EV-based road transportation is not viable

[Monkeh]

Drax does not burn coal,

whilst i agree the "article" is 2 (4/3 π r³) drax does occasionally burn coal and had its licence to do so extended to the end of next month

Admittedly true, the coal plant remains available for emergency operation. I don't think they've actually burnt any for generation purposes over this extension, though.

[tom66]

1.  Tesla's have a real world range of 200-350 miles (model dependent, driving pattern dependent) in varying terrain.

2.  In winter this drops by around 10-20% depending on the conditions, not 50%.  The only way you get 100 miles in a Tesla in winter is driving at 140+ mph.   Which, in the majority of countries,  is illegal.  For the few Autobahn fans, keeping the 3 series for now is probably best.

3.  Heatpumps are viable for the UK if homes are well insulated (this is really the biggest problem, not the power consumption).  Due to low flow temperatures, a heatpump needs to 'slowly' warm up a home.  This only works if the home is well insulated.  The cost of retrofitting insulation to UK homes is not trivial.

4.  Electric cars don't burn coal, because the vast majority of the UK's electricity supply does not require coal,  and no one but your crazy idiot "Nat Sci" correspondent is suggesting that we build vast quantities of new coal power plants.

5.  The Tesla truck goes over 500 miles on a charge and the battery weighs less than 9 tonnes.  The 'cab and battery' of a Tesla truck only weighs a few tonnes more than a traditional diesel truck in the USA (this has been confirmed by a shot of the truck's data plate, that Tesla did not want leaking out because it's not quite as good as they said, but still reasonable.)

6. "A Tesla battery is rated at 70 KWh and fast charging is only 60% efficient."  Not even slightly true.  First, Tesla offers way more than 70kWh packs but let's assume the author is giving an example.  DCFC is less efficient than slow AC charging, but the Tesla cooling system simply cannot reject 100kW (at 250kW charging input), it is too small for that.  And besides, owner measurements of kWh billed on non-Tesla stations show about a 5% penalty for DCFC.  AC charging is typically 99% at the battery, and ~95% at the charger, leading to around 94% total efficiency.  So DCFC would be around 90% efficient... possibly more from the grid if the high power AC chargers are more efficient (stands to be true, as that's electricity you can't bill people for, but data is scarce).

7.  I still pay <10p/kWh for my AC charging at home, so the Tesla cost is wrong.  Anyone who uses an EV even a modest amount will benefit from a time of use plan which gives you cheap electricity at night.

Here's a good one:  Read "Without Hot Air" by the late MacKay if you want an actual scientific treatise on the UK's power and renewable situation.  In particular, I find interesting that MacKay reckoned we could not move to 100% wind until we were putting turbines in >=  100m deep water (offshore).  Several new wind farms have been commissioned that do this now.  So it is a little out of date, but good in one sense, because you need a pessimistic basis for these things. 

However, eti, I am not sure why I bother responding to you.   I think an EV must have hurt you or run over your dog...  You have a bizarre vendetta against anything 'new'.  Perhaps you should look at the computer you are using - that was once 'new' and 'scary'.

[tggzzz]

Here's a good one:  Read "Without Hot Air" by the late MacKay if you want an actual scientific treatise on the UK's power and renewable situation.  In particular, I find interesting that MacKay reckoned we could not move to 100% wind until we were putting turbines in >=  100m deep water (offshore).  Several new wind farms have been commissioned that do this now.  So it is a little out of date, but good in one sense, because you need a pessimistic basis for these things. 

MacKay is excellent. Notable points:

• the basic physics, chemistry, and geography have not change and will not change
• he presents several alternative ways forward, depending on what society determines is most appropriate
• he doesn't (or rather didn't ) care what the answer is; he has no axes to grind
• he does care that the answers add up numerically

Memorable tagline: "numbers not adjectives" - which should be adopted by more commentators.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Jeez this is even more bollocks than the usual anti-EV nonsense

Here’s Why Electric Cars Are Useless -by Revd Philip Foster MA

• Battery cycling—the deterioration of the capacity of a lithium battery with
charging—must be allowed for, costing about £3 per cycle.4

I have no idea how true this is, but even if it is - let's say the EV has a 300 mile range and lasts 150K miles. That's 500 charge cycles, so £1500, or a penny a mile. Just the oil chnages on an ICE would be more than that.

