EVs... no one wants them! (Vol. 2)

[M4cruiser]

M4cruiser said:

MediumBuild said:

And another - the new Polo - what a bloody mess. No design continuity, no sense of cohesion or integration.

That's just appalling ergonomics.
Rows of identical buttons, with no hope of getting the correct one unless you take your eyes off the road for a long time.

Does any maker care about ergonomics now?
Here's how to do it, not perfect, but the tactile feedback is better than most, enabling switching with no looking.
Convex bumps on the end buttons, concave on the middle one. Why would anyone not do it like this?

Edited by M4cruiser on Friday 6th March 20:46

[CMTMB]

That's pretty good but I prefer knobs for my temp and fan speed adjustment.

[uktrailmonster]

M4cruiser said:

M4cruiser said:

MediumBuild said:

And another - the new Polo - what a bloody mess. No design continuity, no sense of cohesion or integration.

That's just appalling ergonomics.
Rows of identical buttons, with no hope of getting the correct one unless you take your eyes off the road for a long time.

Does any maker care about ergonomics now?
Here's how to do it, not perfect, but the tactile feedback is better than most, enabling switching with no looking.
Convex bumps on the end buttons, convex on the middle one. Why would anyone not do it like this?

Some focus more on automation. I can’t remember the last time I felt the need to manually adjust fan speed. I might adjust the temperature occasionally, but it’s not in the slightest bit challenging. If my car had those buttons I would only be pressing the temp up/down ones maybe a couple of times per day. I can do the same thing on a screen easily enough.

[tamore]

blink and you miss a leap at the moment. BYD rolling out 1.5MW capable flash charging stations. sites buffered to lower the grid connection needed. mad stuff.

[SDK]

tamore said:

blink and you miss a leap at the moment. BYD rolling out 1.5MW capable flash charging stations. sites buffered to lower the grid connection needed. mad stuff.

Indeed : 10 to 80% in 6 minutes
Edge case use but perfect for those petrol diehards who can take a break and be back to their car within a few minutes

[p1stonhead]

SDK said:

tamore said:

blink and you miss a leap at the moment. BYD rolling out 1.5MW capable flash charging stations. sites buffered to lower the grid connection needed. mad stuff.

Indeed : 10 to 80% in 6 minutes
Edge case use but perfect for those petrol diehards who can take a break and be back to their car within a few minutes

Is it even remotely possible from a technical standpoint for general use rather than a demonstration?

Like do we have the capacity to get close to that in the UK without things blowing up?

[Jte3397]

SDK said:

tamore said:

blink and you miss a leap at the moment. BYD rolling out 1.5MW capable flash charging stations. sites buffered to lower the grid connection needed. mad stuff.

Indeed : 10 to 80% in 6 minutes
Edge case use but perfect for those petrol diehards who can take a break and be back to their car within a few minutes
I have a 150 mile one way commute, all dual carriageway or motorwaythat often becomes 180 mile return trip. There's limited charging where I work, it's expensive, the same speed as a home charger and limited to 2 hrs use. I'd therefore need to charge on the way home somewhere. Adding 25 - 35 min currently puts me off of moving to EV, which is a shame as I've liked the ones I've driven. This sort of speed though would make it no different to liquid fuel. Similarly, it would make the difference for the 200 mile trip to the in laws who have no off street parking.
Small pool of 800 employees where I work to make the observation from but I'm aware of at least 10 others with similar or longer commutes than mine. Average mileage in the UK is fine as a metric but most of us travel in, stay over then travel back for our days in the office. I think if this was widely available it would change the view for many.

[otolith]

p1stonhead said:

Is it even remotely possible from a technical standpoint for general use rather than a demonstration?

Like do we have the capacity to get close to that in the UK without things blowing up?

I think these really fast charging solutions are going to rely on big buffers rather than massive input rates.

[tamore]

otolith said:

p1stonhead said:

Is it even remotely possible from a technical standpoint for general use rather than a demonstration?

Like do we have the capacity to get close to that in the UK without things blowing up?

I think these really fast charging solutions are going to rely on big buffers rather than massive input rates.

and the buffers can arbitrage energy too.

[uktrailmonster]

tamore said:

otolith said:

p1stonhead said:

Is it even remotely possible from a technical standpoint for general use rather than a demonstration?

Like do we have the capacity to get close to that in the UK without things blowing up?

I think these really fast charging solutions are going to rely on big buffers rather than massive input rates.

and the buffers can arbitrage energy too.

Reported to be over 4000 of these beasts up and running in China already. So clearly no technical issue.

[tamore]

uktrailmonster said:

tamore said:

otolith said:

p1stonhead said:

Is it even remotely possible from a technical standpoint for general use rather than a demonstration?

Like do we have the capacity to get close to that in the UK without things blowing up?

I think these really fast charging solutions are going to rely on big buffers rather than massive input rates.

and the buffers can arbitrage energy too.

Reported to be over 4000 of these beasts up and running in China already. So clearly no technical issue.

i just hope there's a lot of future proofing going on in the UK when it comes to charger infrastructure. if there's a MW link needed to a site, put in multiples of capacity is it's there when inevitably needed for faster chargers.

[Sporky]

SDK said:

tamore said:

blink and you miss a leap at the moment. BYD rolling out 1.5MW capable flash charging stations. sites buffered to lower the grid connection needed. mad stuff.

