Electric vehicle investment

daveyjp

redux wrote: »

Do you know the difference between kW and kWh?

What thickness of cable do you need to pass the current?

(old rough approximation 1000 A per square inch for copper)

How many hundred houses would need to have most of their devices temporarily disconnected from the grid if half a dozen cars were all being charged at once?

Accepting the kWh is an error, the rest of your post is 'whataboutery'.

How many houses are disconnected from the grid when an electric train passes under the wires? None. The railway has its own power network directly off the national grid. This is the intention for the superfast charging network.

AnotherJoe

Small companies you cant invest in if you mean the installers.

Or if you mean the charge points themselves, there arent many but theres not much to them, a small PCB, a coupel of relays, thats about it. They are becoming a commodity item. You'd be better off investing in the companies that make smart meters from a scale POV, but again theres not much differentiation so little way to become the dominant brand, and not much ability to make a large profit.

50Twuncle

daveyjp wrote: »

Accepting the kWh is an error, the rest of your post is 'whataboutery'.

How many houses are disconnected from the grid when an electric train passes under the wires? None. The railway has its own power network directly off the national grid. This is the intention for the superfast charging network.

I can see where Redux is coming from though
ie) There is no way that UK power infrastructure can cope with everyone charging their cars at 300 amps - which is the sort of figure that Tesla is quoting on https://www.pluglesspower.com/learn/tesla-model-s-charging-home-public-autonomously/
The physical size of the national grid cables would not be able to cope and every single cable on the network would need to be upgraded (a near impossible task)

bowlhead99

Browntoa wrote: »

I would look at small companies providing home charging points on domestic properties. There are a huge amount of these to be done and someone's going to become a dominant "brand"

AnotherJoe wrote: »

Small companies you cant invest in if you mean the installers.

Or if you mean the charge points themselves, there arent many but theres not much to them, a small PCB, a coupel of relays, thats about it. They are becoming a commodity item. You'd be better off investing in the companies that make smart meters from a scale POV, but again theres not much differentiation so little way to become the dominant brand, and not much ability to make a large profit.

I actually put a bit of EIS money into a startup that was looking for crowdfunding last year (https://andersen-ev.com/andersen-a2/). While charge points are perhaps becoming commoditised they can generally look somewhat 'industrial', while Andersen's have a nice design to go with the features people will come to expect (app functionality etc) - they do wall mounted and more expensive freestanding versions. I don't see them becoming the next Apple while only selling 50-100 units a month but they are starting to get contracts on new build property developments etc.

I'm not banking on them to fuel (ha!) my retirement but if they get to breakeven maybe they will attract someone's attention. Like most EIS investments it is just a punt made more acceptable by the tax breaks

50Twuncle

bowlhead99 wrote: »

I actually put a bit of EIS money into a startup that was looking for crowdfunding last year (https://andersen-ev.com/andersen-a2/). While charge points are perhaps becoming commoditised they can generally look somewhat 'industrial', while Andersen's have a nice design to go with the features people will come to expect (app functionality etc) - they do wall mounted and more expensive freestanding versions. I don't see them becoming the next Apple while only selling 50-100 units a month but they are starting to get contracts on new build property developments etc.

I'm not banking on them to fuel (ha!) my retirement but if they get to breakeven maybe they will attract someone's attention. Like most EIS investments it is just a punt made more acceptable by the tax breaks

Interesting - thanks

fwor

redux wrote: »

Your point is of course valid, but isn't addressing my question why are people pretending that electric cars and their supply of electricity don't cause any emissions.

The marketing hype with use of the phrase zero emissions is false.

Do they need to pretend? It seems obvious that electric vehicles have the potential to be run with zero emissions. Whether they do or not depends on how you choose to generate the power. If I have solar panels on my roof and have the patience to use that as the only means to recharge it, then I really am running it with zero-emissions power.

Your point about the emissions and environmental cost of their manufacture is of course valid, and any manufacture that tries to gloss over that cost would be misleading people.

But I think you would have to accept that if you substitute one electric car in place of a petrol/diesel car, you have to account for the difference between the two - not the total cost of the electric car.

There are swings and roundabouts here - typically an electric car will be lighter and in some respects simpler, though some component are likely to use larger amounts of rarer resources (i.e. the more exotic elements used in batteries, and electronic components).

AnotherJoe

50Twuncle wrote: »

I can see where Redux is coming from though
ie) There is no way that UK power infrastructure can cope with everyone charging their cars at 300 amps - which is the sort of figure that Tesla is quoting on https://www.pluglesspower.com/learn/tesla-model-s-charging-home-public-autonomously/
The physical size of the national grid cables would not be able to cope and every single cable on the network would need to be upgraded (a near impossible task)

Strawman argument no one will have 300 amp charging at home.

Perhaps ask National Grid who showed that even current (ha ha ) infrastructure could easily cope with a massive increase in EV useage as long as many users moved to nighttime charging when they charged* ,easily encouraged with the right tariff.



* Non EV drivers seem to think EV drivers plug in every day and spend all that time plugged in charging whereas most EV drivers dont plug in every day and of course how much time the car spends charging is a function of how long its been driven for and not the size of its battery.

Old_Lifer

If anyone is interested, I believe the following companies are involved in zero-emission hydrogen solutions for public service and commercial electric vehicles : Everfuel, Ballard Power Systems, Nel Hydrogen, Wrightbus, Hexagon Composites, Ryse Hydrogen .


Reading for the weekend perhaps?

redux

AnotherJoe wrote: »

Strawman argument no one will have 300 amp charging at home.

Perhaps ask National Grid who showed that even current (ha ha ) infrastructure could easily cope with a massive increase in EV useage as long as many users moved to nighttime charging when they charged* ,easily encouraged with the right tariff.



* Non EV drivers seem to think EV drivers plug in every day and spend all that time plugged in charging whereas most EV drivers dont plug in every day and of course how much time the car spends charging is a function of how long its been driven for and not the size of its battery.

Hang on, it wasn't a straw man argument. I was replying to a post claiming 500kW charging for 5 minutes (which might be nearer 1000 A).

Assuming 100% efficiency in charging (which isn't true) that's about 41 kWh then.

The next part of the same post I was replying to claimed this charge would create 500 miles range.

A Tesla does about 2.5 to 3 miles per kWh (though it claims more)

Are electric cars really going to become 5 times more efficient than now?

Those numbers about ultra-rapid charging sounded like they were made up on the spur of a moment and don't add up. That was my point, I wasn't replying to something about home charging.

Reed_Richards

AnotherJoe wrote: »

Strawman argument no one will have 300 amp charging at home.

My mains input is via a 60 Amp fuse; I think that is fairly typical. I looked at uprating it and it would either cost very little, if the input wires were bulky enough to have spare capacity, or cost quite a lot if the input wiring needed to be replaced.