Electric Vehicles-Infrastructure

[Gibbo2286]

He's a Lib-Dem councillor and he left his car there and went home for two hours. A Mini hybrid too.

[mickthemaverick]

This from my Parker's newsletter:

https://www.parkers.co.uk/electric-cars ... a4dfd5dbb9

[NewcastleFalcon]

This from my Parker's newsletter:

https://www.parkers.co.uk/electric-cars ... a4dfd5dbb9

On a link from that Mick
I didnt realise Barney had a new Fastned Charging hub, useful stepping stone to Teesdale and North Yorks for us!

Liked the caption

Barnard Castle, famed for its history and in more recent years, its branch of Specsavers, has finally heralded in a new era of motoring. Fastned, the Dutch rapid EV charging network, has opened its seventh EV charging hub in the North East of England.

Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

Excellent planning by Barny there methinks, you can pop your car on charge and go and have an eyetest before you have to read the final score!!

[NewcastleFalcon]

Another freebie at Dunbar Garden Centre, but without a smart phone to scan the QR code, you need yet another RFID card to be able to use them

Regards Neil

[myglaren]

I saw that the small Lidl n Wrekenton now has an EV charging point.

Just watched this on the Rolec charging point weakness.

[NewcastleFalcon]

As mentioned in Jordan's Video, he sent it to Big Clive for his teardown...



REgards Neil

[myglaren]

Watched that about six weeks ago.
Not encouraging.

[myglaren]

If you have an Hydrogen powered car you can make your own hydrogen.

[mickthemaverick]

Gibbo has posted this link on the energy thread and I think it is also appropriate here so I've taken the liberty of copying it over!!

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/news/upg ... 6f95842a2a

[NewcastleFalcon]

It really isn't hard to find youtube videos or indeed the traditional TV documentaries, and newspaper articles whinging about EV infrastructure in the UK. Have a look at Zap Map.....there are on-road chargers all over the place, and more and more being installed every day.

A small frustration yesterday, conspired with a minor perfect storm did cause a little recharging difficulty, but easily enough resolved. My conclusion, not that the entire UK charging network is rubbish but that occasionally you come across deal-able with problems.

The scenario. 20 miles-ish in hand rather than go on to Dunbar 10 ish miles away where there were at least 2 Reliable Rapid Charging options, pulled into Haddington off the A1 where there were several Chargeplace Scotland options.
Not even on Zap Map yet, brand new retail park just as you come off the A1 with 3 New Osprey 75kW Rapid Chargers.

Pulled in and had difficulty with Charger No 1. Phoned the helpline, and in spite of a re-boot, still the contactless card payment wasn't working. So thought we would just go further into Haddington and use the Chargeplace Scotland Rapid Charger. Phoned them up, and found all of the chargeplace Scotland chargers were "down" due to a problem with Vodafone communications. That is a big hole in planned chargers in the Scottish Borders/Lothians region.

If a film crew had shoved a microphone in front of me at that point, I may have given them a useable whinging soundbyte In reality moved the car to Osprey brand new 75kW charger number 2, phoned Osprey up again and they initiated a remote charging session, free of charge, to get over the difficulty of the problem with the card reader.
All very courteous, all sorted, and I would say Osprey and Instavolt are normally the most dependable and usable chargers to use on the road.

Here endeth my very minor storm in a very small teacup.

Regards Neil

Zap-Map EV on the road Charging points, ever developing and expanding, and not yet with the Haddington Ospreys included! as of this second of writing.

https://www.zap-map.com/live/

[mickthemaverick]

I honestly don't think that chargers having glitches when you try to use them is the real problem as far as on the road charging is concerned, annoying though it may be!! For me the real problem is yet to occur when the number of BEVs on the road reaches a level where motorists all over the country want to use every charger at the same time. The result will be much longer charging times as a result of queuing for a charger rather than the actual charging time.

I don't know the numbers, and honestly can't be bothered to look them up, of current filling stations throughout the country and the number of pumps they offer in total, but I do know that it is exceedingly rare to drive past one without seeing customers filling up. So to cater for an equivalent number of BEVs without the queueing in order to maintain a similar customer throughput is going to need an awful lot of chargers. Plus of course there are the current hotspots such as the Shell garage just outside Luton airport which has I believe 10 pumps in total plus LPG and has an almost perpetual queue to get a pump. So on average there must be 12-15 cars in that forecourt throughout the day. Give all those drivers a BEV and what will you have to do?

[mickthemaverick]

Having reread my previous post it occurred to me that perhaps we do need a more appropriate mix of solutions designed for the differing needs of the country's motorists. Something like this: Inner city areas should be doable with man powered devices, urban areas Hydrogen EVs and rural areas BEVs. Maybe trying to find a single solution for everyone is the wrong approach?

[NewcastleFalcon]

BEV's do not need on-road charging stations for the majority of regular journeys undertaken by the car users who have home charging. How many car users will be able to enjoy home charging? / workplace charging? Not everyone of course but a fair chunk of your apocalyptic vision of EV station queue-er's, will be able to go from one standard week to the next without ever visiting an "EV fuel Station" on the road.

Yes we need more EV Fuel Hubs, visible, large number of stalls, strategic locations and the development will happen, just as the motor spirit in a can from the chemist and the hardware store developed into the much loved nationwide proliferation of petrol stations in every village and town in the country only for the small locations to wither into the new infrastructure of large volume stations at the Big Four.



Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

I think it is reasonable to make the case that the existing motorists driving vehicles with a fuel tank range of well over 200 miles probably 300-500 I'd say, who find it necessary to refuel at the current rate will, if anything, have to recharge more frequently unless they charge for longer time to increase range. So while any particular individual may only need to charge weekly or even less, the total number on the roads, matching the current fleet, will still need an equal or greater number of fill ups overall. Thus my argument about queueing comes into play as the demand goes up with the number of BEVs on the road.

As for home charging, the issue there is simply with the number of people in cities who live in multi occupancy buildings. There are tower blocks all over the city with 100+ flats whose residents vehicles have an issue with finding parking places as it is let alone ones that could be fitted with a charger. This is why I feel the BEV option is more appropriate for rural dwellers who have the space and facility to install home chargers. Even in our suburban road at this very moment I can see 17 residents cars parked in the road because their second cars are on the drive and third or special cars in the garage!! It simply will not be possible to replace all those with BEVs and get them charged with home chargers.

Plus of course the obvious other major issue with everyone having a BEV in our road. Each charger requires a 32A supply minimum and the local network is simply not capable of supporting the total demand if everyone plugged their cars in at the same time, overnight being the obvious choice!
The argument against would be something like "just take your car to a public charger and save the neighbourhood in general from the upheaval and cost of updating the supply network" Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles would be a much more acceptable solution to those with no charging opportunity as they will not incur the long refill times and allow motorists living in places like this to become emission free, even if the high cost of the energy wastage in Hydrogen production seems excessive, it would be a lot less civil disruption to make the change., and people may prefer that given the option