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100% Electric Vehicle - How Much Electricity is Needed [1]

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Date: 2022-11-16

This is a very quick analysis of, if we switched all on road, gasoline fueled vehicles to battery electric then how much more electricity is needed each year.



First a few assumptions.

Only gasoline fueled cars and trucks are replaced

The driving habits remain the same

The replacement electric vehicles are very similar to the gasoline vehicles

The conversion is 9 Kilowatt-hour per gallon of gasoline

I think that the first three assumptions are self explanatory. The third one is an estimate by using vehicles that are available with a gasoline engine and battery electric drive. So if the gasoline drive gets 27 miles per gallon and the BEV drive gets 3 miles per kwhr then the conversion is 27/3 = 9 kwhr per gallon. The factor of 9 is a bit high but that can account for some electrical losses and inefficiencies in transmission and conversion.

Per the Energy Information Agency the USA used 137,306,542,000 gallons of gasoline in 2021. Multiplying by 9 gives 1,236,855,519,900 kilowatt-hours or 1,236 terawatt-hours. That is a lot of electricity. In 2021 the USA consumed 4,115 terawatt-hours. The result is that we need to generate 30% more electricity each year than we do now.

Doing the same for diesel fueled on-road vehicles results in 15% more electricity consumed or 45% more for replacing both gasoline and diesel. We also need to remember that more gasoline and diesel is consumed for other purposes but I don’t know how to estimate the conversion. Also the replacement would not happen in one year but likely take 25-50 years. This is something to keep in mind as we talk about energy transition.

Edit to add — I am definitely not 100% confident in this analysis. If you know of something that gives very different results let me know in the comments. I tried to be as thorough as possible but I certainly could have misunderstood something.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/16/2136457/-100-Electric-Vehicle-How-Much-Electricity-is-Needed

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