On street vehicle charging points

[DRM]

DRM that's crazy. Change your mindset. It's not the same as petrol and the game isn't to match the filling up in a few minutes.
Imagine the cost of all the technicians and forklifts to swap batteries in and out.

I can charge my car anywhere there's electric.

If you do a lot of miles then you need to fork out for a big battery car. If you do a normal mileage then a 40kwh is ample.

The average car drives 10,000 miles a year. 200 miles a week. Some cars would only need a charge once a week.

The biggest battery available would be no good for many business vehicles, in my case I can easily rack up over 1000 miles a week when I’m up & down from the North East, your example wouldn’t get me to my first job! even going to the East Coast is around 750 miles a week, I’m currently at over 6000 miles since starting back at work in the new year, EV’s are not the panacea that people think they are, building a battery into the cars chassis is the real madness, once the cells starting failing, and they do, all your left with is a pile of expensive scrap, the replacement cost alone is horrific and will mean many cars are scrapped long before they are worn beyond repair, how’s £14,000 for a 24 volt li-ion battery sound ?, a separate rented battery isn’t your problem, also you don’t even need technicians to lift a battery out, some of the most ham fisted Neanderthals in many warehouses can manage to do it, and the charging is monitored and tells the operative which battery is ready at a glance I’ve seen them doing it, an EV is ok for a short commute, useless for long trips, I honestly think we’ve all been sold a pup with this ev nonsense, there isn’t enough grid capacity for starters if everyone ran an ev,
never mind where all the rare earth minerals are going to come from

 

[cougie uk]

Clearly you're the exception. Even so a Tesla charged every night would do you. I'm saving £150 a month on electric Vs petrol and that's on a slightly above average mileage. You'd save far more.

The bloke at the National Grid tells us there's enough capacity to charge cars so what information do you have ?

There's people running EVs as taxis with 100s of 1000s on the clock.

Battery warranties are 8 years typically and it's not rocket science to replace them. It's just not much of a demand for it at the moment as the batteries are fine.

No car manufacturer has thought to swap batteries over and you'd expect they'd have looked at it properly. Forklifts are a lot different from consumer vehicles.

 

[DRM]

Clearly you're the exception. Even so a Tesla charged every night would do you. I'm saving £150 a month on electric Vs petrol and that's on a slightly above average mileage. You'd save far more.

The bloke at the National Grid tells us there's enough capacity to charge cars so what information do you have ?

There's people running EVs as taxis with 100s of 1000s on the clock.

Battery warranties are 8 years typically and it's not rocket science to replace them. It's just not much of a demand for it at the moment as the batteries are fine.

No car manufacturer has thought to swap batteries over and you'd expect they'd have looked at it properly. Forklifts are a lot different from consumer vehicles.

I doubt work will order a fleet of £100,000 Teslas to use as vans! as for power, thats from asking the question when on a job at Ferrybridge power station, they only generate just enough to cope with what we use now, plus they are closing down Drax, not converting it to burn waste as the others do, so thats less capacity, I've never seen an EV taxi, plenty of Prius & Auris Hybrids, again talking to a customers employee who had a Nissan Nv100 inflicted on him described it as utter useless sh*te, no useful range, hours on end to charge up, and as I said where are all the minerals going to come from to build all these batteries.
Fork lifts are also very close to consumer vehicles, they use the same components, same motors, same A/C chopper boxes, they only run at higher voltages, in an effort to get more range, the technology is nothing new, it's all been in the materials handling industry for at least 22 years when the first A/C powered trucks came out, car manufacturers have not designed anything, they've just used whats already out there

 

[davelincs]

What about the drivers who will no doubt run out of battery life whilst driving miles from anywhere?
im sure if people can run out of petrol / diesel people will run out of battery life

 

[icowden]

as I said where are all the minerals going to come from to build all these batteries.

