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The number of times it was an App I haven’t got = once
Indeed. But now you, like me, have half a dozen apps nicking all your data to be able to use them once a year...
@BoardinBob , just to add to your confusion they just changed from wise to stripe for payments so that link is out of date for us foreigners.
https://chargeplacescotland.org/network-news/new-payment-provider/
It should make setting up payments easier for non uk residents. I hope. I am in Scotland in a weeks time for the first time since the change over so just hoping it all works ok for me.
But now you, like me, have half a dozen apps nicking all your data to be able to use them once a year
What apps?
Are they actually nicking your data? As in, uploading something to their server when you are not using them? I've only got the Electroverse app, I deleted CPS when the card arrived. Oh, I lied - I have Charge My Hyundai but it's really useless, I'll probably delete that too. I've never used it.
"nicking your data"
Whatever, part of life now sadly.
Been looking at the CPS site. They don’t half make it difficult for non UK residents to access their charge points. What a hassle this is compared to simply touching any bank card against a reader and getting charge out the machine
It was never designed for that kind of use. It’s been said before, but all CPS do is manage a single point of payment across a huge network of unrelated chargers. Think of it like AirBnB. You get charged by them but the properties (chargers) are run by the hosts (charger owners). They are there to help out but ultimately responsibility for the chargers rests with the owners. You also have to remember that the majority of these chargers are owned by local authorities, hospitals etc and are slower AC chargers designed for work cars to be left overnight. There’s no money and little need to change them all to suoerfast, credit card chargers. CPS chargers are also usually a lot cheaper than fuel company ones.
If there was money in it the fuel companies would be rushing to put them at every petrol station.
CPS call centre folk have been unfailingly polite, helpful and generally get stuff done. Some of the kit they have to oversee is pretty shonky. I have a CPS card (for old chargers, and now they pre-authorise), Electroverse card and a couple of apps - and that's in Scotland. ZapMap Pay is pretty handy.
I had difficulty charging at a dc fast charger, once. I rung the helpline and they were able to reboot the charger from their office. It didn't solve the problem but they did try and were polite. They even pointed out where the nearby alternative chargers were even though they weren't part of the same chain. I had my backup options already so it wasn't necessary but it was a nice touch.
.
I've been quite happy with CPS, but only used 3 of their chargers. New app is a slight annoyance though - you need to login every time you open it.
Fine if you remember, but if not, it takes you through the anonymous payment method so puts a £40 hold on your bank car, then charges you for the amount you actually use and after about 6 days, the pending £40 disappears (you don't get charged that).
I set up the stripe thing but can't tell if it is using it or not.
ah, is that why I had to get it to pre-authorise - didn't realise it was because I hadn't logged in. cheers!
Have covered over 4000km around France, UK, Holland and Germany recently in the Zoe About 30 charges most of the 30-40 min up to 80-90% and go type.
All but 5 were on Tesla superchargers which just worked - perfectly. Up 24 chargers at key locations and info on the app telling us which location to head to with the most free chargers.
One iec charge, fine and very cheap.
One pod point in a campsite - fine once they repaired the 5g mast damaged in a storm. Expensive.
As for the rest of the useless ****ing things, see OP's first post. By the end of the journey I had so little faith in the non-Tesla chargers I went 40 kms off route rather than try to coax another so-called 150kW rapid charger into life and then sit there watching it dribble 20 or so into the car in a miserable location.
Tesla = fast, reliable, well-situated, competetively-priced. Don't use anything else unless you absolutely have to.
Can any car use a tesla Charger or just teslas ?
Tesla have opened up part of the network to any car. Just download the app and enter a credit card. The app is very simple and works even with intermittent 3g which felt like a miracle when the charger came to life.
In the UK and France it's just the main traffic corridors that are opened up. In Germany pretty complete coverage and in Holland all of them. You'll see on the app before you create an account which ones are red and open to all.
Went for a pint at our local last night and spotted they had some charging bays in their car park. This is a much better setup. Actual clear instructions on what to do
Looking from the outside, what a load of cocking about. Imagine having to get a specific card or pre-reg app with details to fill diesel when travelling from England to Scotland.
