I live in London, park on the street, so i can't............
Discussion
i guess it depends greatly on the area but i just picture getting up in the morning to find
a) my car was not charged
b) i can't find the charging cable i plugged in the night before
c) later in the day i notice a bright yellow cable dangling from a telegraph pole at the end of the road.
a) my car was not charged
b) i can't find the charging cable i plugged in the night before
c) later in the day i notice a bright yellow cable dangling from a telegraph pole at the end of the road.
I think the unit in the picture might be from Ubitricty . There also appears to be a box/controller in the lead.
The Ubitricity unit allows a max 20A to be pulled. I cant see there being the overhead in the existing street lighting cable infrastructure to allow many extra 20A loads to be attached. So it will probably come down to 1 in every 'x' posts to be enabled.
However, how many posts are at kerb side? I've just looked at a number of streets near me and the posts are no where near the kerb edge.
I also (regrettably) look forward to the first claim from somebody falling over such a cable and injuring themselves.
The Ubitricity unit allows a max 20A to be pulled. I cant see there being the overhead in the existing street lighting cable infrastructure to allow many extra 20A loads to be attached. So it will probably come down to 1 in every 'x' posts to be enabled.
However, how many posts are at kerb side? I've just looked at a number of streets near me and the posts are no where near the kerb edge.
I also (regrettably) look forward to the first claim from somebody falling over such a cable and injuring themselves.
An article in the Time son Saturday suggested that if all vehicles in London were EVs they would need 5 times as much power as the London Underground system. Extrapolated on a national basis this would mean the equivalent of 20 new nuclear plants. A massive grid upgrade would be needed as well.
Petrol and diseasel will be around for a while yet.
Petrol and diseasel will be around for a while yet.
AW10 said:
An article in the Time son Saturday suggested that if all vehicles in London were EVs they would need 5 times as much power as the London Underground system. Extrapolated on a national basis this would mean the equivalent of 20 new nuclear plants. A massive grid upgrade would be needed as well.
Petrol and diseasel will be around for a while yet.
er, the Underground stops a bit after midnight you know........ and doesn't start till about 5.30 am, so there's at least 5 hours when all of london's EVs can use it's power.........Petrol and diseasel will be around for a while yet.
(and of course, few of those EVs will actually be completely flat, what with the average speed in london being about 7mph, meaning you'd have to be driving for about 10 hours a day to flat even a 1st gen EV)
AW10 said:
An article in the Time son Saturday suggested that if all vehicles in London were EVs they would need 5 times as much power as the London Underground system. Extrapolated on a national basis this would mean the equivalent of 20 new nuclear plants. A massive grid upgrade would be needed as well.
Petrol and diseasel will be around for a while yet.
That's assuming that all EV's will need charged every day at the same time as the tube station runs?Petrol and diseasel will be around for a while yet.
In reality it's once or twice a week, at night when there is plenty of spare capacity on the grid.
Infact, they actually can help the grid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid
Anyway, it's a great idea being able to charge from lamp posts, except that 99% of lamp posts in my area are not next to the kerb so you'd need to drag a cable across it.

AW10 said:
An article in the Time son Saturday suggested that if all vehicles in London were EVs they would need 5 times as much power as the London Underground system. Extrapolated on a national basis this would mean the equivalent of 20 new nuclear plants. A massive grid upgrade would be needed as well.
Petrol and diseasel will be around for a while yet.
That article is MILES out. Someone did the maths on SpeakEV but if we built new power stations for EVs then we would need about 3 Hinkleys across the UK. That ignores the fact that we wont need to build new stations for some time yet, because we have loads of excess capacity at night, which is exactly when people will charge their cars.Petrol and diseasel will be around for a while yet.
Lamppost charging looks to be a nice idea, some minor kinks to sort: Capacity can be sorted by switching to LED, Trip hazard might be trickier to sort and Vandalism is a risk no matter what you do ... there's always a git who wants to ruin somebodies day...
AW10 said:
An article in the Time son Saturday suggested that if all vehicles in London were EVs they would need 5 times as much power as the London Underground system. Extrapolated on a national basis this would mean the equivalent of 20 new nuclear plants. A massive grid upgrade would be needed as well.
Petrol and diseasel will be around for a while yet.
See the correction in the paper admitting that they didnt have a clue about power, energy or maths and that the entire article was bPetrol and diseasel will be around for a while yet.

hab1966 said:
I cant see there being the overhead in the existing street lighting cable infrastructure to allow many extra 20A loads to be attached.
Is there a "street lighting cable infrastructure"? In built-up areas I thought they were just connected to the mains at the nearest convenient point.Gassing Station | EV and Alternative Fuels | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff