fiver for a 20 minute fast charge strikes the right balance

zeupater

almillar wrote: »

... It'll be a similar story for lots of hybrids too ....

Hi

:think: ...... Isn't that where the H part of PHEV comes onto play ???? .... range anxiety or 55p/kWh charge points have never been an issue with MrsZ's due to the absolute lack of places to purchase liquid carbon ....

Z

System

almillar wrote: »

You grossly underestimate the amount of energy required to provide movement, and/or grossly overestimate how much electric a lawnmower engine would be able to produce - Eric Mears explains it very well in post #9

That assertion is for one vehicle. They all charge differently. I assume you're talking about a Leaf on 50kW DC.

The get out, of course, is if you're an Ecotricity Electric customer, you get free charging, AND a £40 per year discount for owning an EV. For me in NI, I can't take advantage of that as they don't operate over here. They have 1 'pump' which is at IKEA Belfast, and it'll go rusty through lack of use...

Just for info, I've got a 22kW charging Renault Zoe - some are 43kW. All Zoes have a 22kWh battery. So for me, ignoring slowdown at around 95% charge, I'd get 11kW, 'half a tank' in 30 minutes. That's 55p per kW, which is too much, for me and my car. It'll be a similar story for lots of hybrids too.
They're charging for time, rather than per kW, as time is the more valuable asset here. but the change they've made means you can max out at TWO, not THREE, users, per pump, per hour. Nobody is going to leave the pump for you now, they'll want to get their money's worth. And if there's a queue, it'll move more slowly too.

Ok - for those not following recent developments. Free charging is only available to Ecotricity DUAL fuel customers. There is also a Fair Use Policy of 52 charges in a year then Ecotricity customers will pay the £6 charge.

Ecotricity also appears to be reacting to further feedback and looking at salami slicing the 30 minutes into 5/10 minutes segments.

almillar

Isn't that where the H part of PHEV comes onto play ????

Yes, it is indeed. But there's an acknowledged problem (check out the speak EV forum!) of hybrids charging, whilst pure EVs (whose owners perceive their own need to be greater) think they shouldn't be there, or should at least defer to them. As in, the hybrid owner can drive on, or goto the petrol station, whereas that charger is the pure EV's only source of fuel.
What does your wife drive? Does she use public chargers? What's her capacity and speed of charging?

zeupater

almillar wrote: »

Yes, it is indeed. But there's an acknowledged problem (check out the speak EV forum!) of hybrids charging, whilst pure EVs (whose owners perceive their own need to be greater) think they shouldn't be there, or should at least defer to them. As in, the hybrid owner can drive on, or goto the petrol station, whereas that charger is the pure EV's only source of fuel.
What does your wife drive? Does she use public chargers? What's her capacity and speed of charging?

Hi

It's a PiP (so limited pure EV mileage/range) and public chargers around here are pretty few and far between, but apart from once or twice not long after the car arrived she doesn't use them at all. The car gets charged on her dedicated charge point at work which actually covers the majority of the 'short-journey' mileage, but apart from that it might as well be a pure hybrid because it's never plugged in at home! .... Anyway, the public chargers which would be most useful on a regular basis have been mothballed/decommissioned to make way for (yet more!) really important 'Mother & Toddler' parking spaces ... talk about 'build it & they will come', well is it surprising that there's a population boom and EV sales are still ticking along slowly? ... there's even a guy who lives up the road with a Leaf (well actually he lives up the road & owns a Leaf, but each to his/her own!) who takes 'the love of his life' for a 'walk' most days to hog a charge point because he's too 'tight' to buy his own fuel, so it's not just a case of hybrid owners causing the issues you raise, it's others too! ....

HTH
Z

System

I am not sure that there is much point in replicating the 150 plus page thread on Speak.ev about this change of policy. I did chuckle when someone posted that he had bought a fleet of EVs for his business, and he charged each EV once a day at an Electric Highway rapid, and this change was going to impact on his business.

Dale Vince made in plain on Radio 4 that he didn't consider PHEVs to be EVs and he had set a pricing policy to deter the PHEV driver who drove 20 miles and stopped for a charge and so on.

zeupater

Hengus wrote: »

I am not sure that there is much point in replicating the 150 plus page thread on Speak.ev about this change of policy. I did chuckle when someone posted that he had bought a fleet of EVs for his business, and he charged each EV once a day at an Electric Highway rapid, and this change was going to impact on his business.

Dale Vince made in plain on Radio 4 that he didn't consider PHEVs to be EVs and he had set a pricing policy to deter the PHEV driver who drove 20 miles and stopped for a charge and so on.

