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https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/01/shell-on-street-ev-charge-points-2025
Shell has announced its aim to install 50,000 on-street electric vehicle (EV) charging points in the UK over the next four years, in an attempt to provide a third of the network needed to hit national climate change targets.
This is good, because it suggests there's money in providing chargers.
It suggests there is tax saving and greenwashing in providing chargers. We'll sse how many they do, it's easy to "aim" for and then do **** all. They were aiming to fill old oil wells with carbon remember.
or perhaps there’s a reg somewhere I dunno.
If you can't find it with Google there isn't one. Simon's money argument sounds more likely. Given what most campsites charge for leccy the only time you would cost them money is on a one night stay arriving just after lunch with an empty battery and then charging till you leave the next day just before lunch - I could draw 7e worth if I did that. It's discrimination simple as, they're happy for a huge all-electric campervan with air-con to plug in but not car. Campsites can get very favourable elctricity contracts BTW. There are business contracts which offer favourable rates except in high demand periods when the tarif becomes punitive, campsites don't operate in high demand periods.
All-electric caravans are starting to become a thing too, no faffing with gas bottles: https://www.knaus.com/en-uk/brand-world/new-models-2022/epower/
The more enlightened campsites have a couple
of 7kw car chargers by reception for people to book and use. Easier to discourage granny charging if you give an alternative.
It suggests there is tax saving and greenwashing in providing chargers. We’ll sse how many they do, it’s easy to “aim” for and then do **** all. They were aiming to fill old oil wells with carbon remember.
🥱 Certainly they won't be providing charging facilities out of the goodness of their heart. I doubt there is much money in it yet, but strategically they must see future value. Charging EVs cheaply is probably a limited-time offer after all.
It suggests there is tax saving and greenwashing in providing chargers
Ah, yes, 'greenwashing'. A catch-all term for painting any company you don't like in a bad light, even if they do something that is actually useful. Boundless constant negativity is just what we all need here Ed so thanks.
8 year old Model S with 11% battery degredation... which is pretty normal actually despite end of the world predictions 🙂
And all on 99% renewable electricity I think - cause that's what's generated in Norway
8 year old Model S with 11% battery degredation
Way better than typical degradation of mobile phone batteries and the like. What gives? Do they build-in additional capacity, or is the use pattern of a car battery typically better / less intensive ?
Boundless constant negativity is just what we all need here Ed so thanks.
LOL, love you too. 🙂
Who's spent the last couple of pages trying to rubbish the fact you can charge on campsites?
Who’s spent the last couple of pages trying to rubbish the fact you can charge on campsites?
Not me, I said that it might be a good idea to phone ahead and check if the owner is ok with it. Not really controversial.
Way better than typical degradation of mobile phone batteries and the like. What gives?
There are many things that affect battery lifetime - charging current relative to battery size; how empty or full it's allowed to get; how hot it gets during charging, to name a few. Modern EVs cool or heat the battery to the optimum temperature during charging and discharging, which really helps battery capacity. Your phone gets warm during charging and also during heavy use discharging which isn't good for it.
Also, battery lifetime is measured in numbers of cycles. My phone gets half (or more) discharged every day and brimmed every night, so 800 cycles (a good lifetime) comes up in 2-3 years. If a Tesla is typically doing say 200 miles between charges then a typical 8-year mileage of 80,000 miles is only 400 cycles, so in terms of battery age it's only half as old.
Lastly, many manufacturers (but not Tesla, apparently) reserve the top and bottom end of the battery to preserve its life. When they report 100% it's really only say 90%. This has two benefits - it makes the battery last a long time to begin with, and if there is any degradation it's masked because you lose the bit you could never use anyway. I'm sure I read a post about an Ioniq with 4 years on it that still had 100% battery condition reported, don't be surprised if they last a long longer than Teslas. Tesla recommend you to only charge to 90%, but by allowing you to go to 100% occasionally it lets them claim a higher range figure and inevitably people will use it and this will result in batteries not lasting as long as they otherwise would.
https://pushevs.com/2021/07/30/gac-aion-with-fast-charging-speed-comparable-to-refueling/
Sorry Edukator, no more spending an hour at charging stations. 😅
Way better than typical degradation of mobile phone batteries and the like. What gives?
