Electric vehicles (split from Electricity smart meters)

[mountainpenguin]

Wow there is some rubbish in this thread 40% loss of battery range in cold weather !!!
You do loose range but not 40%. The wind has a big effect too.
In the winter there is a different big bonus. The car being plugged in is pre heated either via an app or via a timer and as this is done from mains it heats up quick without affecting the range. You always start with a full battery and rapid chargers are getting much more plentiful. Some journeys require a bit more planning (though upgrading the battery and therfore range is a possibility)
We are very rural though most of our journeys are < 40 miles we have done more.
however for inspiration have a look at https://blog.zerocarbonadventures.co.uk/ glyn can tell you a lot more about the experience. Note the long trips to spain and europe all on a small battery.
It will have a significant affect on the grid but cars can be used as a house / grid battery too.
The raw efficiency of an EV is amazing

The average vehicle efficiency in the UK is 30 mpg or 0.68 miles/kWh. An electric car provides an energy saving of 83% compared to the average. A newer 50 mpg petrol car travels 1.13 miles/kWh, an EV would provide a 72% saving in this case.

 

[ZombieCake]

Wow there is some rubbish in this thread 40% loss of battery range in cold weather !!!

Yes, quite agree.  Lies, damned lies, and statistics.  I'm sure anything can be used to argue for and against the same thing.  All good fun to muse over.

https://apnews.com/04029bd1e0a94cd59ff9540a398c12d1#:~:text=DETROIT%20(AP)%20%E2%80%94%20Cold%20temperatures,as%20much%20as%20the%20cold.

I'll stick with petrol for the time being.  You don't have to keep it plugged in to a life support machine to use it.  Funnily enough I did look at a 2nd hand BMW i3 electric car when I swapped my car over in February. I baulked at the cost, not so much the forecourt price but the hidden extras such as the looming replacement battery cost and all the other BMW costs.  So current car is now a small full time 4x4 super mini with ?30 road tax. Not perfect, but not too bad at all.
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing at all against electric cars, the geek in me generally likes the idea, and go-kart acceleration looks cool.  (I could also use as an excuse to add to my VDE tool collection!)
Thing is they don't suit all at present, and I don't go for all the marketing hype around them.

 

[PeteHall]

In the winter there is a different big bonus. The car being plugged in is pre heated either via an app or via a timer and as this is done from mains it heats up quick without affecting the range.

If you can plug in at home.

My boss has PHEV,  and lives in the city with on street parking, so no charging at home and as I mentioned earlier, we have free EV charging at work. In the summer he gets home and back to the office on the battery. In winter he's lucky to make it home without the petrol engine.

Part of this is battery efficiency, but also in winter, you need the heating on, lights on, wipers on etc. Before you add the extra drag from a wet road or higher winds.

Regardless of the mechanism, in winter, he gets less than half the miles.

The other point this highlights is that people in the city (where EV's provide most benefit are least likely to have the option to charge at home.

Personally, I don't think there is enough personal incentive yet, an efficient diesel will be cheaper more flexible motoring. But if people don't take it up, the technology won't develop enough to create that incentive, which is where state and corporate support can help.

If companies who claim to be green only provided EV's as pool or company cars, it would boost uptake and also filter more 2nd hand vehicles into the market.

 

[mountainpenguin]

phev well yes at a guess its and outlander? if so its umm special. The heating in those a lot of those is resistive so I can believe a 40% drop and they don't do that well anyway. The leafs etc have a heat pump to provide heat so 3-5 times the efficiency.
I spent *Ages* looking before committing.  There are options for onroad at home charging (connections to lamp post). https://unboxed.co/product-stories/chargy/
They aren't perfect (yet) but they are *very* cheap to run and more practical that you think. I am convinced that a PHEV is the worst of all worlds though ! unreliable ICE and small and therefore hammered low lifespan battery. Our EV needs fewer brake pads as most of the time its re gen braking and other than topping up the screen wash it needs way less maintenance than any ICE. We were *very* nervous when buying it. Its a lot easier now as the batteries are bigger and there are more rapid chargers around. Its definitely not cheaper (for most) to get an efficient diesel though it is still a bit more flexible. So far the depreciation on our car over 3 years is <?1K and its saved us >4K so in cash terms its been a better investment than putting money in the bank!

 

[Pitlamp]

Some really interesting information coming out here - thanks everybody. Wasn't the Outlander the first hybrid 4x4? So not as well evolved as models coming out now?

Pete Hall makes a good point above, with: "if people don't take it up, the technology won't develop enough to create that incentive". I'm really keen to reduce my own carbon footprint but I just can't (yet) identify anything anywhere near as good as the four Suzuki Jimnys I've had over the last 12 years. I'm watching the market though. Another problem for me is I'll probably be buying a used car, so I'd have to wait for second hand ones to start coming on the market.

Sam T also makes a good point about possible battery standardisation. For a long time I've thought that a battery swap arrangement would encourage me more towards an EV. Planning is all well and good (and I'd probably manage that easily in normal circumstances) but sometimes planning isn't really enough. Suppose a family member is suddenly is taken ill some distance away and needs help - if the battery wasn't charged fully (say, because there's plenty of energy for the normal short commute next day) you might not be able to make make the sudden longer emergency journey. A battery swap option would be the obvious solution.

Battery swapping would also get round a concern I've heard expressed - the fact that the battery is really expensive, so purchasers of EVs are (legitimately) worried about resale value, if the battery has degraded.

 

[Von Trippenhof]

Pitlamp, On the idea of swappable batteries, a couple of years ago I was seduced by the promo videos of better swap stations. Now though I?ve changed my opinion to ?probably not?. The battery tech has leapfrogged the need.

