Electric Cars

[Markje]

Overnight (12 hrs )  - on a domestic 13A plug feed,  one could charge a Zoe to go 72 miles / 115 Km - check my link ..

Ah finally, charging power required.

So how is an electric oven (on for 30 mins max while preparing dinner @ max 4kw = 2kwh) comparable to a domestic 11KV charging an electric zoe for 12 hours ( = 122KWH) comparable ?

The latter is much, much bigger demand on a city energy grid.

[msmoby]

Ah finally, charging power required.

Try READING before proving you didn't ..I hawe previously posted power unit s v charging time for various EVs ..

So how is an electric oven (on for 30 mins max while preparing dinner @ max 4kw = 2kwh) comparable to a domestic 11KV charging an electric zoe for 12 hours ( = 122KWH) comparable ?

The latter is much, much bigger demand on a city energy grid.

When I cook a bird - Chicken - it is on for c.2 hours ...  I might microwave vegetables or use the hob... 

IF you paid attention - charging  a Twizy uses less than the the oven - the clue was a 13AM plug.. a BOG std plug socket  )

I've worked out it would cost circa £1 / 80 miles -say 1 euro /  100 km ?

I even realise that we won't all be in Twizy's but, I believe the UK grid could cope ))))

[Chris]

I don't know if Chris has taken delivery of his Jag, to comment on range anxiety, practicality but I spent some time playing with a Twizy this weekend (other end of price spectrum)  and the residuals on those are amazing... One sees them advertised at new cost in 2012 minus only 10 percent..

Ordered 6th December, due for delivery any time soon. However, I have had a few long extended trial runs with the I Pace (even had a day with one at Oulton Park) and no problems yet with range anxiety or practicality, sure on long trips you have to plan a little ahead, up to 200 miles then no problem, above that then probably one stop to top up depending on overall journey length. There are plenty of options in the UK now for charging, chargers everywhere and increasing daily, so that's not a problem, getting one that will give you 50Kw to 100Kw charging (I Pace can now charge up to ca.80Kw, soon to be 100Kw+ with SOTA updates) is not quite as easy, but again, the network is growing fast. For day to day stuff, I will only need to charge once a week, over night on cheap rate electricity is dead easy and no hassle at all, if I want the battery full each morning, no problem, for around £12 I can charge from zero to full, but you wouldn't ever arrive home with the battery at zero, so for normal day to day use, it will cost ca. £12/week for the I Pace compared to £70 - £80 for my Discovery Sport.

I was at Blenheim Palace last year and there were quite a lot of Twixy's for hire, you could hire them to take them around the estate, quite a neat little car and not much money, great for round town.

[msmoby]

REALLY, interested to hear of your opinion after a few weeks of ownership


200 miles means a break on the way to  / from London from home ...   But impressive range

I'm following the I-Pace E-Trophy racing series - runs with some of the Formula E 2-seater racing - a lady driver has beaten some useful chaps

https://www.fiaformulae.com/en/championship/jaguar-e-trophy

[Chris]

Right now leccy car usage is not at the point where charging facilities are going to be optimally used. But think of the scenario when the same number of electric vehicles want to recharge as gas/diesel cars you saw the other day. You'd have to wait hours for a recharging spot to become available.

Rubbish, believe it or not, fast charging is not nearly used as much as people think, most EV owners charge at home and with the average daily commute in the UK being ca.30 miles there is no requirement for most people to have to charge every day away from home, especially now when new EV ranges are growing and growing. We now have a number of EV's on the market with 200+ mile ranges, for most people that would give them a weeks driving on one charge, only people like sales reps doing hundreds of miles per week would struggle at the moment, but rapid chargers that can charge at 100Kw/hr (up to 350KW/hr chargers are already being installed) or greater will soon help that situation too.

Fast charging now can happen (depending on the car) in less than an hour, as more rapid chargers are coming on line and EV charging rates are increasing, this will drop dramatically, in fact batteries are being developed now that can charge within 5-10 minutes, this will be the future.