•Fire: ... Firehoses would only exacerbate theproblem, causing electrocution of victims.

4. Battery ‘swopping’ is unviable. An average garage refuels 1000 cars a day; how are they going to recharge
1000 batteries every day @ 5-12 hours each? Also who is going to carry them @>half a ton each?

I'd agree that battery-swap isn't going to be viable outside a few niches, but comparing with a gas station ignores that the vast majority of EVs will charge at home or use local on-street chargers

• Every servicing garage will be compelled to buy a completely new suite of
tools, lifts, ramps etc. under electrical safety regulations for EVs.

What regulations exactly?
 A few new tools but nothing major.

Death from exposure. In winter, travelling, say, over the Yorkshire moors in a blizzard at night, you are likely to die. The car ‘dies’, as battery power drops due to the cold. There is now no heating. You freeze inside, you freeze outsidetrying to find help.

Petrol and diesel cars do not have this problem.8

hate to mention this but running out of fuel is a thing.. When a petrol car dies, that's it. Game Over. When an EV can no longer power the motor, there is still plenty of energy left for heating, as it's a tiny proportion of the total power.
of course there;s no accounting for stupid users.

• As most of the numpties, who think electric cars are viable, live in towns the
above point doubtless passes them by, but the huge potential for traffic
clogging due to ‘dead’ electric vehicles has not been considered9, nor has the
issue of time to recharge.

 

Currently an average petrol car takes about five minutes to fill up with petrol, pay and depart. If an electric car takes a minimum of 75 minutes to recharge (five hours is more likely), either the queues are going to be astronomical10 and the time wasted ditto (see also note4.) or there will need to be nearly five million charge points installed at an estimated roll out cost of £20 billion.

Again, petrol-station mantality. The time my EV takes to charge is the 10 seconds to plug it in & then go do something else.
75 mins would be a maximum, for an older car or slower charger, not a minimum, unless some numptie plugs into an AC charger by mistake

The BBC took an electric car from London to Edinburgh. It took threedays, slower than a stagecoach. People sometimes need to get to places quickly!

Ignorant/agenda'd journalist comes up with negative story, what a surprise.

7. Roadside tyre change is impossible without a hydraulic lift for the whole vehicle.

Now they're really clutching at straws. Don't recall I've ever seen a heavy lorry or van being put on a lift at the roadside..

8. Further, any ‘off-road’ EV would fry its battery and motors (or blow a fuse) if stuck in difficult terrain.

*Cough* Rivian

9. One type of electric car is called a Leaf. This will give a wholly new meaning to ‘leaves on the road/line’!

..and MR2 sounds like "shit" in French - what's your point?

He is the author of While the Earth Endures: Creation, Cosmology and Climate Change
Available on Amazon UK or order direct; contact details above.[/size]

..and there it is.. buy my book.
Pathetic. Just pathetic.
 

[coppice]

Here's a good one:  Read "Without Hot Air" by the late MacKay if you want an actual scientific treatise on the UK's power and renewable situation.  In particular, I find interesting that MacKay reckoned we could not move to 100% wind until we were putting turbines in >=  100m deep water (offshore).  Several new wind farms have been commissioned that do this now.  So it is a little out of date, but good in one sense, because you need a pessimistic basis for these things. 

MacKay is excellent. Notable points:

• the basic physics, chemistry, and geography have not change and will not change
• he presents several alternative ways forward, depending on what society determines is most appropriate
• he doesn't (or rather didn't ) care what the answer is; he has no axes to grind
• he does care that the answers add up numerically

Memorable tagline: "numbers not adjectives" - which should be adopted by more commentators.

Its quite amusing to read the clueless comments under his videos on YouTube, calling him an idiot for incorrect reasons.

