EV Discussion thread

JKenH

CKhalvashi said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Martyn1981 said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Are EG group buying the current network of SCs?
That is how the article reads at the start.

Later, it simply refers to making the technology available to EG group and others "excited to make our fast-charging hardware available for purchase to EG Group and other leaders in the space"

Nope, they are just buying SC's from Tesla. BP announced a $100m deal last month for deployment in the US.

The Tesla SC's have a great reputation, and are being churned out far cheaper than other models, so they've started to sell them to other companies for deployment.

Other articles on the decision aren't misleading:

EG Group Acquire Tesla's Ultra Fast Chargers

Thanks - I can see how the EG Group press release may have been mis-read.  "AQUIRE" does tend to have a loaded meaning when used in press releases.

It is, though, very poor journalism by Car Dealer Magazine as their headline and leading paragraph would seem to be wholly incorrect:

"Asda’s owner to take over and rebrand Tesla’s network of Superchargers"

"Tesla’s network of ultra-fast chargers is to be bought by the petrol station giant that owns Asda"

So, there is no "taking over" and no purchase of the "network".
Perhaps the incorrect conclusion was jumped to from the use of the word AQUIRE, especially in the context of EG Group who have driven a large amount of the business expansion through ACQUISITION...

I need to be careful how I word this as I have a financial interest in a network and also a charging station manufacturer that sells to that network (and others), but I'm not sure they're the cheapest, but can be pretty sure that they're the most well known reliable option for now (speaking generally as technology is quickly moving).

The last purchase agreement was for €46000 per 440kW charging unit, to be split between 2 parking spaces. I'm not sure of the latest Supercharger rates, but the maximum is 360kW for a single car charging for one of these. The order (for clarity) was for 11 units and for the mainland EU market (with a grant of approximately 45% of that back from the national government).

I can't disclose more without speaking to the FT, as I don't want to be seen to advertise.

Thanks, I’ve wondered about the economics of EV charging and that’s really useful to know. Obviously the government grants help quite a bit. Now all we need is the installation cost which will vary considerably location to location and in some cases the cost of bringing an upgraded supply (and transformers?) to site. Can you give any indication of cost if there is an adequate grid supply to the site within say 5m of the location of the chargers? Do the grants generally make a contribution to the installation cost as well or is it a fixed amount per charging point?

michaels

JKenH said:

CKhalvashi said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Martyn1981 said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Are EG group buying the current network of SCs?
That is how the article reads at the start.

Later, it simply refers to making the technology available to EG group and others "excited to make our fast-charging hardware available for purchase to EG Group and other leaders in the space"

Nope, they are just buying SC's from Tesla. BP announced a $100m deal last month for deployment in the US.

The Tesla SC's have a great reputation, and are being churned out far cheaper than other models, so they've started to sell them to other companies for deployment.

Other articles on the decision aren't misleading:

EG Group Acquire Tesla's Ultra Fast Chargers

Thanks - I can see how the EG Group press release may have been mis-read.  "AQUIRE" does tend to have a loaded meaning when used in press releases.

It is, though, very poor journalism by Car Dealer Magazine as their headline and leading paragraph would seem to be wholly incorrect:

"Asda’s owner to take over and rebrand Tesla’s network of Superchargers"

"Tesla’s network of ultra-fast chargers is to be bought by the petrol station giant that owns Asda"

So, there is no "taking over" and no purchase of the "network".
Perhaps the incorrect conclusion was jumped to from the use of the word AQUIRE, especially in the context of EG Group who have driven a large amount of the business expansion through ACQUISITION...

I need to be careful how I word this as I have a financial interest in a network and also a charging station manufacturer that sells to that network (and others), but I'm not sure they're the cheapest, but can be pretty sure that they're the most well known reliable option for now (speaking generally as technology is quickly moving).

The last purchase agreement was for €46000 per 440kW charging unit, to be split between 2 parking spaces. I'm not sure of the latest Supercharger rates, but the maximum is 360kW for a single car charging for one of these. The order (for clarity) was for 11 units and for the mainland EU market (with a grant of approximately 45% of that back from the national government).

I can't disclose more without speaking to the FT, as I don't want to be seen to advertise.

Thanks, I’ve wondered about the economics of EV charging and that’s really useful to know. Obviously the government grants help quite a bit. Now all we need is the installation cost which will vary considerably location to location and in some cases the cost of bringing an upgraded supply (and transformers?) to site. Can you give any indication of cost if there is an adequate grid supply to the site within say 5m of the location of the chargers? Do the grants generally make a contribution to the installation cost as well or is it a fixed amount per charging point?

Back of the envelope, if you sell your electricity for 20c more than you pay for it per kwh then that needs 5,750 40kwh charging sessions just to pay for the units before any other costs - or about 3 per day over a 5 year (guessing again) lifespan

JKenH

michaels said:

JKenH said:

CKhalvashi said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Martyn1981 said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Are EG group buying the current network of SCs?
That is how the article reads at the start.