We now have the likes of BP and Shell installing EV charging points on their forecourts in the UK, BP having recently bought Chargemaster, the UK's largest charging provider, we also have Tesco, Lidl and others installing charging points at their sites, very few people using these will need to charge fully, they will be just using them on a splash and dash basis, very few have to stop and charge fully, even on rapid chargers, unless doing hundreds of miles a day, day in day out it just isn't required, so having to wait hours in queues to charge up is just not going to happen.

[Chris]

REALLY, interested to hear of your opinion after a few weeks of ownership


200 miles means a break on the way to  / from London from home ...   But impressive range

I'm following the I-Pace E-Trophy racing series - runs with some of the Formula E 2-seater racing - a lady driver has beaten some useful chaps

https://www.fiaformulae.com/en/championship/jaguar-e-trophy

On my test drives, I was getting 220 miles range, I know others are getting 250 miles range in the I Pace (That's winter, summer it will be greater) , but others are only getting 180 range, it depends on a lot of things, how you drive, temperature, wind, elevation etc, however, the range of the vehicle is not what makes people stop that much, its more to do with bladder range 

[Chris]

REALLY, interested to hear of your opinion after a few weeks of ownership


200 miles means a break on the way to  / from London from home ...   But impressive range

I'm following the I-Pace E-Trophy racing series - runs with some of the Formula E 2-seater racing - a lady driver has beaten some useful chaps

https://www.fiaformulae.com/en/championship/jaguar-e-trophy

Yes currently, London is ca.250 miles from me, so I would stop up en route, but I always stop anyway and these days I do very little 250+ mile trips.

I guess you mean Katherine Legge or Alice Powell, there are a couple doing well in the I Pace eTrophy.

[Chris]

Ah finally, charging power required.

Try READING before proving you didn't ..I hawe previously posted power unit s v charging time for various EVs ..

So how is an electric oven (on for 30 mins max while preparing dinner @ max 4kw = 2kwh) comparable to a domestic 11KV charging an electric zoe for 12 hours ( = 122KWH) comparable ?

The latter is much, much bigger demand on a city energy grid.

When I cook a bird - Chicken - it is on for c.2 hours ...  I might microwave vegetables or use the hob... 

IF you paid attention - charging  a Twizy uses less than the the oven - the clue was a 13AM plug.. a BOG std plug socket  )

I've worked out it would cost circa £1 / 80 miles -say 1 euro /  100 km ?

I even realise that we won't all be in Twizy's but, I believe the UK grid could cope ))))

and you would be right! Let's say you introduce more charging points, and then standardise them, well, the UK’s National Grid currently has enough energy in its system to support a nation full of EVs, no matter what time of year. What’s lacking is the ability to charge them all simultaneously, which would be a problem if drivers charged their vehicles at the same time in the evening.

As stated UT, that won't happen, but even if it did, one way around unmanageable peak consumption is smart charging, which can vary the rate at which the cars charge, depending on overall demand, this is already happening, there are many EV home chargers that already do this, Zappi, Wallpoint, Anderson etc.

Ofgem are already calling for incentives to encourage people to charge their EVs outside of peak hours, which would increase the number of cars currently supportable by the country’s electricity network by 60 per cent and this is very similar to the National Grid’s own opinion, which is that flexible charging would halve the estimated additional generation needed to manage the demand.

If you read about Malcolm McCulloch, he's the head of Oxford University’s Energy and Power group, he says that if car charging could be done intelligently, then only 20 additional megawatts of power would be needed- that’s the equivalent output a reasonably sized offshore wind farm. If not, then the capacity of the National Grid would need another 20 gigawatts, which is double the amount of energy currently generated by all the UK’s nuclear power stations. In short, he says, with good strategy, it’s an issue of power, not energy. McCulloch also suggests that this should be done automatically by the charging system, and again, its already happening to a small degree by using smart home chargers.

Finally, another technology being researched by automakers, and already used in limited markets by Nissan and Mitsubishi, is vehicle to grid (V2G). Using the same kind of tech that would allow for automated charging, this function lets car owners sell the energy in their batteries to the network when it isn’t in use. This would help balance out the demand on power generation and put it to more efficient use, there are videos on the net of this in action if interested.

