EV Charging Network

ComicGeek

I remember trying to plan charge points along M25/M4 last year and bring surprised about how few (and slow speed!) charge points were at the major service stations - the feasible locations were shopping centres and car dealerships away from the motorway network. In the end we managed it without charging, but it wasn't stress free.

I've only ever had to use a public charger once though, in just over 10,000 EV miles in a year. Free charging at hotels, charge points at holiday lets - but that's not going to cope with numbers of EVs in a few years time. 

I think it likely that the government will want to push back the bans on petrol/diesel sales, but that might not be possible in reality with car manufacturers already preparing for it.

When the BIK rates for EVs increase in a few years time, we will probably change one of our two EVs for a hybrid for longer trips unless the charging network improves significantly.

JKenH

ComicGeek said:

I remember trying to plan charge points along M25/M4 last year and bring surprised about how few (and slow speed!) charge points were at the major service stations - the feasible locations were shopping centres and car dealerships away from the motorway network. In the end we managed it without charging, but it wasn't stress free.

I've only ever had to use a public charger once though, in just over 10,000 EV miles in a year. Free charging at hotels, charge points at holiday lets - but that's not going to cope with numbers of EVs in a few years time. 

I think it likely that the government will want to push back the bans on petrol/diesel sales, but that might not be possible in reality with car manufacturers already preparing for it.

When the BIK rates for EVs increase in a few years time, we will probably change one of our two EVs for a hybrid for longer trips unless the charging network improves significantly.

Sorry, going off topic, but how important were BIK rates in your decision to move to an EV? SalSac or Company car? 

Edit: ignore that I’ll start a separate thread.

wongataa

Belenus said:

Are service costs lower, similar or higher?

What are the costs of replacement batteries in the future?

What other differences are there?

Service costs are a lot lower with EV cars.  The brakes are used less so they wear out more slowly.  There is no engine full of moving parts that can go wrong or need service items changing.  There is no oil to change.

JKenH

wongataa said:

Belenus said:

Are service costs lower, similar or higher?

What are the costs of replacement batteries in the future?

What other differences are there?

Service costs are a lot lower with EV cars.  The brakes are used less so they wear out more slowly.  There is no engine full of moving parts that can go wrong or need service items changing.  There is no oil to change.

I think it’s too early to say with any certainty whether service costs will be higher or lower. The popular narrative particularly in articles promoting EVs suggests servicing costs will be substantially lower for EVs than ICEs but the reported experience from fleets seems to suggest that it is more nuanced.

This is a short quote from a Fleet news article (please see the whole article linked  below for context) https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/fleet-industry-news/2022/10/18/fleets-shouldn-t-expect-automatic-ev-smr-savings-says-epyx

It has been widely supposed that EVs will deliver uniform SMR benefits over petrol and diesel vehicles because of the fact that they have fewer moving mechanical parts, minimising the likelihood of breakdown and requiring less routine maintenance. The data we have compiled shows that this is not always the case.

As far as brakes are concerned the argument that discs and pads will wear out more slowly is certainly valid with regen taking much off the braking load. However, on EV forums many drivers report their cars are failing MoTs on rusty brake discs (particularly at the rear) as the lack of use leads to corrosion. I am not a mechanic but I can say from personal experience that brakes work better when used regularly. 

I suspect that many EV owners believe that because the car doesn’t need engine oil and filter changes it doesn’t need servicing. (I may be wrong but I believe Tesla does have any recommended service intervals.) While this may save money in the short run it might be building up problems. Without the oil and filter changes (and spark plugs and air filters) it does seem logical that EVs should be cheaper to service but the worry for some people is that batteries may degrade over time and potentially repair costs (once out of warranty) could be quite big. Having said that there are numerous reports of Tesla’s covering hundreds of thousands of miles on their original batteries. Other cars such as the Nissan Leaf, however, at 10 years old are down to as little as 50 or 60% of their original range. I will just point out here that we are in the process of replacing my wife’s 11 year old Picanto which we have owned since new. Other than routine servicing (including a set of discs and brake pads) and tyres it has needed a new battery, one track rod ball joint and two sticking brake calipers, one replaced under warranty and the second I did. The exhaust is still going strong. We may have been exceptionally lucky but modern cars are pretty reliable. 

As a hobby we race Mk1 MX5s and have over 10 years had several cars with 200k+ km engines running at sustained race speeds without any engine failures. Gearbox failures, yes (synchromesh), but they get thrashed and gear changes are a bit more rushed than on the road. We never have any worries throwing a fresh box from a 200k scrapper straight in the car between races with nothing more done to it than fresh oil. Most modern cars die because of rust not mechanical failures. 

It is obviously going to vary from car to car. Some EVs have quite long warranties as do some ICEvs but I believe the Tesla warranty (other than for the battery) is limited to 50k miles. Some ICE manufacturers offer warranties as long as 10 years if the car is Dealer serviced annually. 

I wouldn’t bank on cheaper servicing and maintenance costs as a reason for buying an EV. It might work out that they are better than the equivalent new ICE car (particularly with all the emissions equipment now required) but until we have more EVs reaching 10 years old it is too early to tell. 

Herzlos

I think most EV's still have a service schedule, but it's more or less limited to changing the air conditioning filter, software updates and recall work so pretty quick and easy to do.

No fluids or belts to change, so nothing really needs to be taken apart or disposed of.

Interestingly the article there claiming EV's aren't any better seems to think that Tesla is skewing things because of expensive parts:

"However, commenting on LinkedIn, EV consultant Mike Coulson suggested removing Tesla from the dataset, which he suggested may be skewing the figrues due to their long lead times and expensive parts.