Along with limiting the use of the battery's bottom and top capacity as @molgrips says the exact chemistry of the Li-ion batteries can be different depending on how you want to balance cost, energy density and lifespan. Phones require a cheap battery that has good capacity in a device that's expected to be replaced every two years so they spec for that. They also use the biggest possible voltage range for the cell when charging/discharging knowing it'll doesn't need to last.
Plug Life Television on YouTube has some good videos (mostly the early ones are about batteries) and batteries are his day job so he knows his stuff.
Ah, yes, ‘greenwashing’. A catch-all term for painting any company you don’t like in a bad light, even if they do something that is actually useful
I think it's right to be sceptical when a big oil company invests in EV charging. Look at the mess BP have made with Chargemaster/BP Pulse and ChargePlace Scotland. They really have no incentive to provide a reliable EV charging network and every incentive not to.
They really have no incentive to provide a reliable EV charging network and every incentive not to.
Except for the fact that their market in the UK will change and in the not too distant future their fuels on forecourts won't be selling in the volumes it does today.
They have every incentive to get a good foothold in what will be a very large market eventually but they seem to be failing at it right now.
Sorry Edukator, no more spending an hour at charging stations. 😅
Oh dear, I've gone from having enough time for a complete city break (3kW in Romford of all places), to enough time for lunch and an organ recital in a cathedral (7kW in Rabastens- now upgraded to 22kW), to enough time for a shop and a coffee (22kW Leclerc St Flour) to enough time for just a shop (35kW Montluçon) to enough time for a pee and a coffee (any genuine 50kW). Any faster and there won't be time for a coffee. 🙁
Except for the fact that their market in the UK will change and in the not too distant future their fuels on forecourts won’t be selling in the volumes it does today.
Yeah I’m not getting uponthedowns’ point.
uponthedowns makes a very good point:
Mobil and other oil companies are also shown to be advertising directly against electric cars in national publications, even when electric cars seem to have little to do with their core business. At the end of the film, Chevron bought patents and controlling interest in Ovonics, the advanced battery company featured in the film, ostensibly to prevent modern NiMH batteries from being used in non-hybrid electric cars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F
Just like the legacy automotive OEMs, its in big oil's interests to delay the change to EVs for as long as possible to milk their fossil fuel market. Buying up a promising EV network, making big promises then not delivering or investing seems to be the MO at the moment. They also seem to be good at installing rapid chargers then leaving them mothballed without connecting them to the grid. Guess it allows them to say they have installed chargers even though they are unusable. I think they need to be judged on their actions and not promises. Hopefully the likes of Instavolt, Osprey, MFG and maybe Gridserve will drive the UK charging infrastructure development needed to encourage drivers into EVs.
Just like the legacy automotive OEMs, its in big oil’s interests to delay the change to EVs for as long as possible
Which works in markets which haven't legislated to cease sales of ICE cars, doesn't quite work in the UK.
This thread made me go and check the status of the BP Pulse 150kW chargers they put in around a year ago in Derby and never switched on, seem they were working a week ago but are off again now.
I'm not sure a film from 2008 is very relevant now.
I think it’s right to be sceptical when a big oil company invests in EV charging.
They're an energy company.
What would you do if you were boss of Shell? Stick your head in the sand or react to a new market? I don't understand what the problem is here. Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
By the way the fast chargers I know about near here are Shell or BP and they work.
I’m not sure a film from 2008 is very relevant now.
Particularly as it relates to events from the 1990s..
By the way the fast chargers I know about near here are Shell or BP and they work.
Yeah the ones in Northumberland were BP they’ve only recently changed, very rare there were any issues.
I think the Stonecutters no longer hold back the electric car.
EV1s were also a bit shit, arguably did a fair bit to hold back the progress of EVs. They were 'laugh at the nerd' type things along the lines of a Sinclair C5, not anything anyone would want. I think we have a lot to thank Musk for.
Might've been better outside the US though.
