Buy an EV they said...

Author
Discussion

LordGrover

33,556 posts

214 months

Tuesday 6th July 2021
quotequote all
bristolracer said:
Valid point, however
We are all supposed to be buying these cars from 2030 and there's a lot more of us about needing transport than there was at the turn of the last century.
We have 8 years to make this work, and it all seems to be a bit random and chaotic.
It is going to need pushing along by some strong legislation/ incentives for charging providers, if its left up to a few players all doing their own thing it will be a useless mess.
These charging points need to be appearing at the 100s per week not per month to get anywhere close to what will be needed.
Eight years is a long time; there's money to be made from these chargers so once a 'market' has been established it'll ramp up nicely.
Anyway, many - maybe not most, will charge at home as I do so my/our requirement for public chargers is minimal.

Freakuk

3,206 posts

153 months

Tuesday 6th July 2021
quotequote all
LordGrover said:
Eight years is a long time; there's money to be made from these chargers so once a 'market' has been established it'll ramp up nicely.
Anyway, many - maybe not most, will charge at home as I do so my/our requirement for public chargers is minimal.
Apart from all of the people living in terrace housing who can't park outside their own home because someone else has, or people living in apartments.

paralla

3,551 posts

137 months

Tuesday 6th July 2021
quotequote all
LordGrover said:
Eight years is a long time; there's money to be made from these chargers so once a 'market' has been established it'll ramp up nicely.
Anyway, many - maybe not most, will charge at home as I do so my/our requirement for public chargers is minimal.
Until Last year I worked for bp. I know the minimum amount of time it takes from conception to installation of a bp Pulse charger on a bp garage forecourt is eight months. That's if everything goes smoothly (which it never does). The garage operators generally don't want them because of the space they take up at the expense of parking bays which reduces the number of people visiting and spending money in the convenience store and having a negative impact on profitability of the site. It's not just the few EV parking bays, it's the infrastructure to support the chargers usually behind a fence or hedge somewhere.

Most of the 8 months is regulatory compliance red tape. Anyone that's ever had a subsisted home charger installed knows something of the pain, imagine that process at a site with highly flammable liquid in a commercial setting.





Edited by paralla on Tuesday 6th July 10:51

SWoll

18,691 posts

260 months

Tuesday 6th July 2021
quotequote all
kambites said:
SWoll said:
Still 10-15p per mile dependent on EV so OK for occasional use but wouldn't want to rely ln it that's for sure.
Surely most EVs sit in the 3-4 miles/kwh sort of range? I can't imagine many average as low as 2?

ETA: Or were you referring to the 40p/kwh in the earlier post rather than the 30 shown in the picture?
I was yes, saw the VAT line and assumed more like 36p per kW as couldn't see the total. frown

TBH though most of the larger German EVs will struggle to get much better than 2 miles/kWh in real world conditions at motorway speeds, especially in winter months.

Maracus

4,305 posts

170 months

Tuesday 6th July 2021
quotequote all
51mes said:
Go on I will bite.

The issue is not the car 200 to 250 miles range is achievable depending on season and weather. The issue is the poorly implemented and less than totally reliable charging framework in the UK and the resulting charger anxiety.
After 16 months EV experience (albeit with a Tesla) I 100% agree.

We need large recharge forecourts (30+ chargers) to service the EV owners who cannot charge at home and for the major trunk routes such as Gridserve have in Kent. Not the 2 chargers that are currently found at motorway services.

As for range, 250 realistic miles is more than enough if you can reliably charge 10 - 90% in 15/20 mins. I can see this being a reality in 3 or 4 years....maybe wishful thinking smile

bristolracer

5,563 posts

151 months

Tuesday 6th July 2021
quotequote all
LordGrover said:
Eight years is a long time; there's money to be made from these chargers so once a 'market' has been established it'll ramp up nicely.
Anyway, many - maybe not most, will charge at home as I do so my/our requirement for public chargers is minimal.
8 years is no time at all when it comes to infrastructure. Digging up a road can take 2 years of planning.

