At the end of 2014, there were fewer than 1 million electric cars on the road. But over the next five years, electric vehicle adoption increased by an average of 60% annually. By December 2019, there were 7.2 million electric cars in operation globally. (Including mine! I own a Tesla and was one of the earliest voices to champion the company's stock.) Today, about 40% of all EVs are in China. But Europe and the U.S. are both experiencing rapid EV growth. The car-buying public is jumping into EVs in a big way. And utilities have been able to handle the increased load to charge them... so far. There could be a problem brewing for utilities. And many aren't doing anything proactively to head it off at the pass. The next focus for EV manufacturers is electric buses (e-buses) and electric semitrucks. They're the next big disruption coming to the transportation sector. It's all very exciting, but let's look at what's ahead for the electric grid. Houston, Do We Have a Problem?Drivers "refuel" EVs by plugging them into a home charger or a charging station on the road. Regardless of where drivers plug in, the power comes from the electric utility's grid. Recharging EVs presents a serious, growing problem for utilities because their grids have design limits. Any given grid can supply only so much power. If that level is exceeded, wires can overheat. That often causes circuit breakers to trip open. At that point, the utility may have no choice but to shut down the grid or institute rolling blackouts. (That's exactly what's been happening in California as a result of the heat wave and wildfires it's experiencing.) Now, interest in e-buses and electric trucks is starting to ramp up. Companies that want to reduce their transportation carbon footprints are placing orders. But most utilities aren't planning for the added electricity consumption, which could keep e-buses and electric trucks off the road for a long time. Fleets of these vehicles would need a lot of power for battery recharging. For example, a Tesla Model 3 battery has 75 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of capacity. Contrast that with the Proterra Catalyst 40-foot e-bus. It sports a 660-kWh battery. That's nearly 10 times the size of the Model 3's battery. Charging a fleet of e-bus or electric truck batteries similar in size to the Proterra Catalyst's can have a huge impact on a utility's load. For example, the bustling international city of Amsterdam has an e-bus transit fleet of 100 vehicles. These buses serve the city's busy Schiphol Airport. They run six different routes around the airport. And they operate 24/7, every day of the year. | 
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