Challenges to grow with electric cars' sales | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press
When a Chevrolet Volt is plugged into a 240-volt outlet, it will use about 3.3 kilowatts of power, or about the same amount of power as a dishwasher or air conditioner.Deep thoughts at the University of Rhode Island: Fewer showers to help global warming?
Most people are already familiar with what can happen when thousands of air conditioners are plugged in and running at the same time during the summer: brownouts.
"The last thing we would want is for everyone to come home ... and plug them in at 5 or 6 o'clock on a hot, muggy summer afternoon ... when we are at our peak," DTE Energy Chairman Anthony Earley Jr. told the Free Press in an interview last week.
And then there are other challenges: What happens on road trips when drivers need to recharge the battery? What if you live in an apartment without a garage and electrical outlets?
it was behavior around showers that really took researchers by surprise. Based on an initial survey, URI students took showers that lasted an average of 13 minutes each. After the first semester, shower length remained virtually unchanged but students reduced the number they took from 8 to 6.8.
“Shower length is the most difficult behavior to change; it seems to be ingrained in people as a right,” said Scott Finlinson, the coordinator of the project for NORESCO, the energy services company hired by the University. “…while men tend to be willing to reduce the length of their showers, women say that they have too much to do in the shower to cut back on the time spent there.”
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