Electric cars

Martyn1981

stator wrote: »

A weekly shop? You think people with electric cars would only need to charge them once per week?
You seriously think that Tesco and Sainsburys are going to roll out free charging points for all the parking spaces in their car park?
If you want EV to really be a replacement for the ICE you have to find a solution for everyone to charge their car. One free charging spot at the local LIDL won't do it.

A fleet of nuclear power stations producing hydrogen don't need to reduce their output. When demand for electricity is high, they sell it to the grid. When demand is low they use the power themselves to produce hydrogen on site and sell that. If the government built the power stations and hydrogen production, once they had banned the ICE, they would be able to sell the power stations off at a profit

Weekly charge, let's see, average UK mileage is 7,900 miles pa. That's 152 miles per week, and at 4 miles per kWh that's approx 38kWh's.

So yes, one charge per week would suit the average fine.

[Edit - all of this info has already been provided on this thread with many EV'ers explaining how it all works already. If you took the time to see how EV's work in reality, you wouldn't need to keep posting such nonsense all the time, and might actually be surprised at the practicality of EV's already, which will only improve over time. M.]

Plus on-street charging, in work charging, charging at the gym, charging at other shops, the list goes on.

Would supermarkets roll out charging ..... they already are. They can charge for a profit, for cost, or even as a loss leader to get you in, so the question isn't will they, but why on earth wouldn't they, yes?

Yes the nuclear powerstations can produce hydrogen when demand is low, but why wouldn't you use excess leccy from RE being produced at around £40-£60/MWh rather than excess leccy from nuclear at £100/MWh.

Take the losses in efficiency into account and the H2 car will be consuming about 4kWh of nuclear generation to provide 1kWh to the BEV part of the car, so that's approx 40p/kWh.

The government sold off the current fleet of nuclear powerstations to EDF at a loss, so making a profit on nukes has never worked in the past.

Please consider the cost info I've provided. And if you want to continue your claims, then prove that they aren't fanciful with some supporting links.

AdrianC

almillar wrote: »

Now, I repeat that I'm not saying we can run a country on 100% renewables, but you have GOT to acknowledge the existence of batteries, which are a buffer/peak management, They're in use on the grid right now.

But to what extent?

Large scale demand-balancing storage is mostly currently done with pumped hydro - Dinorwig has been online since the 80s, and can provide 1.7GWh, with 9.1GWh capacity, 0 to full capacity in 16 seconds. There's various other, much smaller-scale sites, like Ffestiniog (360MW) and Glynrhonwy (100MW)


There's talk of 4.8GWh of battery currently being planned for the future, about 2022 or so, but I can't find much about current usage apart from some fairly trivial trials, like Northern PowerGrid's 2.5MW.

Stageshoot

s0mojo wrote: »

As much as I'd like to love to own a an EV, I just don't feel comfortable with our infrastructure so instead I'd go for a hybrid such as a Golf GTE

I went the other way, Started with a BMW i3 Rex, EV (with Petrol Backup), after 40k miles in a year found I was dragging a petrol engine round for no reason, so moved to a pure EV.

Never ever been unable to get a charge (I normally stop at Motorway Service Areas), found the network to be reliable and growing at a fantastic rate at the moment, now just over 100k EV in just over 2 years and would never ever go back to fossil.

s0mojo

Stageshoot wrote: »

I went the other way, Started with a BMW i3 Rex, EV (with Petrol Backup), after 40k miles in a year found I was dragging a petrol engine round for no reason, so moved to a pure EV.

Never ever been unable to get a charge (I normally stop at Motorway Service Areas), found the network to be reliable and growing at a fantastic rate at the moment, now just over 100k EV in just over 2 years and would never ever go back to fossil.

Interesting, what EV did you get and where abouts in the country are you bud? I'm based in the South East and the nearest charge point for me at stations are about 30 miles ish apart and don't have a garage so can't really charge at home if I wanted to.

Stageshoot

s0mojo wrote: »

Interesting, what EV did you get and where abouts in the country are you bud? I'm based in the South East and the nearest charge point for me at stations are about 30 miles ish apart and don't have a garage so can't really charge at home if I wanted to.

I went from the BMW i3 (60ah) 85 miles EV Range (Real World) 120 NEDC
to the
Renault Zoe 41Kwh 190 Miles EV Range (Real World) 250 NEDC

I am North Notts M1 Jnc 28, and my daily commute 3 days a week is to Central London so 145 miles each way, with the i3 I had to stop for 30mins on way in and on way home (at Milton Keynes), so it added an hour to the journey.