Clearly nobody has been arsed to sort a single user interface that common across the piece.
(How many different charge connectors are there ? It's like BB standards !)
Looking from the outside, what a load of cocking about.
Not an EV owner but AIUI in England it's pretty much the same as using a regular pay at pump - just present your payment card and it kicks into action. As for connectors, again it's no more of an issue than choosing diesel, unleaded or super unleaded - you know what you need and make sure the machine you're using has that available before you start filling up. The faff seems arise from poorly sited or poorly maintained infrastructure and the CPS stuff above is an attempt to unify a load of legacy infrastructure to make it simpler to use but they've inherited a lot of the issues of the legacy infrastructure.
I'd wager that EV charging in England is less complex than parking in a town centre - to do that you need to download the right parking app, set up an account, register your car, find the parking location, book your parking time and enter payment details. Huge faff the first time you encounter a new system, less faff thereafter.
How many different charge connectors are there ?
not sure this has been a problem in the last 5 years? The offerings now are typically Type 2 or CCS which I crudely lump into slow and fast respectively.
Petrol pumps have the advantage of displaying the price. I'd like to bet that charger in Boardinbob's local costs 83p/kWh if you just turn up without an RFId card and use it with your phone. I reckon that at over 70cents/60p a KWh an EV is more expensive to run than an equivalent ICE car. That's all the chargers we used as foreigners in the UK except Tesla.
7 years now I've had an EV and charging is still the thing that causes me to lose my rag most in an average year. Not since Windows Vista has technology pissed me off more than the average charge point.
1/Check the location of a charger on say chargemap. Read the reviews to check at least some people have managed to charge recently.
2/feed address into Google and maps for navigation and some more reviews.
3/ find charger - this might require some hunting as maps isn't always accurate.
4/ Read instructions, usually lousy if there are any. Do I plug the car in first? Do I launche the app first? Will I have time to enter the credit card details and launch the charge before either the charger or car times out?
5/ Plug in CCS, flash RFID card, wait - card not recognised
6/ Close trap on car, switch on and off, re-open trap, plug in CCS again and try again with the app. Messages seen in the last two days:
"prise trop chaude" (well don't put the sodding charger with a black facia facing directly south on a black tarmac surface then)
"communication avec voiture perdue"
"charge arrêtée" (after about 10 seconds)
7/ Take old type 2 cable out of boot and try with that instead knowing it's going to take over twice as long. Zoe charges at 45kW on a CCS to about 65% on a really hot day and is still at 25kW at 96% - on type 2 it's 18kW all the way. No joy with Type 2 either.
8/ Sit in car and work out what other chargers are in range at varying driving speeds and find ont which belong to different suppliers to try.
9/ Try two more chargers, one shows red despite being green on the app the other repeatedly dies after a few seconds.
10/ Decide that the Tesla charger that was too far off route is the only sure way not to end up on a tow truck and head for that.
Lesson - decide never to leave the granny charger at home because non-Tesla chargers are even less reliable than they were 7 years ago and it's nice to be able to negotiate a charge with a campsite owner if all else fails.
That was mostly in Cernay BTW, and the solution was a detour to the Tesla supercharger in Mulhouse 20km in the wrong direction.
Looking from the outside, what a load of cocking about. Imagine having to get a specific card or pre-reg app with details to fill diesel when travelling from England to Scotland.
I have not done a lot of charging away from home, but my Electroverse card has worked without any problems in Scotland, and I expect it would be exactly the same in England and Wales, so I don't think there really is an issue with having to use different systems across the UK.
Does anyone know if the Electroverse card is a straightforward alternative for the CPS card in Scotland now, or are there any differences in pricing and charger coverage? I'm still waiting to get a working CPS card after a couple months, but I'm wondering if it matters when I have a working Electroverse card.
@BoardinBob - you’ve got me there with your picture, your most local must be Coppertrees and then the Gardenhall, but doesn’t look like either !
