So this crazy lot in power seem to have a thing about banning diesel and petrol cars in the near future and we all drive electric vehicles, to support this theyre wanting to increase the number of charge points.

1, is the power grid capable of supplying so much power, eg generators and supply cables, to homes, car parks etc.

2, Locally lots of terraced homes and flats/apartments, so where are the chargers going to be placed.

3, on the above for street charging, who has priority, can see people hogging the space outside their home for parking and not charging their car.

4, I visit quite a few homes a week to work, and occasionally get told dont park there its my space etc,now its going to be i need to charge my car etc.

Discuss

For number 1
https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/5-myths-about-electric-vehicles-busted

We will have to plug them into lampposts and make sure no one trips over the cable, or unplugs them for a laugh.

Ignore the fact it’s Chris Harris of Top Gear and EVO fame (if such things are not to your taste). The chap from the grid answers all these questions, it’s a really good interview/Q&A

National Grid capacity aside, there is going to have to be major work on the strategy and upgrade of the current charging infrastructure. There doesn’t appear to be a coherent current strategy apart from token chargers in new developments and car parks. So it’s a patchy shambles now in many places even if you own a Tesla with their own infrastructure (my nearest supercharger would be an hour away if I had a Tesla). I can see many people will have to take their car to a charger as charging from home will be impossible and unnecessary for the average weekly mileage which means having adequate capacity, reliability and cost. We will soon be reaching the tipping point for the cost being the same an ICE car and road rage will rapidly be joined by charge rage if it doesn’t get sorted pretty quickly. Don’t hold your breath with this Govt.

Wireless charging built into the road – https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/electric/what-is-electric-car-wireless-charging-wevc-and-how-does-it-work-/

Rig it up so the car records what it consumes and you get charged accordingly.

If this is daily mail where’s the bikini clad sidebar of shame gone?????

1. The capacity is already there.
2. People in terraces without off road parking will struggle but there’s already public charging infrastructure, not enough but it will increase with more EV ownership. I’m guessing people without off road parking won’t be in the early adopter groups for practical and financial reasons anyway.
3. There’s ways of enforcing this with ANPR etc., just needs legislation tweaks. I can’t see this public infrastructure being installed in residential streets anyway..
4.Meh. people using the public highway to store their vehicle and being territorial about it has been going on for years. It needs addressing anyway.

Fast charging infrastructure is also on it’s way, the first EV ‘petrol’ stations are being planned now, for many people as this infrastructure increases and battery life improves I can see them fueling their car pretty much as they do now. The biggest issue will be charging a car at home, off peak overnight will be substantially cheaper than charging it in 10 minutes at a filling station. Those unable to charge at home will pay the cost.

I imagine there were similar issues when ICE vehicles were introduced 120 years ago, limited refining capacity and the nearest filling station being miles away. It got sorted and the answer wasn’t petrol deliveries to your door.

https://youtube.com/c/PlugLifeTelevision

Euan is a battery scientist that makes information videos about EVs that are based on real, traceable information. Interesting watching whatever side of the fence you are on.

Our EV does 250 miles on a charge. I drive it part way to work 3-4 times then run or cycle the rest as there is no parking near work. After a week of this I either take it to my local slow charger that is walking distance from the house, then pick it up just before bed, or leave it on a rapid for 45 mins while I go for a walk. We do not have a home charger, but there is scope for some bollards in our street to be converted in future.

Destination charge stations will play a big part in the future of EVs, and are starting to pop up already. Fancy a nice walk in Stirling? Head to the new solar powered mega charge station with space for about 50 cars, whap it in and head off for some outside time.

The cables lock in place until they are done.

Our fast chargers are all at Stephens the bakery’s, so you can get a pie and a charge if sports isn’t your thing 🤣

current strategy

Very good 😀

Roads will get wireless charging thus you will be able to park anywhere and charge.

PLUS you will be able to sell your charge back to the grid. Basically every electric car will be a battery you can charge when its cheap and sell when its expensive. You will be able to buy different contracts (peak charger, off peak charger etc)

Big Data will crunch all the numbers and will Direct Debit out what you owe each month.

Brave new world!

The capacity may be there, but not when most people would like to see it charging.
Those of you that work in large electricity using industry’s will already know of the TRIAD season beginning of November till the end of February, its an utter ball ache, having to shut down anytime between 4-7 pm as there is very little overhead left.
And before anyone moans about not being able to charge at that time consider we usually pay 14p per unit from 4-7pm but during a Triad its over £50 a unit!

How does having enough electricity capacity match with spiking prices due to shortages? And this is before mass EV use.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jan/05/cold-snap-sees-uk-electricity-market-prices-reach-new-high

The charging for the roughly third of car-owning households who don’t have off-street parking will be a bit of a mix depending on need.

I go with the idea that if you own a car you use it to go to places, so it makes sense to have charging where people go in their cars. Workplaces, supermarkets, gyms, shopping centres, etc. Average mileage is about 8000pa so in a 300 mile range car that’s once a fortnight – car fills up while you do something else for a while.

