Monday, September 18, 2017

Exodus


The recent exodus from Florida before hurricane Irma was messy ... primarily from evacuation-routes' traffic jams, long lines for gasoline refills and gasoline shortages. This has got me musing about what an exodus would be like a number of years from now when all we have are autonomous and all-electric cars:

- How far can all-electric cars go then when they are stuck in traffic with their air conditioners going?

- How will autonomous cars handle long lines at charging stations?

- Cars running out of charge likely will be more numerous than cars now running out of gas (which might be carrying extra). Will this be a big enough difference to cause massive gridlock?

- Will charging stations have more plug-in sires than current gasoline pumps per location? What number will turn out to be economical for the charging station owners?

- Electric car charging stations won't run out of power in the same way that gas stations run out of petrol during such a surge in demand ... unless, of course, the electric power grid goes down ... which is likely to happen.

- Then what happens? Obviously (and ironically) gas-run generators won't be able to produce enough output to meet the huge potential demand.

- How will all-electric utility repair trucks keep doing their jobs if the electric grid is down? Once out of power, they will likely be stranded.

Will any of these issues be show-stoppers? I am not sanguine about such a dire scenario.

1 comment:

ChillFin said...

You are absolutely right. If all those people had horses and wagons, the horses could just graze by the side of the road when traffic backs up. It's the future!