Better results for electrification can be seen when comparing a model of van that is available in both diesel and electric versions over the same operating cycle. Here the EV’s figures are 5.7 service visits, 2.2 days VOR and workshop costs of £239. The diesel derivative delivers comparable outcomes with 5.0 service visits and 2.9 days VOR – but it’s workshop costs are more than double at £522."


The latter seems to be the better metric - for a van which is available in battery and diesel, the battery one has half of the workshop cost. That's about as like-for-like as you can get.

daveyjp

ComicGeek said:

I remember trying to plan charge points along M25/M4 last year and bring surprised about how few (and slow speed!) charge points were at the major service stations - the feasible locations were shopping centres and car dealerships away from the motorway network. In the end we managed it without charging, but it wasn't stress free.

I've only ever had to use a public charger once though, in just over 10,000 EV miles in a year. Free charging at hotels, charge points at holiday lets - but that's not going to cope with numbers of EVs in a few years time. 

I think it likely that the government will want to push back the bans on petrol/diesel sales, but that might not be possible in reality with car manufacturers already preparing for it.

When the BIK rates for EVs increase in a few years time, we will probably change one of our two EVs for a hybrid for longer trips unless the charging network improves significantly.

Service stations are often in quite remote locations so won't be close enough to a power grid to provide the capacity for high speed charging.  The power will be enough for the service station to operate.

I was at Leicester Forest services over Christmas and all chargers were out of action with a sign stating it was due to insufficient local grid capacity.  Upgrading can cost millions.

JKenH

Herzlos said:

I think most EV's still have a service schedule, but it's more or less limited to changing the air conditioning filter, software updates and recall work so pretty quick and easy to do.

No fluids or belts to change, so nothing really needs to be taken apart or disposed of.

Interestingly the article there claiming EV's aren't any better seems to think that Tesla is skewing things because of expensive parts:

"However, commenting on LinkedIn, EV consultant Mike Coulson suggested removing Tesla from the dataset, which he suggested may be skewing the figrues due to their long lead times and expensive parts.

Better results for electrification can be seen when comparing a model of van that is available in both diesel and electric versions over the same operating cycle. Here the EV’s figures are 5.7 service visits, 2.2 days VOR and workshop costs of £239. The diesel derivative delivers comparable outcomes with 5.0 service visits and 2.9 days VOR – but it’s workshop costs are more than double at £522."


The latter seems to be the better metric - for a van which is available in battery and diesel, the battery one has half of the workshop cost. That's about as like-for-like as you can get.

In the same article there was also a like for like example for a popular fleet hatchback quoted which might be more relevant when considering EVs for personal use.

The first example looks at a widely-used fleet hatchback over a three year and 25-30,000 mile cycle. The EV version averaged 5.7 visits to service outlets, 3.2 days spent off road due to SMR issues (VOR) and workshop servicing costs including tyres of £431.

These figures turn out to be very similar to the petrol version of the same model across all three metrics, with 5.0 service visits, 4.5 days VOR and workshop costs of £412. There are no obvious EV savings, according to Epyx.

I hadn’t quoted this example in my original post as I was trying not to cherry pick the data. I just quoted a paragraph which summed up the study as a whole and I recommend the whole article be read. The comment about Tesla perhaps skewing the figures was actually made by an EV consultant who might not have been entirely independent.

Another comparison from the article suggests the EV version of a prestige SUV is cheaper to service

Switching to an epyx dataset of two-year-old vehicles with 20-30,000 miles allows a comparison of two large prestige SUVs from a major manufacturer - one petrol and one a purpose-built EV.

Here, the EV delivers figures of 3.4 days off road that are superior to the petrol version at 4.9 and also saves on workshop costs of £645 against £996. Service visits are comparable at 4.1 compared to 4.0.

Initial indications are favourable for EVs, as one would expect, but only time will tell how servicing and maintenance will work out as vehicles age and garages react to the switch to EVs. 

As I said in my original post and repeated above, one should read the whole article. There is a lot more in there to think about. 

ComicGeek

Garages have fixed costs in terms of premises, labour etc. EVs will need some specialist equipment and training to service in the short term, so likely to involve significant costs for garages to get up to speed.

If some EVs are also going to be serviced every 2 years, then realistically garages may need to charge more to cover overheads. Might be a case of either people paying more or having to wait longer to get appointments due to a smaller workforce. When I had problems with my previous (non EV) car, it was interesting that the dealership brought in people to sort the windscreen and electronics rather than using their own engineers - I'm sure some garage will go that way, and rely on external providers for the more specialist stuff.

Herzlos

Given how long it takes to get an appointment in a garage now I don't see that as a big concern.

Main dealer for Vauxhall here is easily 4+ weeks wait (6+ if you want a courtesy car), local independent is at least 1 week. Both are pretty good as squeezing in emergency stuff though, but for routine stuff there's definitely more demand than supply.

My nowhere town must have 10 garages in/around it, and it's still impossible to get any non-emergency stuff done quickly.

JKenH

Slow charging could be costliest option for EV drivers

Its EV Recharge Report for December shows the impact of the arrival of peak and off-peak rates among some charging providers. While this manages demand, ensuring power can be provided throughout the day, and stops drivers from overstaying their welcome, it could bring a nasty shock when it comes to charging bills.

The report – the second in a new series to help show how the cost of charging moves over time – reveals that both flat-rate and off-peak slow charging averaged 37p per kWh in December but peak costs hit 72p. That’s higher than the average unit charge for fast (55p/kWh), rapid (62p/kWh) and even ultra-rapid (70p/kWh).

https://fleetworld.co.uk/slow-charging-could-be-costliest-option-for-ev-drivers/