Electric Vehicles
 

A discussion brewed up on the SOTD thread about electric vehicles, so I started this thread to move the discussion here.


What charging problem? :D

Re: Smile of the day - What is yours?
 

He's probably referring to lack of charging points.

I.e. you only have on-street parking and the charging point nearby has been in use since Monday because Doris from 3 doors down might need to pick up a prescription next week.

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Re: Smile of the day - What is yours?
 

As Grant says. I use hotels a lot and in the last couple of years I've only been to one hotel that had charging points. They will catch on though and then charge through the nose for the service like they did with wifi.

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Re: Smile of the day - What is yours?
 

They already had phone lines to the houses though (okay they did do a fibre rollout...still ongoing 15 years later)

I don't think the impact and cost of the infrastructure needed should be underestimated. Hotels and service stations aside, the draw a car charger port takes is massive - if every house hold did it (over night) I don't think the grid could keep up...I also wonder if the street cabling could take it!

My main concern is the fact that I don't think battery technology is quite there (hopefully would be soon?!). We've gone from burning fossil fuels to mining lithium (also finite) and burning fossil fuels to charge the lithium. I've not looked at how much lithium goes in a battery and how long a battery last etc but I'm hoping someone's done the sums! I'm somewhat sceptical 10 years is enough to do all of the above.

Aware I now sound like a whackjob conspiracy theorist after my oil monkey joke..

Re: Smile of the day - What is yours?
 

If electric bikes were cheaper and had a bit better range I'd go for one. Some cars have the range but are still too expensive for me to justify with the few miles I drive. One comment I saw was that electric cars are no more expensive than petrol over the long term. This may well be true but I have never bought a vehicle based on how much it will cost long term - the deciding factor has always been the upfront cost.

Re: Smile of the day - What is yours?
 

The national grid have said on multiple occasions that the grid has the capacity to cope. Especially so as most people will charge overnight when load on the grid is much lower. e.g. https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories...ehicles-busted

What is the concern here? Most EV manufacturers offer an 8 year warranty on the battery / drive train. Charging is up to 350Kw now (Taycan) although rare. Ranges up to 400 miles on a charge are now available.

Batteries are recyclable and all the lithium can be recovered and re-used. So while it is a finite resource, we should be OK. The use of cobalt in EV batteries is going down as we find new chemistries and will be eliminated very soon. The cobalt is also recoverable.

There is no doubt Tesla leads the way in mass market battery technology but others are catching up. If the 'glass battery' can be proved and produced in volume, it will change everything.

UK energy mix is heavily reliant on fossil fuels, but not as heavily as people think. The UK has not burned any significant coal to generate electricity since February and that's a good thing as coal is the dirtiest and least efficient fuel. Wind and Solar now account for the majority of power in low demand periods. The government's Green Strategy announced yesterday will direct a lot of investment into getting the green power up towards 100%. A usefule link to see how we are doing. https://gridwatch.co.uk/

Re: Smile of the day - What is yours?
 

There was the same problem with petrol cars when they first came about. No garages / fuel available in certain areas. There were similar expeditions to try to prove that petrol travel was possible over distance as are happening now with electric.


Some interesting discussion on it in one of Teapotone's podcasts...

Re: Smile of the day - What is yours?
 

I've got one of these in my garage. Range is very limited.

https://i.postimg.cc/qvp4D949/tam58384.jpg

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Re: Smile of the day - What is yours?
 

It does say they aren't quite there yet, but sounds optimistic!
Not just grid supply, I was thinking if every house hold quadruples their draw and does it at once, when they get home at 7pm the street wiring might not be up to it .


Lots of things, mainly the time taken to charge. If I'm driving to Scotland and I run out of fuel I pull over and fill up for 15 minutes, I ideally don't want to be waiting 6hrs for a charge. While you can plan trips but life doesn't always work like that + couriers/taxis (although they may be automated soon!) etc time is money. And then general performance, cost, weight amount of materials needed to produce them. Though I don't think they are too far off this. While I like the idea of them,I wouldn't want to depend on one yet.

I think it would be cost prohibitive for a lot of people too. I'm not saying anyone can buy a Tesla in the first place, but at £5k for a battery every 8 years, buying a second hand one is not an option for a lot of people with the curent tech. I bought my car for about that 11 years ago, it's done 200k - I've literally bought nothing other than tyres, springs, bushes and pads & disks for it - not even a clutch which would be a few hundred...but it's not thousands. Unless of course I'd save 5k on fuel!
That said I'm optimistic batteries will improve enough in the next few years, I was more concerned about infra.


This is what I'm hoping for. I hadn't thought about lithium recovery, that's a biggy,
That is useful. Mine is 100% green at the mo, I was worried that may not be possible to retain at peak hours with leccy cars


Edit: sorry I read that as 8 year life expectancy rather than warranty. Have they revised that, I was under the impression they only lasted 5-10 years. + If the link you posted is right it probably would save me about that much on fuel.

Re: Smile of the day - What is yours?
 

Yes they have. There are many documented cases of Teslas still going strong after 300+k miles and as the Model S is now 8 years old, we have real life experience. Here is a roadtest and assessment of an old Tesla https://youtu.be/m9VxDzr7prc


If there is a risk of derailing the Smile thread, I'll open a new one and move these posts. What do people think?