BEVs deals and information

JKenH

mmmmikey wrote: »

Yes, but planes can and do crash, people get struck by lightning or attacked by sharks, tanker drivers go on strike, etc. etc. The question really is not whether it can happen but is it likely enough to happen to make it a serious risk.


EDIT: as an afterthought it occurs to me that you really seen to be arguing about cash vs: electronic payments which is a much broader issue and not really specific to BEVs. See this for Martin's view on cash.....



https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/tips/25-09-2019/

Yes but look how many people were unable to use their credit cards when Nat West had problems - a few more than get attacked by sharks.

We all perceive risk differently; being marooned at a service station miles from home because your card isn’t working is not a risk you perceive as significant. It’s probably of the order of a one in 10 year event but it could actually happen and it would be a nuisance if it did.

Just in response to Eric’s comment about traffic jams, headlights and wipers also discharge batteries.

I didn’t intend getting in long exchanges. I was just pointing out one or two issues that would perhaps concern someone who was already suffered from range anxiety.

I will leave it there.

JKenH

Sorry, I said I was leaving it there but just found this CleanTechnica article about Tesla charging problems. I’m not having a go at BEVs - just pointing out that things can go wrong with charging as it is tech and if it does go wrong there could be a significant inconvenience element, greater than with an ICE.

https://cleantechnica.com/2016/04/17/living-tesla-supercharger-system-failure/

For ICE cars, the current network of gas stations is so distributed and redundant that one station being down is rarely an issue, but charging infrastructure definitely isn’t at or near that level yet

joefizz

EricMears wrote: »

Whilst a petrol or diesel engine vehicle will 'drink' fuel in a slow moving queue, there's very little effect on a BEV's range when forced to slow down. If anything, it probably becomes more economical at 5mph although you might need to factor in increased use of heater if you're delayed in cold weather.

As an aside I was thinking of buying a used US police car a right few years ago (watched blues brothers too many times). In a lot of cases the mileage seemed incredibly low for the age and I was then told to check the hours the engine was run.

They just sit in them in summer/winter with the engine running to power the aircon/heater. In florida this year I stopped off in a small town for lunch and parked beside the sheriffs car which had been left with the engine running whilst they were in having lunch. Massive big V8 petrol and Im worried about turning the heating down a degree or more....


Was away all day yesterday but for anyone who is interested theres an online estimate of UK CO2 per kwh site (electricityinfo) and if you google howmanyleft you can check how many of a car of a certain type is taxed/registered/sorn. Some of the particular pcp car models and nissan leafs seem to lose a lot of cars at 3-5 year old....


Reading about the half a million miles drivetrain and thats probably a lifetime for me (if I live that long ;-))



Someone mentioned CO2 of tools and replacement parts, yes, that has to be included in end to end calculations in certain industry, normal wear/tear, average maintenance and the cost of recycling and disposal should be in any lifetime calculation. I remember back 20 years ago one particular piece of hardware was made of an extruded box because it was cheaper to manufacture. The piece of hardware fitted in a standard rack and a couple were sent off for repairs/recycling to get an end to end cost.
The feedback came back that it should be made of pieces screwed together which was more up front monetary cost but would make it easier to repair and recycle as well as ensuring we didnt do different boxes for different bits of kit. They also recommended changing some of the materials to different metals because again although they had a higher initial cost/environmental damage, they were easier/cheaper to recycle than the materials we had and also the cost of recycling those particular materials was cheaper than digging them out of the ground so in future costs would be lower.
A lot of that was counter intuitive and usually most design changes are as a result of cost reduction rather than lifetime. We should hopefully start seeing this more and more in various equipment (WEEE regulations were supposed to point manufacturers in that direction).


An EV wouldnt be enough for me for reasons of towing and range. I do a run regularly thats 180 miles door to door, motorway, dual carriageway, twisty irish roads, town centres. Whilst on paper there are now EVs that can do that range, in reality at times that journey can take me between 3.5 and 7 hours depending on traffic. Theres no superchargers on the route (only 3 sites in Ireland I think) Add in an hour or more for charging along the way in cold and rain and well...


I spent a fair bit of time in Canada in the winter, driving around. Was told never to let the fuel tank drop below half... Keep the same rule here in winter and always carry 5 litres of fuel in a can in each car but its not really as life critical...


Have I ever used the 5 litres for me? yeah once or twice. For other people? loads of times...

ABrass

ATM networks and banking networks are incredibly complicated and resilient systems. They aren't comparable to car charging.

Even with payment and banking systems they almost always fail due to error than malice. Feel free to be worried about it but it's nonsense.

ABrass

Electric charging is already more resilient than petrol and will only get better. Petrol varies in price and events half way around the world can cause price rises and shortages.

mmmmikey

Based on various posts above I'm forming the view that BEVs are now a viable solution for a large group of drivers and I can see sales rapidly increasing, stimulated by various government incentives. But I can also see they're still a long way off being viable for another large group.


For those who do enough miles to make the fuel cost a significant proportion of the overall cost per mile, and who are not too reliant on public charging infrastructure (becuase they can install a home charger and their usage pattern means they can use it for most of the time) BEVs look pretty much viable now.


But for lower mileage users and those who will need to rely on public charging infrastructure (because they park on the street and/or are frequently away from home) then costs will have to come down and there will need to be a massive investment in charging infrastructure before BEVs become viable. An awful lot of charging points will be needed - not just for geographical spread but also because when you use them, you use them for a long(ish) time.

joefizz

mmmmikey wrote: »

But for lower mileage users and those who will need to rely on public charging infrastructure

2+ car families. Pretty much impossible to charge 2 EVs to any decent level overnight without access to a 2nd domestic supply (or equivalent infrastructure). Dont think theres any house on my street that isnt a 2 car family and with prices of houses/university, kids moving back to live with parents and needing cars for jobs/uni etc.


As for electricity being more resilient, cant really agree, really hard to carry 30 miles worth of electricity in something weighing about 6 kilos to anywhere on the planet that takes a couple of minutes to install and get up and running again ;-)


The infrastructure will be the key, as will ride sharing and car schemes. Who knows you might just get a fleet of local electrical vehicles dedicated to taking away the small ICE car runs, say for milk or bread or potatoes. If only someone would invent an electric fleet of vehicles to do that for localities... It needs a snappy name like bread man or potato man or milk man or something...

Solarchaser

I was pretty sure there was a standard in place that if the network connections fail to charge points, they move to free vent to stop people being stuck.

I've certainly had this a couple of times with the motorway network "ecotricity". And with the "charge your car" network too, but cant comment on others.
I doubt polar would

gefnew

Hi All
We could go down this route.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48956000
Meet half way maybe.

Martyn1981

joefizz wrote: »

2+ car families. Pretty much impossible to charge 2 EVs to any decent level overnight without access to a 2nd domestic supply (or equivalent infrastructure). Dont think theres any house on my street that isnt a 2 car family and with prices of houses/university, kids moving back to live with parents and needing cars for jobs/uni etc.

In the UK the average mileage is 7,900 pa, which is 150 per week, or 22 per day. So that's around 1hr of 7kW charging for a day, or about 5hrs for a weeks worth. Even at 3kW granny charge, it's only about 2hrs per day, and a second EV could get around 36kWh's or ~140 miles if someone is hogging the fast(er) charger.

Obviously there'll be times when demand overlaps, but I'm sure that can be worked out.

Edit - plus of course curbside charging, lamp posts, Virgin Media boxes, induction pads etc etc as time goes on.