EV-based road transportation is not viable

[themadhippy]

Any house with a 3 car garage and anything built after about 1975 is going to have a 200A service

Maybe were you are,but i can count on1 hand finger the number of domestic premises ive seen were anything over 125A was present,and even 125A aint that common.

[tom66]

Any house with a 3 car garage and anything built after about 1975 is going to have a 200A service

Maybe were you are,but i can count on1 hand finger the number of domestic premises ive seen were anything over 125A was present,and even 125A aint that common.

For the UK service is much smaller, but then again we also don't tend to have air conditioning or very large houses in this country.   You can however usually get 32A x 2 on a standard 100A feed in the UK (~70A continuous limit) if you have a diversity device installed which caps the total input current to the mains at around 70A.  This is provided by Zappi EV chargers amongst others.

[bdunham7]

Really the longer term solution is it should not need 200W to charge a battery, but probably requires the 12V system to be redesigned somewhat so the charging CAN bus doesn't mean that half the car's powertrain and modules also switch on.  (I'm looking at you, VW.  Why does the infotainment unit bus run while charging?)

Since the MPGe figures used on the window stickers in the US are based on energy used at the plug, manufacturers want to make this as efficient as practical.  My Ford initially left a lot of stuff off during charging, most notably the 12VDC power supply.  They had to reprogram that because the 12V batteries were going dead in some use cases and not lasting very long in others.  The 'infotainment bus' (not the term Ford uses) would have to be lit up because the car communicates (or did) via its now obsolete 3G data module.  Between that and the coolant pumps, it may well use 100W+ even without active heating or cooling of the battery pack.

[tom66]

Really the longer term solution is it should not need 200W to charge a battery, but probably requires the 12V system to be redesigned somewhat so the charging CAN bus doesn't mean that half the car's powertrain and modules also switch on.  (I'm looking at you, VW.  Why does the infotainment unit bus run while charging?)

Since the MPGe figures used on the window stickers in the US are based on energy used at the plug, manufacturers want to make this as efficient as practical.  My Ford initially left a lot of stuff off during charging, most notably the 12VDC power supply.  They had to reprogram that because the 12V batteries were going dead in some use cases and not lasting very long in others.  The 'infotainment bus' (not the term Ford uses) would have to be lit up because the car communicates (or did) via its now obsolete 3G data module.  Between that and the coolant pumps, it may well use 100W+ even without active heating or cooling of the battery pack.

That's good.  I don't think the same applies here.  The EU would do well to include some efficiency ratings.  It's not too bad at 7kW but some people do regularly use 2.3kW "granny chargers" and those carry a fair penalty due to the behaviour of car manufacturers.  A lot of the time I think it's down to many EVs being built on ICE platforms, so they're not designed with power in mind.  I'd hope that more modern vehicles are more sensible about power wasted during charging.

[tszaboo]

At the moment I'm paying nearly 80 eurocent per kWh over here... even my old gas guzzling car on gasoline is cheaper compared to a BEV.

Yes, but that's not normal is it? 

Likely to last for at least this year. I ordered a bunch of new solar panels to put on the roof. They'll pay for themselves in less than 18 months. I don't see electricity prices going down to pre 2022 levels soon. Russian gas is much cheaper compared to importing LNG.

When the electricity price was more than 1 EUR/kwh, I was seriously calculating if it's cheaper to run the house from a diesel generator than from the network. They have something like 0.4L/kwh efficiency, and diesel is like 2 EUR/L. I tell you what, the situation has nothing to do with the east, it's just extra profit for the utilities.
Check the prices yourself. https://www.epexspot.com/en/market-data
So why does it cost 80 cents? Cause we are sheep who pays, instead of getting the pitchforks and the torches.

[james_s]

Any house with a 3 car garage and anything built after about 1975 is going to have a 200A service

Maybe were you are,but i can count on1 hand finger the number of domestic premises ive seen were anything over 125A was present,and even 125A aint that common.

I'm talking about USA, which is where the person is that was saying EVs wouldn't work because most of the houses in his neighborhood have 3 car garages. When I was in the UK I don't recall seeing *any* houses with 3 car garages, most had no garage at all, just a single parking space. With everything being smaller and closer together along with much higher prices on energy of all types there I think it is even more unlikely to find a family with 2-3 EVs that all drive hundreds of miles a day which was the specified edge case.

[james_s]

When the electricity price was more than 1 EUR/kwh, I was seriously calculating if it's cheaper to run the house from a diesel generator than from the network. They have something like 0.4L/kwh efficiency, and diesel is like 2 EUR/L. I tell you what, the situation has nothing to do with the east, it's just extra profit for the utilities.
Check the prices yourself. https://www.epexspot.com/en/market-data
So why does it cost 80 cents? Cause we are sheep who pays, instead of getting the pitchforks and the torches.