@ianc it's the gardenhall
Oh god. I've just worked out that the "Thanks very much for your enquiry, we'll have a read through and get back to you within 48h" email that I got last week was an automatic response from CPS. I had naively thought that someone had actually read my email and was going to look into why (a) my card is not working and (b) I can't log on to the CPS website and (c) I cannot even get a password reset. But it seems that they just have no mechanism for addressing problems, and no staff reading their email. It's just a black hole.
All perfectly normal, thecaptain, expect many more such experiences. I said earlier that the IECharge charger worked fine. What I'd forgotten is that I had to use Madame Edukator's phone to use it because on my phone the app is stuck in a loop of death. I used to say it was really irritating that an electric car needed a working phone and some kind of network to make it go. I need to change that to "at least two working phones".
Edit: and thank God for STW. For a month now my hatred of EV chargers has been building with each idiosycratic, recalcitrant, overheating, non-communicative, red-flashing pile of junk and finally I have a place to vent where I know a least some people will share my frustrations. 🙂
One newly installed charger had a proud sign saying that the region had paid 22 500e for it. It dribbled out 10kWh then stopped and refused the same credit card for more. It replaced a free 22kW charger we'd used for years. Surely it would have been better for all if they'd just left the old free charger in place because they could have given away around 90 000 kWh of juice and still been quids in - the old one worked perfectly!
Been back to the same Sainsburys Smartcharge chargers twice now and it’s been seamless. Card accepted , electricity delivered. No drama at all. Maybe it was because I’d never been off the Tesla network before but the next two visits have been easy.
We don't use public charging very often, but whenever we have had cause to use it, it's been pretty seamless. Just plug in and tap a credit card.
We're doing our first proper long distance trip in a couple of weeks, we're off to Fowey in Cornwall from Manchester, it seems there are six 7kw chargers in the main pay and display car park in Fowey that take the octopus electroverse card, so was just planning to use those when we get there, with a top up on/along the m5 on the way down and back. We'd normally stop at Gloucester Services, and it seems there are public tesla superchargers there, so will prob use those.
Incidentally, the merc eqc is now doing 220 to 230 miles (at motorway speeds) to a full charge now the weather is warm
Alternatively the Tesla supercharger at Bristol Parkway, John Lewis underground carpark to charge on the way down (second entrance, maps takes you in a few metres too soon), Julians, you won't find cheaper, more reliable, or less chance of a queue. 🙂 McDo is a short walk away.
Imagine having to get a specific card or pre-reg app with details to fill diesel when travelling from England to Scotland.
It's changing, and in England/Wales it already has.
Imagine having to fill your car with toxic chemicals that then get burned and sprayed around the place everywhere you go.
Alien: So you put all this fuel in your car, then what happens to it?
Human: It.. disappears, I dunno, never really thought about it. But I do actually know - it gets burned.
Alien: Burning it means converting it into a gas. Where does that gas go?
Human: Out of this pipe at the back and into the air.
Alien: The same air you're all breathing? Is it safe?
Human: Er no, not really, it's kind of toxic.
Alien: What the hell?
Human: *shrug* I dunno we've just always done it this way
Alien: Surely there's an alternative way to power your car that doesn't spray toxic gas everywhere?
Human: Yeah, there is.
Alien: Why aren't you all using it?
Human: *shrug*
Human 2 (EV owner): Because you see those EV charge points over there, the electricity is slow to fill, costs more than diesel and they're a complicated unreliable faff. Besides most humans are selfish anti-woke conspiracy theory loving nihilists, but not all of us.
Human 3: yeah but the electricity is generated using fuel that sprays toxic gases into the atmosphere (or is byequipment that is manufactured and transported using fuel that sprays toxic gases into the atmosphere) but as as you don’t ‘see’ it allows some people to be smug gets.
Zero direct emissions =/= no emissions…
Plus, you know, tyre fragments, etc.
Alien: so what don’t you just ****ing walk?
All humans: because we are all smug ****s.
