The EV announcement - How will you act now The Quiz.

DrEskimo

6. Already have one..although not so sure about the clever bit....

It's got to the point where I actually dread driving my partner's petrol...the noise, lag, gearbox.....the thought of going back to a petrol pump and paying £60+ seems ridiculously outdated too....

Uxb1

Ditzy_Mitzy said:

19. Ignore the above, I'll just keep maintaining my old heap till it dies.  It might also make sense to get a dry building somewhere a 'lay down' a few cars for the purpose of future recommissioning.  
20. 2035 onwards is going to be boom time for the car restoration business.  It's going to be like the eighties all over again.  

  Specialist parts availability will kebab you
There was some story a few years ago about ABS units on Rover cars. The pump or whatever was no longer made, there were no alternatives, Rover had ceased manufacturing, and ABS non-functionality on a car equipped with it was an MOT failure so as a result cars were being scrapped because there was no alternative and no way to fix the problem.  Those cars without ABS fitted of course had no problems over the non availability of a part they did not need.
I've got an old 1989's car and whenever anything goes wrong on it if its not some standard part like a cooling water temperature thermostat used on lots of cars it's becoming a problem.

Herzlos

Ditzy_Mitzy said:

18. No word so far on a ban on grey imports so I'll get me a proper car from Japan if this nonsense actually comes to fruition.  
19. Ignore the above, I'll just keep maintaining my old heap till it dies.  It might also make sense to get a dry building somewhere a 'lay down' a few cars for the purpose of future recommissioning.  
20. 2035 onwards is going to be boom time for the car restoration business.  It's going to be like the eighties all over again.  

What makes you think the Japanese domestic market won't be electric by then too?
You could buy a few cars and garage them to get round this, but is driving an electric car so bad you need to go to that hassle?
Very few EV drivers seem keen to go back to petrol.

oldagetraveller1

Build 5 more multi megaWatt power stations to meet demand.

"Very few EV drivers seem keen to go back to petrol."

Possibly until they attempt a 200 miles motorway journey without having to charge the batteries midway! Assuming there is a vacant socket at a service area.

Penelopa.Pitstop

I will make sure to have a collection of V8s cars and keep them in good condition.

Ditzy_Mitzy

oldagetraveller1 said:

Build 5 more multi megaWatt power stations to meet demand.

"Very few EV drivers seem keen to go back to petrol."

Possibly until they attempt a 200 miles motorway journey without having to charge the batteries midway! Assuming there is a vacant socket at a service area.

I've been thinking about that.  The current situation (no pun intended) is all well and good whilst battery operated cars remain a minority interest.  An issue with fast charging is going to arise if greater numbers of them take to the roads.  To explain: most battery cars have a theoretical range of 100 or so miles on the motorway.  The majority of electric exponents say this isn't a problem as a longer journey can be broken at one or more staging points, where car and driver are recharged for about an hour.  This relies on the staging point, typically a motorway services, having fast charging sockets.  All well and good while the services sees a dozen or so battery powered cars a day.  South Mimms services presently has 12 Tesla Superchargers, which is presumably fit for demand.  
What, then, if the number of cars wanting to use the Superchargers each day increases to 1,000.  Or 2,000?  Drivers may find themselves in queues for the things, needing to wait for one or two or even three other cars to complete charging cycles before they can have a go.  It's not too bad in a petrol station, but imagine being in the queue at one if every car in front of you took an hour to refuel.  Such things could extend the journey time from London to Newcastle from hours to several days.  

Herzlos

oldagetraveller1 said:

Build 5 more multi megaWatt power stations to meet demand.

"Very few EV drivers seem keen to go back to petrol."

Possibly until they attempt a 200 miles motorway journey without having to charge the batteries midway! Assuming there is a vacant socket at a service area.

Most are glad of the pee break, or grab some food or whatever. It's not the deal breaker you seem to think it is.

AdrianC

Ditzy_Mitzy said:

oldagetraveller1 said:

Build 5 more multi megaWatt power stations to meet demand.

"Very few EV drivers seem keen to go back to petrol."

Possibly until they attempt a 200 miles motorway journey without having to charge the batteries midway! Assuming there is a vacant socket at a service area.

I've been thinking about that.  The current situation (no pun intended) is all well and good whilst battery operated cars remain a minority interest.  An issue with fast charging is going to arise if greater numbers of them take to the roads.  To explain: most battery cars have a theoretical range of 100 or so miles on the motorway.  The majority of electric exponents say this isn't a problem as a longer journey can be broken at one or more staging points, where car and driver are recharged for about an hour.  This relies on the staging point, typically a motorway services, having fast charging sockets.  All well and good while the services sees a dozen or so battery powered cars a day.  South Mimms services presently has 12 Tesla Superchargers, which is presumably fit for demand.  
What, then, if the number of cars wanting to use the Superchargers each day increases to 1,000.  Or 2,000?  Drivers may find themselves in queues for the things, needing to wait for one or two or even three other cars to complete charging cycles before they can have a go.  It's not too bad in a petrol station, but imagine being in the queue at one if every car in front of you took an hour to refuel.  Such things could extend the journey time from London to Newcastle from hours to several days.  