Beyond that there’s a definite need for public charging near homes – that can be streetside/lamppost style (like Ubitricity, which just got acquired by Shell so hopefully has bigger expansion plans), or rapid chargers dotted about. There’s a rapid charger just popped up near me that is within a couple of minutes walk of dozens of terraced houses – so if you live there and have an EV it’s a case of sticking it on to charge for an hour at some point then pick it up and park again. Someone else is on it? Just try later, they’ll be gone soon (parking bay is an hour max, and the charger has overstay fees).

Remember too 2030 is a decade away – and that’s just for *new* car sales. Average car lasts 14 years and that keeps rising – people who have a real need for a combustion-engined car will be able to keep using one, albeit at a price (and probably with a hybrid powertrain). Think how it was 10 years ago – you couldn’t even buy a Leaf yet, it was a G-Whiz or a i-Miev (or a £100k+ sports car from this niche little company called Tesla). There weren’t even any rapid chargers anywhere yet. EVs have come an awfully long way in this decade just gone, and will keep on getting better in the next one.

HoratioHufnagel

https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/5-myths-about-electric-vehicles-busted

I’m not saying he’s wrong but it’s really surprising that all the vehicles in the UK switching to electric would only add 10% to the total electricity used.

And before anyone moans about not being able to charge at that time consider we usually pay 14p per unit from 4-7pm but during a Triad its over £50 a unit!

Ouch, when your plant is a Megawatt or greater user!

Roads will get wireless charging

Call me pessimistic but I can’t see that happening overnight. I’d probably err on the side of that being a pipedream.

I did consider this a few years ago; how houses with offroad parking may command a premium vis a vis street parking only.

Sandwich
Full Member

And before anyone moans about not being able to charge at that time consider we usually pay 14p per unit from 4-7pm but during a Triad its over £50 a unit!

Ouch, when your plant is a Megawatt or greater user!

1.3MW now was 1.8MW 3 years ago but we have done a lot of work on energy efficiency, we are now one of if not the lowest Kw/Tonne commercial flour mills in the world.

I doubt wireless charging is a good idea, isn’t it wildly inefficent?

I think battery tech improvements + most people’s daily journeys being pretty short means lack of charging outside isn’t a barrier for most people. Pre-Covid I only averaged 100 miles driving a week, once 400-500 mile range batteries are the norm + public fast charging infrastructure exists then having to take you car somewhere once or twice a month for an hour or so to charge up isn’t a big deal (especially if the charging location is also your local supermarket or similar). Add to that work place/railway station charging etc. and I expect the numbers it’s unworkable for (travelling salesmen/support engineers etc. covering hundreds of miles a day with only patching charging availability at their destination) are pretty small

Wireless charging is a nice idea but years off being commercially viable and then there’s question of will the government invest the billions in it anyway. I can’t see private companies being able to afford to deploy it given it will take years to recoup that investment.

And before anyone moans about not being able to charge at that time consider we usually pay 14p per unit from 4-7pm but during a Triad its over £50 a unit!

Ouch, when your plant is a Megawatt or greater user!

But it’s bloody brilliant when your plant GENERATES 1300 of them. 😁

WorldClassAccident

Wireless charging built into the road – https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/electric/what-is-electric-car-wireless-charging-wevc-and-how-does-it-work-/

Rig it up so the car records what it consumes and you get charged accordingly.

and

db

Roads will get wireless charging thus you will be able to park anywhere and charge.

Simply never going to happen – as a country we can’t keep up with the cost of maintaining the existing road network. Roads with wireless charging would be at least an order of magnitude higher in cost.

1. The main people at National Grid (Graeme Cooper Project Director/ Marcus Stewart Head of Energy insights) have been saying for a few years that the National Grid will cope, but some local DNO infrastructure will need upgrading. I’ve quoted them a few times on here to the ney sayers and you just get “well they’re paid say that aren’t they?”. So with some people you’ll never convince them whatever.
However, National Grid have said the big issue will be when we try to phase out Gas central heating.

2. Everyone has their theory of how it will develop (mine is that we’ll start to see an acceleration in petrol stations transitioning and catering for people stopping for 40mins rather than 10mins). One thing is for certain we have 9 years till 2030. 9years ago there were 2800 public chargers in the UK, today there are 37496 and it’s only going to accelerate even faster. 18 months ago there were 0 zero rapid chargers on my 15 mile commute to work, now today there are 11.

3 and 4. Not quite sure what your point is, I think you’re just assuming the infrastructure will only go in one direction (on street / lamppost charging). I;m assuming there will be lots of options for people. I’m also assuming that battery tech will improve and charging speeds will increase, to a point where charging your car will be not far off what we do now at petrol stations, maybe the time it takes to order and drink a coffee.

We will soon be reaching the tipping point for the cost being the same an ICE car

Well something will have to replace fuel duty.

Some good stats at https://www.zap-map.com/statistics/#points

Currently 13,726 public charging points in the UK and growing pretty steadily.

