Electric cars, and the national grid!

[anthonyTD]

Hi All,
Something i have had a Bee in my bonnet about for a while now, Electric cars, and the posibility of all of us being able to transfer over to using one within the next 15 years or so.
I, as i am sure there are many others here who have given the logistics some thought; think it a near imposibilty for it to work with our current infer-structure, i was listening to radio 2 this morning, where they were discusing that very topic, and one guy put things into perspective; he said and i quote; if just one person in every household in Britain who currently use a car was to change to a fully electric vehicle; at 6-00pm when most are home from work, and therefore are wanting to plug in the car to re-charge, it would quite posibly cause a widespread blackout, now,,,he went on the explain that for it to have any chance of working, we would need at least another 4 nuclear power stations, or around 9 fossil fuel power stations to cope. The so called informed one on there making the arguement for the electric car explained; well you may plug your car in at that time, but it won't get charged untill the grid can cope, and also; if the charging system detects that you have a near full battery, there is a posibilty that the charging system may even take energy from your batteries to supply the grid, or to charge batteries in other cars on the same system!
Now, anyone who has thought about this, and have an idea of how much energy electric cars currently need to deliver any sort of useable mileage, will have realised that its a lot, and therefore the electricity needed, or should i say; the Kilowatt hour it takes to in affect reverse the chemical reaction of the battery, and therefore; allow the battery to re-charge, is many kilowatts, for hours. therefore some of the so called fast charger systems currently used to charge these cars are on par with leaving your shower on for hour after hour, i know they are relying on the fact that many cars wont need to be re-charged from scratch,ie, they may still have half charge, but come on, as more and more of us are expected to go over to this technology;how many cars are eventually going to need to be fully charged on a regular basis ?
I know this post is a bit of a rant, but its one of those subjects that has been annoying me now for a few years, and there still doesent seem to be any answers coming forward that look to me as sustainable long term answers that i can see, ofcourse there's Hydrogen technology too, but again; what energy source are they going to use to create that ?
Please join in and discuss.

[CageyH]

You are forgetting the enviromental impact of the battery as well. Will the post Brexit UK be able to import power from Europe at a reasonable.cost, like it does now?

Will the government price the normal.person out of car ownership, forcing the majority back to public transport?

Interesting tomes are ahead for sure.

[struth]

battery tech is improving all time and a new lithium/oxygen version has been made to work, so that tech will no doubt get followed up now more vigorously.
10 years from now we might not recognise the tech; or of course it might just be all smoke and mirrors from the politicians, which is actually quite likely

[anthonyTD]

Ohh, i understand that aspect of it too, but the actual logistics of things, as far as the energy side, is where my main concerns are, as far as this thread is concerned, for now anyway!

You are forgetting the enviromental impact of the battery as well. Will the post Brexit UK be able to import power from Europe at a reasonable.cost, like it does now?

Will the government price the normal.person out of car ownership, forcing the majority back to public transport?

Interesting tomes are ahead for sure.

[anthonyTD]

Indeed Grant, but you still have to get the energy to charge the battery, its all relevant i know, but untill you make things much much more efficient than they currently are, you will still need the same energy to travel 1 mile at a time.

battery tech is improving all time and a new lithium/oxygen version has been made to work, so that tech will no doubt get followed up now more vigorously.
10 years from now we might not recognise the tech; or of course it might just be all smoke and mirrors from the politicians, which is actually quite likely

[CageyH]

Supercapacitors are one possible solution.
The national grid will need a major upgrade for sure.

[struth]

Indeed Grant, but you still have to get the energy to charge the battery, its all relevant i know, but untill you make things much much more efficient than they currently are, you will still need the same energy to travel 1 mile at a time.

current thinking is that hydrogen is a non starter, so that leaves batteries, or no cars at all...we could go back to horses but they probably produce more pollution overall than cars. hence the smoke and mirrors... they are just playing a political game

[walpurgis]

Now of course, is the time to invest in an old school, non-turbo diesel car. A nice low mileage example.

Diesel commercial and farming vehicles will be around for years yet, so fuel won't be in short supply.

A good solid Golf or Polo 1.9 circa 2005 should do nicely. 60 mpg and bulletproof mechanics and spares will not be a problem.

The natural attrition of other diesel cars will set in soon, so any environmental arguments will rather fall down.

[Ali Tait]

[struth]

You are forgetting the enviromental impact of the battery as well. Will the post Brexit UK be able to import power from Europe at a reasonable.cost, like it does now?

Will the government price the normal.person out of car ownership, forcing the majority back to public transport?

Interesting tomes are ahead for sure.

sure that is a possible intention.. of course they will have problems with moving workers etc, but of course politicians wont have that worry.. im glad i will be dead