No need for pitchforks, if you don't like the cost don't buy it, that's how capitalism works. If generating your own power is a better deal then do that.

[themadhippy]

When I was in the UK I don't recall seeing *any* houses with 3 car garages

But 3 and 4 car family's are plentiful here with the kids staying with mum and dad longer

[tggzzz]

When the electricity price was more than 1 EUR/kwh, I was seriously calculating if it's cheaper to run the house from a diesel generator than from the network. They have something like 0.4L/kwh efficiency, and diesel is like 2 EUR/L. I tell you what, the situation has nothing to do with the east, it's just extra profit for the utilities.
Check the prices yourself. https://www.epexspot.com/en/market-data
So why does it cost 80 cents? Cause we are sheep who pays, instead of getting the pitchforks and the torches.

It is the price we pay for having the fighting in Ukraine now, not further west in years to come.

Cheap at the price.

[bdunham7]

A lot of the time I think it's down to many EVs being built on ICE platforms, so they're not designed with power in mind. 

Maybe, but mine is a straight-up conversion of an ICE model (Ford Focus--assembled on the same line) and when produced it was supposedly the most efficient production BEV on the planet.  IIRC, 93%+ efficient on charging, ~4miles/kWh, which is 250Wh/mile or 156Wh/km.  And that is with liquid cooling (via refrigeration if needed) and heating (via electrical resistance heating if needed) of the battery pack.

[james_s]

When I was in the UK I don't recall seeing *any* houses with 3 car garages

But 3 and 4 car family's are plentiful here with the kids staying with mum and dad longer

Each driving hundreds of miles a day?

[CatalinaWOW]

When I was in the UK I don't recall seeing *any* houses with 3 car garages

But 3 and 4 car family's are plentiful here with the kids staying with mum and dad longer

Each driving hundreds of miles a day?

While they are extreme edge cases, such families exist.  Tend to be general contractors, industrial farmers, agricultural buyers and such.  People whose jobs take them all over the place.  Having multiples in a family is no surprise.  An amazing number of job types follow family lines - in fields as diverse as entertainment and the military.

[james_s]

While they are extreme edge cases, such families exist.  Tend to be general contractors, industrial farmers, agricultural buyers and such.  People whose jobs take them all over the place.  Having multiples in a family is no surprise.  An amazing number of job types follow family lines - in fields as diverse as entertainment and the military.

You can always find edge cases, but they are exactly that, edge cases and they are irrelevant in terms of general adoption. ICE powered cars aren't going anywhere any time soon, and 400 or even 600A residential service exist, people that have those very niche cases have other options. The fact that there are a handful of people for which a given solution won't work doesn't mean that it isn't a viable solution.

[Leeima]

While they are extreme edge cases, such families exist.  Tend to be general contractors, industrial farmers, agricultural buyers and such.  People whose jobs take them all over the place.  Having multiples in a family is no surprise.  An amazing number of job types follow family lines - in fields as diverse as entertainment and the military.

You can always find edge cases, but they are exactly that, edge cases and they are irrelevant in terms of general adoption. ICE powered cars aren't going anywhere any time soon, and 400 or even 600A residential service exist, people that have those very niche cases have other options. The fact that there are a handful of people for which a given solution won't work doesn't mean that it isn't a viable solution.

In some countries the sale of new Petrol/Diesel Cars is due to be banned imminently. So alternatives would essentially be used vehicles.
The UK currently has about 15,000 public FAST chargers of which most are in london.
In many towns cars are parked nose-to-tail and when councils put in chargers they often only put one. I don't know if these are rapid/fast/slow chargers; it seems fast chargers are the most common installed so we may as well do the analysis on those
A 10-30 mile commute (20 to 60 miles daily) isn't uncommon.

If we assume a 200 mile range then our drivers will need to charge at least once per week.
A fast charger should charge a nissan leaf in about 6 hours. If we assume everyone is really nice & organised and charges & moves on immediately we can get 28 cars charged per week per charger or 420,000 per week for all the fast chargers currently installed.

There are currently 33 million cars in the uk.

Obviously not everyone will need to use a public charger. But a lot of people will not be able to use a private charger for a swathe of reasons; think flats/rentals (doa). I would need to spend some time to analyse the current public charger installation growth rate - but it's looking a bit woeful at first glance.

I don't believe the problem is impossible to solve. Since rapid chargers would be able to charge in 30 minutes or so. But these still need to be installed within easy access.

