Can't recall who, but someone connected to the U.K. climate targets was arguing yesterday that -by 2050 - the U.K. will need 25million charging points!!!
Another reason why I hope we are on the right lines, and would like to see the evidence. This comes in the same week that the U.K. shale experiment was effectively ditched, 4 years after politicians were gleefully claiming that it would free us from the shackles of imported energy.
I listened to a debate on the radio earlier this year and the simple fact is the National Grid in the UK would not stand up to the demands of 5 million extra charging points based on today's consumption let alone 25 million.
I was in a car park in East London last week and a guy was kicking off big time on his phone, there was one charging bay and that was in use, I heard him shout to whoever he was talking too the "fucking thing was flat and would not move"
We are nowhere near geared up for the electric car in the UK if, and a big if, a lot more people bought one.
"Most electric cars can be charged at home using a standard three-pin domestic plug socket" (RAC). There are 27.6m households in the UK (ONS). An average, two bedroom house has forty, standard three-pin domestic plug sockets (Electrical safety first). That's a total of more than one point one billion sockets that can be used to charge cars.
The claim that we need 25 million charging points over and above the sockets in homes is absurd. For it to be true, we would have to have changed virtually every single car in the UK to electric-only; and for everyone to need to charge them up at the same time.
It's a Luddite argument to suggest that there will be insufficient charging points in future for the total number of privately-owned cars.
Your anecdote about the stroppy man on the phone in East London is interesting, @eaststandmike - but it also illustrates the point quite well. Because he was on one of 37 million smartphones in the UK. And he had enough charge.
That's very good news; I hadn't realised that. I think a bigger problem will be not that there aren't sockets per se but how close people can park to them. I know people who are lucky to get a space in their own street, let alone outside their own house. A quarter of the population live in terraced houses. It's a fair bet that the majority of these don't have off road parking, what about the wires trailing over the pavement?
It’s why at present the whole idea is a nonsense. One that we must make work but god only knows how. Have the government done anything about having charging points in every new home that allows adjacent parking ? Don’t think they have. Doesn’t fill me with much confidence. They have known this is coming or should have for several years.
I'd have thought that a good quick win would be to have charging points built into every lamp post. It would act as an extra incentive if the adjacent space(s) were reserved for electric cars only.
"However, let us not beat around the bush, but jump straight to the truth. The claim that the lifecycle of an electric car produces more greenhouse gases than an internal combustion car is entirely the result of 50% carefully cherrypicked spin doctoring combined with 50% outright falsehoods. Here's the only way that argument can be made to work. If you buy an electric car with the biggest battery that requires the most manufacturing resources, if you drive your electric car in the least efficient way, if you drive your electric car in the worst climatic conditions for battery life, if you charge it only with electricity generated entirely by oil or coal, if you do not properly recycle the battery at the end of its life, and if you choose for your comparison the biggest-battery electric car against the smallest, lightest, compact internal combustion car: only then will it be true that the lifespan of your electric car generates more greenhouse gases than an internal combu— Oh wait, no; crunching the numbers again, the answer is still no. Even this worst case scenario substantially beats even the most efficient internal combustion cars. There's still one thing we have to do to before our electric car will actually be worse, and that's crash it and remove it from service before it's been driven anywhere. Because as soon as you and your internal combustion counterpart start driving, the scale tips the other direction."
Don’t want to side track but what a refreshingly excellent educational thread. Know nothing on this stuff and just spent 15 mins engrossed reading this thread,m.
Can't recall who, but someone connected to the U.K. climate targets was arguing yesterday that -by 2050 - the U.K. will need 25million charging points!!!
Another reason why I hope we are on the right lines, and would like to see the evidence. This comes in the same week that the U.K. shale experiment was effectively ditched, 4 years after politicians were gleefully claiming that it would free us from the shackles of imported energy.
I listened to a debate on the radio earlier this year and the simple fact is the National Grid in the UK would not stand up to the demands of 5 million extra charging points based on today's consumption let alone 25 million.
I was in a car park in East London last week and a guy was kicking off big time on his phone, there was one charging bay and that was in use, I heard him shout to whoever he was talking too the "fucking thing was flat and would not move"
We are nowhere near geared up for the electric car in the UK if, and a big if, a lot more people bought one.