[andrewfi]

Chris, as I noted up thread, right now ownership goes to the low hanging fruit. Even in the UK a very large number of cars can not be charged at home as you do. As time goes by the number of people needing to charge using public access points will increase - a lot.

Let's see how fast charging can be, safely.

As for charging at home. Night time electricity is relatively cheap because it is off peak. As more cars are charged at night the off peak rates will rise, or the hours shrink as usage increases. Power generation is not a charity. Thus, a rational economic actor (person or business) will seek to use cheaper electricity as far as possible and the overall effect will be to shift more demand into the shrinking number of off-peak hours making it ever harder to control the demand and supply.

Owners of more costly cars with greater range might be somewhat protected as you inferred, due to your payment for better, faster, higher capacity batteries. Cheaper and older cars - not so much. The UK already expects to need to import electricity soon, but where from if current potential suppliers end up needing their power to meet their own needs?

For some information on these real issues in the UK: http://www.imeche.org/news/news-article/the-economic-black-hole-at-the-heart-of-the-shift-to-electric-vehicles

[Chris]

Chris, as I noted up thread, right now ownership goes to the low hanging fruit. Even in the UK a very large number of cars can not be charged at home as you do. As time goes by the number of people needing to charge using public access points will increase - a lot.

Let's see how fast charging can be, safely.

As for charging at home. Night time electricity is relatively cheap because it is off peak. As more cars are charged at night the off peak rates will rise, or the hours shrink as usage increases. Power generation is not a charity. Thus, a rational economic actor (person or business) will seek to use cheaper electricity as far as possible and the overall effect will be to shift more demand into the shrinking number of off-peak hours making it ever harder to control the demand and supply.

I agree with some of what you say, and yes off peak charging is cheap at the moment and will increase in price and off peak time periods will decrease, its obvious, something will have to give, but how soon? no one knows and even when and if it does, at the moment there are very few alternatives to EV's other than fossil fuels which the Government is slowly trying to get rid of.

Owners of more costly cars with greater range might be somewhat protected as you inferred, due to your payment for better, faster, higher capacity batteries. Cheaper and older cars - not so much. The UK already expects to need to import electricity soon, but where from if current potential suppliers end up needing their power to meet their own needs?

For some information on these real issues in the UK: http://www.imeche.org/news/news-article/the-economic-black-hole-at-the-heart-of-the-shift-to-electric-vehicles

I have read over the last year or so articles like that one, a lot of it is scaremongering, however,  it is obvious that the Government will find ways of taxing EV owners once the taxes from diesel and petrol start to dry up, but this is not going to happen overnight and by 2040 as the article quotes I might not be still driving anyway, so for me at least, it's not worth worrying about.

[msmoby]

andrewfi's articles fail to note that there are many places in the UK that generate too much electricity - and it cannot be stored ..

Assuredly, UK PLC could cope
 

[NS1]

EV will happen and how long it takes to be a majority
will be many years, from power supply to efficient
batteries, long way to go.

So many people have so little concept about fossil fuels.
There are people who believe when we have enough
EV and wind energy we go stop using fossil fuels.
Unless people plan on going back to grass huts and wearing leafs
for clothing or god forbid, hurt some animal for cloths.
It will be interesting to see when millennial's  figure out all the stuff
they have to give up to go green lol.

[Chris]

andrewfi's articles fail to note that there are many places in the UK that generate too much electricity - and it cannot be stored ..

Assuredly, UK PLC could cope

Not at the moment, but even that is changing. Teams from Bristol University and Surrey University developed a next-generation material for supercapacitors, which store electric charge and can be replenished faster than normal batteries.

This could allow cars to recharge in 10 minutes, rather than the eight hours it can take to replenish the lithium-ion batteries in current electric vehicles. (on slow chargers)

Then you have the Second Life Battery facilities that are being developed by the likes of Engie and actually installed and used, this will become more popular and is also being developed to help download massive amounts of electricity fast to EV's at rapid charging stations, the World is changing guys!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=516&v=QCYcsk40FLs

Fastned and others are also looking at Second Life Battery installations and use specifically for EV's

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=309&v=n-7iu6ZeGuE

[Chris]

EV will happen and how long it takes to be a majority
will be many years, from power supply to efficient
batteries, long way to go.