Hi

I agree, it's a case of understanding technology and limitations ... make the wrong decision and people will soon understand the limitations ... of course, this will change with time, but at least MrsZ made the right decision .... :think: ... err, well, that's not strictly true - I seem to remember steering her in the right direction ... :shhh::silenced:

HTH
Z

System

Buying an EV requires a lot of thought. I bought my I3 because it does 95% of what I want it to do without giving me a moments grief. The other 5%: the longish distance journey requires considerable planning. The Electric Highway is great when it works and it is available. The problem is that you always have to A - B - C it. For example, I can make C but I had better stop at B in case C is unserviceable.

Hogging has become an issue. It is not use PHEVs. That said, I have met a number of PHEV owners who were there just for a free weekly re-charge. A bigger issue is the EV owner that wants to go from 80 to 100% charge. Above 80%, the charge rate falls markedly. On my I3, I would be just as well off charging on a Type 2 7kW post as I would be using a rapid. Ecotricity's charging will, in my view, stop some of the charger hogging.

Clearly, EV owners are annoyed. The rapid charging network is fragile and it needs to be expanded. That said, many are just upset because they leased an EV for in pocket benefits and they are now facing a monthly charge of £120 a month just to commute to and from work.

EricMears

Hengus wrote: »

Buying an EV requires a lot of thought. I bought my I3 because it does 95% of what I want it to do without giving me a moments grief. The other 5%: the longish distance journey requires considerable planning. The Electric Highway is great when it works and it is available. The problem is that you always have to A - B - C it. For example, I can make C but I had better stop at B in case C is unserviceable.

I only ever intended to use our e-Up! for 'local' journeys and with a (theoretical) 90miles/day range it was & is ideal for that. I'm quite happy to charge it on E7 which has resulted in an average 'fuel cost' of 1.5ppm (compared with the 15ppm the Volvo offers on local trips). I could reduce that even more by charging in daytime at this time of year but it would become a bit of a chore watching for clouds all day long.


I bought the car in Southampton and needed to get it home - 200 miles away. Dealer was quoting an exorbitant price to send it up on a lorry but Ecotricity very helpfully explained how I could use rapid chargers at Chieveley, Warwick & Trowell to get home gratis. Alas, what they didn't explain was that the Chieveley charger was incompatible with VWs (and had been reported as such for some time before then on the SpeakEV site !) or that there was no way of getting any help from them on a Saturday.


I have no plans to take the e-Up! back to Southampton (why would I when the Volvo takes more passengers & luggage is more comfortable and in future will be cheaper to run on that sort of journey ?) though it would have been nice to have the option of using it for an occasional 90+ mile day.

almillar

It's a PiP (so limited pure EV mileage/range)

PiP? Plug in Petrol? Prius, Auris?

Destination charging is the thing to do, especially if your car is a slow charger. Any supermarket or shopping centre should have free 7 kW charging points, this would give anyone a decent charge whilst they shop, whilst not being expensive - cheap enough charger and single phase AC - 22kW and upwards needs 3 phase. Getting this kind of charge wouldn't be make-or-break, just a bonus.

so it's not just a case of hybrid owners causing the issues you raise, it's others too! ....

Absolutely. I've been guilty of it myself at IKEA where I ended up in there for nearly an hour and got pulled by an angry Leaf driver. There's only a rapid at it. If I could have used a slow charger, I would have. ChargeBump can help here (I did have the sign in my window!) and I highly recommend it for any EV/PHEV drivers.

That said, I have met a number of PHEV owners who were there just for a free weekly re-charge

And there's no problem with that, but you should both be polite about it and agree who's in greater need - it'll be you. Yes, for longer journeys you do need to have a 'plan B' that you can get to, after checking Plugshare and Zap-Map for the latest on whether chargers are working or not.

Above 80%, the charge rate falls markedly

That's a generalisation amongst lots of, but not all, EVs. Renault Zoe can go to around 95% at full or near full speed - that's 22kW in my case.

Martyn1981

Not much use today, but how about car batts that can be charged in just a few minutes?

See the section on graphene batts, about a 1/4 of the way down this article.

Future batteries, coming soon: charge in seconds, last months and power over the air

Graphene car batteries

Graphene batteries are the future. One company has developed a new battery, called Grabat, that could offer electric cars a driving range of up to 500 miles on a charge.

Graphenano, the company behind the development, says the batteries can be charged to full in just a few minutes. It can charge and discharge 33 times faster than lithium ion. Discharge is also crucial for things like cars that want vast amounts of power in order to pull away quickly.

The capacity of the 2.3V Grabat is huge with around 1000 Wh/kg which compares to lithium ion's current 180 Wh/kg. The best part of all this is that these batteries should be ready to go by mid way through 2016.

Of course you also have to consider the leccy supply that would be needed to charge 500 miles (100kWh?) of batts in minutes. It would be rather large.

Also mid 2016 sounds optimistic, unless folk are aware of these in development?

Mart.