches to electric vehicles, which is true. That's because a significant amount of money is spent at convenience stores in gas stations, and when everyone has electric cars and charges their cars at the supermarket (Target and Walmart are already starting to have them as standard), very few people would buy from the convenience stores anymore. All the millions of people employed there would be unemployed. Even if everyone just filled up at Costco Gas or Safeway Gas, the convenience store industry would go bankrupt practically overnight. Not to mention the total unemployment from the huge trucking industry which transports fuel to each individual station, while electricity automatically transports itself to each charger through wires.
Anyway, I'm not too concerned about convenience store workers because they don't affect me at all, since all of my family tree that is in the US and Canada already fills up at Costco Gasoline. Avoiding environmental catastrophe is way more important than the economy anyway, so people should buy a full-electric or plug-in hybrid car when they could afford it.
I forgot to say that what I meant by the gas car sales ban failing was that I think the legal mandate won't be met on time. I think it will be met around 7 years late in 2042, when the infrastructure everywhere is finally able to fully handle it, which is where the "dramatic" comes from, because 7 years is a significant proportion of 15 years (when the ban was announced on September 23, 2020). It doesn't mean pure electric cars won't be mainstream by then in 2035. I'm very sure they will be mainstream even by 2030, as they will certainly have reached purchase price parity by then. It's just that the levels of EV adoption still won't be universal by the statutory deadline of 2035. It doesn't mean the 2010 Subaru Outback won't be retired -- it's just that the retirement will be postponed by 7 years, in which the car would already be 20 years old by then.
Highly recommended car: 1998-2003 Toyota Sienna, only made in the USA and only sold in the US and Canada, so it is all-American besides the parent company who made it!
First Generation Toyota Sienna Crash Test Commercial, originally aired April 2000, the year the US legalized recreational fireworks for the Fourth of July again!