"Most electric cars can be charged at home using a standard three-pin domestic plug socket" (RAC). There are 27.6m households in the UK (ONS). An average, two bedroom house has forty, standard three-pin domestic plug sockets (Electrical safety first). That's a total of more than one point one billion sockets that can be used to charge cars.
The claim that we need 25 million charging points over and above the sockets in homes is absurd. For it to be true, we would have to have changed virtually every single car in the UK to electric-only; and for everyone to need to charge them up at the same time.
It's a Luddite argument to suggest that there will be insufficient charging points in future for the total number of privately-owned cars.
Your anecdote about the stroppy man on the phone in East London is interesting, @eaststandmike - but it also illustrates the point quite well. Because he was on one of 37 million smartphones in the UK. And he had enough charge.
That's very good news; I hadn't realised that. I think a bigger problem will be not that there aren't sockets per se but how close people can park to them. I know people who are lucky to get a space in their own street, let alone outside their own house. A quarter of the population live in terraced houses. It's a fair bet that the majority of these don't have off road parking, what about the wires trailing over the pavement?
It’s why at present the whole idea is a nonsense. One that we must make work but god only knows how. Have the government done anything about having charging points in every new home that allows adjacent parking ? Don’t think they have. Doesn’t fill me with much confidence. They have known this is coming or should have for several years.
I regularly see an owner of a Renault Zoe charging his car with an extension lead from his flat! He lives on the second floor and the lead hangs over his balcony and is plugged straight into the car. He seems to be lucky in that he always gets that space outside his flats.
Can't recall who, but someone connected to the U.K. climate targets was arguing yesterday that -by 2050 - the U.K. will need 25million charging points!!!
Another reason why I hope we are on the right lines, and would like to see the evidence. This comes in the same week that the U.K. shale experiment was effectively ditched, 4 years after politicians were gleefully claiming that it would free us from the shackles of imported energy.
I listened to a debate on the radio earlier this year and the simple fact is the National Grid in the UK would not stand up to the demands of 5 million extra charging points based on today's consumption let alone 25 million.
I was in a car park in East London last week and a guy was kicking off big time on his phone, there was one charging bay and that was in use, I heard him shout to whoever he was talking too the "fucking thing was flat and would not move"
We are nowhere near geared up for the electric car in the UK if, and a big if, a lot more people bought one.
"Most electric cars can be charged at home using a standard three-pin domestic plug socket" (RAC). There are 27.6m households in the UK (ONS). An average, two bedroom house has forty, standard three-pin domestic plug sockets (Electrical safety first). That's a total of more than one point one billion sockets that can be used to charge cars.
The claim that we need 25 million charging points over and above the sockets in homes is absurd. For it to be true, we would have to have changed virtually every single car in the UK to electric-only; and for everyone to need to charge them up at the same time.
It's a Luddite argument to suggest that there will be insufficient charging points in future for the total number of privately-owned cars.
Your anecdote about the stroppy man on the phone in East London is interesting, @eaststandmike - but it also illustrates the point quite well. Because he was on one of 37 million smartphones in the UK. And he had enough charge.
That's very good news; I hadn't realised that. I think a bigger problem will be not that there aren't sockets per se but how close people can park to them. I know people who are lucky to get a space in their own street, let alone outside their own house. A quarter of the population live in terraced houses. It's a fair bet that the majority of these don't have off road parking, what about the wires trailing over the pavement?
Can't recall who, but someone connected to the U.K. climate targets was arguing yesterday that -by 2050 - the U.K. will need 25million charging points!!!
Another reason why I hope we are on the right lines, and would like to see the evidence. This comes in the same week that the U.K. shale experiment was effectively ditched, 4 years after politicians were gleefully claiming that it would free us from the shackles of imported energy.
I listened to a debate on the radio earlier this year and the simple fact is the National Grid in the UK would not stand up to the demands of 5 million extra charging points based on today's consumption let alone 25 million.
I was in a car park in East London last week and a guy was kicking off big time on his phone, there was one charging bay and that was in use, I heard him shout to whoever he was talking too the "fucking thing was flat and would not move"
We are nowhere near geared up for the electric car in the UK if, and a big if, a lot more people bought one.
