Insights from our Editorial Team

This time it's really happening - forget the stops and starts of past years. Electric vehicles in the tens of thousands will roam America's roads in the near future. And utilities - everywhere across the country - had better be prepared or face "havoc."

Readers say the darndest things, typically with great insight into the solution of issues confronting smarter grids. The past week illustrated this point as our correspondents weighed in on variable rates for charging electric vehicles, Secretary of Energy Chu's perspective on coal and the question of who pays for research-and-development when a utility undertakes a smart grid pilot. Don't miss these valuable insights. 

I love cool, fast, expensive vehicles as much as the next person ... and probably even more. (I once proposed the closing of a three-lane section of the highway between Edmonton and Calgary, Alberta, once a month, just for a taste of the feeling of the Autobahn.) But with electric utilities across the country ramping up to add consumers' EVs to the mix, I decided to compare the specs of a Tesla Roadster Sport to a Ferrari 599 GTO, just for fun.

Regulators are focused front-and-center on ratepayers, and the benefits they may or may not see from smart grid. Reid Nuttall, chief information officer at Oklahoma Gas & Electric Company, shares with Christopher Perdue advice for other utilities on working with their utility commissions regarding their smart grid initiatives. Nuttall also shares business challenges, and the utility's changing business model.