FRANKFURT -- Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk said on Tuesday that electricity consumption will double if the world's vehicle fleets are electrified, increasing the need to expand nuclear, solar, geothermal and wind energy generating sources.
Increasing the availability of sustainable energy is a major challenge as cars move from combustion engines to battery-driven electric motors, a shift that will take two decades, Musk said in a talk hosted by Berlin-based publisher Axel Springer.
"It will take another 20 years for cars to be fully electric. It is like with phones, you cannot replace them all at once," Musk said in a talk streamed on the Bild.de web site, adding that around 5 percent of vehicles are replaced every year.
Once EVs become the norm, electricity from intermittent generating energy sources such as wind and solar will need to be stored, probably through battery technology, he said.
"Together with large battery packs, both…