Human 2: see, conspiracy theroy loving nihilists mostly. Even when electricity is produced from wind they prefer to slag off the minimal carbon footprint it has rather than stop using oil, and call people making sensible choices "smug gets".
French charge infrastructure and opaque prices on oil company run service areas getting a justified slating on the radio this morning. Vive Tesla !
Human 3: yeah but the electricity is generated using fuel that sprays toxic gases into the atmosphere
Alien: what are all those black squares and windmill things then? I'm not from this planet and even I know that some countries generate over half their power from sunshine and fresh air. And you can't seriously be citing the emissions from transporting things as a reason not to use cleaner transport?
Human 3: au contraire mon ami, I am but a humble chartered engineer practicing within the Built Environment who has kept abreast of the Cyclical Economy, Embodied Construction Carbon and Whole Life Carbon Analysis in the pursuit of decarbonisation of buildings and Net Zero. Not only that but someone who wrote the guidance to ensure that a forthcoming campus building will have destination EVCP at a rate of 10% of parking spaces (and future capacity for expansion) despite there being no real guidance available at the time (4 years ago; it is, of course, now mandated in the April 2024 Scottish Technical Building Standards). It will also have zero direct emissions heating (ASHP) because of the LZCT feasibility study carried (also a requirement in my aforementioned doc). But, hey, ‘conspiracy theories’….
From memory of an inaugural lockdown era webinar (by my Chartered Institution) I recall being advised that if you count up all the carbon emissions associated with the production of raw materials, manufacture, transportation and ultimate disposal of PV’s they remain carbon positive (i.e. they never generate the amount they consume). That being the case all that’s happened is that carbon emissions have been offshored (and doesn’t China still use coal generated electricity?). Of course UK carbon figures for electricity generation are still higher than for fossil fuels (and I’d expect Frances to be even lower due to its dependence on nuclear, but lets not complicate matters unduly or concern ourselves with such nihilistic considerations as uranium extraction nor long term waste management nor, god forbid, Chernobyl or Fukushima). And that’s before we start to look at rare metal extraction, etc., for battery production and that the recent (UK) PAS for home battery storage strongly recommends that it is external (due to the associated fire risk). I’d also love to see a Scottish specific electricity generation carbon factor (due to the prevalence of both hydro and wind here).
Another interesting situation I’ve come across in my professional career is a discussion with a college who advised that they have had to revert to ‘dinosaur’ juice power vans in order to fulfil their statutory requirements in assisting the general population in a period of severe weather which was severely affected by their EV’s running out of power and there being no means of charging (because of the localised outage of the DNO electricity grid… think some places were over a week without power).
So, I don’t suppose you happen to have a full life cycle carbon analysis for EV’s handy to identify which human is correct? I’d genuinely really like to know the actual situation. EV use currently may (lets see the scientific evidence though) well be less than ICE but to call it minimal is a stretch (IMHO obvs, because: shank’s pony…).
And you can’t seriously be citing the emissions from transporting things as a reason not to use cleaner transport?
Correct, I suggest you find the actual carbon emissions associated with the other half (and is that an annual figure?) as that it is not emissions free. Chances are a fair proportion of it is that ‘ dinosaur juice!
And the life cycle of your vehicle before you think you’re not contributing to the overall problem…
(i.e. they never generate the amount they consume)
Duh, they never generate enough electricity to offset the carbon emissions generated in their life cycle is what this should’ve read… bloody humans!
Some info from the US government https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric-emissions#:~:text=Conventional%20vehicles%20with%20an%20internal,vehicles%20produce%20zero%20direct%20emissions. Personally I'm on 100% renewable (99.9 annually) so I'm good. I would not rely on what you were told during lockdown in the UK as those numbers will have been revised. You need some very special scenarios for an ICE vehicle to have less emissions
@wbo: I was referring to PV (generally 10-20% ‘theoretical’ energy conversion rate, less so once array/partial shading, etc., (unless you’ve some fancy wiring & controls) comes in to play for electricity generation. Whilst there will have been some improvement in efficiency I doubt they’ll have made it to market in appreciable numbers. It’d be interesting to see how things are done on commercial solar farms though (I’d expect proper controls would be paramount in that situation).