It's a fallacious argument. You don't need to replace every ICE car with an EV. You need to look at what Tesla are doing.
At the moment they are selling cars to people. People have to drive cars. Once they achieve level 5 autonomous driving, you will start to see fleets of autonomous taxis. Why bother to own a car when you can summon one and drive to your destination?

Yes, if you are particularly rural, or a tradesperson you are likely to still need your own vehicle, but the most likely scenario is that many millions of people who currently own cars, won't need to own them any more. What does your car do after all? It sits on your driveway or in a parking space for 23 hours out of 24 for most people.

My car goes from home to my wife's school - 15 mins. Back again - 15 mins. Shopping (20 mins). Getting stuff from Tesco that we have run out of 12 mins. 62 minutes use in a 24 hour period. Less if I wasn't so lazy and took the bike to the shops

My car costs about £4.50 a day (after full purchase costing £15,000). A taxi at the moment involved paying for the driver. Without the driver those trips in a summoned robot car could be substantially cheaper. The robocar can take itself off to charge when it needs to. So if I can do the same trips for £3 a day, owning a car is a waste of money.

So you don't need 1 charger for every car and every house to own two cars. You greatly reduce the number of vehicles on the road. You don't need all those parking spaces. Traffic jams reduce (after all - all the cars know where they are going and where all the other cars are).

Plus you have the ever increasing battery efficiency and range. Cobalt is being removed from battery development. Year on year, battery development is now the hot property. Oil is last years news.

 

[icowden]

What about the drivers who will no doubt run out of battery life whilst driving miles from anywhere?
im sure if people can run out of petrol / diesel people will run out of battery life

It's harder to do when your car is actively telling you how much charge is left and where the next charger is. Otherwise - as you have pointed out. No change.

 

[icowden]

I doubt work will order a fleet of £100,000 Teslas to use as vans!

Yes that would be silly. They would get Tesla Vans instead, powered by Solar. Massively cost effective.

 

[icowden]

The biggest battery available would be no good for many business vehicles, in my case I can easily rack up over 1000 miles a week when I’m up & down from the North East, your example wouldn’t get me to my first job! even going to the East Coast is around 750 miles a week,

Lets assume you don't work weekends. So some weeks you do 200 miles in a day, and other times 150. So a mid range Tesla would be no problem for you.
If you only work one day a week, then I can see it might be problematic but 500 miles each way in a day seems unlikely. A long range Tesla can do 400 miles. That seems adequate for your use case.

 

[cougie uk]

What about the drivers who will no doubt run out of battery life whilst driving miles from anywhere?
im sure if people can run out of petrol / diesel people will run out of battery life

You'll always be nearer an electric socket than a petrol pump.

 

[cougie uk]

I doubt work will order a fleet of £100,000 Teslas to use as vans! as for power, thats from asking the question when on a job at Ferrybridge power station, they only generate just enough to cope with what we use now, plus they are closing down Drax, not converting it to burn waste as the others do, so thats less capacity, I've never seen an EV taxi, plenty of Prius & Auris Hybrids, again talking to a customers employee who had a Nissan Nv100 inflicted on him described it as utter useless sh*te, no useful range, hours on end to charge up, and as I said where are all the minerals going to come from to build all these batteries.
Fork lifts are also very close to consumer vehicles, they use the same components, same motors, same A/C chopper boxes, they only run at higher voltages, in an effort to get more range, the technology is nothing new, it's all been in the materials handling industry for at least 22 years when the first A/C powered trucks came out, car manufacturers have not designed anything, they've just used whats already out there

https://www.zap-map.com/electric-taxi-company-clocks-100000-miles-in-nissan-leaf/

Oh well if one bloke says electric vans are rubbish then clearly there's no point in discussing any further. He does sound a bit dim if it's taking him hours to charge up though. Someone needs to show him a fast charger.

I'm still not sure that forklifts are like consumer cars where style is everything. Bulky heavy batteries versus sneakily designed battery packs so it's hard to tell that a car is an EV at all.