Read the OP, his problem wasn't charging at home it was the long motorway journey that had issues.
Currently service stations have a handful of chargers compared to dozens of pumps. They have dozens of pumps for a reason- to satisfy demand at peak times and that's for a five minute fill up, not a 45 minute charge. Would a service station (which is generally in a remote location) have the electric supply needed for 100 chargers on a Bank Holiday Monday on the M5? That's millions of investment.


Pica-Pica

13,986 posts

86 months

Tuesday 6th July 2021
quotequote all
paralla said:
Until Last year I worked for bp. I know the minimum amount of time it takes from conception to installation of a bp Pulse charger on a bp garage forecourt is eight months. That's if everything goes smoothly (which it never does). The garage operators generally don't want them because of the space they take up at the expense of parking bays which reduces the number of people visiting and spending money in the convenience store and having a negative impact on profitability of the site. It's not just the few EV parking bays, it's the infrastructure to support the chargers usually behind a fence or hedge somewhere.

Most of the 8 months is regulatory compliance red tape. Anyone that's ever had a subsisted home charger installed knows something of the pain, imagine that process at a site with highly flammable liquid on site in a commercial setting.
and that is it - the overall profitability and income from the site as a whole. Tesco are providing chargers. For free, as I understand it for now, but I imagine that will change in the future to £x a charge which can be (partially?) redeemed if you spend £yy in-store.

SWoll

18,691 posts

260 months

Tuesday 6th July 2021
quotequote all
Freakuk said:
LordGrover said:
Eight years is a long time; there's money to be made from these chargers so once a 'market' has been established it'll ramp up nicely.
Anyway, many - maybe not most, will charge at home as I do so my/our requirement for public chargers is minimal.
Apart from all of the people living in terrace housing who can't park outside their own home because someone else has, or people living in apartments.
Do they all own cars?
Do the all expect to buy new cars in 2030?
Would they not just buy a new hybrid which will be on sale until 2035, or indeed a used ICE car?

Reading some of the replies you'd honestly think all ICE cars were getting scrapped in 2030 and everyone forced to buy a new BEV.

Mammasaid

3,933 posts

99 months

Tuesday 6th July 2021
quotequote all
georgeyboy12345 said:
This kind of thing is the problem with being an early adopter, it's just the way it is. Most likely it'll improve.

Maybe 100 years ago back in 1921 people with these still new petrol powered cars were experiencing the same problems with finding somewhere that sells petrol, spark plugs wearing out during a journey, other things breaking due to poor reliability. Meanwhile people with horses saying "well I don't have these problems, I can just take a bag of feed with me or lead the horse to some grass if it gets hungry, my horse doesn't need new spark plugs, plus my horse is much cheaper than one of these cars, I'll stick with my horse thankyou very much".
1st Petrol Station opened in England in 1919, 20+ years after the Benz car was revealed.

https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/what-is-des...

Historic England said:
The first filling station in England was opened in November 1919 at Aldermaston, Berkshire by the Automobile Association (AA). At the time, the AA was trying to promote the sale of British-made benzole fuel - a by-product of burning coal - as an alternative to imported Russian petrol. Prior to this, benzole from Russia had been widely available, but in the aftermath of the 1917 Russian Revolution, this trade was viewed in England as tantamount to supporting the Bolsheviks.

At the Aldermaston filling station, with its single hand-operated pump, motorists were served by AA patrolmen in full uniform. The organisation opened another seven filling stations, and very soon the idea of selling British-made fuel took off, with 7,000 pumps in use by 1923.
How many public charge points are there now, considerably more than 7000?


Evanivitch

20,518 posts

124 months

Tuesday 6th July 2021
quotequote all
Mammasaid said:
How many public charge points are there now, considerably more than 7000?
Sites, connectors, rapid, fast, customer-only? It's hard to define!