[tggzzz]

Here's a good one:  Read "Without Hot Air" by the late MacKay if you want an actual scientific treatise on the UK's power and renewable situation.  In particular, I find interesting that MacKay reckoned we could not move to 100% wind until we were putting turbines in >=  100m deep water (offshore).  Several new wind farms have been commissioned that do this now.  So it is a little out of date, but good in one sense, because you need a pessimistic basis for these things. 

MacKay is excellent. Notable points:

• the basic physics, chemistry, and geography have not change and will not change
• he presents several alternative ways forward, depending on what society determines is most appropriate
• he doesn't (or rather didn't ) care what the answer is; he has no axes to grind
• he does care that the answers add up numerically

Memorable tagline: "numbers not adjectives" - which should be adopted by more commentators.

Its quite amusing to read the clueless comments under his videos on YouTube, calling him an idiot for incorrect reasons.

Didn't know there were any there - but then I generally ignore videos since mostly they are poorly edited talking heads emitting ums and ahs, and what little information is in them could be easily communicated by words and pictures.

There are a few which benefit from moving images, but they are rare.

[rstofer]

The Chevy Bolt comes with neither a jack nor a spare tire.  Road side assistance will be required.  A flat bed tow truck is best.

In the last 5 years with the Chevy Bolt, we have made, perhaps, a dozen round trips of 100 miles or so.  The vast majority of our trips are 10 miles or less and most are just Taco Bell runs of less than 5 miles.  Range anxiety isn't a thing...

The included 1200 watt charger has been entirely adequate.  Sure, it takes multiple days to recharge after a 200 mile trip (which we never take) but it's not like we're in a hurry.  Figure 3-5 miles per hour of charge time.  That Taco Bell run takes about an hour to recharge.  Who cares?

I've been doing this EV thing for 8 years.  I think I have it under control.  For my use case, EV works well.  For others?  Only they know their real use case but in this thread many of the opinions seem to be at the edge.

I guess that's the point!  People need to re-evaluate their use case and make a new plan.  Maybe that 1000 mile trip would be better done on a train or airplane.  Maybe those theoretical long range trips just don't actually happen.  The only way to get people to re-evaluate their usage is to force the issue.

The automakers are certainly spending money on new facilities like they really believe something is going to happen.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-automakers-double-spending-evs-batteries-12-trillion-by-2030-2022-10-21

[tom66]

I suspect the warning about towing EVs comes because an EV motor can act like a generator.  If the drive unit is operating correctly, then the back-emf of the motor can be controlled so that it has net zero torque.  (This is how EVs implement "neutral" - they do not have a clutch.)  However, if the inverter has turned off because of e.g. a dead HV battery, or some other fault, the motor could well rectify through the diodes in the IGBTs/MOSFETs which could cause damage to the power electronics, motor, etc.  maybe even worst case start a fire. 

You can definitely use regen braking to charge EVs while towing, people have done it for a science with Tesla's for instance, and it probably won't break anything because the EV controller can stop regen at any time if the battery reaches 100% for example or a temperature limit is hit.  It's only warned against in the manual because users are idiots and will probably try towing their EV in reverse at 65 mph with the drive unit switched off if you don't explicitly outline all the ways you can't do it.

[themadhippy]

In winter, travelling, say, over the Yorkshire moors in a blizzard at night, you are likely to die. The car ‘dies’, as battery power drops due to the cold. There is now no heating. You freeze inside, you freeze outsidetrying to find help.

Petrol and diesel cars do not have this problem

Well certainly diesel wont,as anyone with an old diesel  tranny knows,the bugger wot start ,let alone get you to the middle of the moors if its a bit chilly out

towing EVs

According to many you cant tow an automatic either

[Wallace Gasiewicz]

Most, not all however, gas powered vehicles cannot be towed. The tranny heats up and damage results.
There are some that can be towed, again not many.

[tggzzz]

The included 1200 watt charger has been entirely adequate.  Sure, it takes multiple days to recharge after a 200 mile trip (which we never take) but it's not like we're in a hurry.  Figure 3-5 miles per hour of charge time.  That Taco Bell run takes about an hour to recharge.  Who cares?

The people in cities over here would care.

They don't have a driveway or garage. They don't even have any allocated parking, and have difficulty finding a parking space anywhere on their road!

