*Texas's energy grid has left the chat*

the most impressive feat i find in this video is the consistent ability to recite numbers and facts while driving at the same time

I agree about your AC comparison. But... Here in California, mid summer CA's infrastructure cannot keep up with AC use alone. Hence our annual rolling black outs

In 2015, we started installing Mr. Fusion home kits along with 1.21 GW flux capacitors. If they haven't made it to your neighborhood yet, be on the look out for a guy named Marty.

What's really amazing is he's talking all these numbers while driving.

I remember living in Los Angeles 8 years ago when a heat wave hit and literally street lights, billboards and traffic lights were constantly being shut down so that the grid could make it. No one even owned an EV back then and people drove around in cars to cool off.

Great learning for me. I am sure for others as well. Thanksa for the facts, sharing your findings from your research that is, not blowing smokes out of your exhausts!! True for all of your videos.

There are 2 major grids in USA, East & West. Those were meant to last only 40-50yrs from 1960. It’s already 2022. Also keep in mind Los Angeles not only want electric cars but also electric semi trucks. We have one of the largest ports meaning the most semi trucks. I want to see how the politicians will handle this upgrade. In the summer a few years back in Northridge my sister lived across the street from the electric plant that exploded bc everyone was using the ac at night. Let’s see how it h does semi trucks being added to that grid

Hey man, you are a great teacher bro. Out of all the Engineering channels out there, you seem to be able to explain it in ways that are more understandable. It is very appreciated and I am glad you have been more active lately

As a norwegian I find your examples from Norway interesting. As you say, yes we can handle it today, but just barely at times. This past month it has been very cold, and prices for kwh has gone through the roof. Energy companies have trouble coping with the peaks and tells EV owners to charge at night. However,...the politicians have got electricity on their brains, and EVERYthing shall be electric in the not so distant future. Boats, ferries, lorrys, buses, excavators, chain saws, tractors, motor bikes, and within 2040 all domestic aviation shall be electric if dreamers are right. Will the grid struggle then?? Oh yes...

Love your videos, and I'm not against evs. However, your second argument about the local grid and residential charging states that it is based on one vehicle per household. I don't know the number, but I bet the average American household has at least 2 vehicles. So wouldn't this multiply your calculations by at least 200%? Also, it would be nice to hear the avg cost per KWh, ang how much it would cost people to charge 2 or 3 cars. Finally, having experience in nuclear power generation, I think a lot of your assumptions may be a little off. energy production has indeed increased since 1960, but the transmission grid have seen very.little upgrades and is showing it's age. That infrastructure would def need to be upgraded.

Bit of a slight-of-hand going on with the rate of electricity increase calculations here. From 1960 to 2000, we went from generating (relatively) small amounts of electricity to generating huge amounts of electricity. Since you're starting with a small number, the percent increase is going to be large as a matter of course. But, now that we're starting with a large number, subsequent percent increases only come from massive absolute increases. By analogy, if I do one pushup on day one and 10 on day two, I've increased the number I've done by 1000%. However, if I did 20 push-ups on day 3, I would only have increased my total by 100%..

Utility electrical engineer here: You missed a huge category - lack of transmission infrastructure. We lack the long distance transmission line capacity to move power from where renewable energy is being produced, to the cities where it will be used. So we can have enough generation, and the local grid can have the capacity to handle the peak load, but there may be no way to get the power from the point of generation to the point of consumption due to lack of capacity on the bulk electric system (BES).

In Sweden where it´s pretty cold at the moment, goverment has actually told us to not run the vacuum cleaner and other power hungry stuff. In the same time they decommisionned a nuclear power plant. Aaaand they use heavy tax on ICE cars to make us buy electric cars. It´s a bit worrying.

Great video, enlightening as your videos consistently are. Sorry to divert from the topic but where were you driving?

Here in California they are going to outlaw natural gas fired furnaces starting next year. Also, I believe all new homes here are required to be completely electric with no natural gas appliances at all. That is when things are going to get interesting.

"No problem, we just need 30% more power" would be much more convincing if California and New York were not having trouble serving their current needs.