ChocolateFrog

25,937 posts

175 months

Tuesday 6th July 2021
quotequote all
SWoll said:
Freakuk said:
LordGrover said:
Eight years is a long time; there's money to be made from these chargers so once a 'market' has been established it'll ramp up nicely.
Anyway, many - maybe not most, will charge at home as I do so my/our requirement for public chargers is minimal.
Apart from all of the people living in terrace housing who can't park outside their own home because someone else has, or people living in apartments.
Do they all own cars?
Do the all expect to buy new cars in 2030?
Would they not just buy a new hybrid which will be on sale until 2035, or indeed a used ICE car?

Reading some of the replies you'd honestly think all ICE cars were getting scrapped in 2030 and everyone forced to buy a new BEV.
That view is quite widespread.

One of the commentators on ITV4's coverage of the The Tour de France was telling everyone how he'd have to scrap his 2CV in 2030 because he couldn't afford to turn it into an EV.

Barmy.

sisu

2,617 posts

175 months

Tuesday 6th July 2021
quotequote all
SWoll said:
Freakuk said:
LordGrover said:
Eight years is a long time; there's money to be made from these chargers so once a 'market' has been established it'll ramp up nicely.
Anyway, many - maybe not most, will charge at home as I do so my/our requirement for public chargers is minimal.
Apart from all of the people living in terrace housing who can't park outside their own home because someone else has, or people living in apartments.
Do they all own cars?
Do the all expect to buy new cars in 2030?
Would they not just buy a new hybrid which will be on sale until 2035, or indeed a used ICE car?

Reading some of the replies you'd honestly think all ICE cars were getting scrapped in 2030 and everyone forced to buy a new BEV.
You also have the fact that 2020 saw the entire world try working from home for 6 months. Not everyone in the world is commuting on the 405 in LA with their own garage.
My experience of owning an EV has been that if you commute in traffic to charge at work, with tax incentives its a no brainer. However you need to do a certain amount of miles to justify the 20 grand step.

Which is why the EV classic guys are aiming at 911's, Etype or other high end cars rather than Nissan K11 micras as the cost of rebuilding this type of engine is similar to the engine swap. But this has as much man maths as the ye olde 350 Chev into a Lamborghini Espada did in the 80s or a Honda K Swap does now.

Now you also have 10% of the population of cars that are EV. The honeymoon of there being free spaces for charging are gone.
The idea that every parking space will have a charge point is a decade long process. I see this being the same price as parking if not more.

You also have people who are now working from home or going to work a couple of times a week. Real questions about why we are paying for an empty office downtown are being asked. Now the idea of a classic car or an experience car is not so odd.
Use an e scooter and public transport and then the stupid car for long journeys.

annodomini2

6,878 posts

253 months

Tuesday 6th July 2021
quotequote all
SWoll said:
Do they all own cars?
Do the all expect to buy new cars in 2030?
Would they not just buy a new hybrid which will be on sale until 2035, or indeed a used ICE car?

Reading some of the replies you'd honestly think all ICE cars were getting scrapped in 2030 and everyone forced to buy a new BEV.
It may affect new cars sooner rather than later, with most OEMs stating that the EURO 7 emission regs are unachievable.

dmsims

6,582 posts

269 months

Tuesday 6th July 2021
quotequote all
annodomini2 said:
It may affect new cars sooner rather than later, with most OEMs stating that the EURO 7 emission regs are unachievable.
Ask VW for a solution to that issue............

georgeyboy12345

3,568 posts

37 months

Tuesday 6th July 2021
quotequote all
Mammasaid said:
How many public charge points are there now, considerably more than 7000?
Considerably more, yeah.

Have a look on the zap map website for stats: https://www.zap-map.com/statistics/

Diderot

7,420 posts

194 months

Tuesday 6th July 2021
quotequote all
minghis said:
Diderot said:
minghis said:
Interesting thread, and very relevant as we are collecting a new MB EQA250 today.

My rationale all along is that this will be a car that will be only used for the short, local trips only and usually well within its range. It is highly unlikely any trips longer than its range will be needed as we have other cars for that.

What we found is that getting a home charger is more difficult than we thought, and this means we have ended up with a car that we have arriving some time before we know we can get a home charging point fitted. We should have done it the other way around, of course, but you live and learn. We apparently need a different type of fuse and our fuse board has to be reconfigured for the installation to go ahead.

