Electric Vehicles

[Bibio]

another thing is where does the electricity come from? so unless we go completely renewable then its nuclear or fossil.


if everyone had an electric vehicle and plugged it in when they get home from work it will cause a massive demand on the grid and at the moment there is already a massive demand at T time due to cookers, kettles etc.etc.

[SV650rules]

Still many problems with BEV, not least of which is the cost and then the depreciation ( it is in lead balloon territory, and makes the Hardnot Pass look flat ) - fast charging wrecks the batteries, some cars will only let you do it once a day. Fast to charge to 80% ( which is why all the adverts quote figures like 90minutes to 80% charge, the last 20% takes hours ). Keeping Li-Ion batteries fully charged damages them, discharging then to a low level damages them - most car systems try to keep the battery between 30% and 80% level - so much so that they don't let you charge to more than 80% and when you get to 30% the car stops moving - some have an 'emergency' switch to let you access the last 30% if you are really stuck, The algorithms gradually increase the 80% and decrease the 30% as the battery ages to maintain range. Take a BEV on the motorway at 70 to 80 and expect to get 60% of claimed range ( which is measured at a steady 50mph on a flat track ). Do not try to tow anything with a BEV - they do not do towing, despite the torque available the range will drop to 50%. No charging points, and if we continue to go the way we are with fans on sticks and solar panels ( OK for ornamental garden lights but not for running a country ) there will not be any power to charge them anyway. Other than that BEV are fine and super......

[Luckypants]

Originally Posted by Bibio

the waiting time from empty to full. lets say i'm a muppet and forget to plug the vehicle in when i get home so the next day i dont have enough charge to go where i want.. at the moment its going to take 1hr min to charge the vehicle. or even worse i have to charge on the go so sit somewhere for 1hr twiddling my thumbs. thats the problem with electric vehicles.

Agree thats a problem, but do you forget to charge your phone overnight? I think plugging in the car will become second nature. For me the worry is those unexpected urgent trips, where you have to jump in the car and go.

However, you don't need to twiddle your thumbs for an hour while it charges, just long enough to get enough charge to get where you need to be. That is likely to be less than 50 miles in most cases, so a 10-20 minute charge will probably do it on a public rapid charger. (e.g. VW ID.3 will add 160 miles of range an hour on a 50Kw charger, so you get 50 miles in 20 minutes. A Tesla Model 3 standard range will add 50 miles in 7 minutes at a Tesla Supercharger).

[Craig380]

This feature is interesting: doing a 700-mile round trip to Edinburgh in a Hyundai Kona.

During the trip, the author stopped at eight DC rapid chargers at motorway services, and only two of them worked. That's the big problem - if you need to charge en route, there's no certainty you'll be able to.

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/f...-new-ev-masses

[Luckypants]

Originally Posted by Bibio

another thing is where does the electricity come from? so unless we go completely renewable then its nuclear or fossil.


if everyone had an electric vehicle and plugged it in when they get home from work it will cause a massive demand on the grid and at the moment there is already a massive demand at T time due to cookers, kettles etc.etc.

See my answer earlier to Dave numbers, National Grid say it won't be a problem. All EV's allow for scheduled charging, so everyone goes economy 7 / agile pricing system and charges their car at night when energy is cheapest. Peak demand is 4-7pm. Having an EV also makes solar panels more attractive if you are that way inclined, so another way to reduce the need for fossil fuel generation.

[Bibio]

Originally Posted by Luckypants

Agree thats a problem, but do you forget to charge your phone overnight? I think plugging in the car will become second nature. For me the worry is those unexpected urgent trips, where you have to jump in the car and go.

However, you don't need to twiddle your thumbs for an hour while it charges, just long enough to get enough charge to get where you need to be. That is likely to be less than 50 miles in most cases, so a 10-20 minute charge will probably do it on a public rapid charger. (e.g. VW ID.3 will add 160 miles of range an hour on a 50Kw charger, so you get 50 miles in 20 minutes. A Tesla Model 3 standard range will add 50 miles in 7 minutes at a Tesla Supercharger).

thats still a waiting time and it has already been said about queues. not to mention people running out of charge on the roads.



what i can see happening is charging stations at retail parks to get the bored public to spend more money while they wait.


i'm in agreement that something needs to be done to stop reliance on fossil fuels but until a proper infrastructure has been put in place its not going to happen.


also when we are electric vehicle reliant it will push the price of electricity through the roof due to the reliance of especially our governments taxation system. so instead of paying lets say 15p a unit we will be paying £1 a unit and i also suspect that we will all be given a usage quota and thats why there is such a big push on smart meters. go over your quota and you will be charged £5 a unit.


there is still enough oil reserves to last another few hundred years so all this hurry about electric vehicles is unnecessary.


ooohhh and lets not forget all the jobs its creating and putting even more money into schoolboy warking chums pockets.

[daktulos]

I live in a terrace and sometimes have to park streets away as there's barely enough parking space for the number of houses. Digging up the road to put a charging point in for every space would be crazy hard (and expensive to use as the council would need to recoup the money somehow).

I actually don't see it happening. The 2030 deadline doesn't include hybrid cars, so people will buy those and just use them as slightly less efficient petrol cars.

I think the only hope is for hydrogen engines or fuel cells.

[Luckypants]

Originally Posted by daktulos

I live in a terrace and sometimes have to park streets away as there's barely enough parking space for the number of houses. Digging up the road to put a charging point in for every space would be crazy hard (and expensive to use as the council would need to recoup the money somehow)

There are options to have chargers integrated into street lamps now. They are installed quite widely in Liverpool, where I've seen them in use. These are on terraced streets. London is adopting them widely also. Not a complete solution but its a start. There is also work place charging and public rapid chargers, but granted not as convenient as home charging. This needs to be addressed and I think we should look to Norway and Denmark for ideas as they have much higher EV take up and many more folks living in apartment blocks etc.

[Luckypants]

Seems like I'm the only person thinks EVs are good idea

[Bibio]

Originally Posted by daktulos

I think the only hope is for hydrogen engines or fuel cells.

this.


problem is that all manufacturers are now gearing up to make electric cars. the other problem with fuel cell is the creation of the hydrogen which until there is a passive cheap catalyst found will be more costly to produce than electric. good thing about hydrogen is that it can be created as a powder which you would fill your vehicle with just like at the petrol station at the moment.


at this moment i think hybrid is the way forward until we can get a proper infrastructure implemented for full electric. this plugging cars into charge is not the way forward.