Indeed : 10 to 80% in 6 minutes

No use. I need to fill up in 5 minutes. Not a moment longer.

[uktrailmonster]

tamore said:

uktrailmonster said:

tamore said:

otolith said:

p1stonhead said:

Is it even remotely possible from a technical standpoint for general use rather than a demonstration?

Like do we have the capacity to get close to that in the UK without things blowing up?

I think these really fast charging solutions are going to rely on big buffers rather than massive input rates.

and the buffers can arbitrage energy too.

Reported to be over 4000 of these beasts up and running in China already. So clearly no technical issue.

i just hope there's a lot of future proofing going on in the UK when it comes to charger infrastructure. if there's a MW link needed to a site, put in multiples of capacity is it's there when inevitably needed for faster chargers.

If they are buffering the energy, then the input power doesn’t necessarily need to increase. I guess it depends how quickly they can replenish the buffer vs throughput of cars. At the moment you might have a site with say 10x 300W chargers and replace those with 2x 1500W chargers. A bit simplistic, but you get the basic idea.

[tamore]

uktrailmonster said:

tamore said:

uktrailmonster said:

tamore said:

otolith said:

p1stonhead said:

Is it even remotely possible from a technical standpoint for general use rather than a demonstration?

Like do we have the capacity to get close to that in the UK without things blowing up?

I think these really fast charging solutions are going to rely on big buffers rather than massive input rates.

and the buffers can arbitrage energy too.

Reported to be over 4000 of these beasts up and running in China already. So clearly no technical issue.

i just hope there's a lot of future proofing going on in the UK when it comes to charger infrastructure. if there's a MW link needed to a site, put in multiples of capacity is it's there when inevitably needed for faster chargers.

If they are buffering the energy, then the input power doesn t necessarily need to increase. I guess it depends how quickly they can replenish the buffer vs throughput of cars. At the moment you might have a site with say 10x 300W chargers and replace those with 2x 1500W chargers. A bit simplistic, but you get the basic idea.

absolutely, but avoiding digging trenches back up would be a good thing. perhaps just making sure extra cables could be dragged through the conduit if needed in the future?

[uktrailmonster]

tamore said:

absolutely, but avoiding digging trenches back up would be a good thing. perhaps just making sure extra cables could be dragged through the conduit if needed in the future?

I think the roll out of this kind of tech will be slow enough not to become a major issue. They are not going to suddenly replace existing ultra-rapid chargers.

[tamore]

uktrailmonster said:

tamore said:

absolutely, but avoiding digging trenches back up would be a good thing. perhaps just making sure extra cables could be dragged through the conduit if needed in the future?

I think the roll out of this kind of tech will be slow enough not to become a major issue. They are not going to suddenly replace existing ultra-rapid chargers.

there's a lot of 150kW chargers going live at the moment in the UK. already old hat!

[uktrailmonster]

tamore said:

uktrailmonster said:

tamore said:

absolutely, but avoiding digging trenches back up would be a good thing. perhaps just making sure extra cables could be dragged through the conduit if needed in the future?

I think the roll out of this kind of tech will be slow enough not to become a major issue. They are not going to suddenly replace existing ultra-rapid chargers.

there's a lot of 150kW chargers going live at the moment in the UK. already old hat!

But they are still useful and will be for years. Most existing EVs can’t charge much faster than that anyway, so these chargers will be welcome. Much like the Tesla Supercharging network, they will gradually get upgraded and new sites will be added with the latest tech.

[loudlashadjuster]

tamore said:

uktrailmonster said:

tamore said:

absolutely, but avoiding digging trenches back up would be a good thing. perhaps just making sure extra cables could be dragged through the conduit if needed in the future?

I think the roll out of this kind of tech will be slow enough not to become a major issue. They are not going to suddenly replace existing ultra-rapid chargers.

there's a lot of 150kW chargers going live at the moment in the UK. already old hat!

The way battery prices are going it’s going to be a no-brainer option to add some storage to existing sites if the immediate power demands increase as cars can take 300+ kW charging, so I can’t see even existing sites needing to be upgraded in terms of grid connection.

[tamore]

loudlashadjuster said:

The way battery prices are going it s going to be a no-brainer option to add some storage to existing sites if the immediate power demands increase as cars can take 300+ kW charging, so I can t see even existing sites needing to be upgraded in terms of grid connection.

when sodium cell production is in full swing it'll be brilliant for this. cheap, big temp range of operation, doesn't mind full cycling, very resistant to thermal runaway. low energy density doesn't really matter as you could dig a big hole and bury a few containers at charging sites.

[plfrench]

Googlin said:

150kW means around 15 minutes to add 50% to a 77kWh battery (ie 30-80%)

That's around 150 miles range at 4 miles/ kWh, or at an average speed of 60mph (because in real life no one is flat out the whole time at the speed limit, there's stuff called traffic that makes your real world speed slower) that's 2 1/2 hours.

That's more than fast enough for most people in most circumstances.

A 15 minute stop every 150 miles or 2 1/2 hours is pretty sensible.

The Highway Code agrees with you, recommending a break of 15mins every two hours of driving.

Edited by plfrench on Sunday 8th March 15:32