On street vehicle charging points

[gzoom]

constant charging of a li-ion cell from flat to full, is the quickest way to reduce it’s lifespan,

Why would you need to constantly do that with new EVs having 200miles of range? Are you really driving none stop 400 miles+ every day?

BMS software also limits the rate at which EV packs recharge, most will slow down significantly after 80% for the reason you have pointed out, but again, do you actually need to rapid charge to 100% every time you recharge?

A far more common way to degrade EV batteries is actually not to charge it all - so left sitting on a dealer forecourt for months with a dead battery, or to keep it at 100% charged all the time - a reason why laptop batteries die so quickly.

The battery 'concerns' really have zero real life impact, especially if EVs remain at their current price levels, as most car buyers (especially used car buyers) wouldn't be able to afford them.

 

[gzoom]

Which is exactly what I said flat to full will kill it, as will I’ve got a long way to go, I’ll quick charge it between jobs, then go to the next one, put it on a fast charge again ad infinitum in order to get round your schedule and get back home again

How are you planning to quick charge it between jobs? A DC rapid charger even at 50KW needs industrial levels of electricity supply, a local 3 phase supply will let you install a 22KW AC charger - which will actually add quite a decent amount of range in 1-2 hrs.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Battery technology has only improved slowly over the years - but the BMS systems have improved toa huge extent as more knowledge is gained - and the bigger the battery, and more expensive the device, the bigger and more intelligent the BMS they can afford to put in it.

Hence my ebike has the same battery tech as my previous one from over 10 years ago - but the batteyr is far more difficult to screw up
unless, of course, it is left close to minimum charge for months on end
I contacted Bosch to ask about charging regimes - they reckon leaving it on charge overnight is just fine as the BMS and charger control the charge rate and cut it off when it needs to - rather than the sort of thing you would get ages ago.

They also reckon that if a battery is used to 50% left then charged to full - that counts a 0.5 of a cycle and not - as some people think - a full cycle every time you charge it. This again is apparently due to better BMS/charger technology.

On that basis there would be no harm in automatically putting teh battery on home charge every night just in case you might need it tomorrow

 

[icowden]

Which is exactly what I said flat to full will kill it, as will I’ve got a long way to go, I’ll quick charge it between jobs, then go to the next one, put it on a fast charge again ad infinitum in order to get round your schedule and get back home again

No. Flat to full will not kill it. It is *not* a mobile phone. It *cannot* go from Flat to Full. Constant fast charging can be problematic. Regardless of whether the Chinese are the largest producer of EVs in the world, MG is an ICE company with expertise in ICE cars. A company like Tesla has 20 years more experience.

Did you even read the article about the EV taxi firm? They fast charged their vehicles constantly but had *no problems*. And that's with Nissan Leafs with now 8 year old technology. So a real world use case shows that your fears are unfounded. Their only problems were that they had no problems. Very little servicing, no burned out clutches, incredibly low energy costs and just a little learning curve to adjust to electric.

In your use case you will seldom drop below 20% - so you will never be doing flat to full. You said yourself. You are likely to be full in the morning, and then (if needed) fast charge between jobs. So most of the time your battery will be somewhere between 20% and 80%.

And yes, the current cheapest Tesla is the Model 3 which is about 40k (still not cheap!). Musk originally said there was going to be a 35k Model 3 but that has been scrapped. Instead they announced that they were considering a 25K Tesla but that was about 3 years away. They are still working on building up the Y and the Truck.

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

Whilst we were in Northumberland last week, there was a surprising amount of electric cars around
Teslas being the vast majority

One owner, of I think a Hyundai(?), in the village we were staying (Felton) had a great idea to minimise the trip-hazard, for on-street charging - not that we saw many walk along that pavement

 

[cougie uk]

I noticed that there's a few electric cars now by my mum's house. No drives so they will be charging on the road.

You could probably do something with a cast iron arch by the gate. Run the flex over the top and rotate it over the pavement. And then use it as a decorative arch the rest of the year.


If only I was a blacksmith.

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

Well, I'm sorta going electric next week hopefully when I get a new company PHEV. Biggest fuss so far has been arranging installation of the home charger - the installing company are terrible to deal with. As a company car, I need it to be capable of 800 mile weeks with the occasional 300+ mile day so a pure ev wasn't suitable. Also need to get the wife's power wheelchair in the back, hence the big Outlander. All very exciting though.

 

[Electric_Andy]

We stopped at the services at Tebay for my wife to use the loo and topped up the charge

my worry would be, where are all these charging points going to go? I've seen 3 at a service station. Now how many petrol pumps are there usually? 10-15? If we're going to see 10 or 15 charging points in each garage then fine. If you're queuing for petrol pumps it might take 10 minutes. But if you're behind 3 people waiting for a charge point, it could take anything from 30 - 120 minutes. That is in the distant future of course where EVs make up 50% or more of so cars.

 

[figbat]

my worry would be, where are all these charging points going to go? I've seen 3 at a service station. Now how many petrol pumps are there usually? 10-15? If we're going to see 10 or 15 charging points in each garage then fine. If you're queuing for petrol pumps it might take 10 minutes. But if you're behind 3 people waiting for a charge point, it could take anything from 30 - 120 minutes. That is in the distant future of course where EVs make up 50% or more of so cars.

Yes, but remember you can only fill a tank at a filling station, whereas you can charge a car at home, at the shops, at McDonald’s and so on as well as at a filling station. And you can be doing other things whilst it is charging.

 

[cougie uk]

my worry would be, where are all these charging points going to go? I've seen 3 at a service station. Now how many petrol pumps are there usually? 10-15? If we're going to see 10 or 15 charging points in each garage then fine. If you're queuing for petrol pumps it might take 10 minutes. But if you're behind 3 people waiting for a charge point, it could take anything from 30 - 120 minutes. That is in the distant future of course where EVs make up 50% or more of so cars.

The petrol station by me has a M&S shop as part of it. So it has parking for 10 cars or so. I think the pumps only take 8.

There's more space for charging EVs than there is getting petrol.

Take the pumps away and you'll be able to fit in a lot of parking for EVs.

You'll still want the shop there - add a coffee bar and you'll be recharged by the time you've done your shopping or had a coffee.

In reality I'm rarely charging away from home. I don't miss petrol stations.