OK I'll leave you with your apparently touching faith in big oil to keep your EVs on the road.
https://twitter.com/bppulseuk/status/1432274864941977600
OK I’ll leave you with your apparently touching faith in big oil to keep your EVs on the road.
No need to twist what we've said to extremes. All I said was that it looks like there's money in it. Why wouldn't a company take advantage of that?
The batteries weren't good enough when the EV1 was introduced but had a very low Cd and lots of innovation e.g. plastic body panels, aluminium chassis.
Sandy Munro has interesting observations on it “I think that the EV1 was the best project I ever worked on,”
https://leandesign.com/the-legacy-of-the-ev1-from-creation-to-destruction/
All I said was that it looks like there’s money in it. Why wouldn’t a company take advantage of that?
Because there's more money in it keeping us buying petrol for as long as possible.
Just like legacy auto wanted to keep us buying ICE cars for as long as possible until Tesla came along and started eating their lunch
Does it not ring alarm bells with anyone else to see oil companies installing charge points, often benefitting from state aid and then charging high prices for leccy? Totalenergies has just won another contract and one thing is for certain the charge points will be expensive.
When the oil industry controls the charging market you can be sure you pay a lot for electricity once you leave home.
Not the 1990s:
https://www.automobile-entreprise.com/Recharge-electrique-TotalEnergies,11475
Not the 1990s:
In Germany some of the oil company controlled charge points had punitive tarifs, happily there were usually competitors with more attractive prices.
One of the brakes on EV uptake is the cost of charging anywhere other than at home. It started free or cheap, but as the oil companies monopolise or create a cartel situation you'll pay more. It's not just the oil companies. That so many economic actors are owned by the same investment funds reduces real cometition where you think it would exist.
This is getting a bit jivehoneyjive but if you think that having charging in the hands of the traditional energy majors is a good thing I think your wallet is mistaken.
Does it not ring alarm bells with anyone else to see oil companies installing charge points, often benefitting from state aid and then charging high prices for leccy?
Yes, that's one of the reasons the Tesla Supercharger network is so important, to make it obvious when people are price gouging.
It's also a good argument for government intervention - pseudo monopolies shouldn't be allowed to set their own prices
Does it not ring alarm bells with anyone else to see oil companies installing charge points, often benefitting from state aid and then charging high prices for leccy?
Alarm bells? No. I think it'll settle down. EVs are selling well, hype is there, momentum is growing, and people will demand cheaper charging. Once there are enough chargers people will avoid the expensive ones and prices will come down. No-one would fill up with petrol at £3/l because there are lots of petrol stations, so when there are lots of charge points no-one's going to pay 80p/kWh. The key thing about electricity is everyone knows how much they pay at home, so it's obvious when they're being ripped off.
This is getting a bit jivehoneyjive but if you think that having charging in the hands of the traditional energy majors is a good thing I think your wallet is mistaken.
I don't think it's a good thing, but not necessarily a bad thing. There are other non-oil company charging stations and, like I said, everyone knows how much they pay at home.
Because there’s more money in it keeping us buying petrol for as long as possible.
They know the writing is on the wall, of course. If I were an oil company and I wanted to deter EVs I'd be getting the motoring press to praise the glories of the ICE and go on about how boring and nerdy EVs are - but they aren't.
On top of that, oil companies make tons of cash from other sources.
The batteries weren’t good enough when the EV1 was introduced
It started with lead acid Batteries but " featured nickel-metal-hydride or even lithium-ion (Nissan) batteries with a range of 100 or more miles" by 98. " Ovonics, had been suppressed from announcing improved batteries, with double the range, lest CARB (Californian air resources board) be convinced that batteries were improving.
The batteries were already good enough but their existence was not revealed to the people who needed to know.
OK I’ll leave you with your apparently touching faith in big oil to keep your EVs on the road.
So there’s an outage and some how that makes it a conspiracy against electric cars by BP?
no-one’s going to pay 80p/kWh.
That was the tarif on some of the German stations. We generally paid 30-50 euro cents/kWh but there were up to 70 cent ladersäule on the app and some are apparently over 80 cents. I worked it out for my vehicles:
Zoé 12kWh/100km x 70 cents = 8e40
Lodgy 5.8l/100km x 1e55 = 8e99
At the same speed the bigger petrol car is only a fraction more expensive to run, a diesel would be cheaper. Happily most charged rates that meant the energy cost of the EV was about 1/2 to 2/3 that of a petrol car.
