Back of envelope numbers.
There may be some wriggle room, but the orders of magnitude cant be too far out....
Consider the typical filling station, let alone a motorway one.
Combine the typical range that the
average (IE not the super expensive high-performance ones) consumer EV is likely to be capable of and the speed at which it can be recharged.
"Little" station just down the road has 8 filling "Slots"
To have a similar utility in terms of charging capacity, it will need 2/4 times as many slots due to range limitations and another 2/4 times as many slots because of charging time.
(Oh and before anybody mentions home charging, While this reduces the charge point problem to some extent, it doesn’t really solve the overall electrical capacity one of course. It just sends it somewhere else)
IE up to 16 times as many slots.
To achieve the same effective refuelling capacity (Time taken x frequency of refuelling) my local filling station will need nearer 100 charge points (Perhaps even more).
Let us ignore the fact that it simply doesn’t have room for this.
Now, assume they each have up to 100 Kw charging capacity.
That means that for even a "Small" recharge station to have the same overall capacity as a petrol/diesel one, it will need an electrical supply capacity in excess of 10MW
That will need its own personal substation, with its own personal 33Kv supply. (Maybe even higher if it is a long way from the local "Big" substation!)
Apply the same numbers to a motorway services, which currently most people will try to avoid like the plague because of high costs, Now factor in even more extra capacity because people will need to make multiple recharges during long journeys, rather than fill up before setting off and filling up at the destination, because with EV's they will have to because of range limitations,
To meet the requirements of increased demand and those of increased usage. To achieve similar utility, a motorways services might need a 50-100 MW supply or even more.
We are looking at small power station levels of power here. Enough to run a small city.
Now multiply this for all current filling stations all over the country. serving say 30,000,000 cars
In the Rainbow Unicorn matrix world, all a politician with a classics degree needs to do is sign a pice of paper and it will be done.
Back in the real world however, I really cant see it.
Even if we built the 30 or more Sizewell B's that would need to operate flat out to meet this overall increase in daily electricity demand we would still have to massively increase the capacity of the entire electrical distribution system. Not just at national grid level but right down to door to door domestic level.
And to try to achieve this using mainly/only "Renewables", especially at a time when there is also pressure to replace gas with electricity for space heating is utter fantasy.
What all this illustrates is the extent to which most people grotesquely underestimate the massive utility that we get from fossil fuels and the near insurmountable task it will be to find an even only reasonably practical alternative.
And no. Hydrogen is not going to do it either It is a rotten fuel for transport vehicles, fine for rockets (Though even then not always) but rotten for transport generally.