With the Zoe I can do it easily at motorway speeds non stop all year.. Best I have had out of it is 202 Miles (Home to Brighton)... To get the claimed 250 miles you would need to do 45 tucked up a lorries bum crack the whole time.

I use the Ecotricity Rapids on the MSAs a lot as they are often on Free vend and also the Polar Ultrachargers, after a few months you get very used to pushing it as far as it will go, I dont find it slows me down at all now as with 200 miles range I time stops on very long trips with meal or coffee breaks or doing paperwork

I am a great advocate of EVs working well for people who do high mileage, the ones they really still dont work for is those who cant charge at home overnight. If you cant leave home every day with a full battery the shine of EV ownership can soon wear off..

AdrianC

Stageshoot wrote: »

I am North Notts M1 Jnc 28, and my daily commute 3 days a week is to Central London so 145 miles each way

Which is only made feasible by the artificiality of being an early-adopter, being able to take advantage of the current unsustainable EV incentives like free parking and CC exemption...


Surely it'd make much more sense to commute to central London by train? 2hr30-ish from Mansfield to St Pancras with a change at Nottingham, or 1hr45 straight from Nottingham.

almillar

A weekly shop? You think people with electric cars would only need to charge them once per week?

Yes I do. I'm just about managing once a week now, I'm sure it'll get better in the summer. 30kWh car. Imagine how rarely I'd charge with a 40kWh car.

You seriously think that Tesco and Sainsburys are going to roll out free charging points for all the parking spaces in their car park?

Nope, but 'some' spaces. Asda already has plenty. Maybe YOU should get out more. And you're still ignoring the workplace, cinema, etc as places to charge - you know, the places you actually drive cars TO.

If you want EV to really be a replacement for the ICE you have to find a solution for everyone to charge their car

Indeed, there are still challenges here. Think of this though, how many 'charging stations' (pumps) are there for ICE cars? Certainly not one each. Granted, it takes longer to charge a car, than pump it, but you can ONLY pump in a petrol station. EVs add so many places where you can refuel instead of actually having to drive to a dedicated place. But here's something handy to chew on - charge it where you park it.

As much as I'd like to love to own a an EV, I just don't feel comfortable with our infrastructure so instead I'd go for a hybrid such as a Golf GTE

Great stuff, nice car. Every electric mile is good for the environment. Just don't hog the rapid chargers!

But to what extent?

I don't know. But the price of batteries and solar panels is coming down all the time. Deploying these AT charging stations (hey, bury the batteries where the fuel tanks used to be!) for local solutions seems sensible to me. This is where the NEW big peaks will potentially be.

Stageshoot

AdrianC wrote: »

Which is only made feasible by the artificiality of being an early-adopter, being able to take advantage of the current unsustainable EV incentives like free parking and CC exemption...


Surely it'd make much more sense to commute to central London by train? 2hr30-ish from Mansfield to St Pancras with a change at Nottingham, or 1hr45 straight from Nottingham.

No as I need the car while I am there most times,

and as for cost.. At least £200 by train. (Plus I would have to drive to Mansfield or Nottingham Station and Park)

Whereas the Zoe costs £2 or less to do the trip.

I make no bones about the fact I moved to EV to save Money not to hug polar bears.

Some of the incentives are Early Adopter... ( I drove a Fiat 500 Twinair to get free CC before the rules changed).. and I am sure they will change again in future but as long as you can guess that for the useable time you will keep the car (Or until its financially positive) then its worth doing.

With works mileage and the savings in Parking (£45 a day) CC (£11.50 a day) Fuel (£40 a day) the car has covered its costs in less than 18 months

AdrianC

Stageshoot wrote: »

No as I need the car while I am there most times

Tube/bus would not work?

and as for cost.. At least £200 by train.

I don't think anybody would say that rail fares are anything but excessive.

Martyn1981

Stageshoot wrote: »

I make no bones about the fact I moved to EV to save Money not to hug polar bears.

That is so, so important. Arguments about morals, green'ess, AGW and true costs can go on for ever, but when the 800lb economic gorilla changed sides for both EV's and RE, it was gameover, or at least the beginning of the end.

Now, if we could just explain this in simple words and crayon drawings for Trump, we might be able to move him towards a cleaner and cheaper future too.