The concept that sufficient roadside charging points will erupt from the ground is farcical: no space on the pavement, and who would stump up the capital cost (and maintain them)?

[Marco]

Could have had them now if someone had stopped to think a bit before the fiber roll outs.

[tom66]

The people in cities over here would care.

They don't have a driveway or garage. They don't even have any allocated parking, and have difficulty finding a parking space anywhere on their road!

The concept that sufficient roadside charging points will erupt from the ground is farcical: no space on the pavement, and who would stump up the capital cost (and maintain them)?

EV charging is self funding once you have a sufficient number of EV's on the road, but this is a chicken and egg problem as is all too common with infrastructure.  You'd sound no different to someone speaking about how petrol cars are infeasible in the 1920's because where would we get all that petrol -- well now we have oil wells, refineries, petrol stations etc. all funded off the demand for this fuel and its byproducts.  We might need gov't to give a nudge to private industry but it definitely can happen, there's money to be made.

I did the maths a while ago, I'm not going to repeat it again, but at a 5-10p/kWh margin, these chargers easily pay for their install cost with normal daily usage (8hrs/day) over a few years of usage.

If you do want to see how this will end up going you can see companies like Ubitricity who are investing in networks like this in bigger cities.  As for pavement space there are EV chargers that can fit into the space that a kerbstone uses and tuck away when not in use.  For those able to park outside their home, channels have been installed to allow ordinary EV charging cables to be put below pavement level without it impeding buggies, wheelchairs etc.

[nctnico]

The people in cities over here would care.

They don't have a driveway or garage. They don't even have any allocated parking, and have difficulty finding a parking space anywhere on their road!

The concept that sufficient roadside charging points will erupt from the ground is farcical: no space on the pavement, and who would stump up the capital cost (and maintain them)?

EV charging is self funding once you have a sufficient number of EV's on the road, but this is a chicken and egg problem as is all too common with infrastructure.  You'd sound no different to someone speaking about how petrol cars are infeasible in the 1920's because where would we get all that petrol -- well now we have oil wells, refineries, petrol stations etc. all funded off the demand for this fuel and its byproducts.  We might need gov't to give a nudge to private industry but it definitely can happen, there's money to be made.

I did the maths a while ago, I'm not going to repeat it again, but at a 5-10p/kWh margin, these chargers easily pay for their install cost with normal daily usage (8hrs/day) over a few years of usage.

What you fail to see is that the UK's night rates are a fluke. Such low rates don't exist in the rest of the civilised world. On top of that, you will never ever get such low rates at public charging points, let alone fast chargers which cost around 10 times your nightly rate per kWh. And just like what happened in the 1920's is that electric cars are limited to local use only. What is going to kill the BEV in the next 20 years is the charging costs. Public charging costs for a BEV will never be able to compete with a hybrid running on fuel or hydrogen. Mark my words...

[TimFox]

Meanwhile, in the market place, an article in today's New York Times business section (may be paywalled) predicts that EV purchase prices in the US could match ICE prices by the end of 2023.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/10/business/electric-vehicles-price-cost.html

Quoting from the article:

"More quickly than seemed possible a few months ago, sticker prices for electric vehicles are falling closer to the point where they could soon be on a par with gasoline cars.
Increased competition, government incentives and falling prices for lithium and other battery materials are making electric vehicles noticeably more affordable.
The tipping point when electric vehicles become as cheap as or cheaper than cars with internal combustion engines could arrive this year for some mass market models and is already the case for some luxury vehicles.
Prices are likely to continue trending lower as Tesla, General Motors, Ford Motor and their battery suppliers ramp up new factories, reaping the cost savings that come from mass production.
New electric vehicles from companies like Volkswagen, Nissan and Hyundai will add to competitive pressure."

[tggzzz]

The people in cities over here would care.

They don't have a driveway or garage. They don't even have any allocated parking, and have difficulty finding a parking space anywhere on their road!

The concept that sufficient roadside charging points will erupt from the ground is farcical: no space on the pavement, and who would stump up the capital cost (and maintain them)?

