Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

JKenH

Skoda Fabia vs Renault Clio vs Vauxhall Corsa-e: 2022 group test

Interesting road test comparing the Corsa-e to two ICE superminis. 

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/skoda/fabia/357135/skoda-fabia-vs-renault-clio-vs-vauxhall-corsa-e-2022-group-test

orrery

JKenH said:

Personally I think it is a better sign for the EV industry if private enterprise is willing to finance the project rather than relying on government funding. Those who believe in the Big State will no doubt disagree.

Private enterprise has always been enthusiastic about a free lunch. So best leave it to private enterprise and not grease the fat cats' bellies for them.

That is, provided that you aren't worried about other countries putting in state finance to attract the investment to foreign parts.

NigeWick

Grumpy_chap said:

NigeWick said:

That's £1.7 Billion for one project, not from government, and, not Billions plural.

I'm not sure that we can expect the UK Government or the Devolved Assemblies (of any political hue) to make significant investments in something that, ultimately, must be able to survive as a private enterprise.

You mean like the Covid vaccine? IMHO, HMGov must put money into things that are going to be needed in the very near future. USGov put $Billions into ICE vehicle makers so I think we must put £Billions into our future for BEVs, batteries, renewables & storage and regenerative food production..

JKenH

Governments have a poor track record when it comes to interfering in industry as this report comments. Why should it be any better this time round?

The report goes on to analyse the effect of policies explicitly designed to support manufacturing industry. The creation of so-called "national champions" was rarely successful. British Leyland is the most obvious failure, but there were also failures in aviation, shipbuilding, machine tools, electrical engineering, computers and textiles. Nationalisation rarely resulted directly in successful firms, although the preservation of capabilities in sectors such as aerospace did allow later success. There was little evidence that privatisation had any direct effects on the success of manufacturing, although preparing manufacturing firms for privatisation was often highly successful. Here British Steel stands out as the obvious example, notwithstanding later difficulties. The literature on industrial subsidies described them as "an almost unmitigated failure".

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/277158/ep2-government-policy-since-1945.pdf

Grumpy_chap

NigeWick said:

Grumpy_chap said:

NigeWick said:

That's £1.7 Billion for one project, not from government, and, not Billions plural.

I'm not sure that we can expect the UK Government or the Devolved Assemblies (of any political hue) to make significant investments in something that, ultimately, must be able to survive as a private enterprise.

You mean like the Covid vaccine? 

No, I don't mean like the COVID vaccine.

We could simply not have EVs and life will go on.  Likewise we could simply not have ICEVs and life will go on.  

JKenH

EVandPV said:

BP: Fast Chargers Become Almost As Profitable As Fuel Pumps

It's outstanding news that fast chargers become almost as profitable as fuel pumps. It's an expected result of a few major factors, including higher power chargers, multiple stalls per station, and a higher number of cars that also can accept higher power and have bigger batteries.

https://insideevs.com/news/560953/bp-fast-chargers-profitability/amp/

I find it difficult to reconcile this this claim by BP with the comment from Chris Goodall which Mart kindly posted on his G&E news thread.

Conversion of petrol stations to EV charging. Will all petrol/gasoline stations eventually shift to charging electric cars? Shell set an example in London last week when it opened a site with 9 rapid and ultra-rapid chargers, replacing all existing petrol pumps at the site. The financial returns from EV charging might disappoint the company. A petrol pump can pour about 500 kWh of energy into a vehicle in a minute. At current prices this might generate a financial margin of about £5/$6.50 in that period. This is approximately thirty times the likely margin from EV charging of most electric cars, which can only absorb a maximum charge rate of less than 1 kilowatt hour a minute. Old petrol stations are terrible places for car charging. 

ABrass

JKenH said:

EVandPV said:

BP: Fast Chargers Become Almost As Profitable As Fuel Pumps

It's outstanding news that fast chargers become almost as profitable as fuel pumps. It's an expected result of a few major factors, including higher power chargers, multiple stalls per station, and a higher number of cars that also can accept higher power and have bigger batteries.

https://insideevs.com/news/560953/bp-fast-chargers-profitability/amp/

I find it difficult to reconcile this this claim by BP with the comment from Chris Goodall which Mart kindly posted on his G&E news thread.

Conversion of petrol stations to EV charging. Will all petrol/gasoline stations eventually shift to charging electric cars? Shell set an example in London last week when it opened a site with 9 rapid and ultra-rapid chargers, replacing all existing petrol pumps at the site. The financial returns from EV charging might disappoint the company. A petrol pump can pour about 500 kWh of energy into a vehicle in a minute. At current prices this might generate a financial margin of about £5/$6.50 in that period. This is approximately thirty times the likely margin from EV charging of most electric cars, which can only absorb a maximum charge rate of less than 1 kilowatt hour a minute. Old petrol stations are terrible places for car charging. 

Less than 1kWh a minute? That's a 50kW charger, not the 175kW chargers they installed.

And it all depends on the price you charge for the electricity. I'm guessing BP won't be selling at cost.

It's the same old thing, play with the numbers enough and you can make anything look true.