I’ve mentioned this before but we charge for FREE on a council-run charger at a public car park that is only a couple of hundred meters from our house. (We do have a drive, so we can charge at home, but why would we?)

I’m not saying he’s wrong but it’s really surprising that all the vehicles in the UK switching to electric would only add 10% to the total electricity used.

He does appear to be wrong with my schoolboy maths.
32 million cars each needing around 2 megawatt per year…or 40kw per week. (1kw to 4 miles give or take and an average of 8k miles a year) equals 64 terawatt per year…or around 20% of current total use. (320 terawatt in 2019)
Sort of OK if it is spread over the full 24/7, but it wouldn’t be.
Couple this with the push for ASHP or similar to heat new homes….all use electricity. Also add in the fact that several (around half) of our nuclear power plants due to retire within 5 years and by 2030…we will have 2 operating…….
Today…as in now, would be great if we had 4 x the wind energy production as that alone would give us all we need, but when they spout off about how x% of annual energy is renewable they fail to tell the full story, that on a cold miserable winters day, demand is up and quite often renewables wouldn’t give us 50% of what we need….without more power hungry heating systems and EVs.

https://gridwatch.co.uk/

32 million cars each needing around 2 megawatt per year…or 40kw per week. (1kw to 4 miles give or take and an average of 8k miles a year) equals 64 terawatt per year…or around 20% of current total use. (320 terawatt in 2019)

In 2019 about 103 TWh was used by domestic consumers so adding another ~64 TWh is a significant bump.

IIRC you also lose almost 50% through transmission/distribution losses so you have to add to the generation side respectively.

I agree on wireless charging on public roads, other than in certain user cases ie taxi ranks etc it’s complete cobblers. I can maybe see the tech being used at large distribution depots so that van drivers don’t have to be relied upon to plug their van in every night.

Same with battery swapping, maybe certain user cases, but generally just a red herring IMO

fast partial charging will make most of this pretty much a non-issue. Tesla can apparently do 70 miles in 5 minutes right now – in 10 years lets say that doubles – as long as you can pop into your local supermarket once a week for 15 mins (>400 miles!), I think most use-cases are solved. Obviously there are a few jobs that won’t work for, but the majority of use is met by that pattern

Wireless charging is really inefficient. I was thinking of charging my phone, from my bicycle dynamo hub, using wireless charging so as not to expose any connectors to the elements. Most of the energy is lost to heat. So, you have to question where would the extra capacity come from in order to provide the energy required to overcome those losses.
Far more efficient to have a direct connection.

wireless charging in roads wont happen in most places. maybe in new build estates only. the costs of practially installing/retrofitting this in existing public roads would be astronomical.

the lamp post thig is most effective. the have them on my BIL`s road in London. great stuff.

Why isn’t it law for new developments to have a charging point for every car parking space. My company is in the process of building 100’s & 100’s of new flats in Manchester. But the extensive 3 story underground car park only has about 40 charging points?  I bet the other million developments are the same. Each parking bay costs £20,000, I don’t know if it more for one with a charging point.

Maybe we just have to stop driving so much and owning so many cars.

Nail on head HH.

I can’t believe this hasn’t been several times already on here but luckily B.A.Nana had kept notes just in case it got asked, again… for the umpteenth time.

As an aside, I take a weekly trip to Sheffield at the minute, M18, M1, Parkway etc. As I turn off the M1 there are signs reducing the speed limit to 60 to improve air quality. If I have an EV an I exempt?

So this crazy lot in power seem to have a thing about banning diesel and petrol cars in the near future

Any lot in power would be doing exactly the same thing. Can you think of anytime in your life when it wasn’t apparent that burning fossil fuel wasn’t a bad idea? Why we’ve thought its a bad idea changes over time – we used to be less selflessly worried about the damage to the environment and more selfishly worried about the fuel just running out. All thats different now is we have to means to make batteries and motors that are an effective substitute for combustion engines.

2, Locally lots of terraced homes and flats/apartments, so where are the chargers going to be placed.

Most people drive to work in the same place and park there for the same amount of time five days a week every week. Your house isn’t the only place where you might charge your car regularly.

Wireless charging is really inefficient…..Most of the energy is lost to heat.

Only about 20%-30% of the energy  in a gallon of petrol actually translates into power at the wheels rather than energy lost as heat and noise etc

Some interesting answers, but what happens if a major generator goes bang, or a cold snap in all those electric homes at the same time, and not forgetting most new railway rolling stock locps and emus are now electric, as well as a lot of buses boris wants to be electric, all recharging overnight.

Some interesting answers, but what happens if a major generator goes bang, or a cold snap in all those electric homes at the same time,

You’re old enough to remember when OPEC just deciding not to sell anyone any oil in the 1970s, and the Iranian revolution a few years later having much the same effect. Industrialised nations like ours have been investing billions in developing ways of not being reliant on oil (especially other people’s oil) since then.

But even our own oil production isn’t immune from outside interference. The UK oil industry got humped as side effect OPEC’s efforts to undermine the USA’s efforts to make itself self sufficient for oil by dropping its prices to make the US’s homegrown production uneconomical.