EV charging is self funding once you have a sufficient number of EV's on the road, but this is a chicken and egg problem as is all too common with infrastructure.

It has to be dealt with or it is impossible. Saying "if you want to go there, I wouldn't start from here" is a poor joke.

You'd sound no different to someone speaking about how petrol cars are infeasible in the 1920's because where would we get all that petrol -- well now we have oil wells, refineries, petrol stations etc. all funded off the demand for this fuel and its byproducts.  We might need gov't to give a nudge to private industry but it definitely can happen, there's money to be made.

There is a big difference between having one petrol station every 10 miles, and one every 10 feet. And one working charger every car's length is required in many cities. (N.B. distance between lampposts >> 1car length!)

What "nudge" do you suggest the government might give? Where's the capital coming from?

Your answer must address that the far right libertarians which are dominating the current government state that they want small government and that "market forces" are sufficient to solve everything.

Your answer must address the disappearance of inward investment due to Brexit and the "moron tax". Sad, but true.

I did the maths a while ago, I'm not going to repeat it again, but at a 5-10p/kWh margin, these chargers easily pay for their install cost with normal daily usage (8hrs/day) over a few years of usage.

If you do want to see how this will end up going you can see companies like Ubitricity who are investing in networks like this in bigger cities.  As for pavement space there are EV chargers that can fit into the space that a kerbstone uses and tuck away when not in use.  For those able to park outside their home, channels have been installed to allow ordinary EV charging cables to be put below pavement level without it impeding buggies, wheelchairs etc.

Around here many streets are so narrow cars are parked (illegally) on the pavement. There is no space for cars plus chargers.

Where exactly are the chargers going to be located. Don't say "in lampposts", because the lampposts are too far apart (looking out the window, about 8 cars apart)

Overall, please remove your rose-tinted specs when looking for solutions.

[tom66]

It has to be dealt with or it is impossible. Saying "if you want to go there, I wouldn't start from here" is a poor joke.

Not a joke.  A few salient facts:

) EV's are not going to represent a majority of new cars until well into the 2030's, because cars don't just expire after a few years any more.  As the last ICE vehicles roll off the line in 2030 or so, there will be plenty of them still on the road.  So your edge cases will just drive ICE cars until their edge cases get economical enough to solve, or as I said we get gov't to give them a nudge, just like rural broadband requires public funding, or like pretty much all roads.

) You can charge EVs anywhere, not just at home.   About 50% of road users already have frequent access to a driveway, so these guys should have no problem being the earlier adopters, and that will implicitly increase the demand for street charging.  And then you have people who could charge at work, or while they shop, or even a really odd company now that will drive a battery to you and charge your car (not really sure how viable this is, but it's an interesting concept).

) Rapid charging will also be an option for anyone who can't use a slow home charger, and EV charging rates are improving every year.  When the Leaf launched in 2010 or so, it could charge at about 33kW.  Now, for less money (even in real terms) the e-208 can do 100kW for more of its charge cycle.  And at the higher end of EVs, we have cars that can charge at 300kW, replenshing 10% to 80% in 18 minutes.  It's not yet petrol car speed, but it's rapidly closing in, and even if it doesn't quite reach the 3-4 minutes a petrol car does, it's still not that far off for the odd edge case. I imagine you'd have people just fill that time with something else, like shopping or going to the movies, you do after all tend to use a car to travel places, and it tends to sit parked in a multistorey or something for some time... so why not charge, too?

You'd sound no different to someone speaking about how petrol cars are infeasible in the 1920's because where would we get all that petrol -- well now we have oil wells, refineries, petrol stations etc. all funded off the demand for this fuel and its byproducts.  We might need gov't to give a nudge to private industry but it definitely can happen, there's money to be made.

There is a big difference between having one petrol station every 10 miles, and one every 10 feet. And one working charger every car's length is required in many cities. (N.B. distance between lampposts >> 1car length!)

What "nudge" do you suggest the government might give? Where's the capital coming from?