Later, it simply refers to making the technology available to EG group and others "excited to make our fast-charging hardware available for purchase to EG Group and other leaders in the space"

Nope, they are just buying SC's from Tesla. BP announced a $100m deal last month for deployment in the US.

The Tesla SC's have a great reputation, and are being churned out far cheaper than other models, so they've started to sell them to other companies for deployment.

Other articles on the decision aren't misleading:

EG Group Acquire Tesla's Ultra Fast Chargers

Thanks - I can see how the EG Group press release may have been mis-read.  "AQUIRE" does tend to have a loaded meaning when used in press releases.

It is, though, very poor journalism by Car Dealer Magazine as their headline and leading paragraph would seem to be wholly incorrect:

"Asda’s owner to take over and rebrand Tesla’s network of Superchargers"

"Tesla’s network of ultra-fast chargers is to be bought by the petrol station giant that owns Asda"

So, there is no "taking over" and no purchase of the "network".
Perhaps the incorrect conclusion was jumped to from the use of the word AQUIRE, especially in the context of EG Group who have driven a large amount of the business expansion through ACQUISITION...

I need to be careful how I word this as I have a financial interest in a network and also a charging station manufacturer that sells to that network (and others), but I'm not sure they're the cheapest, but can be pretty sure that they're the most well known reliable option for now (speaking generally as technology is quickly moving).

The last purchase agreement was for €46000 per 440kW charging unit, to be split between 2 parking spaces. I'm not sure of the latest Supercharger rates, but the maximum is 360kW for a single car charging for one of these. The order (for clarity) was for 11 units and for the mainland EU market (with a grant of approximately 45% of that back from the national government).

I can't disclose more without speaking to the FT, as I don't want to be seen to advertise.

Thanks, I’ve wondered about the economics of EV charging and that’s really useful to know. Obviously the government grants help quite a bit. Now all we need is the installation cost which will vary considerably location to location and in some cases the cost of bringing an upgraded supply (and transformers?) to site. Can you give any indication of cost if there is an adequate grid supply to the site within say 5m of the location of the chargers? Do the grants generally make a contribution to the installation cost as well or is it a fixed amount per charging point?

Back of the envelope, if you sell your electricity for 20c more than you pay for it per kwh then that needs 5,750 40kwh charging sessions just to pay for the units before any other costs - or about 3 per day over a 5 year (guessing again) lifespan

Thanks. 

If we have almost 1m EVs on the road doing 8k miles per year and if 20% of charging is done away from home then assuming 3.2 mpk that’s a demand of 500,000,000kWh or 500GWh. If we have around 50,000 public chargers the demand per charger is 10,000kWh which at 20p/kWh gross profit equates to £2000 per charger p.a. Of course this will be split across all types of chargers. There are around 10k rapid/ultra rapid chargers so if we ignored all the other chargers and assumed that all charging was done at rapids then the average rapid charger would have a gross profit of £10,000.

I would imagine that despite only accounting for 1.5% of the chargers in the UK, or around 7.5% of the rapids/ultra rapids, Tesla Superchargers account for a disproportionately large amount of the away from home charging so the pickings are slim for the other charge point operators. After taking into account maintenance, repairs, admin, finance costs etc there won’t be a lot left for many operators to cover the cost of the units themselves and civics/cabling/grid upgrade costs etc. Presumably someone has done the sums though and thinks it worthwhile. 

Martyn1981

Thought folk might enjoy this, as it looks at something we've discussed many times, EPA v's WLTP range ratings. [Probably best to not even look at NEDC figures. ]

Lots of details on how the numbers are calculated, But what I found really funny, was that the EPA figure seems better, as it simply employs a 'fudge' factor. It multiplies the results by 0.7 to bring them down to more fairly reflect what drivers actually experience. Simples.

EPA Vs. WLTP EV Range Ratings: Here’s Why They’re Different

Ask any electric car enthusiast about the driving range of their favorite ride, and you'll get two different answers depending on where they live. There's the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rating in the United States, and the Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure
(WLTP) rating in Europe or other parts of the world. (Except for China, which has yet another, different rating.)

Confusing, right? The problem is that the range ratings are almost certainly different, even if the car itself is the same across these different global markets. Usually, the WLTP figure is higher than the EPA rating. Take the second-generation Nissan Leaf with the 40-kilowatt-hour battery, for instance. According to the EPA, it can go up to 151 miles on a full charge, while the WLTP rating is 170 miles. That's a pretty big difference. 

But why? And more importantly, which range rating is closer to reality? It all comes down to how these cars get tested for their range, and the different procedures used to do this.

