While I commend you for your Tesla purchase, you are remarkably misinformed on a variety of topics, extremely so. It's hard to know where to begin, frankly, but the nature of your comments is such that they cannot be allowed to remain posted without correction.
In random order:
1. The grid is sized for the worst-case scenario, which is a summer afternoon during a heat wave, plus some buffer for various plant outages, etc. It is typically operating at a small fraction of capacity. Many ISO's have web pages that will show, in real time, the load on your local grid. You should look yours up, as it will probably show that it is around 20 or 30% of capacity this morning, and that all "peaker" plants are off line as a result, not to mention other production cutbacks as well.
2. The vast majority of EV's charge at night, while their owners are asleep. (Just like you charge your cell phone.) Utility TUO or TOC plans greatly encourage this by reducing their electric tariffs at night to a fraction of what it is during the day. This is a win-win as the utilities get to even out their load over any given 24-hour cycle, and this is especially because some power plants actually have massive heat sinks used to absorb the output that they cannot shut off during periods of low demand. This is not widely known as it is, frankly, pretty embarrassing to be literally wasting their output on purpose . . . a complete lose-lose situation of power plants producing power that no one wants. (But that all the ratepayers get to pay for
3. Even if your local grid was 100% coal (which it is NOT), we would all benefit from 100% conversion to EV's as the efficiency is so much higher, usually well over 100 eMPG. Thus, even with a 100% coal-powered grid, we would still have greatly reduced GHG dumping. (This can be sourced with Google, but I'm running short on time.)
4. Any conventional ICE vehicle will only produce more GHG's and other pollution as it ages. EV's are the EXACT opposite: as the grid becomes cleaner every year with more renewables (solar, wind, etc.) added to the mix, your EV becomes cleaner every year as well.
5. In our case, we power our two Teslas, and our entire home as well, with Tesla Energy solar panels. Our electric bill was under $30 FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR, and this has been the trend since 2014 when we replaced our last ICE vehicle. Just extrapolate the impact if EVERY home had solar panels, as is now the code requirement for new homes in California btw . . . .
6. We produce so much excess electricity with our solar panels (which is then used by the grid) that we have also removed our two gas water heaters and gas furnaces, going to full electric for both. This further decreases our GHG dumping as natural gas is stunningly bad for the environment, particularly the closer you get to the drill site. (There are plenty of videos showing people lighting their well water on fire from leaking methane, all byproducts of drilling/fracking.) It's hard to be a "part of the solution" if we're still writing a check to a fossil fuel company every month, right?
In closing, the far greater issue here is why the hopelessly incorrect misinformation/FUD you posted was in your head in the first place--it's because fossil fuel interests have paid money for it to be in your head.
Ugent suggestions:
1. Stop watching "Faux "News" as many of their programs are NOT news programs, but Opinion, Commentary, and/or Editorials. Knowing what type of program you are watching is key to education, and to help stop EV misinformation and FUD.
2. Watch this documentary ASAP:
www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/climate-of-doubt/
3. Best to also watch this full documentary on the same topic, but at least watch the trailer (linked at the bottom). If you have the maturity and open mind to realize what has occured to you and literally hundreds of millions of others, it should make your blood boil. The greed of a literally some of the largest corporations in the world has placed our entire planet in great peril:
Sony Pictures Classics presents 'Merchants of Doubt'
And if you think that's bad, just wait until you read about positive feedback loops; this will blow your mind as we may have already passed several tipping points which have set us on a path to ruin--let's hope we've not:
nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/global-warming-effects/
p.s. After you've learned what is going on, PLEASE spread the FACTS far and wide, and ALSO give a lot of folks the opportunity to test drive your new Tesla at the same time--that's an awesome way to mitigate literally decades of intentional misinformation. More on this, the biggest lies in history, here:
Climate Disinformation