The nudge could come in a few forms.
) Easing planning regs to allow chargers to be put in with minimal red tape.  For instance, an EV charging station on the M62 was delayed for 3 years because the owner of a golf club refused to grant permission for a cable to be installed under his green.  We need to make the process for getting power to chargers, and the necessary network upgrades, a lot easier.  Large charging sites like MSAs may need subsidies to make installing the necessary upgrades (20+ MW capacity connections) financially viable especially if they need to go under motorways or the like.

) Providing initial capital at low interest rates, e.g. an EV 'bond'.   Already used in the past for wind turbine installs to great success.  One of the issues with expecting corporations to build out EV chargers is investors like a quick turn around, quarterly figures are the rage.  Corporate finance is also quite expensive, commercial lending rates around 8-10% now.

) Outright investing in new EV infrastructure and letting local authorities run it.  In the longer term, that infrastructure could be sold out or maintenance of it could be continued by the LA.  (I'd like to see less essential infrastructure privatised, but that's more politics than anything.)

There are already more EV charging points than petrol stations (https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/uk-has-more-ev-charging-stations-petrol-stations) and the rate of growth is strong.    Over 500,000 EV chargers were installed in 2021.   

Around here many streets are so narrow cars are parked (illegally) on the pavement. There is no space for cars plus chargers.

Where exactly are the chargers going to be located. Don't say "in lampposts", because the lampposts are too far apart (looking out the window, about 8 cars apart)

Overall, please remove your rose-tinted specs when looking for solutions.

Nope.  You don't need 1 charger per car.  I've done the maths before, I'm not doing it again, go and read it please.   The actual number is around one charger per 7 cars (remarkably close to your lamppost spacing, hmm), but that would be assuming all vehicles on a street are street parked.  If it's a typical mixed use street with cars on drives and on the road, I think you could get far fewer because everyone with a drive would use home charging.

As for charger size: There are Ubitricity posts (they are not exclusively built into lampposts) that are about the same diameter as a typical lamppost, so around 3-4" diameter.  If the street parked car plus the charger can't fit there, I doubt the car was ever viable for that street.  But by that point you'd probably just mount the charging facility on the wall and give up on pretending there's a pavement at all. 

You have the opposite of rose-tinted glasses;  maybe more manure-tinted?  You fail to see that EVs can work in a great majority of applications, instead choosing the few applications you think will be a pain to use an EV.  Yes, they exist currently -- I've said repeatedly that EVs aren't yet for everyone; if you don't have home charging yet, unless you live in a city with good street charging infrastructure (London, Manchester, or god help you, Milton Keynes), don't buy an EV yet.  However, if you are one of the roughly 50% of people who do have regular access to a facility to charge at home, then there should be very little stopping you considering an EV as your next vehicle, especially so as the prices begin to reach parity with ICE.

[eti]

Early-onset deep delusion syndrome has set in hard. 😄

[tggzzz]

It has to be dealt with or it is impossible. Saying "if you want to go there, I wouldn't start from here" is a poor joke.

Not a joke.  A few salient facts:

) EV's are not going to represent a majority of new cars until well into the 2030's, because cars don't just expire after a few years any more.  As the last ICE vehicles roll off the line in 2030 or so, there will be plenty of them still on the road.  So your edge cases will just drive ICE cars until their edge cases get economical enough to solve, or as I said we get gov't to give them a nudge, just like rural broadband requires public funding, or like pretty much all roads.

None of that is applicable to the problems of physical space, housing stock (e.g. flats), and access rights.

) You can charge EVs anywhere, not just at home.   About 50% of road users already have frequent access to a driveway, so these guys should have no problem being the earlier adopters, and that will implicitly increase the demand for street charging.  And then you have people who could charge at work, or while they shop, or even a really odd company now that will drive a battery to you and charge your car (not really sure how viable this is, but it's an interesting concept).

There are two charging times that are tolerable, and one that is really annoying. Rapid charging (of a few minutes) is OK because you can just wait. Overnight or half-day charging is OK because you do something else within walking distance. Times over, say, 10 minutes are a painful dead time: too short to do something else.

) Rapid charging will also be an option for anyone who can't use a slow home charger, and EV charging rates are improving every year. 

You are going to have to justify rapid charging being an option for people that can't access home chargers. See the time/location points I noted above.

