Electric cars

Martyn1981

IanMSpencer wrote: »

Of course the generation issue is still to be resolved. I am entirely unclear what the impact will be on the demand for generation, given that we apparently need significant nuclear investment to meet current requirements and it is not clear to me whether the transfer of energy requirements onto the national grid has been accounted for in the future growth of UK generation. I fear that the government may have decided it did not need the experts when it made its declaration for future EV use.

Don't worry too much about generation capacity, nor generation volume, it is, and certainly can be increased far faster than any switch over to EV's.

As explained earlier cars would add around 10% to annual UK leccy demand (it's actually about 20% for cars, but 10% less for oil refineries). Renewables have gone from 5% of demand to 25% (in 2015/16) in just 10yrs. This year the figure may be closer to 30%, so there's no problem adding more generation faster than demand rises.

Plus, of course, there's 10-15GW of spare gas capacity at night when demand is low, and whilst that is of course FF generation, it's still far cleaner and more efficient than small petrol and diesel engines. So the UK could cope today, if it had to, but it'll probably be 10yrs (or more) before car sales are 50%+ EV, and even then they will still make up a minority of cars on the road for another decade or so..

almillar

You seem to think that cars are like they were 30 years ago. Every one of the rotating parts in my engine and gearbox have covered 125000 miles with no maintenance other than an oil change

They kindof are - in terms of, I'm talking about ICE cars, which have pistons and explosions and stuff. That hasn't changed in 30 years.

You seem to be making the point that they've got more reliable. I never said a word about reliability - I was talking about the number of moving parts. The theme being that there is less SERVICING to be done. You could also IMPLY that there is more reliability.

Also, for your engine and gearbox to cove 125,000 miles, I'd expect SEVERAL oil changes, oil filter, and surely a few air filters, spark plugs/glow plugs to be thrown at it.

I won't consider an EV until there are as many filling stations in the UK for hydrogen as there are now for LPG.

I consider batteries to be a waste of time, the only logical successor to petrol will be hydrogen.

You don't make much of an argument there...

The point being that batteries are not viable

All the EVs driving around right now seem to suggest that they are.

* They weigh a lot

how much does that pressurised hydrogen tank weigh?

* They cost a lot

Prices dropping rapidly per kWh, hydrogen, not so much.

* They deteriorate

Yes they do. They also perform worse in winter than summer in the UK, you missed that one.

* They have a high manufacturing footprint in materials

Compared to what? Remember to remove the combustion engine and/or tank from your comparison. You have to remember the fuel source. It's unfair to count building a massive battery, but not count hydrogen, petrol or diesel.

* They limit your driving range and take ages to recharge assuming you can find a charging point

I'll do better in my electric car than you will in your hydrogen one, thanks. Infrastructure is part of the problem, and it's a big problem for hydrogen. I've got a 'filling station' in my driveway. Haven't seen that happen with petrol or hydrogen.

Hydrogen on the other hand is as easy as filling up with LPG. And does not limit your range if it were available everywhere.

Electric is available everywhere, therefore does not limit your range. A 400 mile range is no good if the next station is 500 miles away.

You're using the same source - energy -

(it's called electricity)

but you are utilising it more efficiently through hydrogen,

(how is it more efficient?)

the cars do not have to carry all the weight of battery and there is no manufacture of battery required for the billions of cars

Sure. Now, how much energy is required to make and ship hydrogen? And run the station it comes from?
I can see hydrogen possibly working for trains or heavy transport, but I just don't see it solving much of a problem. The problem being range, which EVs are improving all the time, and filling time, which again, with bigger range, faster charging times, is less and less of a problem.

zeupater

Joe_Horner wrote: »

Because the currents involved and the infrastructure to deliver amd store all those joules locally are the same pretty well regardless of how close the generation is. Unless you're suggesting we all go and charge up directly from 25kV at Wylfa?

Have you seen the roads to that place???


eta:

Incidentally, even if the above wasn't true, i happened to pick Anglesey for absolutely no other reason than that's where I am.

Are you seriously suggesting that we build a new nuclear plant and 2 x Gw wind farms within 20-odd mile radius of every population in the Uk? In the name of saving the planet??? Because that's plain swivel-eyed bat-crazy!

Hi

I suppose you really don't think that everyone takes a bucket to a power station & fills it with electrons to use at home .... that's what the combination of high&low voltage supply networks do .. the grid already moves those electrons more than 20 miles from the point of generation at voltages well in excess of the 25kV you mention, doing so at around 120million% the speed limit on UK roads, so don't worry about road congestion or narrow lanes ... additionally, it's not hard to consider the possibility of concentrating haulage rapid charging close to existing electricity substation or rolling-out new stations & transformers as and where deemed geographically necessary, I'm sure that the electricity supply industry would be happy to oblige, considering the additional revenue! ...

Anyway, on storage, if the energy is available in volume (deliverable kW) immediately, why would it need storing? .. surely the only need for intermediate/transient storage would be to accumulate charge, but isn't that one of the solutions under consideration anyway, eg charging stations with solar PV using battery storage to accumulate charge for later vending or self-use?

