Electric cars -- where's the power come from?

Michael Laprarie at Wizbang finds some confirmation of what he's thought about electric cars:

One of the questions that I have asked repeatedly when blogging about electric cars, both here and at my personal blog, is how will we generate and distribute enough affordable electricity to keep electric cars running? Recently, the Detroit Free Press is asked the same questions:

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.

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.

....

Naturally everyone's energy consumption is different, but during the hottest days of summer (July - September), air conditioning adds about $250 extra dollars a month to my electric bill. My head hurts when I imagine an electric bill that includes air conditioning plus 8 to 12 hours of charging per day for two electric cars.

Hmmm.  Running some numbers: at 10¢/KWH, 3.3 kilowatts adds 33¢ per hour to your bill.  A ten-hour recharge costs $3.30.  If you use the car six days a week, that's $20 per week, or $86 per month.  Increase the cost of electricity, and you increase the hit on your electric bill.  If a cap-and-trade system increases the cost of power by 25%, add another $20 or so to the cost of running each car.

The extent to which gasoline-powered vehicles, and the range of their performance, impacts our daily lives as Americans cannot be underestimated. Replacing those vehicles poses an enormous technological and financial challenge, one that our government needs to prove that they fully understand before they commit to something that we may deeply regret later.