One of the biggest arguments against electric cars is that all those cars plugging in at the same time will overload our already beleaguered electric grid. And there might be some truth to that. When the flat screen television became popular almost overnight, some local grids were nearly overwhelmed, though eventually they adapted. But an electric car (depending on the battery size and how much it has been depleted) could possibly double home electricity use. With many utilities shifting to variable pricing based on time of day usage, that could start to add up the dollar bills, and fast.
Foreseeing this problem, Ford announced at yesterday’s news conference that they would be partnering with Microsoft to use the Hohm electricity-monitoring software to help regulate and optimize electric car charging.