Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

Martyn1981

What an absolute monster for Norway in August, they hit 72% BEV's.

Disclaimer, it was nudged up by the pent up demand for TMY's and a shipment arriving in the last days of the month, but still, that's an incredible figure, and pure ICEV's down to <8%.

Tesla Model Y Bestseller In Norway – Plugin EV Share Hits Record High 88%

Norway, the undisputed leader in electric vehicle adoption, saw a new record high plugin share of 87.7% in August 2021, up inexorably from 70.2% in August 2020. Full electrics alone took 72% of the market, meanwhile Diesels fell to a record low 3.2%. The overall auto market was up some 23% over seasonal norms, at 13311 units. Norway’s bestselling vehicle in August was a new arrival, the Tesla Model Y.

Martyn1981

BEV / Energy news here, but great to see OFGEM looking into the enormous potential of V2G to help meet our intraday storage needs. Just need more BEV's with bidirectional capabilities now, and yes Tesla, I'm looking at you!

Electric cars: Ofgem plans easier way for drivers to sell energy back to grid

Ofgem plans to make it easier for electric vehicle drivers to sell the energy stored in their car batteries back to power grid as part of a move to help make the switch away from fossil fuel cars more affordable.

Under the plan put forward by Great Britain’s energy regulator, electric vehicle drivers could earn money by effectively transforming their cars into mobile power plants by releasing power back to the energy network when demand on the electricity grid reaches a peak.

If enough drivers take up the chance to make money from their car batteries by using vehicle-to-grid technology, the UK could avoid investing in new power plants with the equivalent generation capacity of up to 10 large nuclear power stations.

Just playing with the numbers/claims made, I'd suggest ~20GW for '10 large nuclear power stations', so at 2kW discharge that would take 10m BEV's, which seems a bit optimistic. But at 5kW discharge, that's 'only' 4m BEV's, which seems reasonable(ish), especially if it includes some larger BEV's at fleet locations, such as buses, trucks, vans etc..

QrizB

Martyn1981 said:

BEV / Energy news here, but great to see OFGEM looking into the enormous potential of V2G to help meet our intraday storage needs. Just need more BEV's with bidirectional capabilities now, and yes Tesla, I'm looking at you!

Electric cars: Ofgem plans easier way for drivers to sell energy back to grid

Just playing with the numbers/claims made, I'd suggest ~20GW for '10 large nuclear power stations', so at 2kW discharge that would take 10m BEV's, which seems a bit optimistic. But at 5kW discharge, that's 'only' 4m BEV's, which seems reasonable(ish), especially if it includes some larger BEV's at fleet locations, such as buses, trucks, vans etc..

The article predicts 14M BEVs on the UK roads by 2030, so 10M @ 2kW (or 7M @ 3kW) isn't entirely bonkers. We just need affordable V2G chargers and sensible ToU export tariffs. There's no good reason for as V2G charger to cost more than the combined cost of a EV charge point and an AC coupled storage inverter; say £1500 installed? That plus something akin to Octopus Outgoing Agile would let EV owners buy at 8p/kWh overnight and export at 18p/kWh in the evening peak, a 4-year-ish payback time*.

*Assumes 10kWh cycled per day, 10p/kWh arbitrage, no allowance for conversion losses.

JKenH

$25,000 ‘Tesla Model 2’ reportedly pushed back, may come sans steering wheel

He also suggested the car may be designed for the autonomous market, and come without pedals or a steering wheel, something which will likely push the project out even further.

https://mspoweruser.com/25000-tesla-model-2-reportedly-pushed-back-may-come-sans-steering-wheel/

Solarchaser

Heedtheadvice said:

Solarchaser said:

Heedtheadvice said:

Imho,

Reliability, compatibility, complexity, availability, ease of organisation to use, is an issue. More especially probably for those who are not keen to be EVers who need to be converted.