JKenH

ABrass said:

JKenH said:

EVandPV said:

BP: Fast Chargers Become Almost As Profitable As Fuel Pumps

It's outstanding news that fast chargers become almost as profitable as fuel pumps. It's an expected result of a few major factors, including higher power chargers, multiple stalls per station, and a higher number of cars that also can accept higher power and have bigger batteries.

https://insideevs.com/news/560953/bp-fast-chargers-profitability/amp/

I find it difficult to reconcile this this claim by BP with the comment from Chris Goodall which Mart kindly posted on his G&E news thread.

Conversion of petrol stations to EV charging. Will all petrol/gasoline stations eventually shift to charging electric cars? Shell set an example in London last week when it opened a site with 9 rapid and ultra-rapid chargers, replacing all existing petrol pumps at the site. The financial returns from EV charging might disappoint the company. A petrol pump can pour about 500 kWh of energy into a vehicle in a minute. At current prices this might generate a financial margin of about £5/$6.50 in that period. This is approximately thirty times the likely margin from EV charging of most electric cars, which can only absorb a maximum charge rate of less than 1 kilowatt hour a minute. Old petrol stations are terrible places for car charging. 

Less than 1kWh a minute? That's a 50kW charger, not the 175kW chargers they installed.

And it all depends on the price you charge for the electricity. I'm guessing BP won't be selling at cost.

It's the same old thing, play with the numbers enough and you can make anything look true.

If this forum is anything to go by, hardly anyone does much (paid for) rapid charging except at Tesla chargers. 

michaels

ABrass said:

JKenH said:

EVandPV said:

BP: Fast Chargers Become Almost As Profitable As Fuel Pumps

It's outstanding news that fast chargers become almost as profitable as fuel pumps. It's an expected result of a few major factors, including higher power chargers, multiple stalls per station, and a higher number of cars that also can accept higher power and have bigger batteries.

https://insideevs.com/news/560953/bp-fast-chargers-profitability/amp/

I find it difficult to reconcile this this claim by BP with the comment from Chris Goodall which Mart kindly posted on his G&E news thread.

Conversion of petrol stations to EV charging. Will all petrol/gasoline stations eventually shift to charging electric cars? Shell set an example in London last week when it opened a site with 9 rapid and ultra-rapid chargers, replacing all existing petrol pumps at the site. The financial returns from EV charging might disappoint the company. A petrol pump can pour about 500 kWh of energy into a vehicle in a minute. At current prices this might generate a financial margin of about £5/$6.50 in that period. This is approximately thirty times the likely margin from EV charging of most electric cars, which can only absorb a maximum charge rate of less than 1 kilowatt hour a minute. Old petrol stations are terrible places for car charging. 

Less than 1kWh a minute? That's a 50kW charger, not the 175kW chargers they installed.

And it all depends on the price you charge for the electricity. I'm guessing BP won't be selling at cost.

It's the same old thing, play with the numbers enough and you can make anything look true.

Plus the big margin is not in commodity petrol retail but in the coffee shops and convenience retail, and as people put their cars to charge and then wait remotely rather than pump, pay and go there is a huge opportunity to increase these sales with EV charging.

JKenH said:

ABrass said:

JKenH said:

EVandPV said:

BP: Fast Chargers Become Almost As Profitable As Fuel Pumps

It's outstanding news that fast chargers become almost as profitable as fuel pumps. It's an expected result of a few major factors, including higher power chargers, multiple stalls per station, and a higher number of cars that also can accept higher power and have bigger batteries.

https://insideevs.com/news/560953/bp-fast-chargers-profitability/amp/

I find it difficult to reconcile this this claim by BP with the comment from Chris Goodall which Mart kindly posted on his G&E news thread.

Conversion of petrol stations to EV charging. Will all petrol/gasoline stations eventually shift to charging electric cars? Shell set an example in London last week when it opened a site with 9 rapid and ultra-rapid chargers, replacing all existing petrol pumps at the site. The financial returns from EV charging might disappoint the company. A petrol pump can pour about 500 kWh of energy into a vehicle in a minute. At current prices this might generate a financial margin of about £5/$6.50 in that period. This is approximately thirty times the likely margin from EV charging of most electric cars, which can only absorb a maximum charge rate of less than 1 kilowatt hour a minute. Old petrol stations are terrible places for car charging. 

Less than 1kWh a minute? That's a 50kW charger, not the 175kW chargers they installed.

And it all depends on the price you charge for the electricity. I'm guessing BP won't be selling at cost.

It's the same old thing, play with the numbers enough and you can make anything look true.

If this forum is anything to go by, hardly anyone does much (paid for) rapid charging except at Tesla chargers. 

This is I think a bigger issue, I suspect at least 50% of EV charging will happen at home/work (most of the time for those with off street parking or workplace chargers) so a smaller market than for fossil fuel (plus the increased efficiencies) so perhaps only 11/6th (3 x as efficient, 50% home/work charging) as many kwh to be sold at fuelling stations compared to ICE - plus a more lumpy demand, the 50% (?) without charger access will still fill up weekly but for the remainder they will only need to fill up in fuel station about 5% of the time when they make long trips - we already see this with Tesla in the states where their chargers see huge 'peaks' on the holiday driving weekends.

NigeWick

Grumpy_chap said:

We could simply not have EVs and life will go on.  Likewise we could simply not have ICEVs and life will go on.  

We could simply not have a Covid vaccine and life would go on. The decisions to be made are "what is best for the country?" 

I believe the country investing in renewables & storage, BEVs, Lithium extraction and etc is the way to go. You obviously do not. Many profitable products come from government sponsored research and development.