It would also be interesting to see how the apparent EV lack of repairability (hey Ed, maybe that’s just deep state insurance company conspiracy for jacking up renewal costs to milk the working man though!) and write-offs would feed into C2G analysis…
However, it’s impossible to beat zero direct emissions with ICE!
Thanks for the link.
Nothing worse than people who should no better posting fake news with absolutely no references to back up their anti-renewables propaganda, Metalheart. Try Fraunhofer institute rather than some half remembered stuff from a webinar. Go on link something credible to back up your misconceptions.
I'm a geologist, I know exactly where were going climate wise as should those prostituting themselves to the oil industry to find ever more reserves to get us ever closer to the cretaceous.
Anyhow, the Fraunhofer institute has the answers to all the questions you ask - have a look. It might help you out of your rabbit hole.
and doesn’t China still use coal generated electricity?
In 2023 China installed more solar PV than the USA has in total. Solar alone is predicted to surpass coal by 2026.
you think you’re not contributing to the overall problem…
That's a bit of a leap you've made there....!
Regarding EVs being carbon positive, I assume you mean relative to ICEs since no car is carbon negative in itself. I have seen many studies that report various mileages before the EV becomes lower carbon, ranging from 30k to 90k or so, but I have never seen one saying that EVs emit higher carbon over their whole life than ICEs so I think someone's cherry picking there.
I've seen a fair few that only account for the carbon cost of burning fuel in an ICE and ignore the cost of extracting and refining it. However I've never seen one that addresses the fact that petrol is only one of the things that comes from crude oil. Not only that, but the price that barrel of crude fetches is partly determined by the fact there is demand for the petrol and diesel it makes, so if that demand falls production would have to fall making other things more expensive and they in turn would see lower demand because of that etc etc.
However it is inarguable that EVs use their power more effectively; and that they have strong beneficial effect on local air quality.
Nothing worse than people who should no better posting fake news with absolutely no references to back up their anti-renewables propaganda
Wow! I guess you just skim read then. You seem to have missed the bit about EVCP provision and zero direct emissions heating ahead of (subsequently) mandated legislation
So here is a report (which covers a fair bit of what I was talking about) 5 minutes of googling has turned up. It does take the 3 lowest EPD PV systems and admittedly ignores module D carbon (i.e decommissioning and disposal) with a predicted carbon balance about year 9 (assuming a constant grid carbon factor) if I am understanding it on a quick skim read. Doesn’t verify my original (qualified) statement but it doesn’t exactly rule out the possibility of your average PV systems not achieving carbon balance (especially if sub-optimal design/location) which I guess was the point I was striving for. The report itself acknowledges the importance of improving embodied carbon in the manufacturing process and talks about PV’s as being an offset mechanism to assist in the transfer to net zero. https://www.elementaconsulting.com/news/new-technical-report-whole-life-carbon-of-photovoltaic-installations/
It does (in view at least) confirm that you’re offshoring > 1/3rd of the carbon emissions as a minimum. And as I said originally I would expect (due to France’s reliance on nuclear that their carbon factor would be lower than the UKs so elongating the time before carbon balances there…
I do get fed up of people’s focus on operational carbon (I strongly support energy reduction which is why i have a (paid, from my own money) affiliation to the Passivhaus Institut, sorry never heard of your place) whilst ignoring embodied carbon. In construction it constitutes about 40-45% of the total (I’ll point you to the publications page on LETI.org for information on that if you want to follow up on my ‘claim’).
So what I was rallying against was my perceived ‘evangelical’ slant on EV’s as the solution whilst only considering direct emissions. If anything I was advocating for reduced vehicle use full stop (irrespective of fuelling). And highlighting the fact that engine emissions aren’t the only pollutant.
