EV and when will commercial vehicles come to market
At the moment the discussion is cars and light vans, but surely large commercial vehicles will have to also move over. There is way to little place's to charge considering that one can fill a car with fuel in 5 mins one gets to a charging station and there is a queue,so it could take awhile.
Then Commercial vehicles will need charging which could cover many miles in a working day, so will need alot of space.
As I am retired I think that I could perhaps survive with hybrid petrol/diesel car to see out my caravanning days.
I am not sure how up to speed Europe is to EV's on charging, don't think that they have someone like Miliband driving them to net zero at the same speed as GB.
Answers
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saw a video the other day of German electric trucks, as in big Lorrie’s. Long distance travel across Germany. Charge points were at lorry parks. His limits were not the charging infrastructure but his driver hours.
we are motorhomers but love our ev car which we have had for over three years. Range about 250 miles. Would never go back to ice engine. Plenty of videos around of towing a caravan with an ev car. Andrew Ditton has some good ones. There is a problem towing and charging en route because of the positioning of charge points, although not all.0 -
Europe way ahead of the UK. Last time we were in Germany, just before Covid, I remember staying at a small town/big village in Bavaria. There was a low rise block of apartments, car park outside had half a dozen charging points. A sight repeated wherever we went. There were at that time Zero charging points in my town here in North Wales. A few more now but still outnumbered by petrol/diesel filling points by about 3 to 1 and none of those would take a truck or caravan behind a unit. Most Motorehomes would be struggling as well apart from small campervans/pvcs.
No point blaming Miliband. The country needs more ev charging points and better thought out ones at that.
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I know a lot of John Lewis and Waitrose lorries use biomethane gas which has about one-fifth of the carbon dioxide emissions of diesel. Now where that fits in the electric powered lorry debate I don't know.
As far as general EV charging is concerned the Government has made grants available to local authorities to help pay for the cost of such infrastructure but that depends on how keen various authorities are on taking those grants up. I know in MK we have used a lot of those grants to provide EV charging points and I think I am right is saying that outside of London we had one of the highest number of chargers per head of population.
David
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One idea that has been put forward in Germany I believe was as lorries would need huge batteries to go any long distance was to put overhead cables on the inner lane of the autobahns and fit lorries with pantographs thus they would be able to use smaller batteries just to reach the autobahns or
perhapsjust use railways to transport goods0 -
Sorry but I think the whole thing is a farce. Here we are going down the net zero route when the Chinese are building a new coal-powered power station every week to keep up with the production of solar panels and wind turbine components that they're flooding the world market with. I think someone, somewhere needs to have a dramatic re-think about how we should be tackling the problem of global warming.
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@peedee - only watched 10 minutes so far, peedee - but it's fascinating. Makes an awful lot more sense IMO than the EV route.
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My understanding for the reason for going for EV road cars was that it was more expensive to produce hydrogen because of the amount of electricity used in the process, it was actually cheaper to use the electricity to charge cars? Obviously technology is always driving forward but I suspect that to produce the same amount of hydrogen to replace diesel and petrol could be difficult. Apparently Australia is sitting on a massive pond of hydrogen so I don't know what they are doing to bring that into the system. I can perfectly see that some types of vehicles would be better served running on hydrogen but whether there is much hope of that becoming a fuel for all vehicles in the short term might be beyond reasonable possibility? As we move to be energy independent, as far as electricity is concerned perhaps we can change the system of paying market prices rather than producer prices for our electricity which would make it cheaper and perhaps bring hydrogen into the mainstream? I suppose hydrogen could be produced at times when there is surplus supply of electricity in the system?
David
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If the weather conditions continue in the vein that has been prevalent recently there will be no way that we can ever be energy independent as far as electricity is concerned....no sun and no wind producing no power, or when it does blow power lines brought down and thousands without electricty, so how could they charge their EVs?
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Makes more sense to me as well. A few years ago, I favoured the use of electric cars but now I think it is not the right way to go. Where are all the resources to produce batteries going to come from and the cost of replacement is very high. At least we can make hydrogen in this country, there is no shortage of water and the country is in a favourable positioned to use green energy for it production. Surely garages already equipped to sell LPG would require little modification to dispense hrydrogen to an ICE using this fuel.
peedee
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There are several makes of electric trucks available but they are mainly for short haul work and costing up to twice the price of the conventional ones are a hard sell for the makers. The extra weight of the batteries means less weight can be carried, longer charging times are a problem, as is the lack of chargers with enough room. This means they are best worked from a depot they can return to after a shift and they can justify the extra cost to the customer. More development is needed, but I think the problems will be overcome.
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But what's that to cost over here @JimE ?
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It's just a development vehicle at the moment so no indication of price yet.
I suspect it will be £200k+ when it is launched but, until the standard driving licence weight limit is increased, there is likely be a restricted market in the UK as all the batteries on board will push the GVW well above 3,500kg.
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Ford do an electric Transit, but with a shorter range, so I assume you reach the 300 miles with more batteries, which will carry a serious weight penalty. This model is used mainly by parcels services for local work with drivers under 70, the weight is not a problem for them as they can go to 7.5 tonnes on a car licence and for most space is more important than overall weight.
Unless the government make an allowance for the extra battery weight, the conversion of EV's will only be a problem for drivers over 70. I have no idea of the extra cost though.
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@Wildwood, white van man can already drive an EV van up to 4250Kgms on just the B licence as long as he has been on a simple training course. It is on the cards that this will become common for all drivers, probably within the next two years. There is an EU directive currently going through the EU parliament which legislates for a number of driving licence changes, raising the B lincence to 4250Kgms is part of it. While this does not apply to the UK it is expected the UK government will also adopt this legislation either in part or whole.
peedee
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@peedee with the waiting time for training courses and standard driving tests at an all time high how would it be possible for the government to implement an addition driving requirement? There would have to be more training centres, with additional instructors, all of which would have to be paid for, and there's many more priorities for public finances than for such a project for a limited number of participants.
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@nelliethehooker I suspect any extra training will be contracted out by the DVLA and financed by the people taking the training in the same way as C1 was if you passed your test post 1997 and wanted to upgrade. Don't think the public purse will be adversely impacted. As I have seen little evidence of mass produced electric motorhomes coming onto the market I also suspect it could be sometime before any extra training is required?
David
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