When the Leaf launched in 2010 or so, it could charge at about 33kW.  Now, for less money (even in real terms) the e-208 can do 100kW for more of its charge cycle.  And at the higher end of EVs, we have cars that can charge at 300kW, replenshing 10% to 80% in 18 minutes. 

That's a really painful time, as noted above.

It's not yet petrol car speed, but it's rapidly closing in, and even if it doesn't quite reach the 3-4 minutes a petrol car does, it's still not that far off for the odd edge case. I imagine you'd have people just fill that time with something else, like shopping or going to the movies, you do after all tend to use a car to travel places, and it tends to sit parked in a multistorey or something for some time... so why not charge, too?

Is it rapidly closing in? I doubt it, without significant changes to battery chemistry.

You'd sound no different to someone speaking about how petrol cars are infeasible in the 1920's because where would we get all that petrol -- well now we have oil wells, refineries, petrol stations etc. all funded off the demand for this fuel and its byproducts.  We might need gov't to give a nudge to private industry but it definitely can happen, there's money to be made.

There is a big difference between having one petrol station every 10 miles, and one every 10 feet. And one working charger every car's length is required in many cities. (N.B. distance between lampposts >> 1car length!)

What "nudge" do you suggest the government might give? Where's the capital coming from?

The nudge could come in a few forms.
) Easing planning regs to allow chargers to be put in with minimal red tape.  For instance, an EV charging station on the M62 was delayed for 3 years because the owner of a golf club refused to grant permission for a cable to be installed under his green.  We need to make the process for getting power to chargers, and the necessary network upgrades, a lot easier.  Large charging sites like MSAs may need subsidies to make installing the necessary upgrades (20+ MW capacity connections) financially viable especially if they need to go under motorways or the like.

How would that help in West London, where the (lack of) electricity supply is already preventing housing developments?!

) Providing initial capital at low interest rates, e.g. an EV 'bond'.   Already used in the past for wind turbine installs to great success.  One of the issues with expecting corporations to build out EV chargers is investors like a quick turn around, quarterly figures are the rage.  Corporate finance is also quite expensive, commercial lending rates around 8-10% now.

The government has maxxed out the borrowing limits, exacerbated by last year's "moron tax".

The expense and short-termism of businesses are part my question of "where's the capital coming from".

) Outright investing in new EV infrastructure and letting local authorities run it.  In the longer term, that infrastructure could be sold out or maintenance of it could be continued by the LA.  (I'd like to see less essential infrastructure privatised, but that's more politics than anything.)

If you think local authorities are capable of that, you are living in cloud cuckoo land. Local authorities cannot (and will not for the foreseeable future) have any resources to be able to devote to that.

There are already more EV charging points than petrol stations (https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/uk-has-more-ev-charging-stations-petrol-stations) and the rate of growth is strong.    Over 500,000 EV chargers were installed in 2021.   

Oh, please!! Are you really using that numerology as an argument?!

Around here many streets are so narrow cars are parked (illegally) on the pavement. There is no space for cars plus chargers.

Where exactly are the chargers going to be located. Don't say "in lampposts", because the lampposts are too far apart (looking out the window, about 8 cars apart)

Overall, please remove your rose-tinted specs when looking for solutions.

Nope.  You don't need 1 charger per car.  I've done the maths before, I'm not doing it again, go and read it please.   The actual number is around one charger per 7 cars (remarkably close to your lamppost spacing, hmm), but that would be assuming all vehicles on a street are street parked.  If it's a typical mixed use street with cars on drives and on the road, I think you could get far fewer because everyone with a drive would use home charging.

Prerequisite: predictable access to a charger.

If charging is as fast a filling a petrol tank, then that can be guaranteed at the equivalent of a petrol station.

If not, then you need guaranteed car parking by a charging point.

If you don't have that then you have to be able to determine when someone else has moved their car from that particular spot up the road, and then move your car into the space before someone else does. Completely impractical, as a moments thought will reveal.