Here’s why: Tire particles emitted during use are a major component of microplastics in urban runoff and a source of unique and highly potent toxic substances. Thus, tires represent a ubiquitous and complex pollutant that requires a comprehensive examination to develop effective management and remediation
and
A recent study indicates that in 2016, 78 % of the world's oceanic microplastics were derived from synthetic tire rubber (Trust, 2020).
First results in google tyre particle environmental issues (lifted from ScienceDirect.com)
Are you perhaps a shill from the car industry by any chance?
See, I can play that game too 😉
"Duh, they never generate enough electricity to offset the carbon emissions generated in their life cycle"
This is complete nonsense of course.
However it is inarguable that EVs use their power more effectively; and that they have strong beneficial effect on local air quality.
Indeed, which is in fact why I wasn’t arguing that at all. Just pointing out you were ignoring all the indirect emissions (which effects somewhere else, you know, like in ‘offshoring’).
And raising the existence of environmental extraction ‘issues’ associated with battery manufacture was meant to point that there are associated problems that also need to be considered. I will admit that I don’t really know anything about what they are exactly, but my casual reading would indicate that they are real and exist. Much like oil extraction…
It was a bit like when hydrogen was going to be the heating fuel (except that blue hydrogen is derived from oil and green hydrogen is from electrolysis at, at best, 50% conversion rate…). Fortunately that appears to have died a death…
ETA: I would like to add that I am very much in support of the Scottish Governments effective outlawing of the use of fossil fuel for heating and hot water generation purposes in new build.
This is complete nonsense of course.
I’d be delighted to proven wrong. As I stated it was a (throw away?) comment by a presenter in a Cyclical Economy webinar. It kind of shocked me at the time (which is why I brought it up).
The report I linked above (from my reading at least) shows that there is a least an associated issue (i.e. the carbon balance and the offsetting qualification).
And I’ve not even raised the grid constraints issue (with respect to EV charging and the competing decarbonisation of heating).
Just pointing out you were ignoring all the indirect emissions
Not really, you're making some big assumptions here about my side of this conversation. I'm well aware of offshored emissions, I'm always banging on about such things. I didn't offer up any calculations, and it should have been clear that the gist of my post was focused on local emissions.
But there's more going on than the simple calculations of carbon emissions and environmental impact. For example, we buy cars today and they often come with NMC batteries which contain cobalt, and one of the world's major (only?) sources of this is in the DRC where worker's rights and environmental protections are of course pretty poor. So yes, that's a black mark against EVs. BUT if we continue to buy EVs then companies will continue to invest in the next generation or two of battery tech which won't involve cobalt. Aside from the environmental and moral arguments no-one wants to be dependent on a supply of anything from a potentially unstable country; this means that they are trying to focus on widely available materials which can in turn be sourced from countries with stronger ethics.
And of course, let's not forget where our oil comes from.
Oh and let's put this tyre thing to bed. EVs are a bit heavier than an equivalent ICE, but there is a large amount of overlap. Big heavy ICEs exist just as big heavy EVs do. My EV weighs about 1600kg which is a lot lighter than a Range Rover; consequently its tyres last bloody ages. A lot longer than the tyres on my diesel estate. EVs might be responsible for slightly more tyre emissions like for like, but big cars are the main source of the particulates, not electric ones.
The best thing they could do for the environment would be to put additives in fuel that make exhaust fumes green and smell like farts.
So, you always bang on about indirect emissions (just not in this thread where they would be relevant as part of the overall picture). Right. But I should know this?
Worker rights and environmental protections in DRC: BAD! Microfibres from tyres in the environment: MHEH… its actually making that worse but RANGE ROVERS. Problem solved! Glad that’s put that to bed… (PS I deliberately never raised this as an EV specific issue, but as a transport one. And one that should be addressed, no?).
My diesel estate… say what?
The best thing for the environment would be to have additives to fuel to turn exhaust fumes green and smell like farts; really, that’s best you can come up with?
Do you have a gas/oil boiler? Your neighbours? That’s gonna be fun! Mind you I could see net zero actually getting hit, maybe you’re onto something…