The car does have a standard 3 pin domestic socket charging lead but that takes 30 hours for a full charge so we will be, until the home charging point (BP Pulse, FOC as part of the deal) is finally fitted it will spend every hour it's not being used parked on the driveway trickle charging. For the journeys it does this should be just about enough.
We're likely to be in the same boat, we should be getting our Volvo XC40 P8 this month, but no news yet on the free Shell New Motion home charger install.
Just a heads up, despite having a modern fuseboard and a modern house my provider are saying that we need a few hundred quid's worth of work to change stuff, it's not the cost thats the problem its finding someone to do it quickly!
luckily we moved here in 2019 and had a big refurb including electrics, so according to the spark who did it all, we should be good to go for the install. Fingers crossed.

Evanivitch

20,518 posts

124 months

Tuesday 6th July 2021
quotequote all
Diderot said:
luckily we moved here in 2019 and had a big refurb including electrics, so according to the spark who did it all, we should be good to go for the install. Fingers crossed.
Hopefully the spark considered the DNO's position on whether you might have a looped supply.

Freakuk

3,206 posts

153 months

Tuesday 6th July 2021
quotequote all
I'm sure many will have seen this already... is this what we have to look forward to, how long would you be in that queue if every car in front is looking for 30 mins of charge?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqEwLle8xKU

rxe

6,700 posts

105 months

Thursday 8th July 2021
quotequote all
LordGrover said:
Eight years is a long time; there's money to be made from these chargers so once a 'market' has been established it'll ramp up nicely.
Anyway, many - maybe not most, will charge at home as I do so my/our requirement for public chargers is minimal.
I suspect that in the absence of subsidy, there isn’t much money to be made from chargers. Why?

1) Because most people (and most miles driven) will be charged from home.
2) Because most people don’t do more than 200 miles in a day
3) Because (apparently, not sure I believe this) wondrous battery tech is coming that will increase the range of BEVs.
4) Because there will have to be a solution to apartments and terraces - eventually there will be slow charge points all over the place in residential areas, it is just a question of time.

In journey charging will be a distress purchase and very much an edge case. It is already the same price as diesel in some cases. I think a much bigger problem is that currently the UK gov hoovers up billions in fuel taxes every year. They have no apparent plan whatsoever for recovering this, and instead are hurling subsidies at the alternatives. Yeah, road charging, but that isn’t happening from a standing start within a decade.

oop north

1,602 posts

130 months

Thursday 8th July 2021
quotequote all
red_slr said:
oop north said:
I would always advise anyone to do a bit more planning than the op did - get your apps downloaded and set up with payment card in advance of travelling.
Planning... you know me... its a case of point it in roughly the right direction smile
Sorry Simon - didn’t twig it was you (never even read your user name oops!). Didn’t think you still had the ipace - have done 20700 miles in mine now - about 1500 in the last four weeks just on weekend trips to Edinburgh, Kelso and Worcester.

Am now at 60,000 electric miles in 5.5 years - 39k in the i3 before the ipace (with a gap between when waiting for the ipace to turn up).

At the moment there are two opposing forces in public charging supply / demand - increasing rapid chargers with Gridserve having finally got rid of Ecotricity (or rather currently I process of updating the network, with additional chargers coming in time) and Instavolt doing lots of new installs at McDonald’s and Starbucks sites. But also increased demand - Instavolt in Penrith has had queues last couple of times I used them tried to use them. The Tesla chargers at Tebay were very close to capacity at Tebay when we stopped for lunch (didn’t need a charge in my ipace - got home from Edinburgh in one go)

I had one trip to Edinburgh where plans A, B and C all failed. That was stressful. And one trip last winter I took my wife’s car as it was v low temp (hit minus 9 in the Scottish Borders) and would need to find a rapid charger in Edinburgh that didn’t really exist at the time as well as do biggish chargers at Gretna in both directions. The diesel’s mpg was 20% less than normal on that trip… and taking the ipace would have meant over two hours charging probably