It's just interesting to try doing some ballpark sums on the problem

[james_s]

In my opinion banning ICE cars in the short term is stupid and will cause massive problems. EVs are already taking over, we don't need to ban anything, people should have a choice. Here the bans they are talking about allow plug-in hybrids so I suspect we'll see a lot of hybrids that have a token charger built in so they can be plugged in but I doubt most people will actually bother to do so due to the very limited amount of energy storage.

[tszaboo]

When the electricity price was more than 1 EUR/kwh, I was seriously calculating if it's cheaper to run the house from a diesel generator than from the network. They have something like 0.4L/kwh efficiency, and diesel is like 2 EUR/L. I tell you what, the situation has nothing to do with the east, it's just extra profit for the utilities.
Check the prices yourself. https://www.epexspot.com/en/market-data
So why does it cost 80 cents? Cause we are sheep who pays, instead of getting the pitchforks and the torches.

It is the price we pay for having the fighting in Ukraine now, not further west in years to come.

Cheap at the price.

I think you misunderstand. I'm pointing out, that the wholesale price of electricity is around 15-17c/KWh all around Europe, while we are being charged 4-5 times as much. Now unless distribution and other costs suddenly increased, which have nothing to do with the war, this is just marking up a product, where the customer has no choice just keep buying it. And it's done by all the power companies collectively, as I hear, all across Europe.

[tom66]

I think you misunderstand. I'm pointing out, that the wholesale price of electricity is around 15-17c/KWh all around Europe, while we are being charged 4-5 times as much. Now unless distribution and other costs suddenly increased, which have nothing to do with the war, this is just marking up a product, where the customer has no choice just keep buying it. And it's done by all the power companies collectively, as I hear, all across Europe.

The problem is governments forced energy providers to buy up huge amounts of gas at any price, this is why nat gas TTFF went as high as 300EUR/MWh at one point.

The price has cooled down now demand has returned to normal-ish, we are looking at a situation where the EU has reduced consumption by about 10% by mandate, and another 10% by demand destruction (price rationing).  The amount of Russian gas missing plus the amount of new LNG is about this level.  So it seems reasonable to believe that prices will remain about this level for some time.

Retail prices will fall but the energy providers are still paying off this huge bill.  And they don't buy gas on the spot market but instead buy months-years long contracts.

You should enquire with your provider as to whether they offer a daily tariff based on current usage.  They are about 30% cheaper than fixed rate now, in the UK, or about 3x the cost what it was before this panic (which is roughly how much natural gas is, about 55EUR/MWh vs 20EUR/MWh pre-COVID.)  You lose any protection if the price goes up though, you could pay market rates.

[MadScientist]

In my opinion banning ICE cars in the short term is stupid and will cause massive problems. EVs are already taking over, we don't need to ban anything, people should have a choice. Here the bans they are talking about allow plug-in hybrids so I suspect we'll see a lot of hybrids that have a token charger built in so they can be plugged in but I doubt most people will actually bother to do so due to the very limited amount of energy storage.

Most industry commentators believe the ban will be extended to deal with supply issues so I wouldn’t focus on a given year

But I fully support a hard ban , leave it up to individuals and you’ll have people buying 2nd hand dino juice cars mfor years

The point is the environmental challenges are forcing regulatory Changes that needs  hard laws no more then unpalatable herd reduction etc is also on the cards. This can’t be done voluntary,  a carrot and stick approach is needed.  Dino juice is going like asbestos , bye bye .

Hrbrufs are a transition tech , bad value , unbeccessart with newer BEVs and they are choking up public chargers when they could just fill with petrol ! They need to be banned as they are really ICE cars in disguise and the dual money allows them to cheat on the emmisions statistics and benefit in many countries fro lower tax when in fact they are using a petrol engine , it’s a ratings scam

[tom66]

Most industry commentators believe the ban will be extended to deal with supply issues so I wouldn’t focus on a given year

But I fully support a hard ban , leave it up to individuals and you’ll have people buying 2nd hand dino juice for years

The point is the environmental challenges are forcing regulatory Changes that needs  hard laws no more then unpalatable herd reduction etc is also on the cards. This can’t be done voluntary,  a carrot and stick approach is needed.  Dino juice is going like asbestos , bye bye .

Frankly I think it's absurd we're still allowing the sale of some luxury petrol/diesel vehicles.

For instance I can walk into a dealership now and buy a 3L Range Rover petrol SUV.  A horrible vehicle for many reasons, not least due to who usually drives it, but with a huge emissions profile too.

"Nobody" needs such a vehicle yet it will likely be on the roads for 15-20 years.  I would like to see the >£50k price bracket be electric only with very few exceptions for e.g. work trucks and the like.  At the lower end ordinary consumers can still buy a Golf, Focus etc. powered by petrol whilst EVs remain inaccessible for them for a number of reasons like not having somewhere to park and charge.