Far from all CPS chargers being free in some council areas (the more rural locations) there is a connection fee of about £1.50 and then 20 or 25p per kWh. Of course there are more expensive ones too.

It is still early days in the development of charging point systems, standardisation should come eventually but might need a regulatory push! Until then the piecemeal approach accross the whole of the uk (and more) is not satisfactory and does nothing significant to help meet environmental aims. There are to many factors working against quick and easy take-up.

A Sunday Times article I happened to see at the weekend came, I think correctly, to the conclusion that EVs now are great, ideal for local running but the charging network is still a major weak point and can be a time consuming faff on a long journey.

Hopefully that will change rapidly if all concerned get their act together!

I never said cps was free in all areas,  they are currently free in the central belt for 95%+ of chargers. 
It's already been stated that north and south of the Central belt there are more paid chargers, so not free in all areas.

I was not being critical of you, Solarchaser, but I read it that you might think so.

"Free" has been mentioned a couple of times at least such as in a response to the reliability concerns. My post does help put it in context that free does not encompass all CPS chargers.

(Even if you think free ones could be accepted at lower reliability rates, it is not acceptable that those where one has to pay are out just as frequently - not that you said those words but it could be implied. It could also be read that all the chargers are free which we agree they are in fact not....at the point of delivery! )

I know some people look, from outside Scotland, with envy at some of the services provided for free that we have. Let us not give the impression that all is sweetness and light with such services. Taxpayers fund them and a lot of services benefit the central belt more so than Highlands, islands and Border areas. Just drive up the M6 and stop at the first CPS chargers to get the experience!

Now you are switched on as to the situation but many owners or prospective owners of EVs nay not be such as an Irvine resident I met recently who came to my area used to free charging and found out after driving around to find a working one he had to pay. Not exactly shocked but certainly a bit miffed at the lack of equality! I am too since I help pay for your free charging alongside all other tax payers.

I'm not really sure where you are driving with this, is it reliability of chargers or the fact we both pay tax, but my council has decided to keep my chargers free for the mean time, you do realise its the councils who decide this yeah?
So basically if you are not happy, id suggest you turn your attention to your council.

I've used the Gretna services chargers many times, with no issue, usually on the way back from Newcastle,  same with the Moffat ones.
I haven't used them in the last 4 months, is there an issue now?

I've used approximately 1200kwh of free charging in the central belt, interestingly enough I've exported 1800kwh of free electricity to the grid, so I'm fairly happy with my balance this year.

All is pretty sweet and light in Scottish charging as far as I'm concerned. 
I've just returned from a thousand mile plus trip outside of my council area and had to pay for each charge, no issue with that, all the chargers I approached did exactly what I asked of them.
What more can I really say?

Have I had issues with charging in my almost 3 years of ev ownership, yes.
Have I had issues with getting petrol or diesel in my over 20 years of driving ice cars, yes.
Is one alot more prolific than the other, yes.... but that will change over the next couple of decades.

I dont exactly know where you stay, I think you said south west, and so this is zapmap with free only chargers for south West Scotland 



Alot less than the central belt, certainly, but I'd imagine that's as much to do with population density as anything else. 
This is now all chargers



So you have a mix of chargeable and free.

Martyn1981

Great overview of the rollout of EV's in Europe and China over the last decade.

16 Countries Now Over 10% Plugin Vehicle Share, 6 Over 20%

The plugin electric vehicle market has exploded in the past year (in a good way), thanks especially to the European Union requiring that automakers sell more efficient vehicles (EVs) or pay big fines. All of a sudden, automakers have discovered that consumers will indeed buy millions of EVs if you produce them and market them well.

I’m not claiming this is a definite list of the countries that have passed the milestone of 10% of new auto sales being plugin auto sales, but these are the only ones I’m aware of. As you will see, 15 of them are European countries. The 16th is China, and it’s actually in 16th place (based on plugin vehicle market share in the first half of 2021).

