ELECTRIC CARS COULD BRING problems to the grid. “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.” Setting things up for off-peak charging can fix this, and there are even prospects for turning this bug into a feature, but . . . . (Via The Blogging Prof). I had a post on this problem a while back.