Regarding the point raised on distributed generation, well you may have raised it in jest or as yet another diversionary tactic, yet that's the way it's happening ... it's mid-winter & we're currently powering & heating the house purely on self generation, even if this wasn't the case then the way that the grid works means that our power would be sourced from one of three 5MWp solar installations within a few miles (well under 20!), at least one of which is currently testing large-scale storage solutions ... distributed energy generation is happening right now, distributed oil refining isn't, but just think of the advantage to yourself if there was the possibility of a mini refinery on your roof or just a few miles away - wouldn't it be more convenient than someone driving to Stanlow & back? ... maybe not a nice thought if bulk transporting or vending hydrocarbon energy provides anyone's source of income, but that's the way that technology goes & how improved efficiencies affect employment prospects as history records: remember ranks of bank tellers, secretaries, production-line workers, telephonists, farm-hands, coopers, blacksmiths etc ... ?

HTH
Z

MataNui

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Hiya, I can't recall the percentage exactly, but I think Tesla owners in the States get about 3%-5% of their leccy from superchargers. Most is as you say home charging, and perhaps in future more will be at destination chargers

This is a pointless and misleading statistic. Tesla costs would suggest that the vast majority of owners will have a house with a drive and probably a nice big double garage etc. For EVs to genuinely look to replace ICE then charging will need to be addressed for the majority who may live in terraces, flats or simply do not have drives. To suggest that you can simply charge them at home is absurd. #EDIT# Not having a dig at your comment in particular. Simply that its commonly quoted that EVS wont need the charging infrastructure once we have the range which isnt true.

At the moment we dont seem to be having this discussion at a national government level about these real world problems that need to be overcome. Thanks pretty much exclusively to Tesla the range problem looks pretty much sorted. Now its down to other manufacturers to follow and government to look at infrastructure and social constraints.

Herzlos

MataNui wrote: »

This is a pointless and misleading statistic. Tesla costs would suggest that the vast majority of owners will have a house with a drive and probably a nice big double garage etc. For EVs to genuinely look to replace ICE then charging will need to be addressed for the majority who may live in terraces, flats or simply do not have drives. To suggest that you can simply charge them at home is absurd. #EDIT# Not having a dig at your comment in particular. Simply that its commonly quoted that EVS wont need the charging infrastructure once we have the range which isnt true.

A valid point. No reason on-street parking can't over time be upgraded to provide charging too. Most residential streets have street lights already.
Ditto for car parks of any real size.

The petrol station will never go away, so there's always going to be the option for some people to only charge there, or at work or the supermarket. But these will likely be the last to convert, by which point the adoption rate will have resulted in a fairly large shift in the way we do cars.

MataNui

Herzlos wrote: »

A valid point. No reason on-street parking can't over time be upgraded to provide charging too. Most residential streets have street lights already.
Ditto for car parks of any real size.

Yes, that is one of the possible solutions. There are lots of problems with mass use of EVs. Problems have solutions. We just need to move from the two camps of:

1: There are no problems, EVs are the savior of the planet and are great as they are.
2: EVs have too many problems and they will never replace ICEs.

To accepting there are huge practical and social problems with mass adoption of EVs and start honestly discussing those problems and finding solutions. Tesla seem to be doing well with the range issue (and thats with executive size saloon cars) so why cant other manufacturers?

AnotherJoe

IanMSpencer wrote: »

We were discussing this at home. The idea of an infrastructure being required to support EV on the move is a nonsense. The cost of designing cars that have a range of 250 miles or so which will cover 99% or more of all user requirements is trivial compared with the logistical nightmare of creating fast charging hubs around the country.

For the remainder of car users, the alternatives are hybrids, especially super-hybrids which are really EVs with range extenders. I would have thought that small, super-clean generators that can run at peak generating efficiency would make little difference in terms of pollution than a conventional power station.

I also think, fast charging at home will be a no-no in the long term. I would assume the grid can withstand the extra load of a 3 bar heater in most houses at night with only minor tweaks here and there - there may be a problem with early evening peak power as people plug in straight away on returning home and probably don't worry about timing unless they are on Economy 7. However, the thought of people using fast charging in most homes would lead to a need to bolster the home network.

Of course the generation issue is still to be resolved. I am entirely unclear what the impact will be on the demand for generation, given that we apparently need significant nuclear investment to meet current requirements and it is not clear to me whether the transfer of energy requirements onto the national grid has been accounted for in the future growth of UK generation. I fear that the government may have decided it did not need the experts when it made its declaration for future EV use.

Fast charging for most home EVs is only double the 3 bar electric fire, eg 7Kw. I dont think many homes using that would be an issue especially as its likely to be at dead of night with little other load going on.

We dont need much, or any more generation because of that. Another factor is, there's roughly as much electricity "in" a litre of petrol" as would drive a car the equivalent distance, or soem reasonable % of. So as people stop using petrol for electricty, they are just displacing that electricity that would have been used. (Refining petrol uses a LOT of electricity, which is NOT generated on site). Some numbers here in a 4 minute video. Even if those numbers are off, its clear that refining petrol uses a lot of electricity, and that wind turbines produce a lot of electricity that isnt used at night right now, both those factors would soak up a lot of the "extra" energy you'd need for electric cars should people start rushing out and buying them.