[MadScientist]

Most industry commentators believe the ban will be extended to deal with supply issues so I wouldn’t focus on a given year

But I fully support a hard ban , leave it up to individuals and you’ll have people buying 2nd hand dino juice for years

The point is the environmental challenges are forcing regulatory Changes that needs  hard laws no more then unpalatable herd reduction etc is also on the cards. This can’t be done voluntary,  a carrot and stick approach is needed.  Dino juice is going like asbestos , bye bye .

Frankly I think it's absurd we're still allowing the sale of some luxury petrol/diesel vehicles.

For instance I can walk into a dealership now and buy a 3L Range Rover petrol SUV.  A horrible vehicle for many reasons, not least due to who usually drives it, but with a huge emissions profile too.

"Nobody" needs such a vehicle yet it will likely be on the roads for 15-20 years.  I would like to see the >£50k price bracket be electric only with very few exceptions for e.g. work trucks and the like.  At the lower end ordinary consumers can still buy a Golf, Focus etc. powered by petrol whilst EVs remain inaccessible for them for a number of reasons like not having somewhere to park and charge.

I think we’ll see large personal ice transport taxed to extinction anyway it’s already heading that way. Eventually consumers get the “ hint”

[tautech]

The point is the environmental challenges are forcing regulatory Changes ..............

What environmental changes ?
Based on what science ?
Does it take into account the largest atmospheric event in 140 years ?

Who's agenda is driving this and for who's benefit ?

[tom66]

What environmental changes ?
Based on what science ?
Does it take into account the largest atmospheric event in 140 years ?

Who's agenda is driving this and for who's benefit ?

Whose agenda continues to push climate denial in the face of insurmountable evidence?

(P.S. If you're talking about the Tonga event then yes - it makes it even more likely we'll miss the 1.5C target as it added about 1-2ppm of CO2 to the atmosphere.  However, humans have added about 125ppm to the atmosphere since pre-industrial times.)

[AVGresponding]

Most industry commentators believe the ban will be extended to deal with supply issues so I wouldn’t focus on a given year

But I fully support a hard ban , leave it up to individuals and you’ll have people buying 2nd hand dino juice for years

The point is the environmental challenges are forcing regulatory Changes that needs  hard laws no more then unpalatable herd reduction etc is also on the cards. This can’t be done voluntary,  a carrot and stick approach is needed.  Dino juice is going like asbestos , bye bye .

Frankly I think it's absurd we're still allowing the sale of some luxury petrol/diesel vehicles.

For instance I can walk into a dealership now and buy a 3L Range Rover petrol SUV.  A horrible vehicle for many reasons, not least due to who usually drives it, but with a huge emissions profile too.

"Nobody" needs such a vehicle yet it will likely be on the roads for 15-20 years.

Unlikely; these things are notoriously unreliable and high maintenance. They don't do well on the second-hand market

[vad]

In some countries the sale of new Petrol/Diesel Cars is due to be banned imminently.

I would not pay much attention to legislation that bans something in the distant future. Laws that have no immediate effect are pure political stunts of irresponsible politicians who will not be around when the ban is supposed to take effect.

Take California for example. The ban that presumably takes effect in 2035 would most likely be repelled, postponed or changed in the future. Californian power distribution cannot handle current electricity demand without widespread blackouts. Adding 17 million BEVs charging from the grid at the same time would become a disaster.

[Leeima]

In my opinion banning ICE cars in the short term is stupid and will cause massive problems. EVs are already taking over, we don't need to ban anything, people should have a choice. Here the bans they are talking about allow plug-in hybrids so I suspect we'll see a lot of hybrids that have a token charger built in so they can be plugged in but I doubt most people will actually bother to do so due to the very limited amount of energy storage.

Most industry commentators believe the ban will be extended to deal with supply issues so I wouldn’t focus on a given year

But I fully support a hard ban , leave it up to individuals and you’ll have people buying 2nd hand dino juice cars mfor years

The point is the environmental challenges are forcing regulatory Changes that needs  hard laws no more then unpalatable herd reduction etc is also on the cards. This can’t be done voluntary,  a carrot and stick approach is needed.  Dino juice is going like asbestos , bye bye .

Hrbrufs are a transition tech , bad value , unbeccessart with newer BEVs and they are choking up public chargers when they could just fill with petrol ! They need to be banned as they are really ICE cars in disguise and the dual money allows them to cheat on the emmisions statistics and benefit in many countries fro lower tax when in fact they are using a petrol engine , it’s a ratings scam

I don't think you need to be an industry commentator to predict another delay. The UK has already pushed it back 10 years from the original deadline if I'm remembering correctly.