There is, but things are changing fast, afterall, when the first ICE's were developed, it didn't happen overnight, it took many years.

So many people have so little concept about fossil fuels.
There are people who believe when we have enough
EV and wind energy we go stop using fossil fuels.
Unless people plan on going back to grass huts and wearing leafs
for clothing or god forbid, hurt some animal for cloths.
It will be interesting to see when millennial's  figure out all the stuff
they have to give up to go green lol.

Yep, fossil fuels are here to stay, but alternatives will help to reduce our dependency on them.

[NS1]

To me relevant question.
Climate change, I think most agree it's real.
It's what is fuelling many of these projects.
Question is,
 created by man ?
Or, earths nature Cycle?

[Chris]

To me relevant question.
Climate change, I think most agree it's real.
It's what is fuelling many of these projects.
Question is,
 created by man ?
Or, earths nature Cycle?

Who really knows, Earths climate change goes in cycles, they say the current one with 95% accuracy is the result of mankind, but next year it will be for another reason 

[Markje]

To me relevant question.
Climate change, I think most agree it's real.
It's what is fuelling many of these projects.
Question is,
 created by man ?
Or, earths nature Cycle?

who cares? our current climate is quite friendly to us humans so change can be only bad. lets resist that.

[andrewfi]

It doesn't really matter if the currently observed phenomena are man-made or not, we still need to deal with them.

Because the long-run effect of almost everything we do, apart from ceasing activities, to ameliorate climate change is to increase the efficiency of human operations (manufacture, agriculture, transport, life) then taking those actions makes sense. Increased efficiency reduces waste, including waste heat, reduces raw material needs, reduces power consumption, reduces visible pollution and reduces costs. It is hard to argue that, in the long run, these are not desirable outcomes.

At the point at which electric vehicles become a genuine option for my use case, including at a price that I want to pay, then I have no problems with electric cars because there are some clear benefits. We most certainly are not there yet.

It is possible that electric cars turn out to be a dead end, but, IMHO, that's not the case as long as we are able to provide the power they need from renewable sources and, it has to be noted, a fleet of electric vehicles provides a vast capacity to store the variable output that is a feature of most renewable sources.

The ability to effectively store renewables has been seen as a big problem for moving toward them, electric car batteries provide some measure of addressing that issue. Of course, places like Estonia are unlikely, in the next generation or so, to be viable targets for electric cars on the basis of the use of renewables, as almost all their power comes from burning the local, low grade, coal.

[msmoby]

who cares? our current climate is quite friendly to us humans so change can be only bad. lets resist that.

Who cares? :

You starter of many ..

Those living on the coast where sea levels are rising .....  FAST ..

". Average sea levels have swelled over 8 inches (about 23 cm) since 1880, with about three of those inches gained in the last 25 years. Every year, the sea rises another .13 inches (3.2 mm)."

Incredible that a Dutchman - who lives below sea level, on reclaimed land -  would not be concerned !

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/sea-level-rise/

[Markje]

who cares? our current climate is quite friendly to us humans so change can be only bad. lets resist that.

Who cares? :

You starter of many ..

Those living on the coast where sea levels are rising .....  FAST ..

". Average sea levels have swelled over 8 inches (about 23 cm) since 1880, with about three of those inches gained in the last 25 years. Every year, the sea rises another .13 inches (3.2 mm)."

Incredible that a Dutchman - who lives below sea level, on reclaimed land -  would not be concerned !

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/sea-level-rise/

you totally misread and didnt understand my post. i care not what caused it. i do care very much preventing further deterioration

[msmoby]

you totally misread and didnt understand my post. i care not what caused it. i do care very much preventing further deterioration

I certainly didn't get your drift and I should bear in mind English is not your native language ..((

To me it read our climate is not in conflict ( friendly) with us humans - and in combination with 'Who cares ? ' .......