Love your back of the envelope calculations. I got my electrical engineering degree in 1970 and worked for an electric utility for 30 years. I then spent another 15 years working as a consultant to electric utilities, my specialty was remote monitoring and control. While I would be the last to say this problem "is beyond the capability or the American engineer," I would like to point out some issues which you either neglected or glossed over too lightly. I think the key is we have to begin today to solve this problem. Because the electric utility industry is so capital intensive, the old system of public utility regulation, allowed the utility to plan five ten or even 20 years into the future and and make a reasonable profit on that investment. Today we are leaving generation and and a lot of transmission investment to the non-regulated segment which is not promised a reasonable return on their investments. Solar, wind, geothermal and other renewables are great, but some additional base-load is needed too. In the 60's, 70's and 80's many utilities built "fat" into their systems. This "fat" (allowed for the planning for reasonable contingencies) served several purposes. A flatter demand curve is not necessarily always a good thing for the grid. Starting in the 90's that "fat" was sacrificed in the name of cheaper rates. Automation on the distribution side has helped with not having the "fat." Those off-peak hours are important for maintenance (and construction.) I don't know, not my area, but I would look at what running a transformer at a higher load for more hours a day is going to do to the life of that transformer. Utilities are going to need engineers to design, build and operate system additions. Last time I checked we were not turning out new engineers at a good rate and new engineers were not knocking down the doors of electric utilities. I have been completely retired for over five years now, and I am still getting calls wanting me to come back to work because they can't find people. One final point, Norway's scaling problem is not quite the same. I think the absolute numbers, not just the ratios or percentages, do make a difference too. I will close by saying, that you are right, it can be done. And I say it must be done. I just think there is a little more to it.

Wow! From the point of the camera, it seems that entire presentation was done from memory. Maybe there were notes on the dash but it doesn't seem they were frequently referred to during the drive in some beautiful area. What a genius Jason is.

Great explanation video! Well done, mate!

Appreciate the info, you're a good explainer. As a California resident, I fear the day that CA mandates EVs for everyone here, because we are closing plants and importing power already, and rates are only climbing. Not to mention the "aging infrastructure" and the problems caused by that, other than the spectacular seasonal wildfires. CA energy demand is currently "unsustainable" but rather than build more base line power plants, they are increasing the power they buy from other states. As for "predictable" solutions, the only things in CA that is predictable, are vast cost overruns, corruption and delays.

Great video. I have discussed this roughly. Living in Los Angeles we see when there is an unusual heat wave in the summer and everyone is using air conditioners, it often overloads the whole grid system, then try to imagine all those same people plugging in their car while the air conditioner is on. It will definitely be a big and expensive up grade to make electric cars feasible. I'm a retired electrician and I just connected a 40 amp circuit for some one in my apartment building for a car charger. There is definitely not enough electricity in this building for even half the tenants to have EVs.

I just found this channel and subscribed immediately. Not because of the solid content, or the solid data, or even the fact he was able to bust out math equations on the top of his head. But because of all of the above and he was able to do it so casually while going for a Sunday drive without batting an eye lid or missing a word.

Great explanation! Thanks

I'm in Ontario Canada. We already have peak and off-peak hydro charges. It's a nightmare. 5X the charge for on peak times...You know when you want to use it....Or stay up late just to save some money. If the answer is to further capitalize energy, than we're all going to pay much more than we think. Keep the great vids coming. Stay Happy an Healthy.

The electrical code only allows a certain amount of load to be on certain sizes of conductors, transformers, breakers, etc. Increasing load would require major upgrades to electrical infrastructure which takes years and a lot of money. You can't just put a constant 1800VA load on each house in the neighborhood and hope the pole transformer fuse won't blow.

Good video with lots of information. Your point near the end of the video about those who live in apartments (like myself) wouldn't be able to charge at home, is very true. The apartment building I reside in doesn't have 120v standard outlets outside for plugging in to the engine block to keep the engine warm during the winter.

Awesome video. I thought it was a brilliant idea to present the information while driving through what appeared to be a National Park, or something similar. This kept a sometimes dry presentation that is full of data and numbers mixed with very interesting scenery. You either have a wonderful memory on how to present all of that information while driving, or some type of heads up teleprompter. Regardless, the information was great, and a wonderful video about EV. Thanks for the great work!!

