Charging electric cars on Club sites.
Comments
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It matters not whether the Alde is set to 1, 2, 3kw. The over all energy required will be broadly the same. As Steve pointed out, in summer heating requirements over night will be modest as many set heating to 16, 17,18c overnight and ambient temperatures are unlikely to be significantly lower.
At present maybe 3 or 4 cars being charged at the very most on a 100 pitch site.
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Summer only lasts for 3 months. There's Spring, Autumn and Winter when Alde heating on at least 2 kw is used to keep the caravan warm inside. This is often run 24 hours a day as opposed to the much smaller amount of electric consumed by an EV that is fully charged in six hours and consuming nothing the rest of the day.
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Nights are not usually that cold for 7 months of the year. When an EV is not being charged the electric supply will be utilised as normal. Simple fact is that for over half a year someone charging an EV is likely to use significantly more electric.
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It's also the time involved, faffing around for several hours with other appliances on or off would just be a nuisance (for us anyway.) Before OH installed a fast charger at home we often came home in the afternoon and need to start the charge straight away. If the car was my only vehicle on site I would be wary of not having access to it, rather like having a car with no diesel or petrol standing outside. Most people prefer to have their cars ready to go in whatever circumstances. At present we rarely run our battery down much at all due to this thought. Occasionally we give it a "good" charge which also bumps up the mileage.
Hybrids on sites at present have fuel at the ready, they can manage without the battery if needed.
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It's also the time involved, faffing around for several hours with other appliances on or off would just be a nuisance
I would not be faffing - I would be in bed! The faffing would be before charging and going to bed. and after getting up.
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If you came back to a site in the afternoon with an EV and your car needed charging would you leave the battery with no charge or start the charge, I think I'd prefer to have some sort of charge. A hybrid would be different, it already has some fuel available. We always make sure our EV car can be used, I would hate to be without at least a half charged battery.
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I do not IMHO think full EV vehicles will ever be the vehicle to have,Hybrids on the other hand will be far more common as they have the capacity to be used "off grid" and in the last couple of weeks, there have been numerouse power cuts lasting at times more than 24hrs there are today thousands of homes without power, the overnight charge to enable the EV to take the owner to work/biusiness would be "interesting"and that before the enormous cost of installing the nationwide infrastructure,to cope with the "blue sky thinking" of the govenment
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We charge as soon as we think the vehicle will be at home for awhile, it could be at any time of the day. I would imagine on site most would charge a hybrid/ev or whatever as and when needed, not particularly overnight.
Equally there have been fuel stoppages and increases which can produce a surge in demand. We are all dependent on something.
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I have solar panels on my roof at home which, if I had an EV, could supply a significant amount of the electricity required. However, I do not think that EVs have yet reached the viable transport stage. National infrastructure will be a while yet coming and I don't see CAMC beefing up site supplies anytime soon.
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An EV seems, will draw more power for charging than the Batt on hybrids, and when was the last problem with filling stations, compared to power outages from the electricity supply
Of course their may be a surge in purchases of compatable portable generators,or all EVs fitted with range extenders,(hybrids)😉
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Yes, the difference being if a vehicle is or is being used for business purpose and owner paid fuel allowance should they expect the club to pay for their electricity. Several site have workers / contractors or residential residents on them for the 21 days and then move to the next site.
Our Aldi heating is only on in March, April and November and then very low for max 3 hours in the day. Modern caravan are well insulated and retain the heat very well
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No because the car is a much higher price to pay to buy it in the first place so the fuel allowance is needed to pay the increased cost of the finance. After paying this increased cost, there's no money left to pay extra for electricity and it would be unfair for sites to make such a charge. After all, you don't expect to pay extra for electric everytime you turn your kettle or heating on, do you, so why discriminate against EVs?
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Neither, JVB66, is an electric car running and drawing power 24/7. It only needs 6 hours for a full charge assuming that the battery is completely empty, an unlikely scenario! Most EVs start charging whilst the battery has at least quarter power left. Furthermore, the EV will be out on the road from time to time and therefore not drawing any power whilst being driven. Your Alde heating probably costs the club more in electric than an EV overall.
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I think you will struggle to charge from empty in 6 hours with only 10amps available via the caravan socket.
As far as I can make out the Smart has a 17.6kwh battery, so it will be nearer 8 hours from empty.
As to heating (of any type) v EV charging.......
presumably you would not normally need any heating on overnight? I know we have rarely felt it necesssary even at zero degrees outside, so you would be plugging in the EV then.
Come morning, the EV is charged, you turn on your heating as usual and go about life as usual using exactly the same amount of electricity as usual, but.......you have used electricity overnight to charge the EV in addition to your usual consumption.
This is the point everyone is making, you will be using additional electricity that has to be paid for. Now, not many people will be doing what you are doing, so the additional cost, which remember will have to be spread over all members who use Club sites, will be small. But as more EVs come into use, the extra cost will rapidly escalate.
That is why the Club needs to explain to members what they plan to do about this.
EV owners cannot realistically expect all members to pay an increased pitch fee to cover these costs .
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To quote: "Your Alde heating probably costs the club more in electric than an EV overall."
This assertion is poorly thought out for not only the reason stated above, the heating not being on overnight.
The heating even in the extreme of cold will still cycle on and off and through the main of the year not be on space heating at all. Even the water heating role only pulls power for at the most 30 minutes per full tank load and less when the water is at summer air temperature.
The EV will be pulling high power levels for hours on end, not only when Alde and Truma users need heating but every day of the year out camping, when car use is undertaken.
The arguments being made time and again confuse the Amps so power being drawn, with Amp hours reflecting the total energy being taken. The utility providers don't charge for "power" (kW), they charge us for the "energy" (kWh).
Plus I am not convinced those charging EV etc do so as an alternative to powering their vans, but in addition to, thus by definition can't but consume more energy than the typical camping user.
I would suspect our site fees are based on the average nightly use of energy not on the amount of energy from pulling our allotted 16 Amps for 24 hours a day?
As we are pushed to adopting these vehicles the club will have little option but install some form of metering, it is only a matter of time till the burden comes too high to stick with the present system.
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Unless dedicated metered bollards are introduced, everyone else on site will end up subsidising those who have chosen the electric car route.
The energy used by electric cars is in addition to their owners normal caravan and motor-home domestic use. What is required eventually, are either a number of metered normal bollards for those with EVs OR dedicated car charging metered bollards at a central point on each site OR an extra charge per day for those with EVs to charge.
This will ensure that those who do not have electric cars will not end up subsidising those who do.
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No because the car is a much higher price to pay to buy it in the first place so the fuel allowance is needed to pay the increased cost of the finance. After paying this increased cost, there's no money left to pay extra for electricity and it would be unfair for sites to make such a charge
So are you now saying that members and the club should be subsidising your traveling cost because you need the fuel allowance to pay for the car or am I reading and not understanding this correctly.
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I f you install seperate charging points, how do you ensure they are used rather than pitch electricity? What type do you install? Not all EVs use the same fast charge connectors.
I think the only real answer is to meter all pitches. The Club now has the ideal excuse to undertake this task.
peedee
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I think the only real answer is to meter all pitches. The Club now has the ideal excuse to undertake this task.
Metering is not the only answer at all. No need to install on pitch charging systems either. At present levels unlikely to add more than 4p to pitch fees.
Next step 'You want to charge a car from your caravan? certainly and that will be an extra £2.50 a night'.
'You think that to dear? Charge off site then'.
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