So, thanks for explaining !

[Chris]

I said UT things were changing, at least here anyway, this was announced yesterday, good news for the UK.


Electric car charging: You’ll soon be able to recharge your EV in 10 minutes on UK roads

A NEW network of rapid electric car chargers is launching in the UK which will allow motorists to recharge their vehicle in as little as 10 minutes.

A new network of electric car chargers forecourts are launching in the UK which will offer rapid charging.

The Electric Forecourts being designed and built by GRIDSERVE are aiming to bring the same experience petrol stations do to ICE vehicle owners to EV owners.

The 100 charges will deliver paid charging, ‘low cost’ energy to a range of electric vehicles for both fleet and private vehicle owners.

There will be different zones tailored to both private and fleet vehicles, such as taxis, buses, delivery vehicles and heavy goods vehicles.

The majority of vehicles plugged into the network will be able to take less than 30-minutes to recharge.

There will be a range of facilities including a coffee shop, fresh food, convenience supermarket, and airport-style lounge with high-speed internet.

This will improve the journeys of electric car owners which will require them to park up and stop for an extended period of time.

It is a £1billion programme which involves the company building new solar farms to supply the Electric Forecourts with clean, low-cost energy, and installing multi-megawatt batteries to provide grid services that support the rapid uptake of EVs and additional renewable energy capacity.

Construction is scheduled to start on the first sites later this year including at York and Hull, where GRIDSERVE is building the UK’s most advanced solar farms.

Toddington Harper, CEO and founder of GRIDSERVE, said: “We plan to make charging electric vehicles as easy as using petrol stations.

“The latest generation of electric vehicles are awesome, and ready for mainstream adoption, but drivers still worry about if or where they can charge, how long it will take, and what it will cost.

“We plan to eliminate any range or charging anxiety by building a UK-wide network of customer-focussed, brand new Electric Forecourts® that will make it easier and cheaper to use an electric vehicle than a petrol or diesel alternative.

“Within five years we plan to have more than 100 Electric Forecourts in use, with each supported by solar energy and battery storage.

“This infrastructure will accelerate the electric vehicle revolution, serve the grid, and help the UK meet climate and clean air targets.

“We are partnering with operators of fleet vehicles, developers, financiers of vehicles and infrastructure, EV manufacturers, retailers, local authorities, and others who share our vision.”

The rapid charging will offer a rate of up to 500kW for cars and light commercial vehicles - the world’s fastest - offering less than 10-minute charge times.

There will also be megawatt chargers for buses and heavy good vehicles and up to 24 ultra-fast charging abs for cars.

To minimise waiting times, and allow customers to be able to reserve charging slots in advance a new queuing system will also be introduced via a mobile app. This app will also play a central role in loyalty and referral schemes that will reward people with Road Miles.

Christopher Burghardt, Managing Director, Europe, ChargePoint, said: “The electric mobility revolution is upon us and ChargePoint continues to work to help create an open and accessible network that enables drivers to enjoy an effortless charging experience everywhere they live, work and play throughout Europe.

“ChargePoint is committed to collaborating with partners like GRIDSERVE to build out the EV charging network of tomorrow and make driving electric vehicles more accessible and seamless than ever.

“GRIDSERVE’s Electric Forecourts bring the driver experience to the fore, which will be the key to make electric travel throughout the UK easier.”

The Electric Forecourts® have been designed and engineered in partnership with Arup. Ricky Sandhu, Lead Designer, Arup Architecture and
Senior Consultant at Arup, said: “It is vitally important that we transition quickly to sustainable, clean new modes of transportation and energy production.

“Arup is extremely proud to be supporting GRIDSERVE in their mission to provide state-of-the-art, sustainable, new electric charging infrastructure - the Electric Forecourt® - for our growing populations.

“Our sense of responsibility for the built environment and our commitment to shape a better world by leveraging new technologies, and sustainable energy, combined with of cutting-edge design makes for a perfect partnership with GRIDSERVE.”

Graham Stuart MP said: “As well as creating jobs and prosperity, these projects will reduce bills and deliver huge benefits for the environment.