There is indeed a scaleability issue. Tesla's current superchargers allow 250kW charging. Other manufacturers are now marketing their cars as having this, or higher, charging capacity - Porsche shout about the Taycan supporting 270kW, from 5 to 88% in 22 minutes, which would be 99kWh - the battery is nominally 80kWh, so 83% charge would be 66kWh, so there's clearly some overhead being allowed for in there.

Well, lovely, an' all...

Let's say that by the time one car has been unplugged, moved away, and the next come in and connected, there's two cars per hour per charger. 44/60 x 270 kWh = 198kWh. OK, let's go with the Taycan range increase, and call it 132kWh allowing for those overheads, and assume there's some kind of load-balancing onsite, so that the cabling can run flat out even when there's no car charging. So the cabling to the charger bank needs to be up to 132kW supply.

South Mimms has 16 pumps currently. If we say an average of one car per pump per ten minutes, that's 96 cars per hour. So at two vehicles per hour, 48 chargers for the same throughput of vehicles. 48 x 132kW = 6.34MW. At 11kV local distribution voltage, that's just under 580A. Go up a step to 33kV, and nearly 200A. Next step up is 132kV... That's the kind of voltage carried by pylons of this size...

And, of course, that's before we consider that the current demand might be 96 cars per hour, but if people are having to charge twice as often as they currently refuel, it may well go up to 192 cars per hour. And demand may actually go up even further, because people will have fuelling breaks enforced in the middle of journeys they can do on one tank now, fuelling in a less time-sensitive manner locally. And, of course, the average wait for a free pump at busy times will be longer - waiting a few minutes for a free pump is annoying, waiting quarter of an hour for a free charger will have people climbing up and down. 

It's absolutely not insoluble. But there will be definite infrastructure investments required.

Maybe it'll simply move traffic off roads onto rail, especially once HS2 is up and kicking...

Herzlos

Ditzy_Mitzy said:

oldagetraveller1 said:

Build 5 more multi megaWatt power stations to meet demand.

"Very few EV drivers seem keen to go back to petrol."

Possibly until they attempt a 200 miles motorway journey without having to charge the batteries midway! Assuming there is a vacant socket at a service area.

I've been thinking about that.  The current situation (no pun intended) is all well and good whilst battery operated cars remain a minority interest.  An issue with fast charging is going to arise if greater numbers of them take to the roads.  To explain: most battery cars have a theoretical range of 100 or so miles on the motorway.  The majority of electric exponents say this isn't a problem as a longer journey can be broken at one or more staging points, where car and driver are recharged for about an hour.  This relies on the staging point, typically a motorway services, having fast charging sockets.  All well and good while the services sees a dozen or so battery powered cars a day.  South Mimms services presently has 12 Tesla Superchargers, which is presumably fit for demand.  
What, then, if the number of cars wanting to use the Superchargers each day increases to 1,000.  Or 2,000?  Drivers may find themselves in queues for the things, needing to wait for one or two or even three other cars to complete charging cycles before they can have a go.  It's not too bad in a petrol station, but imagine being in the queue at one if every car in front of you took an hour to refuel.  Such things could extend the journey time from London to Newcastle from hours to several days.  

There are plenty of EV's on the market now which can do 200-300 motorway miles on a charge. Range and charging speed are increasing with each generation.

As demand increases, more and more fast chargers will be installed, so in theory there should always be some.

NBLondon

Herzlos said:

Most are glad of the pee break, or grab some food or whatever. It's not the deal breaker you seem to think it is.

That's a 15 minute stop for us.  If you could be reasonably sure of getting a charger at your parking space; plugging in for a top-up while you do everything else and then get back on the road with an extra 100 miles range then it works.  If you have to wait an unspecified time for a charger to come free - your 15 min stop becomes 45 or more.  If you are on your own - you can't go for a pee while you wait or someone will jump the queue for the charger.

It's a bit chicken and egg...  Will the stopping points install lots of fast chargers (costs them money) in the hope of attracting more EV customers to stop there rather than the next point along?  Or will they have to react as custom drops off?  They will probably jack up the rates (as they do with petrol) because users will be caught out and not have range to get to the next opportunity.  Right now, the canny EV driver plans their stopping points so may be able to source the cheapest by going off the motorway.