Yes, great, they first push you into an electric car, but Utrecht's power grid can't handle it.
In Rogers' (marketing) adoption curve you are dealing with Innovators (men with strange glasses who voluntarily started driving a Renault Fluence), Early Adopters (men with additional tax allergy who started driving a Model 3) and the early majority: those people who now switch to an EV. Those early adopters are by far the most important. The success of the product depends on their opinion (and therefore purchasing behavior).
Well, we're all in love with our EV, so it's all hosanna. At least, that's what you would think. But there are disadvantages appearing left and right. And yes, today we have another one for you. One of the advantages of an EV is that you can always leave with a full battery. At the end of the day when you get home, you put it on the charger and you can charge the battery to the brim, so that you immediately start with 300 km (or other disappointing range) of real range.
Utrecht already cannot handle electric cars
But in Utrecht you have to hope that is the case, because the power grid can already not handle the EVs. That reports RTL News. That is a bit ironic, because Utrecht is a green stronghold where progress is of paramount importance. Unfortunately, in Utrecht they had also not taken into account that all those EVs need electricity. The power grid is already overloaded to such an extent that measures are needed. One of them is to restrict public charging stations. Yes, already.
This is because the entire municipality is switching to sustainable energy. So no more cooking on gas, but induction. Or what about the use of heat pumps. And of course the embrace of EVs. It all consumes electricity and the infrastructure is far from prepared for this. Demand is increasing much faster than capacity can be added.
Power shortage
And speaking of construction, the power shortage also means that no additional houses can be built. Project developers are at a loss because they can build in Utrecht, but cannot get electricity. So they have to look elsewhere because you really seem to need a connection to the power grid.
The municipality of Utrecht must solve it now. And because they are politicians, they do what they always do: they take the car seriously. In this case the electric car, that is. The charging stations are limited in capacity between 4:00 PM and 8:00 PM. Then the power demand is very high and yes, that should not go into a car battery, of course.
Scarcity will only get worse
Naturally, the responsible councilor points out to the bigwigs in The Hague that they should do something about it. Until then, you have to seriously consider whether you want to drive an electric car in Utrecht, because charging is therefore only possible to a limited extent (or very expensive).
According to the responsible councilor, the shortage of electricity in Utrecht will continue in the coming years. We are curious how consumers respond to this when they have to purchase a new car, because it is not exactly advertising, but rather a reason to choose a car that always works.
Photo credits: Loading LaFerrari in Utrecht by @terenz via Autoblog Spots.
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