Towing with an EV - trip report
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Just so, but how many non EVs could be refuelled during the period of time it would take to recharge a single EV?
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Regarding the car transporter fire, I occasionally look at a couple of marine related websites, often to see the details of ships coming into our harbour or maybe to see where our ex son in law is carrying out his oil field support vessel role.
Looking on one site yesterday there was an article about new support vessels being built for a company in the offshore wind turbine installation and servicing sector and referenced the new “Sofia” wind farm t9 be built in the North Sea.
They have ordered two vessels, and the first is costing $651 million!
The wind may be free, but there are certainly quite substantial costs involved in harvesting it.
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Sorry for the late reply. I have a life. The reason you can’t give me easy access to the information is because it does not exist. Except maybe in your head
Everyone else. If you are interested try searching for something like
what proportion of homes have off road parking uk
or similar. And I was surprised how high the proportion was.
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There is a big housing estate near me on which many houses don't have parking in the front of the house but have a communal parking area to the rear. Very few of these home owners seem to bother to put their car on the parking area. They chose, instead, to leave them on the relatively narrow road outside their house which causes chaos on the road especially as it is a bus route.
In the older part of our city there is absolutely no possibility of parking off road for many thousands of properties which are predominantly Victorian in age and built before cars were commonplace so no parking required.
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I appreciate brue, but if one is stuck at a service station for, say, 10 hrs awaiting for the power to come back on most of those with EVs, especially if they do become popular, will have a lot longer to hang around compared to those with ICEs.
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However by the time the demand is high enough to warrant a solution it will take many more years for that solution to be implemented. Surely now is the time to get started on putting the solutions in place, and then the demand for EVs might take off.
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There were around 200,000 electric cars sold in the UK in 2021. This accounted for 11% of all new cars sold that year. (source https://heycar.co.uk/blog/electric-cars-statistics-and-projections ) That is still only a tiny percentage of all cars. Clearly the number of new EV's sold will accelerate (if you forgive the pun) in coming years. It could be that some local councils are dragging their feet in terms of charging infrastructure, there are grants available from Central Government. That dragging of feet may well be a reflection of the type of housing, for example if there are a lot of terraced houses its not so easy as JVB reminds us. However kerbside solutions are being developed but are not mainstream yet. I assume anyone that buys an electric car also investigates where it can be charged before committing to it? For anyone who has a drive where they can park their car it would be easy enough to install a home charging point. For others they may have to accept that they will have to charge the car when they are out and about at the supermarket etc.
David
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Unless charging points are subsidised the cost is far higher to use them other than at home and the VAT is at 20 per cent
The reason the charging points are not working at our parade of shops is that the p ay by card facility is not working(the only method)
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The 5% VAT home vs 20% VAT public differential is significant, but nothing like as significant as off peak (7.5p) vs peak 28p charging differential. If you have an EV and home charging, then using a peak - offpeak tariff will (for many) be very attractive.
Solution for the very significant numbers who cant home charge will need to be found. One possible solution is the company StoreDot (same co-founders of SanDisk, the thumbdrive people) who are working on (and have demonstrated) a battery that is capable of receiving and storing a charge at up to 100mile range (about 35kWh) in 5 minutes. That starts to mean that with a neighbourhood ultra-rapid charger, your future "filling" behaviour might be similar to that with an ICE car.
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The simple answer is - use the technology. I think I already described that by looking at the internet, or even my car navigation, I have a real time view of the charging networks, their operational status of the chargers and their real-time occupation. I.e. I don't have to wait until I rock up at charger to find out if it is down, in use or free. The network tells me (and my car) in advance.
The tools are out there - you just have to make use of them.
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If we are to believe what we are told, the number of EVs on the road is growing at a faster rate than available charging points when away from home. What intrigues me is what would folk do if, on a long journey with a caravan in tow, they got to their planned recharging point only to find they were all occupied with a queue of vehicles waiting to charge that had got there earlier. On motorways especially, there is quite a hefty charge for parking for more than two hours which could easily be the case.