Martyn1981

UK BEV numbers keep growing, they hit 10.9% for August, and have risen to 8.4% for the year so far. Looks like a 10%+ figure could be possible for 2021, and then [spoiler] I'll be willing on 20% for 2022. ;-)

The graph about 1/4 of the way down shows the steady growth of BEV's each month (and the spikes for low overall car sales periods, and end of year purchases to avoid the reduction in the PiG ).

Also a fantastic month for VW and the VW group.

August UK Plugin EV Hits 18.3%, Up Almost 2x Year-On-Year

The UK  auto market, Europe’s third largest, saw plugin electric vehicle share of 18.3% in August 2021, up 1.9x from 9.76% in August 2020. Overall auto market volume was down 7.6% from long term seasonal norms, at 68,033 units. The Volkswagen brand dominated all electric market share at 15.4%.

Heedtheadvice

@Solarchaser

The main point I was initially making was to, as I posted, to clarify for those who are not familiar with the Charge Point Scotland system is that not all those chargers are free. I have no grouse with individual councils deciding if they will charge. My own region (D&G) does not have a big population base but many visitors and through traffic so as you rightly wrote that could explain the scarcity and the need to charge.

That does nothing to help increase the widespread availability of points.

I do see your point that looking on zap map there are probably a fair number of free chargers but in practice that is neither the case nor are they in convenient positions.

Detailed info on zapmap for individual chargers show many simply are not free!! (I back that up with my own recent personal experience).

As for convenience one of our regions busiest and important roads runs from carlisle accross to the ferry at Cairnryan near Stranraer. Try and find an actual free charger on the route and you will be very lucky. (At least not ones in convenient locations like the ones where you could sit in a hospital car park for several hours on a 3.5kW charger) Ok for some with high range EVs but certainly not free filling for those with lower performing cars and then in winter you could well be caught out unless you can drive a 20 mile detour.

You obviously have lots of very good experience and I cannot discount that but if you had a car with a published 150 mile range I would challenge you to drive in the depths of a freezing winters night from Dumfries to Stranraer and back using "free" CPS chargers! On paper, well screen, it looks fine but not in reality.

I am all for the CPS scheme, we need more (and better) coordination such as that and it will come, I hope. However it does not make much sense to make the system subject to variations depending upon local council area. Transport Scotland should ensure common cost and availability on our routes in a similar manner to the main routes being centrally funded.....,

but then again that might imply central decision making too. That is perhaps why that A75 100 mile 'Euroroute'  has only about 10 miles of it dual carriageway and a similar amount with overtaking lanes with much breaking of speed limits by HGVs........but that is off topic!

No roadside chargers ( CPS )on that route is on this mini topic.

Solarchaser

I totally agree there should be a common policy, but in that respect I feel a little for the government. 
Make common policy and told you are power hungry and dictating and should empower councils... empower councils and they do what they want, and you are criticised for no common policy.

I've been confident enough to drive all over Scotland and England for that matter in a vehicle that does 80 miles at best, thats part of the reason I have very very few issues with the one which does 280 miles.

That's also part of the reason why I know Scotland is waaay better, especially than Northern England 

Martyn1981

BIG BEV's!

Early days and light on details, but welcome news nonetheless.

BHP and Caterpillar to accelerate development of zero-emissions mining trucks

BHP today announced a partnership with Caterpillar Inc. to develop and deploy zero-emissions mining trucks at BHP sites to reduce operational greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

This milestone is the result of over 12 months of close collaboration between BHP and Caterpillar Inc. in analyzing energy demands and the options to apply this new technology on BHP sites.

To support progress towards BHP’s long-term goal of achieving net zero operational GHG emissions (Scope 1 and 2 from our operated assets) by 20501, BHP will have early access to zero-emissions equipment developed by Caterpillar and hands-on learning opportunities to ensure successful deployment at BHP sites. The collaboration will help shape the processes, technology and infrastructure that will be required to support zero-emissions machines and the mine sites of the future.