In my neighborhood each pad mount transformer feeds four houses. The transformer cannot handle an additional 8 Type II chargers. It's OK if one person gets an electric car. A lot has to be figured out before we can all adopt the new tech. You can't just "pass a law".

We installed an EV charging circuit controlled by the power company. The circuit relay is only on from 10pm - 7am, but the rate is only 3c/KwH. Costs just under $2 to fully charge the Bolt.

You always do such a great job of explaining things That average people don’t consider. Your channel is one of my favorites. Keep up the good work! I believe that countries like Norway also use Waste heat from the Power plants to hit their homes.

Love this channel! Love how well you clearly explain things! 👍

Important information like this requires the whiteboard

6:11 Jason makes a threat. "Now we're at your house" >:D

You have saved me SO much research for this speech I need to write. THANK YOU

I would like to see an update on what BI-Directional On-Board-Charging will do to change this as it's rolled out.

Great video. Thanks for creating this. One big difference between 1960-2000 compared to today is the “war” on coal and nuclear. It was much easier to build either type of powerplant in 1960 or even 1980 than it is today. Michigan has closed at least 15 coal plants since 2015 and on track to close 10 more by 2025. Plus we just idled a nuclear plant. We’re losing lots of capacity and not replacing it.

I'm curious to know how that energy will be generated. From the 1960s to 2000s no one was thinking about climate change, so nothing was stopping the country from using coal or natural gas, which is a fairly easy addition, especially in comparison with renewables. Now, though, the addition would have to be in clean energy, and adding to that there will be pressure to retire some 90% of non-renewable energy currently at work in the US. In other words, I think we need something serious in terms of a technological breakthrough to aid this transition.

Great video, most people have no understanding how a watt is produced or what it can do.

Don't forget the power gains from shutting down the petrochemical industry. Refineries, pipe lines, distribution tank farms will all shutdown. They use a lot of power. The pumps that move fuel in pipe lines are huge.

you are the first channel to address this question I have been asking for about 10 years....welcome to the era of the rolling blackout

Thank you for addressing this! Every time I talk about electric cars, the grid is one of the first things people want to talk about. I'll be sharing this video a lot haha. Loved the air conditioning example too!

And if I decide to go with one of them three or two I am going to tune the heck out of those engines so with your expertise I would love to hear it what you think, especially between the Mercedes and the Toyota. But if you also want to say something about the golf r please do. I love your videos keep making this awesome videos.

Nice educational video. How do you drive on the Historical Columbia River highway and pump out all those stats? Its a great ride and narrow road

"It's something that's predictable" *Texas made this statement not age well in less than a week*

One thing that never gets discussed - how will government TAX electric car energy to make up for the loss of gasoline taxes?

Hi, I follow you on UKposts and I love your videos and I just saw the one that you did talking about the new Toyota Corolla circuit or I should say hatchback I've been wanting to get a hatchback but I am indecided of which one I should get. I really like the one that Mercedes makes which is the 45S and I also like the new Toyota that is coming out and I also wanted a golf r but not anymore

I'm in engineering at school and for fun we just calculated if we could place 1 supercharger (one of those highly fast charging ones) in our capital city ... and if we would do that we found out that the whole power grid of the city could not handle it ... and that's just for 1 supercharger The electricity consumption is no problem ... but the amount of power it pulls from the grid in order to charge your car at such a fast speed?

I learned so much from this video! It answered many question my family and I had. TY Jason

Can you imagine all the extension cables coming out of the apartment buildings in NYC

What a lot of people don't realize is how many big operations out there need to go onto curtailment during days of high energy consumption. I have to run my workplace on our diesel generators all the time. Even in the winter, we have to run our boilers on fuel oil.

Ten years ago an electrical engineer in Sydney Australia, calculated that if the whole city switched to electric cars the transmission grid would fail in a shower of sparks!