Comments from people on here with EVs that extol the virtues of them never seem to comment on how they would address this possibility / probability.
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After five years of EV ownership we've never got to the point where we run out of charge, we never run the batteries down to a no go point and we can by pass busy charge points and find others that are available. That said there aren't enough charge points but both BP and Shell are now coming on line with mulitple charge stations which will add to the available stock.
The problems coming up at present is that charge points weren't designed as drive throughs which isn't helpful to people towing anything, caravans, trailers etc. I wonder if the Clubs will lobby for improvements?!
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With range extenders the anxiety of running out of charge is not such a problem
With space at filling stations normally at a premium drive through charging points would take up a lot of space hence HGV fuel points now it is normally only one
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I'm not talking about range extenders although ours is useful we have learnt to optimise the use of our EV during our five year ownership.
Space at filling stations makes no difference with a long unit does it, it's always been a drawback for some.
I suggest looking at the BP and Shell charge point information on line if you are genuinely interested. Link to BP Pulse > HERE<
I doubt it will be of interest to you personally JVB as you have spent all your time on here denying progress but it might help somone.
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There’s no doubt we're getting there, Brue. It’ll be a while yet but progress is happening all the time👍🏻. I suspect those of us without a direct interest such as yours probably aren’t aware of things like BP Pulse. Thanks for that.
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All folk need is the capability to think about the future, every year without fail EV’s have breakthrough technology that helps the whole world it is basic intelligence to realise a full charge will be a mere few minutes before we go full(ish) electric. Already there are battery changes that are done in minutes, the new battery is a fully charged one. Not in the future it’s now , it’s in the USA🤷🏻♂️
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We certainly need to embrace the EV concept whether we like it or not because it isn’t going away. The charge/change arrangements are gathering pace and I’m sure that, in time, they’ll be springing up all over the country and folk will wonder what they were worrying about.
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If the likes of ChocT & others are managing now then I personally have no qualms of embracing EV’s going forward TW👍🏻. I think age & open-mindedness plays a big part as some folk are allergic to change some need to have their hand held throughout whereas others just jump in, we’re all different👍🏻🙂
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Seems that TW & R2B are definitely “glass half full” people!
In just over eight years, nobody in the UK will be able to buy new cars powered solely by petrol or diesel, under Government plans to outlaw their sale from 2030.
By then, 14 million electric vehicles could already be on our roads – equivalent to 43 per cent of the cars in the country today. Within another five years, sales of new hybrids will be banned.
There are now around 25,000 public charging devices available in the UK. But more than that number will need to be installed every year for the next 14 years if we are to hit the 480,000 devices and two million power leads that it’s estimated we may need by 2035.
That is on top of the 19 million home chargepoints needed, according to the energy regulator Ofgem.
Between 40 and 50 chargepoints need to be installed every day between now and 2035 to meet demand, the research organisation New AutoMotive said last month.For people with driveways or garages, installing a charger at home is relatively cheap and easy. But around a third of households in Britain, eight million of them according to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), will have to rely on a public network.
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It may help those who have yet to realise just how short of infrastructure this country is when HMG iit seems is hoping? that by the time we are all expected to only. own EVs some one will pick up the huge costs involved without the treasury (us)to dig very deep for the dates to be adhered to and road pricing to be high enough to pay something towards it
Also that the scientists predictions about more severe weather bringing more power outages for longer periods, to be wrong?
Space for long vehicles at filling stations as with our caravan on the hook is not a problem when it takes 5mins to recharge a diesel tank with enough fuel for even towing about 300+miles
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It won’t be-1 day we have ICE vehicles the day after we can’t have them. If a person owns an ICE vehicle at the cut off point they will continue to use it until it can’t be repaired or the stop using it. There’s no need for must folk in their 70+ to worry as most won’t be driving by then or maybe the Autonomous vehicle will be here👍🏻
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