 

[figbat]

Current EVs are not a replacement for all ICE car use. However they can replace most journeys and for many can replace all journeys. If ad hoc EV-difficult journeys are necessary then you can always hire a car.

The idea of a standardised battery may sound good but there are numerous challenges:
- they are really heavy and will need specialist handling
- they are shaped to fit each car's chassis, to make the most efficient use of available space
- they are integrated both physically and electronically into the car for ultimate efficiency
- newer technology batteries will use direct cooling systems, so will need plumbing as well as electrical connections
- where do you keep the stock of batteries? How many at each swap-shop? How many batteries are needed in any place and how do you ensure there is enough charged stock to satisfy demand? What is the battery-to-car ratio to ensure this? In a simplistic model, for a single car you would need at least two batteries - one on charge and one in use. Realistically you'd need one spare battery in every place that the car may want to go. With multiple cars the ratio gets easier as each car will leave behind a battery to be charged which the next car can pick up, assuming enough time to charge it. So, is it 2:1? 1.5:1? 1.1:1? Whatever it is, you need more batteries than cars, putting even more pressure on metal mining and processing.

I am seriously considering an EV for my next car - and I am a real petrolhead. The car I am considering is a Honda E, so not a huge range but enough to move my kids to school and get to the shops and work (one day, maybe). We do have another car in the household so this could do the longer journeys, pull the caravan, go to the tip and all the other EV-difficult jobs.

The small issue is that we have become used to instant energy gratification, but - it turns out - at the expense of the climate and polluted cities. EVs have to be approached as a different proposition to ICEVs rather than a direct replacement and this enduring need to be able to make an ad hoc long journey if I wanted to (but don't) has to be dealt with realistically. I can't remember the last time I drove my car in a way that an EV wouldn't cope with without faff; work is 15 miles away (and has charging options on-site), school is on the way there, shops are nearby (and we get most delivered anyway), most family are within a 30 mile radius - we can even reach Heathrow Airport in under 60 miles. We have a driveway and access to power there - in fact I'm not even sure why I am hesitating!

 

[icowden]

Oh well if one bloke says electric vans are rubbish then clearly there's no point in discussing any further. He does sound a bit dim if it's taking him hours to charge up though. Someone needs to show him a fast charger.

Plus the "example" is a Nissan NV100 an 8 year old electric van. Hardly going to be a shining example is it. Maybe look at a Vivaro-e - 205 miles, recharge to 80% in 30 minutes. Nissan aren't doing well with electric. Their latest NV200 is still only 125 miles and takes an hour to fast charge to 80%.

 

[DRM]

You'll always be nearer an electric socket than a petrol pump.

Yes, if your allowed to use it!

 

[DRM]

Plus the "example" is a Nissan NV100 an 8 year old electric van. Hardly going to be a shining example is it. Maybe look at a Vivaro-e - 205 miles, recharge to 80% in 30 minutes. Nissan aren't doing well with electric. Their latest NV200 is still only 125 miles and takes an hour to fast charge to 80%.

That Vauxhall will do 205 miles on a test track, not fully laden up on a cold winters day, up and down the hills of the Pennines, it may charge up to 80% in in 45 minutes, but what if there’s no charge point where your working, or the only ones installed are specifically for the directors of the place your working at, secondly why should I have a charger on my house, using my electricity for someone else’s vehicle, not only that some colleagues live where it will be impossible to charge the thing at home due to having no off street parking, the example of the Nissan that I gave was less than 1 year old, so as a brand new vehicle it wasn’t a shining example it was a pile of crap.

 

[HMS_Dave]

For me EV are a stop gap. Hydrogen will undoubtedly rule the long term. Green ways of extracting hydrogen are in its infancy, mass production and safety measures will be sorted out by egg heads. Batteries are although more greener than jungle juice, are still sooo last century...

All this while we still insist on personal transport consisting of 1-2 tonne metal boxes, mind....