As for charger size: There are Ubitricity posts (they are not exclusively built into lampposts) that are about the same diameter as a typical lamppost, so around 3-4" diameter.  If the street parked car plus the charger can't fit there, I doubt the car was ever viable for that street.  But by that point you'd probably just mount the charging facility on the wall and give up on pretending there's a pavement at all. 

Well, that's just turning a Nelsonian eye, and/or dismissing people as "unimportant fringe laggards". There are large parts of cities near me like this, some affluent, some less so, some houses, some flats, some conservation areas, some not...

You have the opposite of rose-tinted glasses;  maybe more manure-tinted?  You fail to see that EVs can work in a great majority of applications, instead choosing the few applications you think will be a pain to use an EV.  Yes, they exist currently -- I've said repeatedly that EVs aren't yet for everyone; if you don't have home charging yet, unless you live in a city with good street charging infrastructure (London, Manchester, or god help you, Milton Keynes), don't buy an EV yet.  However, if you are one of the roughly 50% of people who do have regular access to a facility to charge at home, then there should be very little stopping you considering an EV as your next vehicle, especially so as the prices begin to reach parity with ICE.

You don't actually know what I think about the practicality of EVs - you make incorrect guesses that suit your purposes.

You concentrate on the low-hanging fruit, and ignore/dismiss what doesn't suit your fancies. I think "devil can take the hindmost" attitudes are immoral, and not part of a society that I would want to live in.

[mikeselectricstuff]

In winter, travelling, say, over the Yorkshire moors in a blizzard at night, you are likely to die. The car ‘dies’, as battery power drops due to the cold. There is now no heating. You freeze inside, you freeze outsidetrying to find help.

Petrol and diesel cars do not have this problem

Well certainly diesel wont,as anyone with an old diesel  tranny knows,the bugger wot start ,let alone get you to the middle of the moors if its a bit chilly out

towing EVs

According to many you cant tow an automatic either

UK recovery trucks are starting to carry gadgets that attach to the wheel, with their own wheels, to allow EV towing without the wheels turning.

[Someone]

Want free parking and cheap charging? no, you'll have to pay for one of those (or possibly both). Does the government install and operate petrol stations for your convenience? No, they are sprinkled around as a commercial venture just as charing infrastructure will be.

Trying to take the best elements of both technologies and ask for them simultaneously is a straw man.

If you do not like the limitations of on street parking then you are completely free to organise a parking location you own/rent and control/pick. That is a tradeoff you can decide on for yourself and not some insurmountable problem that makes electric vehicles non-viable.

These damn newfangled automobiles do not fit in the stable, they'll never catch on! and even if I do fit it in the stable they cant run on the free grass I have. Paying someone to mow the grass that was trimmed by the horses is yet another new expense, never going to happen.....

[Marco]

I wonder if capacitive power coupling would make sense for curb side charging. The need to have the charging connector high up to avoid water is mostly avoided without an ohmic connection. Capacitive coupling doesn't require a ton of copper either, so relatively cheap compared to inductive.

If every couple of curb stones could be a connector you don't take up curb space and even densely parked cars on the curb are not a problem.

[tautech]

Makes more sense to embed wireless charging into roads say at traffic lights. Industry is easily getting 10kW transfer rates over 200mm already. A bit of SW and a Powerco A/c and this can happen automatically anytime you're stationary over one.

But no, lets instead roll out the HW and look for solutions later. 

[Monkeh]

Makes more sense to embed wireless charging into roads say at traffic lights. Industry is easily getting 10kW transfer rates over 200mm already. A bit of SW and a Powerco A/c and this can happen automatically anytime you're stationary over one.

But no, lets instead roll out the HW and look for solutions later. 

Yes, let's rely on bad road design to provide an opportunity to trickle charge EVs..

[tggzzz]

I wonder if capacitive power coupling would make sense for curb side charging. The need to have the charging connector high up to avoid water is mostly avoided without an ohmic connection. Capacitive coupling doesn't require a ton of copper either, so relatively cheap compared to inductive.

If every couple of curb stones could be a connector you don't take up curb space and even densely parked cars on the curb are not a problem.

Industry is putting solar cells in road surfaces, so that's the "wiring problem" solved. Isn't it?