Electric car pulling a caravan

An availability application sounds useful. That will be in real time so there is no guarantee any charger will still be vacant on arrival.  Perhaps the next logical stage would be to be able to book an appointment to use a charger.

Flatcoat, the point is while you charge at home, you are not "waiting", you are doing something else more productive, like sleeping or eating or just getting on with life. The actual time it takes us to charge each time we have to is about 20s. 10 to plug in and 10 to unplug. Thats it. So for the roughly 12,000 miles I had driven over the last year, which have been home charged, I simply have not had to wait at all for the car to charge. Most of it I have been sleeping. 

To drive 12,000 miles on my old XC90 would have required filling the tank some 40 times (getting roughly 300 miles to a tank). Each of those 40 occasions would have meant stopping at a station, queueing, filling, paying, and getting back on route or driving home. At absolute best, that is a 10 minute activity. So roughly 6 and 3/4 hours dedicated to filling. For the EV, even if I had to charge every single day (which I don't, its more like 3 time a week), its 2 hours. of plugging and unplugging. With only 3 times a week, thats about 50 mins of activity dedicated to charging a year as opposed to 6 3/4 hours.  

Thats not "spin" of a saving of about 6 hours. It's real. When I went to fill up my daughters Picanto a couple of weeks ago, it was the 1st time I had been in a petrol station in about 11 months, the previous time was putting diesel in the PHEV. It took at least 10 mins. The diversion to the station from our route. Finding a pump, pumping the fuel, going into the station to pay (no pay at pump at BP), queueing, paying (contactless is fast), heading back to the car and heading home. We were only a few hundred meters away from the station on route home, but it was still a 10 minute delay from if we had simply been able to drive straight home. 

For costs, 50p (well 49p) per kWh is common at rapid chargers. Thats about 3 miles range for me. I.e. just under 17p per mile. Diesel is what. 199p per litre (8.95 a gallon). To be on a par, you would have to match or better 52mpg. I have never had a diesel that would average 52mpg in mixed driving.  

But thats not what I pay. At home I charge for 7.5p per kWh (was 5p before April), or 2.5p per mile. MPG equivalent? 358mpg. 

The affordability of EVs up front is not yet on a par with ICE cars, but is getting closer all the time. It will clearly be many 10s of years before EVs replace the entire ICE pool, but thats ok. Nobody has suggested they will overnight. And for those in the market for a new or nearly new car, maybe they have access to mechanism that makes it as or more affordable than an ICE. Like a company car or salary sacrifice scheme. Lots of this is down to personal circumstances. 

AFAICS the average battery is around 40Kw, so unless I'm missing something even these 22Kw chargers should do the job in 2-3 hours. 

I would imagine motorhomes would need batteries in the order of 100Kw at least and probably then even only would produce a range of maybe 200 miles. At 50p per Kw that would cost £50 to charge. I can currently get 500 miles for a tankful at £150, so a not dissimilar cost. The downside of a motorhome would be that apart from starting from home with a full charge, nearly all charging whilst travelling on holiday would be of the higher cost variety so no economies to be had there and a fair bit of sitting around waiting for it to charge up.

CY, battery sizes vary considerably, I would say the most common for new cars these days are in the range 60kWh to 80kWh, but it really depends on the car, just like fuel tank size does. My Polestar 78kWh (75 usable), Fiat 500E, 42kWh (37.3 usable). Most cars can't accept 22kW (three phase 32A) as a charge rate, but top out at 7kW (single phase 32K) or 11kW (three phase 16A) . On the DC side (25kW to 350kW), again the car is general the limiting factor. My Polestar; 155kW, my Fiat 500; 85kW.

I think your assessment on a motorhome (100kWh or more battery) is probably accurate. I would hope for around 200 miles range, or perhaps a little more, so yes, costs on the road will be very similar.

With a 100kWh battery, I would also hope for very high max charging rates on DC, but thats not always guaranteed (See Ford's weird decision to limit the Mach-E to 107kW on a 97kWh battery). Kia and Hyundai are doing good things here with maximum charge rates of 233kW. Same with Tesla at 250kW. 

Very well versed with the terraced housing in many (not just northern) towns and cities. Oxford has a large proportion of terraced housing without dedicated parking. They are finding solutions, including the very practical solution of cable gullies, promoted by Oxford council. https://www.goultralowoxford.org/info/5/chargers/13/chargers/3

I agree there is no "one size fits all". That is indeed my very point. Lots and lots of people are in a position to take advantage of the benefits of home charging. Around 1/3 of households in the UK don't have off-road parking. That means around 2/3rds do. 

For those that a solution is not yet available for, time will tell what the solutions will be. Cars will continue to come down in price, the second hand market will grow, as cars get older, their prices will drop too.

My experience related here is not born out of reading "guff" from the Guardian or BBC, any more than it is from the "guff" from the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Times or Sky. It's from my own personal lived experience of 5 years with a PHEV, over a year with an EV and 13 years of towing a caravan, 13 month of which is EV towing. 

I am really sorry if my lived experience presents a view that doesn't match your world view and clashes with the pre-concived stereotypes of EV usage that you seem to feel are the truth. Of course, your world is not mine, so maybe (probably) an EV is not right for you. Also fine. But there are a (rapidly growing) number of folks for whom it is viable, and maybe the hoppytravel, the OP, is one of those people. My aim is giving them some real pointers on what CAN be achieved, rather than regurgitating the falsehoods and myths based on zero real experience. 

Like 'Rocky' ChocT, I don't have an electric vehicle but my daughter and her partner own a fully electric fleet of taxis in Cornwall, so I have an inkling of knowledge on the subject.

Your knowledge is invaluable to all and your presentation of facts exemplary, keep on going 👍

It's new technology and evolving fast, problems today will be yesterdays news in a few years time.

I was down at Goodwood weekend before last, for the FoS. It was a great day out - I loved watching all the old (and new) stuff hurtling up the track. Actually the old stuff has way more charisma than the brand new petrol (or electric) stuff.  The FC1, Ford SuperVan and the Speirling were in a new class of excellent.

But I digress - one of the best bits of the FoS is electric avenue. The static display of a whole bunch of EVs from the small (three wheeler solo, and the new e.GO) to the new and interesting (Renault 5 Electric concept). Being able to climb in and try them all for size, get a feel for the screens and the tech was excellent. 

And then talking to all the people already l looking. Lots asking if I was an EV owner already and how it was. Many thinking that with the choice available now, moving to an EV next is the smart move. 

Also many who said they would not, for whatever reason. But that seemed to be a much smaller subset.