Challenges to grow with electric cars' sales

President Barack Obama and others are calling for a boom in electric vehicle production, which seems simple enough on the surface: Build the cars and plug them in.

If only it were that easy.

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.
MiamiHerald