Over a million electric car owners told they cannot charge their vehicles as grid can't cope.
Just months after Californian authorities announced forced their residents into buying an electric car by defacto they have been told that they can't charge them because the grid can't cope.
California state government declared a climate emergency in 2021, using it to issue a series of bans, laws and diktats to stop energy use from fossil fuels. Among them was a total ban on gas powered cars by 2030 which had residents scurrying to electric car dealerships to purchase a 'green' vehicle.
The Green policy, which sees gas and coal fired power stations shut down in favour of wind and solar has vastly reduced supply. California's network now has nowhere near the capacity to cope with demand. The continued summer heat has put what authorities refer to as ‘excessive demand’ on its dwindling supply. The 'solutions' to this disaster are 'flex alerts',
Seemingly innocuous word that Orwell himself would have been proud of. 'Flex alerts' are really diktats telling customers not to use electricity because the green grid can't cope. The term is also going to be used for total power-cuts which won't be referred to as blackouts but mere 'flex alerts'.
Electric car owners have been told they can't charge their vehicle between 4pm and 9pm, due to high demand. This means that many electric vehicles are now useless as they require up to 14 hours to fully charge at home.
Commentators have suggested that forcing residents to swap their gas powered car for an electric one was a cynical ploy to take control of people's travel habits, and as thousands of Teslas sit idle unable to be driven, it looks increasingly like they were right.