The Electric Car Thread

A camper van with electrical heating will draw significantly more than an EV.

Well the 3kW charger draws more than the 1.something kW electric heater in our van, and that would be on top of the heating and everything else if it’s being used.

But the wiring might not be specified to handle that much current all the time, which is why I suggested phoning ahead. But then again I’m not an argumentative cock and I don’t look forward to an angry discussion with a farmer so like I say, probably best to phone ahead and check. And offer to pay extra for the power, since it’ll be a fair bit more consumption than a caravan would be especially in summer.

It’s a 2kW charger unless it’s pluggee into a specific greenup socket.

It just doesn’t matter, molgrips. If you draw to much th ebreaker will trip. If that isn’t the case the campsite’s electrical installation is dangerous.

I worked on a campsite and a frequent task was resetting breakers. It was 1987 so there was already a 30mA differential breaker in every box which was no issue for European clients. But the Brits arrived with old hair driers that leaked electricity and tripped. They invariably blamed the “dodgy French electrics” rather than their dangerous old hair driers.

If people drew too much juice the 10A/16A breaker tripped and they came to find me to reset it, and then hopefully learned not to switch on everything at the same time.

If people drew too much juice the 10A/16A breaker tripped and they came to find me to reset it, and then hopefully learned not to switch on everything at the same time.

Right, and that’s what the farmer who owns the small campsite wants to avoid, I think.

It just doesn’t matter, molgrips. If you draw to much th ebreaker will trip.

It’s not dangerous but if you were camping and discovered that your neighbouring pitch was hogging 65% of the shared supply all day it’d get annoying.

Well reassure him then, if he’s got 10A breakers or higher he can welcome EV owners with open arms. I like the subtle way you accuse me of being “an argumentative cock”, very clever. And very Molgrips. 🙂

It’s not dangerous but if you were camping and discovered that your neighbouring pitch was hogging 65% of the shared supply all day it’d get annoying

Each socket has its own breaker, that’s the rules here. You can’t pinch someone elses electricity. The total amperage of the box and breakers is calculated so every one can plug in without risk. If one camper exceeds the rating that breaker will trip but the others in the box will not. Other campers will not be affected.

The only time the whole box trips is when something defective is plugged in which triggers the differential breaker (of which there is usually only one for the whole box).

My commute to work is 220 miles in a Model 3 LR.

Which is within the cars realms of easily making the journey each day without charging till you get home. Plus its a commute so you’ll quickly learn the best available charge points on the way if needed.

Surely it’s not just about people being in a hurry. Faster charging is another way of adding capacity – either have more places to charge or make them charge faster so each place can accommodate more vehicles per day. (or both)

Exactly, its about throughput. Fuel stations are quick affairs, in and out in circa 5 minutes. With charging points you’re looking at 30+ mins and up to say 90. That can easily cause big queues as the EV market increases. You reduce that charging time and you ‘ll get more cars through reducing queues and it’s better for average joes life not standing around waiting unlike Edukator who has nothing better to do. 😉

Campsite we were at had “don’t plug EVs into site power” in their rules but I saw a few sneaky granny charging. If you can run a heater there should be no issue with car charging – lots of cars (or granny chargers) let you dial it down a bit if you’re concerned anyway.

Did the 300 miles home from Cornwall yesterday and while I had been quite keen on the electric Berlingo I wouldn’t have wanted to add any more time really. Would have been 2 stops and few good options where I’d have needed them, and mostly where we stopped for kids to go to the toilet had nothing. Think we’ll be keeping the petrol MPV a few more years even if it’s just for camping trips with bikes and roofbox.

What would change things more for me than super rapid charging is hotels having loads of 7kw (enough that you don’t need to fret about there being a free one). I’d gladly break journeys in a Premier Inn or similar if I have a full car in the morning. No good booking somewhere only to find the handful of chargers are in use or blocked. Likewise when I stay in places like north Wales if they have charging (even an outside socket) I just have to worry about getting there, not also having enough to get out.

Doing over 200 miles up to Yorkshire for half term but that’ll be in a cottage with charging (and ok options along the way) so taking the egolf. Lease is up in January, and I suspect we’ll not replace it for now but see how we go with one (petrol) car for a bit until secondhand EV prices calm down.

lots of cars (or granny chargers) let you dial it down a bit if you’re concerned anyway.

That’s the thing, the owners would have to rely on people doing it right and obviously they won’t so for now they don’t want to allow it at all. In many cases anyway.

Less about that, more about money IMO. Lots seem to get it in their heads everyone will be filling up a Tesla every night and their power bills are usually high enough as it is.

They could just stick a surcharge on. I suspect they are worrying about their wiring or perhaps there’s a reg somewhere I dunno.

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:

https://www.amperes.be/2017/10/17/royaume-uni-et-belgique-deux-petroliers-adoptent-des-strategies-differentes-pour-se-diversifier-dans-le-marche-des-ve/

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.

https://www.tradingsat.com/actualites/marches/l-inquietante-mainmise-des-geants-americains-de-la-gestion-d-actifs-sur-les-marches-888161.html

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.