And don't forget infrastructure. We have a very well developed one for gasoline and diesel, we'd have to spend massively to enhance the electric grids to accommodate this new usage, right down to neighborhood transformers, which are sized to heat up in summer days and cool down at night.
California is already dealing with this problem, where the addition of as little as 2 electric cars in a neighborhood could cause the transformer feeding it to blow.
And right now the anti-coal jihad is focusing our new power plant creation on replacing coal fired plants with natural gas ones quickly enough so that we don't suffer brownouts and blackouts. The really serious net increases in power generation would take some time to accomplish ... might be possible in "10 years", but I think it'll be demand driven vs. proactive for something that might never happen, so again I think that timetable is wildly optimistic.
hga|12 years ago
California is already dealing with this problem, where the addition of as little as 2 electric cars in a neighborhood could cause the transformer feeding it to blow.
And right now the anti-coal jihad is focusing our new power plant creation on replacing coal fired plants with natural gas ones quickly enough so that we don't suffer brownouts and blackouts. The really serious net increases in power generation would take some time to accomplish ... might be possible in "10 years", but I think it'll be demand driven vs. proactive for something that might never happen, so again I think that timetable is wildly optimistic.