Car (or bike) Chat!

[Filterlab]

But they will. If cars are in use every day then they need to be charged at night.

A mobile phone is a prime example. Think of one household trying to share one charger. Ain't going to happen, and phones are the pinnacle of battery technology.

[struth]

On a daily basis, cars in the UK drive an average of 20 miles a day, 142 miles a week, 617 miles a month and 7,400 miles a year. At that level a charge will last all week for most cars. Obviously plenty will do more(and may be in the multi car households.) The power companies did state that cars plugged in during peak times may have their electricity removed from batteries to boost needs then topped back up later when power isnt being used.

[Macca]

why would you plug your car in if you didn't want to charge it up? That makes no sense.

There's already a demand problem when everyone goes to make a cup of tea at half-time, how will it work when everyone is charging their car in the evening, which is the same as everyone boiling ten kettles each, all at the same time, and for most of the night?

[dave2010]

To answer the 40 million chargers question...

Homes
Workplaces
Hotels
Holiday lets
Car parks
Roadside parking
Service stations
Supermarkets

All these places need chargers, and really at home it's one per vehicle as most will need charging simultaneously. It's no good having one charger for multiple vehicles.

In the three houses next to and opposite mine, and including mine too, there are eleven cars, with more to come as kids grow up. Multiply that over just the households in the UK as at this year (let's assume 28,000,000): even if there are only an average of two cars per household, that's immediately 56,000,000 chargers, without the other places mentioned.

I'm not disagreeing that 40 million (or more) chargers might be "required" - just that that doesn't equate to 40 million miles of cable.

Having one charger for multiple vehicles can be OK, as long as they don't all require a zero to full charge every day. It would, of course, be a bummer if several need charging at the same time, or if the charger becomes useless - as has ours currently - single point of failure - not good.
Public chargers can be a fall back, but they're not attractive if the cost per KwH pushes the price per mile closer to a fossil fuel car.

I'm not quite as pessimistic as Macca - things don't have to be all or nothing. The total UK energy bill should drop if EVs replace fossil fuel cars - but at the same time capacity for electricity production and distribution would have to be stepped up.

Another option is to reduce people's enthusiasm for sex, so that there are fewer people "requiring" all this activity.

[struth]

why would you plug your car in if you didn't want to charge it up? That makes no sense.

There's already a demand problem when everyone goes to make a cup of tea at half-time, how will it work when everyone is charging their car in the evening, which is the same as everyone boiling ten kettles each, all at the same time, and for most of the night?

Well you may plug it in to say charge it up in middle of night(these things have timers) or you may want it to heat car up in morning for you which it can do when plugged in and it wont impact on your charge status.
But if even you plug in at say 7pm to charge it, and say th grid is struggling it may snatch some of your power in battery, and then replace it later.
Certainly in winter you would likely want it plugged in in morning to heat seats and defrost etc.

[dave2010]

Well you may plug it in to say charge it up in middle of night(these things have timers) or you may want it to heat car up in morning for you which it can do when plugged in and it wont impact on your charge status.
But if even you plug in at say 7pm to charge it, and say th grid is struggling it may snatch some of your power in battery, and then replace it later.
Certainly in winter you would likely want it plugged in in morning to heat seats and defrost etc.

There are tariffs which work if cars are plugged in for long periods - for example Octopus. In theory the deal is that they offer a low rate per KwH - in return for allowing the grid to suck back energy if other demand is high. The small print does have to be examined very carefully though, plus the cycling of the batteries is likely to reduce their effectiveness over time. Currently the evidence is that charging an EV purely for driving purposes doesn't cause unacceptably high battery degradation, but using car batteries as a reserve for the national grid will almost inevitably cause more rapid turn over of batteries - and at additional cost to their owners.

