EV owners: question about EV charging

Herzlos

alan_d said:
However, for anyone who regularly needs to travel further, or tow things, they are not there yet.

It'll take a while because it's a pretty niche market, but I'm confident that eventually you'll get EV's with towing capacity of 3500kg, decent range for a decent price on the used market.

In theory, because of the torque and weight, an EV should make a great towing vehicle, but the biggest let down at the moment is range and lack of type approval.

You might find hybrids will be the choice of vehicle for towing for a long time to come, until liquid fuel becomes too expensive.

ididgetwhereiamtoday

Don’t forget when you get to the caravan site you can plug your car in and get free fuel for the rest of your holiday and trip home!

LightFlare

I stand by my comment:

I guess my viewpoint is:

Are EVs better for short/return to base journeys --- maybe
Are EVs better for long journeys that require "refuelling" -- probably not, but by how much.

 And I think that requires a lot more real life data from wider sources - lets face it, this is a topic where people will be in one camp or the other and will have strong opinions - but what is the reality for the "average" motorist

i also appreciate that convenience is just one aspect of the difference



In response to those who are saying that he purposely drove past various charging networks - I believe he was attempting to do the journey as cheaply as possible to try and beat the cost of an ICE. (lets be honest, he was never going to be quicker)  He was attempting to use the Porsche subsidised chargers (network) - I think.

Interestingly, he has offered an open challenge to Quentin and FullCharged -- will they accept him ? as actions most definitely speak louder than words

I also 100% agree that the network needs to be dramatically improved and some sort of regulation/price-cap introduced. Lets be honest, some of those p/kwh prices were eye watering --- 89p i recall was one

MacPingu1986

Lightflare - the dft already has the data - the vast, vast majority of trips carried out by UK drivers are short, local trips with an average length of 9 miles and total miles of about 120 a week. The typical driver only makes a journey of over 100 miles 3 times a year, and makes a journey of over 200 miles no greater than every 2 years. That's why the over-emphasis on long journeys is relatively unimportant re wider adoption of EVs.

Re the Youtube videos - the channel owner pumps out a steady stream of anti-EV videos, alongside a sprinkling of climate denial & conspiracy theories for good measure. It's not a fact based channel interested in any kind of objective discussion. Quentin/Fully Charged do not need to waste their time with line by line rebuttals of youtubers seeking oxygen and publicity.

There's lots of advice out there on how to structure those occasional long driven journeys - including from many posters on this form.  

As per above, how quickly you can travel 800 miles is irrelevant to all but a tiny fraction of a % of UK drivers.

force_ten1

LightFlare said:

I stand by my comment:

I guess my viewpoint is:

Are EVs better for short/return to base journeys --- maybe
Are EVs better for long journeys that require "refuelling" -- probably not, but by how much.

 And I think that requires a lot more real life data from wider sources - lets face it, this is a topic where people will be in one camp or the other and will have strong opinions - but what is the reality for the "average" motorist

i also appreciate that convenience is just one aspect of the difference



In response to those who are saying that he purposely drove past various charging networks - I believe he was attempting to do the journey as cheaply as possible to try and beat the cost of an ICE. (lets be honest, he was never going to be quicker)  He was attempting to use the Porsche subsidised chargers (network) - I think.

Interestingly, he has offered an open challenge to Quentin and FullCharged -- will they accept him ? as actions most definitely speak louder than words

I also 100% agree that the network needs to be dramatically improved and some sort of regulation/price-cap introduced. Lets be honest, some of those p/kwh prices were eye watering --- 89p i recall was one

Are EVs better for short/return to base journeys --- maybe

l would say that they are 100% better now for a lot of people. if you can charge at home and yes i know that many cant but if you can then 7p/kwh night charging you can easily have 200 miles range at a fuel cost of 2p per mile and for many 200 miles would cover the the whole weeks use so you wouldn't even need to charge every night for

Are EVs better for long journeys that require "refuelling" -- probably not, but by how much

you are right they are not 100% there yet and it is the charge network that falls down here every time but it is getting better

sadly world events have pushed electricity prices sky high when using the public charge network and as it is unregulated so some providers are price gouging and this is a big problem 

Porsche subsidised chargers are on the ionity network and one of the high speed cross country runs where they charged for one and a half hours total to cover eight hundred and fifty miles three of the chargers they used were ionity so if ionity worked for them why is it so woeful for others as they were both doing the same end to end run 

the guy in those videos has no credibility at all because if you trawled his back catalogue l bet you would not find a single video where his journey has gone swimmingly and that is just not real world. but as he makes a living out of ad revenue then things have got to go wrong for him to make money so all videos are engineered to that end 

l seriously looked at buying an EV earlier this year so did a lot of leg work on would it be right for me. and in the end l went for a Hybrid because l thought that would work best for me and about 3000 miles in and l am still very happy with it
and the cost of the hybrid was £7000.00 cheaper than the full EV which is a stumbling block for some but the gap is closing and l could have bought a very capable full EV for the same money l spent on the hybrid  

born_again

force_ten1 said:

boxosox said:

Grumpy_chap said:

boxosox said:

I did a drive from Guildford to Glasgow yesterday, so was aware that I would probably have had to stop two or three times adding around 1.5hrs to my journey time of 7hrs which would have been tedious.