When the oil industry controls the charging market you can be sure you pay a lot for electricity once you leave home.
I think someone needs to stop reading conspiracy theories.
The CMA won't allow them to have a monopoly, there are tons of players in the market which over time will consolidate but not to the degree the likes of Shell and BP own them all.
Does it not ring alarm bells with anyone else to see oil companies installing charge points, often benefitting from state aid and then charging high prices for leccy?
What about EDF then? They do the same thing. Or is that okay because they're not oil?
Doing the figures for an EV of my own. It seems they make twice the CO2 pollution to manufacture than a normal car and that takes quite a few years to claw back.
It seems to make a lot of sense to keep the car going that I have and only replace it when it is worn out completely ? To help save the environment wouldn't that make a lot of sense ? It seems that the only reason for electric cars is to keep car sales and the economy going nothing else hmmm
I use EDF chargers. They've bought out chargers funded by the regions. I've got a card from one of the historic regional suppliers (Mobive) but as soon as I leave the region I get hit with the Izivia tarif which is similar to German rates at DC chargers. The pay now rate is 1e30 per 5 minutes for a 50KW charger that really only gives 30kW. That's 52 cents/kWh. Or when a Zoé is more expensive to run than a 1984 Peugeot 205 diesel.
It seems they make twice the CO2 pollution to manufacture than a normal car and that takes quite a few years to claw back.
Do you have a link for that? Asking because there is a lot of bullshit and a lot of dodgy reports being spread about on this subject.
And even if it takes a few years to claw back - how long is it going to be on the road? 20? You don't have to drive it for long, but someone will.
and only replace it when it is worn out completely ? To help save the environment wouldn’t that make a lot of sense ?
If it'll only do another 50 000km and you're happy with poisoning the air people breathe then yes to both. If i't going to do over 50 000km th eanswer is not such a resounding yes and depends on which model you're replacing with which model.
only replace it when it is worn out completely ?
Cars don't wear out. Shocks, CV joints, injectors, big ends, turbos etc etc wear out. For most things you can replace them and the car will continue. This is both cheaper and more environmentally friendly than buying a new one. But it is a lot less convenient. ICEs do need to be gone, but in theory the best thing to do is wait until they are all either crashed or rust to bits.
I'm not saying this is going to happen mind.
Doing the figures for an EV of my own. It seems they make twice the CO2 pollution to manufacture than a normal car and that takes quite a few years to claw back.
The larger carbon footprint of an EV is down to the battery. However the battery can be re-purposed or recycled after the car is scrapped. As the electricity used to produce the battery is decarbonised the battery's carbon footprint reduces. For example a Tesla battery made in Giga Nevada with lots of solar has about half the carbon footprint of the same battery made in China.
Also the carbon handprint of an EV depends on how the grid in the country in which is driven is powered. In the UK we have about 50% low carbon electricity, its higher in France because of all their nuclear stations and in Norway its 100% becuase its all hydro.
Some interesting reading here https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-electric-vehicles-help-to-tackle-climate-change
If you buy a new EV someone with an even older ICE car will buy your old car and scap their older car so by keeping the market churn going you are helping to get ICE cars off the roads.
Ther comes a point when it's cheaper to lease an EV than keep a shed of a Passat old car on the road. 😉
Note I haven't made a single contribution to your Mercedes thread, Molgrips, and yet you stil accused me of being negative. 🙂
I use EDF chargers. They’ve bought out chargers funded by the regions. I’ve got a card from one of the historic regional suppliers (Mobive) but as soon as I leave the region I get hit with the Izivia tarif which is similar to German rates at DC chargers. The pay now rate is 1e30 per 5 minutes for a 50KW charger that really only gives 30kW. That’s 52 cents/kWh. Or when a Zoé is more expensive to run than a 1984 Peugeot 205 diesel.
Cool story bro.
I'm not speaking from a French perspective in case I haven't already made that abundantly clear.