If you want to stop everyone switching on their chargers at 6pm, you do it through making it cheaper to do it at other times. make it mandatory to move to E7 tariff if you get a grant to install a home charger for example.

Plus, AIUI, our overall requirement for electricity is rising much less than forecasted due to more energy efficient electrical appliances including lighting.

Range extenders are neat for now for people who need to do say 200 miles plus. But in 5 or 6 years when you can do 300 miles on battery in a "reasonably priced car" I dont see the need, plus you end up with a simpler car that should be cheaper and cost less to maintain but then again some people may like the crutch o fa car than can be used for a last minute unplanned drive from lands end to Skye at 3am. And they are welcome to spend a few grand more for that, it doesn't really matter as the engine will mostly lie unused. I just think the demand wont be there for Rex's.

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

AnotherJoe wrote: »

Fast charging for most home EVs is only double the 3 bar electric fire, eg 7Kw. I dont think many homes using that would be an issue especially as its likely to be at dead of night with little other load going on.

I think my concern would be that although every individual house will have the capacity, I would be suspicious if the network was robust enough to sustain large numbers of chargers. That's purely based on supply problems we've had locally over the years where the infrastructure hasn't kept pace with house building so brown outs have been quite common on certain estates locally. That tells me that the supply infrastructure is not robust and is probably reliant on people spreading the load. If households are charging their 2 (or more) cars and with larger ranges charging for longer or faster, then I'd want the National Grid official view on whether the infrastructure is designed to cope with the change in load. We did have an XMas afternoon power cut for example.

Martyn1981

MataNui wrote: »

This is a pointless and misleading statistic. Tesla costs would suggest that the vast majority of owners will have a house with a drive and probably a nice big double garage etc. For EVs to genuinely look to replace ICE then charging will need to be addressed for the majority who may live in terraces, flats or simply do not have drives. To suggest that you can simply charge them at home is absurd. #EDIT# Not having a dig at your comment in particular. Simply that its commonly quoted that EVS wont need the charging infrastructure once we have the range which isnt true.

At the moment we dont seem to be having this discussion at a national government level about these real world problems that need to be overcome. Thanks pretty much exclusively to Tesla the range problem looks pretty much sorted. Now its down to other manufacturers to follow and government to look at infrastructure and social constraints.

Hiya, no probs I see where you are coming from, but I think you are overstating the problems. Everything you have raised is already being sorted.

There are street charging points at lamp-posts, charging points at work locations, charging points/parking meter locations, chargers at petrol stations and charging points in shopping car parks.

Regarding the last, I can't remember where it is in the UK, but I think it was Asda who have put in 40 chargers, each at the centre of 4 parking spaces, so 160 spaces with potential for 40 cars being charged.

Then you have the start of the Tesla destination chargers (the Super chargers are really for use on long hauls). These destination chargers are to be deployed in car parks and deliver 70kW. Parking is free whilst charging, your app warns you when charging is nearing completion, and you start getting charged for parking if charging is complete and more than 50% of the chargers are in use - so you can nip back and move the car if necessary.

Regarding flats, let's assume that work based, or shopping based charging isn't suitable, well, if you have a flat, and a car, then presumably the car is parked somewhere, so chargers at those locations could be installed.

If I seem a bit flippant about the possibilities, it's simply because the rollout of charge locations and possibilities is growing fast, and since we have around 10-20 years to deal with this, I simply don't see there being a problem.

BTW, if your EV has a big enough battery, then you may only need to charge once a week. Average car driving in the UK 7,900 miles pa, or approx 152 miles per week, that's about 38kWh, so cars with 40kWh+ storage will only have an issue occasionally, taking us back to charge locations on a street or car park for one day, whilst in work, or even one hour at a fast(er) charge location 40kW+

Martyn1981

IanMSpencer wrote: »

I think my concern would be that although every individual house will have the capacity, I would be suspicious if the network was robust enough to sustain large numbers of chargers.

I think it all comes down to averages, if we have approx 30m cars, then that's roughly one per household (not exact I appreciate).

Next annual average mileage kicks in, so even if all charging is done at night, and I suspect a large majority of it will be, then that's approx 5.5kWh per household, or approx 0.55kW for 10hrs.

The network is able to cope with the evening peak, which averages out at about 2-3 times that level.

Or another way to look at it is 30m x 0.55kW = 16.5GW, and evening time demand at the moment is about 20-25GW's more than night time demand.

I think it's safe to apply or rely on averages on this occasion as we are dealing with figures in the 10's of millions, so averaging will naturally take place.

However, we may need some kind of smart chargers to prevent all plugged in cars charging at max in the late evening, rather than spreading the load out more evenly across the whole night.


Longer term, it's worth considering the impact of domestic PV and batteries, since in my case I'd be able to charge the car from excess battery storage, but this would be in the better six months of the year, when grid demand is also lower, so perhaps irrelevant to the issue of peak charging demand on peak annual leccy demand periods which are in the worst 6 months of the year.