Why would the stops add 1.5 hours to the 7 hour journey?
On a 7 hour journey, I would be stopping regardless for comfort and refreshment breaks.
Charge at the same time and there is no increase in the overall journey time.

I don't have an EV, so I'm only guessing that over a 430 mile journey in a car with a (claimed) range of 230 miles, I'd have to stop for 2x 40min charges, so 1hr 20 -ish.

I've just got home and, in my case, I stopped once on the way there and once on the way back for about 10 mins.  Enough time to use the toilet, get some lunch and a coffee.  So charging would add well over an hour each way.

l have just considered buying a Kia EV6 that has a claimed 330 miles and Fast charging from 10-80% in 18 minutes on the right charger. so that would do the 430 mile trip with one short 20 minute stop to charge. 

my ice car has 75 miles range left in the tank so to do 430 mile tip l would have to go to a fuel station and fill up so say that takes 5 minutes by the time i waited for a pump fill up and go queue to pay so we have a difference of 15 minutes and how many people will drive 430 miles without a 15 minute stop

you can make an EV work or you can put up barriers trying to prove that an EV wont work for you 

the big caveat here is we need to see a huge improvement in the charging infrastructure and we need them to be 300kW plus chargers 

300kWh charges are pointless to most as so few cars can make use of that speed, even then you have to hit the sweet spot of state of charge, temp etc.

born_again

ididgetwhereiamtoday said:

Don’t forget when you get to the caravan site you can plug your car in and get free fuel for the rest of your holiday and trip home!

Dream on, I'm afraid. Very few sites in the UK offer free 240 hook up's. If they do you pay a premium to stay there.

Grumpy_chap

born_again said:

ididgetwhereiamtoday said:

Don’t forget when you get to the caravan site you can plug your car in and get free fuel for the rest of your holiday and trip home!

Dream on, I'm afraid. Very few sites in the UK offer free 240 hook up's. If they do you pay a premium to stay there.

Some sites charge a flat daily fee for electric hook up rather than a metered use.  Use has historically been largely irrelevant because it's a small amount of low power devices for a short period of time.  If the site still has that charging basis, then the EV can be plugged in and is effectively charged for free.  One has to assume that sites will start to put in place restrictions that prevent that as it would be a step change in use / demand compared to the previous baseline.

LightFlare

MacPingu1986 said:

Lightflare - the dft already has the data - the vast, vast majority of trips carried out by UK drivers are short, local trips with an average length of 9 miles and total miles of about 120 a week. The typical driver only makes a journey of over 100 miles 3 times a year, and makes a journey of over 200 miles no greater than every 2 years. That's why the over-emphasis on long journeys is relatively unimportant re wider adoption of EVs.

Re the Youtube videos - the channel owner pumps out a steady stream of anti-EV videos, alongside a sprinkling of climate denial & conspiracy theories for good measure. It's not a fact based channel interested in any kind of objective discussion. Quentin/Fully Charged do not need to waste their time with line by line rebuttals of youtubers seeking oxygen and publicity.

There's lots of advice out there on how to structure those occasional long driven journeys - including from many posters on this form.  

As per above, how quickly you can travel 800 miles is irrelevant to all but a tiny fraction of a % of UK drivers.

IF this is true -- why are there chargers at service stations at all....

Maybe the data is that the majority of EV owners only do short trips

I do way more than 3 trips of >100miles a year - although granted, most  (not all) of the other are circa 15miles

Other factors for me are initial cost (on a like for like vehicle) and more recently insurance cost

maybe I'm just not a typical driver and hence my viewpoint. My issue is that EV owners rarely see that point of view and are adamant that ICE owners are always in the wrong.
There is surely a middle ground and there needs to be an acceptance that EV isnt always better.....


just to add - I am sure Quentin et al aren’t doing what they do for free either

Herzlos

LightFlare said:

MacPingu1986 said:

Lightflare - the dft already has the data - the vast, vast majority of trips carried out by UK drivers are short, local trips with an average length of 9 miles and total miles of about 120 a week. The typical driver only makes a journey of over 100 miles 3 times a year, and makes a journey of over 200 miles no greater than every 2 years. That's why the over-emphasis on long journeys is relatively unimportant re wider adoption of EVs.

Re the Youtube videos - the channel owner pumps out a steady stream of anti-EV videos, alongside a sprinkling of climate denial & conspiracy theories for good measure. It's not a fact based channel interested in any kind of objective discussion. Quentin/Fully Charged do not need to waste their time with line by line rebuttals of youtubers seeking oxygen and publicity.

There's lots of advice out there on how to structure those occasional long driven journeys - including from many posters on this form.  

As per above, how quickly you can travel 800 miles is irrelevant to all but a tiny fraction of a % of UK drivers.

IF this is true -- why are there chargers at service stations at all....

Why are there petrol pumps at service stations?

Some people need to use them.

LightFlare said:

Maybe the data is that the majority of EV owners only do short trips

I do way more than 3 trips of >100miles a year - although granted, most  (not all) of the other are circa 15miles

The statistics are for all cars, not EV. 

I don't think I've done 100 miles in a single direction in years.