John & Angela,
The population of BC...British Columbia I presume...is 4.something million. That's the whole province. Metro Chicago where I reside has 9.something million and we're just the 3rd or 4th largest metro area. The entire population of Canada is maybe 10% of the US. Should all of the vehicles in the USA, nearly 260-million, magically become electric overnight...the hit to our grid would likely be a lot more than 19%. What may work on a smaller scale may not work so well on a larger scale.
Even if it was a similar bump to the grid...and who knows if your 19% figure is even accurate...there is still the matter of our lifestyle. The bad analogy for us is this: we dropped Pass Port America after 1-year because at the end of the day their parks weren't where we were and we didn't want to alter our travel plans just to save a few bucks. The point is Americans want to go where they want to go when they want to go the without being required to alter routes to buy fuel or to unnecessarily delay their trip. Imagine if it took 3-4 hours to fill your fuel tank or you had to drive way out of your intended route to get the gas. What sort of effect would that have on travel and business?
As for recycling the batteries...maybe they will, maybe they won't. America is currently buried under mountains of old tires so I can easily foresee mountains of old batteries. The average American keeps their car/light truck for about 10-years now which means those folks will likely experience at least one complete battery swap. And with the average American family owning 2.something cars that's going to be a huge expense. Most people don't save for anticipated large expenses so it will be interesting to see how that works out. The cost of new batteries might be at least be partially offset by not buying gas but you know the road tax will still be in place with a likely increase to offset the loss of fuel sales. The beast must be fed.
I'm going to be 67 in a few weeks. My 28-yr old nephew may see the day when the last gas dinosaur leaves the road but I likely will not. I still recall when T. Boone Pickens was promoting wind energy...it was all the rage, likely to replace nuclear and fossil within our lifetimes. That was just 10-years ago. The most recent figure I could find suggests that renewable energy accounts for just 15% of our supply. Nope, long way to go
I'm glad that you're enjoying your Leaf even with the required change to your lifestyle but for us...until charging stations are ubiquitous, the range of an electric vehicle is 400-miles at interstate speeds and it takes no longer than 15-20 minutes to completely charge a fully depleted battery then they just won't be practical.
