Recent letters by Diane Holden (Dec. 28, 2023) and Bruce Young (Dec. 27, 2023) raise questions about electric vehicle use and can be  easily answered.

Holden states the electric grid “cannot handle the need for power now.” False: on the highest-demand day in 2023 (Sept. 7) the grid had 3GW of untapped capacity, according to grid operator ISO-New England. Holden asks if the life of EV batteries is 5-7 years; both my Ford and new Teslas have an 8-year battery warranty.

What to do with batteries when they’re unusable in a vehicle? YouTube has lots of ideas, but one I’ll point out is for grid-scale energy storage to smooth out the supply of intermittent renewables like solar.

Young is wrong when he states our electricity is “primarily created by burning fossil fuels.” In 2022, 64% of Maine generation was from renewables. Young also raises a question about cooling EVs. My car’s air-conditioning uses about 1KW, so, at 50% battery, I could sit in his hypothetical traffic jam for 30-plus hours before I run out of juice. I can imagine him back in the days of the horse-drawn carriage complaining about all these gas stations people want to build.

It’s also crucial to understand that the proposed mandate is not a requirement for consumers to purchase an EV — it’s a mandate on manufacturers and dealers to sell EVs. This difference might sound small, but if manufacturers have to sell something they make it cheaper and more convenient.

Daniel Smith
Yarmouth

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