bpg
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Post by bpg on Sept 22, 2024 17:15:09 GMT
No supposing, they are an unknown, unless the price is low enough people are not buying.
You've got people who have gone EV are very happy, there are some who've tried it and decided it's not for them and those who will be reliant on public charging which is ridiculously expensive if fast charging is the only option. I don't know how true that last one is but at ~80p/kWh and sub three miles/kWh, you can see why people have reservations.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Sept 22, 2024 17:27:54 GMT
You can see why a cherry-picked segment of the buying public, who apparently have access only to 80p charging (the most I’ve ever paid is 79p) and atypically inefficient EVs might. The ever-egalitarian Telegraph would have us think that’s representative but the truth is another matter.
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bpg
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Post by bpg on Sept 22, 2024 17:54:49 GMT
Norway is often held up as the golden market for Europe. They never mention that journey has taken 30 years and various policies to promote EVs which are not replicated across other markets.
Insurance for an EV is restrictive where I live. Four figure insurance premiums are not unusual for EV. That's with claim free histories and almost two decades no claims. It's not just oil companies and MSM stories that are EV problems.
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Sept 22, 2024 18:02:07 GMT
If you have the ability to charge an EV at home (and better still a low tariff overnight or even better solar) then as long as the range side of things can be made to work then it's a good solution for low emission travel. Not zero because the electric probably is not all carbon free nor was the manufacture of the car.
But if you cannot charge from home there are so many negatives:
- No cheap charging - probably actually as expensive as an ICE vehicle
- No easy charging either
My last house was on a corner plot and the garage was at the end of the garden with the gates on the road at 90 degrees to ours. You'd get a small car into the garage but the distance from gate to garage was not a driveway length so you could not get any large car off road to charge it. The house before it and this one.... fine.
But I've said before, the longest two journeys I do/did (one no longer needed) was/are to destinations with no off road parking so not possible to charge off even 13A lead. One was my mum's terraced house (and you might not be able to park in front either) and the other is my step-sons 5th floor flat.
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Sept 22, 2024 18:34:08 GMT
At the lower end of the social ladder so to speak, i.e. those no living in more expensive houses on nice streets tend to be in terraced housing and flats. The town in South Wales where I was born is probably over 90% terraces and it's made up of a few 'villages' so to speak that expanded because of the coal mines. So none of these can really charge an EV at home. And until they get cheaper some might not be able to afford them. They certainly won't appreciate paying high pence/kWh for public charging. And the only place with a few chargers I can think of in the town is the Tesco with 4.
So until public charging improves and the cost to charge publicly is reduced, many can only continue with ICE. Which will continue for a long long time because second hand ICE vehicles will be around for decades.
I know we need to move to zero emission transport but I actually think we're doomed as we've done this way too late. Climate change is already a problem and is getting much wore.
The few of us on here and not representative of the UK population... we've got money/savings/investments/homes etc.
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Sept 22, 2024 21:34:49 GMT
I thought I should double check how many public chargers there are in the town I was born. As well as the 4 at the Tesco, there's two at the ALDI, two at another public car park near the community hospital and 2 at a private golf club. So ignoring the last 2 that's 8. For a population of say 20,000. Not great. There aren't even any at the car park at the train station.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 23, 2024 8:00:38 GMT
Is there a petrol station in that town? No doubt that will be converted to mainly EV chargers at some point in the future when demand dictates. I feel certain the provision in that town will expand as EV take up grows.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Sept 23, 2024 8:07:00 GMT
I used to spend £1,500 a year on diesel. That ought to cover the price of a golf club membership. 😛
But take a 4mi/kWh Kia like BPG’s out of town to the M4 and charge it at the most expensive 79p Gridserve charge point and it’s still costing less than 20p a mile. Too high, yes, but that’s an upper bound; join up to a network or two and even motorway charging comes down into the 50s, so 14p a Kia mile or about the same as a 45mpg fossil car at low summer prices.
There’ll always be those who can’t, of course. But there are a lot more who just won’t. (Especially while there’s a deep-pocketed disinformation industry telling them they shouldn’t.)
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Sept 23, 2024 10:23:50 GMT
But there's only 10 public chargers total for a population of say 20,000. And most houses really are terraced with no off road parking.
Yes there's a few petrol stations. But it's no longer a mining town so most workers commute to somewhere else so if they drive there's cheaper garages on their route.
My Mazda6 petrol with a 2.5 litre engine has averaged 20p a mile. Anything smaller or more efficient will be cheaper.
I used this town as an example where electric is a problem for charging and people are not likely to get a car before there's a solution. The solution is probably on-street charging infrastructure on the pavements.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Sept 23, 2024 10:47:18 GMT
...or workplace charging, or converting petrol stations, or supermarket rapid chargers or...
And anyone who always and only pays 80p a kWh is either made of money or not really trying.
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bpg
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Post by bpg on Sept 23, 2024 11:28:07 GMT
I'm not sure many builders or plumbers yards will be installing chargers for the laborers. SMEs are the backbone of British industry with red faced bosses crying poverty. The clothes producers in the Midlands I very much doubt providing charging points for machinests is on their list of deliverables before 2030.
Are supermarkets installing the superfast chargers that Esp desires ? All supermarket charging I've seen is 7kW the odd 22kW (11 kW AC for most cars) which might dribble 10% into a 64kWh battery if you dawdle and make two laps of the shop. I see many supermarkets in the SE of England have two or three hour stay limits, that is not going to get you far with a dribble charger.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 23, 2024 11:32:21 GMT
Nobody is arriving with an empty 100kwh battery at Tesco and expecting a full charge before going home. People will use them as a part of a continuous top up plan - Car parked, then charge it a bit if you can, be it at home, work, shops, gym, wherever. Full charging, empty to full again, in a few minutes, is only a requirement in the middle of a motorway journey. You don't habitually run an EV to empty and then go OMG OH NOES I NEED A FULL CHARGE.
Surely you get this, BPG, you have an EV.
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Sept 23, 2024 11:33:08 GMT
I'm guessing a fair few will work in the Tesco (4 chargers there), Asda (none and they don't own the car park), ALDI (2 chargers but the car park is council), the town in general in shops, pubs, cafes, etc. Then others will travel to jobs in bigger towns or cities nearby. Some who say work in Cardiff would probably get the train so their car stays at home.... uncharged.
The public charging infrastructure does need to change soon and it needs to happen before the majority will get an EV. That's probably why the sale of EVs is down - those that can and will get an EV has one already and don't need another yet.
The EU will no doubt change the date when car companies need to hit EV targets soon because the likes of Ford are only managing to avoid fines by restricting sale of ICE vehicles.
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bpg
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Post by bpg on Sept 23, 2024 11:54:37 GMT
I charge my car when it needs it like I charge my phone when it needs it. I'm not one of those people you see hanging around sockets at airports, coffee shops etc.
I have a powerbank for my phone as a backup, generally don't need it but then my wife's iPhone has a habit of draining down quickly when we travel.
The car gets charged once/week or gets a top-up if it drops below say 30% midweek and we know we have more journeys than charge still to do. I'm about preserving the charge counter, if you swap cars every 3 years, not a consideration. I usually keep my mobile phone 5+ years. Charge my phone like I charge my car, down to 20% charge to 80-85%.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Sept 23, 2024 12:08:57 GMT
The public charging infrastructure does need to change soon and it needs to happen before the majority will get an EV. That's probably why the sale of EVs is down... Who told you that?  That's to the end of August 2024. Even if we just multiply the eight-month total by 1.5 it exceeds the 12-month total for 2023. And autumn is usually busier than summer for sales. |
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