The cell technology is jumping on so fast that while the form and fit of the packaged battery hasn?t grown, the storage capacity of the packaged battery has increased hugely. Not just down to cell chemistry, but also manufacture and packaging knowledge. This development is continuing. The life of the cells with improved manufacturing and management is increasing too. So imagine we?re 2025 and you swap your latest tech battery for a fully charged but 2020 tech battery, you?re likely to be disappointed with the range.

There?s also the question of swap speed. To swap out a 400+V battery safely is a bit convoluted. Plus you would need to queue for the bay. All dead time. If you just plug in, you can be doing something useful. Eg. Having a wee. Or in your emergency scenario getting on the phone to the loved one to coordinate care/reassuring chat.

Rapid charge at the current 50 kW will give you 100+ miles in 20 mins. The 150 kW systems that most 2020 cars are capable of and charging infrastructure isrolling out now will cut that to 1/3. You don?t need to charge to full remember - just the range to get to your emergency.

 

[PeteHall]

phev well yes at a guess its and outlander?

It's actually a BMW X3 with a tiny battery and basically just a tax fiddle for company directors who can afford a posh new car and save on company car tax. However the relative range between summer and winter is presumably comparable to any other EV as relatively speaking, there are the same inefficiencies in winter.

Maybe buying new you might save money buying an EV over a diesel, but for those of us in the 2nd hand market, there just aren't the options.

Even new, I'm not sure what EV's exist that would be suitable to take the family camping in,  certainly not in my usual price range of ?300 - ?3,000

Servicing an ICE car needn't be expensive. I do all mine once a year and even using premium oil, I typically pay between ?40 and ?80 depending which vehicle. The V8 costs a bit more as there are 8 spark plugs, which can be a bit pricey,  but at 12mpg, that's the last of my worries 

Regarding lifespan of batteries for EV's, I believe that some manufacturers offer these on lease now, so it's not so much of a worry as it used to be.

 

[Pitlamp]

Thanks VT and PH - both your posts above have told me things I wasn't aware of and are very encouraging.

Living where I do in the Dales, I only actually saw my very first on street charging station recently (a single one, in Whalley near Clitheroe - and it was in use). I'm told they have them at Booths in Kirkby Lonsdale but I never shop there on principle since they started charging for parking. (Settle branch is very good and they don't charge to park.)

I'm lucky in that I could get my motor near enough to the house to use the domestic supply to charge up but if I ran out when out and about locally, there isn't really anywhere to top up. It's not as if you can ring the AA and ask them to bring you a gallon of electricity. (Maybe their vans will contain megabatteries in future, to do a quick boost just to get you going?) I guess this situation will only improve as time goes by.

I've found this an invaluable topic.

 

[Fulk]

I'm told they have them at Booths in Kirkby Lonsdale but I never shop there on principle since they started charging for parking.

I'm not 100% sure about this, John, but my understanding is that they ? Booths ? were obliged to charge under the terms of their arrangement with the local authority, who actually do the charging; Booths go a fair way to ameliorating this by paying for your parking if you spend more that ?5.

 

[Pitlamp]

Oh, it's the council is it? That makes me even more determined, after the recent rise in council tax of 5.2% - way above inflation (yet again). I'll stick with Settle branch.

 

[Pitlamp]

Actually - thinking about it - it's not the same council there is it? In which case I'll take that indictment of their greed back.

 

[Fulk]

Not that SLDC is any less grasping with their poll tax.

 

[Pitlamp]

You just can't win, eh?

 

[Fjell]

https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/electric/id/id-family/id-buzz

Back to the future.

 

[JeremyG]

EVs are the future and both vehicles themselves and the availability of public charging points are improving all the time. In terms of range it does depend on the car, but I can drive from Bristol to Yorkshire at motorway speeds without stopping to charge.

 

[paul]

There are still a lot of problems remaining before EVs become widespread.
Leaving aside considerations on the extra electricity generation requirement for all those charging points, there are many locations where there are difficulties with having charging points at all.
The village I live in only has a certain proportion of houses actually located at the side of a road, with the only access to them being via narrow pathways, so cars have to be parked some distance away on other roads.
The main street for example has terraces of various sized houses  fronting straight on to the pavement with no front gardens or other frontage. The chances of guaranteeing being able to park right outside or even near a certain house are slim. And for the "put the charging points in lamposts idea", there are none. All street lights are affixed directly to houses.

 

[Pitlamp]

https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/electric/id/id-family/id-buzz

Back to the future.

Hm - hardly a Land Rover is it? I mean, tiny wheels, as far apart as possible (giving what looks like an appalling ramp break over angle). My quest is to try and find an EV (or hybrid) which is small and capable in harsh winter conditions and off the tarmac when necessary (both of which feature often around here in the Dales).

However, what really worries me about that suggested feature is the following words: " Soon the driver will become the passenger ". Once some robot in the sky somewhere decides where we're going, at what speeds and via which route - and which can then be hacked & controlled by some aggressive foreign power, then "1984! really has happened. But that's a totally different subject from electric vehicles' pros and cons, so I'll not go on about it here.

 

[JeremyG]

Looking forward to getting my tri-motor Cybertruck, that will be good for caving ??

 

[zzzzzzed]

UN Warns Electric Automobile Rush is Causing Human Rights Abuses

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/07/03/un-warns-electric-automobile-rush-is-causing-human-rights-abuses/

 

[PeteHall]

I think I alluded to this earlier. Thanks for the link.