I was just reading this article about how the utility companies are so pleased about these [cough] electric vehicles sucking off the grid. It made me wonder if the fancy recharge app gave you the ability to delay the start time of the recharge until after the peak period. Say, plug it in when you get home, but tell the app to not start recharging until 10PM when usage died down on your local grid. As you'll see in the article, they are pleased for this huge projected growth in demand, but they are also freaking out that clusters of these cars are going to cause huge problems.

http://www.app.com/article/20101202/BUSINESS/12020330/Utilities-thrilled-wary-about-electric-cars

Of course, that's a headline feature.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQeVVqP8nGY#t=05m12s

http://gm-volt.com/chevy-volt-videos/

Nice over all video to show people the simplicity of charging.

At the end they mention the option to set up a schedule or just delay the charge. i.e. Mr Volt, I want to leave at 8am make sure my care is ready by then. Then it will figure out how much of a charge is needed based on current battery level and will start the charge in the 'off peak' hours to get you going by 8am.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfZx6UdGJK8

I was just reading this article about how the utility companies are so pleased about these [cough] electric vehicles sucking off the grid. It made me wonder if the fancy recharge app gave you the ability to delay the start time of the recharge until after the peak period.

Absolutely. You don't even need the smartphone app. Programmed charge time is built in to the car. You can set it from the dashboard touchscreen.


Say, plug it in when you get home, but tell the app to not start recharging until 10PM when usage died down on your local grid.

Absolutely. and if you have a TOU (time-of-use) electric meter, it's cheaper. And, the grid has plenty of excess capacity off-peak and the utilities are encouraging people to do just this. Remember the "give your appliances the afternoon off" ad campaign?


As you'll see in the article, they are pleased for this huge projected growth in demand, but they are also freaking out that clusters of these cars are going to cause huge problems.
http://www.app.com/article/20101202/BUSINESS/12020330/Utilities-thrilled-wary-about-electric-cars
There will only be about 10,000 Volts plus a similar number of Leafs built in the next year. When the numbers get into six figures the utilities might see a slight bump. If all of the gas vehicles were swapped for electrics tomorrow, that would be a problem. When electricity was first wired in to homes, it was just used for lighting. Early appliances had connectors that screwed into a light socket. The grid will adapt. The utilities see the writing on the wall and they're planning for it.