Source

[NS1]

Interesting how fast this is moving in UK.
IN Canada it is rare to see a charging station.
Likely one or two at most.
Out Politicians are only concerned with carbon tax.
But they don't actually do anything productive with it.

I suspect the pure size of country versus population has a part in this.
I believe in climate change, but IMO its not man made.
I believe our efforts should be to use less and be cleaner.
Reality is as far as global warming goes, I doubt we can change anything.
The cycle of the earth's ( history ) future we can't determine.

[andrewfi]

The headline says 10 minutes, the copy says 30. That's the kind of misleading guff that people are falling for all the time.

Unless there has been a spate of power stations chucked up in the past couple of years (spoiler alert, there hasn't) then the UK has a serious capacity problem, electric cars or no electric cars. The only solution posited right now is to buy power from other places with the same problem.

This 'Gridserve' outfit has no track record in the area they claim to be developing in and absolutely not at the proposed scale. I read press releases like this one all the time, part of my business. First thing I do when I sniff sh!t is to look at the premises of the business. That tells a lot. Here are the business premises of Gridserve:
https://goo.gl/maps/LeEjUgwsFjm

This is a house, a semi-detached house, on a cul de sac that, judging by the neighbours, might have been a council house in the past. This is not where a 'billion-pound' business operates from.

See the cars parked on the street? Old cars that once upon a time were quite nice- but not anymore.

Remember the fake ferry company that we were told about a few months ago? That was the same type of venture. A nothing business blown up as the next big thing in order to meet the needs of stakeholders, the government, to paper over cracks in infrastructure.

Note how the press release uses the word 'will' an awful lot. There's nothing about 'has' or 'are'. Big dreams, no achievement. That's what I write when the business has nothing of substance to offer.

Edited to add: the site looks odd, a templated site with a carnival of stock images - none that look like real project pics (and yes real pics have a certain look to them.). The site is built using Wix a site builder that lets amateurs create OK looking sites. The site is even hosted on the Wix servers. They can look OK, but they always have a look and, of course, getting started with Wix is free. . Until 2018 the site was merely a placeholder, the site you see now is very, very recent. Possibly as recent as last weekend.

[Chris]

The headline says 10 minutes, the copy says 30. That's the kind of misleading guff that people are falling for all the time.

Unless there has been a spate of power stations chucked up in the past couple of years (spoiler alert, there hasn't) then the UK has a serious capacity problem, electric cars or no electric cars. The only solution posited right now is to buy power from other places with the same problem.

This 'Gridserve' outfit has no track record in the area they claim to be developing in and absolutely not at the proposed scale. I read press releases like this one all the time, part of my business. First thing I do when I sniff sh!t is to look at the premises of the business. That tells a lot. Here are the business premises of Gridserve:
https://goo.gl/maps/LeEjUgwsFjm

This is a house, a semi-detached house, on a cul de sac that, judging by the neighbours, might have been a council house in the past. This is not where a 'billion-pound' business operates from.

See the cars parked on the street? Old cars that once upon a time were quite nice- but not anymore.

Remember the fake ferry company that we were told about a few months ago? That was the same type of venture. A nothing business blown up as the next big thing in order to meet the needs of stakeholders, the government, to paper over cracks in infrastructure.

Note how the press release uses the word 'will' an awful lot. There's nothing about 'has' or 'are'. Big dreams, no achievement. That's what I write when the business has nothing of substance to offer.

Edited to add: the site looks odd, a templated site with a carnival of stock images - none that look like real project pics (and yes real pics have a certain look to them.). The site is built using Wix a site builder that lets amateurs create OK looking sites. The site is even hosted on the Wix servers. They can look OK, but they always have a look and, of course, getting started with Wix is free. . Until 2018 the site was merely a placeholder, the site you see now is very, very recent. Possibly as recent as last weekend.

Andrew, while some of what you say may or may not be true, there must be some serious funding and credibility behind it for Arups to lend their name to it. Let's see how this pans out over the next few months, if Gridserve or some alternative do start installing new charging sites as stated above, then it will only be good for the UK.