Wondering about change to low emission vehicles

bigadaj

Overnight charging should make the grid more efficient than it is now, and flatten demand. This is already the case as people's habits change, there's no longer 15 million kettles going on at half time during coronation street for example. The difficulty is that the changing generation mix means there may well be probably less excess power during low demand overnight hours so less value in selling it cheaply then. Coal is being or is largely phased out, gas is out of favour and more controllable and renewables are less controllable, nuclear looks too expensive as well as the safety and environmental concerns. Auto charging will help in sequencing demand, and behind all of this is whether NG and the DNOs will supply new or replacement capacity, OFGEM have finally woken up to the excessive profits that these operators have been making, but the operators don't want to give up the golden egg and threaten to take their ball home with them. So there may well be a mexican stand off to see who backs down first and when if the latter means that security and guarantee of supply comes under threat.

almillar

Highland76 said:

daveyjp said:

  Does everyone who owns a petrol car have a petrol pump on their drive?

So you're saying you can just pop into your nearest EV charging station first thing in the morning (eg on your way to work) and charge your EV from 10% to 100% in 5 mins, like you can with a petrol/diesel vehicle? That might indeed be the normal in 50 years from now, but pretty sure it can't be done yet with any EV.

What if you didn't have to pop in anywhere, and could charge where you park - if not at home, then at work?!! This fascination with copying liquid fuelled cars, even the bad parts, makes you think about EVs wrong.

sweetsand said:

I also read about more powerful solar panels that are cheaper to ake build into cars

Currently wouldn't be enough to run the air con, never mind move a car.

Highland76 said:

I’ve no doubt that we will all be driving EVs in 100 years from now but as things stand, they are an expensive novelty. Some things which have to change massively before EVs become the norm:
* Up front cost - not everyone can afford a £70k Tesla 
* More charging points outside urban areas (believe it or not, not everyone lives in cities)
* Better battery range, ie 300+ miles on a full charge
* Quicker battery charging times

Until all/most of the above improve, no way on earth is every man & his dog going to be driving an EV - no matter how much the Gov’t may want us to.

Not everyone can afford a £70k 7 Series either. Why do you pick a £70k car, when you can have a second hand Leaf for £8,000? Also, you do realise most new cars are bought on finance?

Again, I don't think 300 miles range is necessary for many, many people, especially those who can charge at home.

kangoora said:

They are going to need 1,000's of extra charge points and, in a lot of places, where are they going to put them (London or any other large city urban area for example). Then, obviously, when the government starts losing all that lovely duty and VAT on petrol/diesel sales I also think it won't be very long before they think of a way to charge horrendous duties on these 'off-home' chargers to recoup their shortfall. Those with home charging setups should stay fine but I wouldn't be surprised to see charging anywhere but your own home will become really expensive in relative terms. It's either that or a) raise the money from some other taxation or b) maybe implement a 'special' EV duty on the sale of EV cars or c) something else. One thing is pretty much guaranteed, if the government is 'losing' money through an implementation of something they will claw it back via some other method...........

They could put all these charge points into... petrol stations, car parks, you know, anywhere you store a car!

CasualBagger said:

I live in a block of flats with 100 underground parking spaces. No charging points. Someone still manages with a BMW i8. 

If you do mean i8, that's a hybrid so they could run it without ever plugging it in.