Depending on the small print and rates some of these "cheap" tariff deals are not actually competitive compared to the cheapest options, but of course YMMV. One deal requires a user to install a Tesla battery pack at home as well - but on investigation that turns out to be around a fifth of the capacity of an EV car battery (13-15kWh vs 75kWh estimated for a Tesla Model 3) - and at a cost of over £6k the marginal savings would take forever to recover the installation cost.

EVs and chargers do have timers, but they are not all very effective or sensible. I hear that some apps on mobile phones can work also - but that's introducing yet more complication. For example, on a Tesla it's possible to set a charge start time, but not an end time. Tesla argue that this doesn't matter as generally the charge can be fast enough that all or most of a charge can be done overnight in the off peak tariff period. That doesn't work if one is forced to use a very slow charger (so called "granny charger") which is where we are at at the moment because of the wall charger failure.

Another option which works for some cars - such as Teslas - is to eat out at a place which has a destination charger, so that one's car gets charged up while one is eating - and hopefully the cost of the charge will be absorbed in the cost of a meal. That doesn't necessarily work for other makes of car though, which one could argue gives Tesla a competitive advantage, or alternatively an unreasonable stranglehold on the EV distribution network.

[Macca]

I'm not disagreeing that 40 million (or more) chargers might be "required" - just that that doesn't equate to 40 million miles of cable.

Having one charger for multiple vehicles can be OK, as long as they don't all require a zero to full charge every day. It would, of course, be a bummer if several need charging at the same time, or if the charger becomes useless - as has ours currently - single point of failure - not good.
Public chargers can be a fall back, but they're not attractive if the cost per KwH pushes the price per mile closer to a fossil fuel car.

I'm not quite as pessimistic as Macca - things don't have to be all or nothing. The total UK energy bill should drop if EVs replace fossil fuel cars - but at the same time capacity for electricity production and distribution would have to be stepped up.

Another option is to reduce people's enthusiasm for sex, so that there are fewer people "requiring" all this activity.

I'm not pessimistic, just realistic. I like the idea, less pollution in the immediate environment and much less noise. But the idea that it's possible for everyone to have one is a pipe dream.

Also re the 'energy bill' - fossil fuel is cheap, it's the duty that makes petrol and diesel expensive. If everyone stopped using fossil fuels what's the drop in tax revenue going to be? Where will they make up the shortfall? Taxing electricity.

[struth]

yeah, the tesla chargers seem to be the best(or quickest) and seem to be a decent networfk... Not available anyway on the mobility tho.. Ive pretty much decided to either keep one i have or just get an ice. cost will depend on which and what.. need to wait til q3 comes to see costs etc as they change regularly; bpth price and models(they are often models that are not shifting as quick)
I think this next one may be my last the way things are going

[Pigmy Pony]

why would you plug your car in if you didn't want to charge it up? That makes no sense.

There's already a demand problem when everyone goes to make a cup of tea at half-time, how will it work when everyone is charging their car in the evening, which is the same as everyone boiling ten kettles each, all at the same time, and for most of the night?

The electricity companies could invest in massive diesel generators to provide electricity for EVs during peak times. When all ICE vehicles are banned there should be plenty of fuel knocking about doing nothing. Or am I being naive?

[Filterlab]

I'm not disagreeing that 40 million (or more) chargers might be "required" - just that that doesn't equate to 40 million miles of cable.

Having one charger for multiple vehicles can be OK, as long as they don't all require a zero to full charge every day. It would, of course, be a bummer if several need charging at the same time, or if the charger becomes useless - as has ours currently - single point of failure - not good.
Public chargers can be a fall back, but they're not attractive if the cost per KwH pushes the price per mile closer to a fossil fuel car.

I'm not quite as pessimistic as Macca - things don't have to be all or nothing. The total UK energy bill should drop if EVs replace fossil fuel cars - but at the same time capacity for electricity production and distribution would have to be stepped up.

Another option is to reduce people's enthusiasm for sex, so that there are fewer people "requiring" all this activity.

I didn't say it did equates to 40 million miles of cable. Have a re-read if the post. I just said 'millions'.