FYI: Fossil fuels are the largest sources of energy for electricity generation

Hi, I live in Norway. We currently have a lot of EVs on the road and a very cold winter, which means a lot more expensive electricity (about 7 to 10 times more expensive than in summer). This hasn't created an energy problem, but a power problem. Some areas in our country simply don't have enough power for new power hungry industries to establish themselves because it would overload the grid. Another reason for this is because we decided to electrify our oil platforms, which is silly since we could just burn natural gas from the fields themselves, but now it's just exported and burned abroad. And sure, if you change all petrol cars into EVs, you'll need more energy and power. But you'll also shut down some refineries and other petroleum industry infrastructure that consumes a lot of electricity. That will mitigate some of the problems. There's also an issue with too much power consumption in the morning and afternoon as you mentioned, so we need a smarter grid where some power can be used at night instead.

This ends badly, we’re going to find out the hard way that the electric grid and renewable generation won’t support electricity demand and high penetration of EVs. Lessons learned from what’s happening in Europe will be ignored by many in the US

Many times during the summer California especially has power alerts asking tonturn down A/C et cetera this is a challenge in all the warm climates.

its simple we just need to build a dyson sphere.

Thank you for putting out actual quality information on a topic like this rather than a 30 second rant with no research. It's beyond helpful!

I like the idea of local power generation, which avoids the I**2R losses of long distance transmission, which only serve to warm the feet of birds. Since I had (leased) solar installed before I got my Prius Prime, it wasn't sized to include one, much less a full EV. As it is a leased system, I have a bit less control for my options at this point. I would LIKE to install 6 more (south facing) panels (22 now west facing) and a Powerwall... or two. I am NOT on a TOU plan, but charge at 0100 to take it EZer on the grid.

Great but how does it affect things to calculate by what creates that electricity like oil?

"You want more energy, they'll sell it to you. I don't think that is an issue." Jason has apparently never heard of California.

Me watching this in south africa while having scheduled 2 hour power outages every day

How much energy is used refining oil ? Here in Australia many people use their own home solar (including me) to charge their EVs.

Any updates to this with the CA power companies telling people to not charge their electric vehicles recently?

The 4%/year increase in grid capacity since the 60s is an average that mostly came from coal/nuclear/hyrdro/gas power generation systems. Would be interesting to see how much of the increase has come from wind & solar in the recent years.

So over 40 years our power grew 500% from .76Trillion KW to 3.8 Trillion KW but then grew only 8% over the next 20 years from 3.8 Trillion KW to 4.1 Trillion KW while stressing the grid to its limit and watching the cost of power explode (pun intended) With a growth rate of well under 1% over the last 20 years what would you expect a realistic growth rate to be over the next 20 years? And I'd point out that the point out that the growth rate between 1960 and 2000 was due in large part to the adoption of nuclear power. I'm sorry but you won't see that kind of large growth rate in the future if you're counting on wind and solar...

AC when it got popular was so expensive, not everybody got it at once. So demand went up in stages over time.

I always love your informative videos. There are other factors: changing weather patterns- declining Lake Mead levels can stop hydroelectric power generation for a big part of the Western US population; closing coal plants to reduce power input to the grid; the costs incurred by electric companies for increased demand- and pollution- will be passed on to all consumers, or potentially be limited by environmental regulations. The real irony is that ultimately electric cars are coal cars, as much of the electricity was generated by coal.

Amazing video. I get it but living in LA and having rolling blackouts every year currently puts my faith really low in how well this is all going to play out.

You are missing subtracting the energy used for refining and transport of the fossil fuels being replaced. That is a significant draw on the grid. We will still need refineries for other products that don’t get burned, but the elimination of that energy being used for liquid fuel production should count in as well.

@Engineering Explained Could you make an update to this based on the current state of the electric grid, EV sales, EV charger networks, etc.?

Yes they can with things like time of use billing to flatten out the load curve.

At this point I think the safest bet is to get a plug in electric hybrid. If anything goes wrong along the way you still have options.

You forgot about Work Trucks, Tractor Trailers, Construction & Farm Equipment & Freight Trains to name a few that if were added I am sure the grid could not handle.. I really did like this video & the subject as I was wondering about it...

I was creating a medium article on this. I had some other ideas but this is what I was thinking.