The big difference between the EPA and WLPT range ratings

With this being said, there’s one more step that the EPA goes through before settling on the energy consumption and range figures that appear on the window sticker. The federal agency says that regulations require that these figures be adjusted to more accurately reflect the values that drivers can expect to achieve in the real world.

So what happens is the range figure, in the case of fully electric vehicles, is usually multiplied by 0.7, leading to a lower value, while the energy consumption number is divided by 0.7, leading to a higher result. These are the ratings that end up on the window sticker.

As you’ll find out further down in this article, the WLTP rules don’t require this final adjustment, and there are also other factors that lead to higher range figures.

michaels

Is there a table anywhere comparing EPA and WLTP car by car?  My understanding is there is some flexibility within the EPA (which Tesla uses to maximise their numbers) but do not know if their is the same for the WLTP.

Thus I wold expect to see a smaller % gap between WLTP and EPA for Tesla than for other manufactures?

Here Is What A Comparison Of EPA/WLTP Range Ratings Reveal (insideevs.com)

Tesla actually has longer EPA for most models!

Grumpy_chap

We discussed VW's efforts at EVs recently and I mentioned that I was not overly impressed by the iD3 or other offerings earlier in the year.
Today I received a marketing link for the iD7 which looks quite a nice car but, at £55k, it would have to be a lot better than my TM3:
https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/en/electric-and-hybrid/electric-cars/id7.html?

shinytop

Grumpy_chap said:

We discussed VW's efforts at EVs recently and I mentioned that I was not overly impressed by the iD3 or other offerings earlier in the year.
Today I received a marketing link for the iD7 which looks quite a nice car but, at £55k, it would have to be a lot better than my TM3:
https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/en/electric-and-hybrid/electric-cars/id7.html?

"Operation of the air conditioning is integrated into the first level of the infotainment system. The different functions of the new air conditioning concept are visible at all times on the large new display and can be activated and saved individually for each user. The intelligent air vents control the air flow and special requests can be activated using voice commands. If the user says “Hello Volkswagen, my hands are cold!”, the ID.7 responds by starting the steering wheel heating function. At the same time, warm air is directed towards the hands."

Why. Just why?  Who asked for a heated steering wheel?  Or voice operated heating?  These, and a whole lot of other unnecessary junk are why it costs 55 grand and weighs 2.2 tonnes. 

Grumpy_chap

shinytop said:

"Operation of the air conditioning is integrated into the first level of the infotainment system. The different functions of the new air conditioning concept are visible at all times on the large new display and can be activated and saved individually for each user. The intelligent air vents control the air flow and special requests can be activated using voice commands. If the user says “Hello Volkswagen, my hands are cold!”, the ID.7 responds by starting the steering wheel heating function. At the same time, warm air is directed towards the hands."

Why. Just why?  Who asked for a heated steering wheel?  Or voice operated heating?  These, and a whole lot of other unnecessary junk are why it costs 55 grand and weighs 2.2 tonnes. 

I am not sure that those features you mention are massively different to my TM3 which does have heated steering wheel (superb) and voice operated heating (gimmick).  I am not sure whether the user configuration includes direction of the air vents, but it does do the steering wheel and seat position.

So, why does the VW cost so much please compared to my TM3?

1961Nick

Grumpy_chap said:

shinytop said:

"Operation of the air conditioning is integrated into the first level of the infotainment system. The different functions of the new air conditioning concept are visible at all times on the large new display and can be activated and saved individually for each user. The intelligent air vents control the air flow and special requests can be activated using voice commands. If the user says “Hello Volkswagen, my hands are cold!”, the ID.7 responds by starting the steering wheel heating function. At the same time, warm air is directed towards the hands."

Why. Just why?  Who asked for a heated steering wheel?  Or voice operated heating?  These, and a whole lot of other unnecessary junk are why it costs 55 grand and weighs 2.2 tonnes. 

So, why does the VW cost so much please compared to my TM3?

... and that's a Rwd ID7 compared to your Awd Model 3.

shinytop

Grumpy_chap said:

shinytop said:

"Operation of the air conditioning is integrated into the first level of the infotainment system. The different functions of the new air conditioning concept are visible at all times on the large new display and can be activated and saved individually for each user. The intelligent air vents control the air flow and special requests can be activated using voice commands. If the user says “Hello Volkswagen, my hands are cold!”, the ID.7 responds by starting the steering wheel heating function. At the same time, warm air is directed towards the hands."

Why. Just why?  Who asked for a heated steering wheel?  Or voice operated heating?  These, and a whole lot of other unnecessary junk are why it costs 55 grand and weighs 2.2 tonnes. 

I am not sure that those features you mention are massively different to my TM3 which does have heated steering wheel (superb) and voice operated heating (gimmick).  I am not sure whether the user configuration includes direction of the air vents, but it does do the steering wheel and seat position.

So, why does the VW cost so much please compared to my TM3?

Isn't it a different class, i.e. bigger? Like comparing a 3 series to a 5?