2/ I get that there is concern the grid might be underprepared for a whole bunch of new demand, especially rurally. But adding a Level 2 EV charger to your home is in the same power range (6-7KW) as a clothes dryer (4-5KW) or stove or forced air heat pump (up to 7KW) or baseboard heaters (1.5KW*?). Where was the fretting the last 40 years as people replaced oil furnaces? Could it be a certain industry did not perceive a “real” threat? Now they do and there is some misinformation being floated?

3/ I believe the wrong questions are being asked because certain sectors are not yet aware of the paradigm shift of EV cars on the *habits* of driving, particularly for ppl living in single detached homes or townhouses with relatively easy ability to add a charger. I don’t charge “just in time” at a station. I charge “during down time” at home (or work). When I unplugged this morning it had finished charging hours earlier. I plugged in just before 5PM. It finished just after 10PM. 7KWx5hrs=35kWh

4/ It’s important to note at this point that studies show cars are parked for as much as 80% or more of their existence. (Horrible Transportation Policy). The only reason we haven’t used that time to fuel our cars at home before is because we can’t all have a huge gas tank at our homes. So we have become used to “Just In Time” filling at a gas station. Well, now we can put some of that car down-time to use. (Note: But Transit would be better!)

5/ The report focused on the grid. Yes, our grid is old and (somewhat) underfunded... but why the pointing to "parochial" systems of Canadian provincial electricity systems? The report sounded more and more like a plant by corporatists to not only befuddle the clean energy transition in false problems, but a setup to justify corporatizing public systems to "speed" transitions. Nonsense! Hands off our Public Utilities, Capitalist Jerks.

6/ But let’s say there is a sudden burden on the grid. How do we mitigate that? Well, there are some traditional methods, like demand pricing of electricity so people are encouraged to use power in low demand times. There is also certainly abundant opportunity for “smarter” L2 chargers to charge more gradually, at lower rates of power. I plugged in at 5PM and left at 6AM. That’s 13 hours when I only needed 5hrs… how can we spread that out to lessen grid impact?

7/ There are also going to be new opportunities thanks to the paradigm shift that using electricity provides. We DO have an incredibly large and robust electricity grid (contrary to this report). There is a long standing movement in city planning to reduce the number of car park spaces (a good thing!) due to incredible land waste. Now, what if we mandated that 20%, 50%, 100% of remaining park spaces have L2 chargers? Spreading the load in time and space. An opportunity only EVs provide.

8/ Also if we want to make our grid more robust, maybe the next time a huge storm takes down a bunch of power lines we start burying them instead of having 100s of thousands of kilometres of vulnerable sticks literally holding up our electricity in the air. Ya, it’s expensive, but so is climate change related weather disaster. The internet says: The definition of insanity is doing something the same way over and over and expecting different results!

9/ Also, is this grid demand problem, a problem because cars are going EV (a consumer problem) or are we perhaps forgetting that the REAL problem we are trying to solve is CO2 emission induced climate catastrophe. Where are the news reports about how the grid in Canada still needs to be decarbonized? Forget our utilities serving people’s home chargers.
What about dirty AB, SK and NB grids interconnecting with BC, MB, and QC as soon as possible to decarbonize and reduce CO2 emissions!?

10/ And finally: The number one way we can make sure our transition to EVs doesn’t over burden our grid is to take the opportunity to USE CARS LESS. We need to massively build out transit so people don’t NEED cars. Government is terrified of annoying the car industry and associated voters… why? Is it 1968? Stop it. Build more buses and trains. We don’t all need, or even want, to all own a car. It’s too darn expensive anyway. Take a bunch of that money and start Moving People.
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