This is encouraging. My next Jeep will be a plug-in hybrid Wrangler, the 4Xe.

We're having huge grid problems up here in the Yukon and the utility company isn't allowing customers to get EV chargers for that exact reason.

Hamsters have large litters, I reckon we can scale up pretty fast.

If everyone ran an AC every day for 4 extra hours than they normally do, I'm not sure the grid could take it The key phrase there is "more than they normally do" - a 50% increase in power usage for all citizens is significant.

But I don't want that golf r anymore because that one is only direct injection and I don't want it direct injection only. I would like direct import injection and I know that the Mercedes 45s it's both in the Toyota as well. Which one would you recommend me?

Finally someone acknowledges apartment dwellers when talking about EV adoption!

You did all this math in your head while driving? I can't even listen to the radio while driving! Impressive! Cheers!

As a retired auto mechanic/coal power plant worker, using EV's in the upper Midwest will show what cold winters will do to battery usage maintaining cabin heat, and more importantly throw road salt at high voltage wiring will result in fires that nobody is talking about! This summer the Midwest power grid is almost at a tipping point. My employer power company is looking into higher fees for higher current needs for EV's in the future.

I'm not sure if this makes any sense, but let's say we replace the standard 120v/15a outlet with a 30a rv hookup. Does it affect charge rates, energy consumption, and would it still be safe? Thank you in advance. :)

Finally someone talking about what actually matters when it comes to EV's

Good video! One aspect I missed is the question how we would produce the extra 30% of electric power. Back in the 1960s, adding more coal or even nuclear plants would be not too difficult. Assuming we want to use clean energy now, and simultaneously replace polluting power plants with clean ones, the job is much more difficult. Not impossible of course, but I fear more complicated than you suggest.

I asked this question to a good friend who is a TVA employee and works with the nuclear facility in my area. and he said. " its not an issue, TVA has many plants on "standby". producing no power and just sitting there, ready to be fired up when the demand requires it". in fact he laughed when I asked this question. and stated " thats just rhetoric by people who have an (monetary) interest elsewhere."

a really simple solution from the end user perspective would be chargers on timers. so you get home, plug it in, and it'll charge at the scheduled time more or less automatically.

Lol, after the "cold snap" in Texas I can tell you, currently, ERCOT won't let this whole EV thing happen here. (The timing of this video is just fantastic!)

Sounds like it's time for a new generation of nuclear reactors using more advanced fuel cycles and designed for enhanced safety.

Also have to remember there are 3 different time zones so each time zone would only overlap by 1 hour if you take 2 hours to charge.

We added solar power to our house 4 years ago, and haven’t painted an electric bill since. We’re planning on purchasing an EV in late 2023-early 2024. Can’t wait to eliminate another expense!

You also have to consider that during this time of 1960-2000, was when we were ramping up nuclear power and hydroelectric electrification. So, it was easy to see how we ramped up. Using wind or solar to create the equivalent power output will not be possible

Electric heavy duty vehicles (semis) would make the electricity demands of personal vehicles look miniscule in comparison.

10:03 The issue with this is that there needs to be a certain amount of buffer on place to support the worst case scenario and to accommodate an increase in electricity usage in the future(population growth, etc…) So no matter what, upgrades are needed. And thus the price of electricity will increase faster than normal

Not forgetting that some EV’s can give power to the grid and possibly power a house in a blackout for 2-4 days.

I just got a flex alert on my phone and it is only mid June and 102F. Good luck with the additional load.

You have to know the current load on the system. A given transformer or line might already be near its limit. Loads like an AC are intermittent. They only draw a lot when the compressor kicks on. A constant load is calculated differently than intermittent loads which are the majority of household load considerations. No doubt some areas will handle it just fine. Others will need their lines or transformer upgraded. The real fun will be supplying parking lots full of fast chargers.

How is this dude quoting precise figures while diving the car? He couldn’t be reading off a transcript. This shows me how well he knows this stuff. I’m impressed.

So as a US based consumer.. *WHY* would I want to change from my ICE cars to an BEV car that has all these limitations on range and timing of charging? How do I benefit?