"Most electric cars can be charged at home using a standard three-pin domestic plug socket" (RAC). There are 27.6m households in the UK (ONS). An average, two bedroom house has forty, standard three-pin domestic plug sockets (Electrical safety first). That's a total of more than one point one billion sockets that can be used to charge cars.
The claim that we need 25 million charging points over and above the sockets in homes is absurd. For it to be true, we would have to have changed virtually every single car in the UK to electric-only; and for everyone to need to charge them up at the same time.
It's a Luddite argument to suggest that there will be insufficient charging points in future for the total number of privately-owned cars.
Your anecdote about the stroppy man on the phone in East London is interesting, @eaststandmike - but it also illustrates the point quite well. Because he was on one of 37 million smartphones in the UK. And he had enough charge.
That's very good news; I hadn't realised that. I think a bigger problem will be not that there aren't sockets per se but how close people can park to them. I know people who are lucky to get a space in their own street, let alone outside their own house. A quarter of the population live in terraced houses. It's a fair bet that the majority of these don't have off road parking, what about the wires trailing over the pavement?
It’s why at present the whole idea is a nonsense. One that we must make work but god only knows how. Have the government done anything about having charging points in every new home that allows adjacent parking ? Don’t think they have. Doesn’t fill me with much confidence. They have known this is coming or should have for several years.
I regularly see an owner of a Renault Zoe charging his car with an extension lead from his flat! He lives on the second floor and the lead hangs over his balcony and is plugged straight into the car. He seems to be lucky in that he always gets that space outside his flats.
My daughter has a Tesla and it was set up to be controlled with Smartphone so didn't have the electronic card with her. Parked in underground car park and when she returned had no WiFi signal to get into the car. Expensive 400 mile round trip to get home and return with the card.
But worse was to come, last week she was parked in a car park and as she put it into auto it up it took off at full speed, brakes didn't function and knocked an Astra into the next parking bay. Reversed back and as she put it back into drive it did the same again. Many other similar episodes reported but Tesla denying any problem but now with the lawyers. She couldn't understand what was happening, checked where her feet were when she cameo a halt and her foot was still hard on the brake pedal. I assume Tesla has digital fly by wire controls for accelerator and brake as it just couldn't otherwise happen.
How many people with electric cars at the moment have one as the ONLY car in their family though?
It's dead easy at the moment to have a electric car for pottering around town if you can afford to have a "filthy" big SUV in the garage for the longer journeys, whereas if you only have one car in your household, it's a massive lifestyle change.
I don't use my car much (not driven to work for over 20 years) but my petrol car is really handy for certain journeys. If at the last minute I decided to go up to Preston on Saturday, I could do it. And then drive home again afterwards.
Until an electric car can cope with such journeys, I wouldn't want one.
My daughter has a Tesla and it was set up to be controlled with Smartphone so didn't have the electronic card with her. Parked in underground car park and when she returned had no WiFi signal to get into the car. Expensive 400 mile round trip to get home and return with the card.
But worse was to come, last week she was parked in a car park and as she put it into auto it up it took off at full speed, brakes didn't function and knocked an Astra into the next parking bay. Reversed back and as she put it back into drive it did the same again. Many other similar episodes reported but Tesla denying any problem but now with the lawyers. She couldn't understand what was happening, checked where her feet were when she cameo a halt and her foot was still hard on the brake pedal. I assume Tesla has digital fly by wire controls for accelerator and brake as it just couldn't otherwise happen.
Good grief. Hope she’s OK, and doesnt develop a phobia against driving the thing. I would. My Fiat 128 tried to kill me by jamming the accelerator open at 70 mph on the Kingston by-pass back in 1979, and to this day I am still wary about cruise control.
How many people with electric cars at the moment have one as the ONLY car in their family though?
It's dead easy at the moment to have a electric car for pottering around town if you can afford to have a "filthy" big SUV in the garage for the longer journeys, whereas if you only have one car in your household, it's a massive lifestyle change.
I don't use my car much (not driven to work for over 20 years) but my petrol car is really handy for certain journeys. If at the last minute I decided to go up to Preston on Saturday, I could do it. And then drive home again afterwards.
Until an electric car can cope with such journeys, I wouldn't want one.
Spot on.
My EV arrives first week in April - it's a company car so in reality it's free based on the changes to the benefit in kind taxation in April. It will cost me about £20 a week in electricity.
It will do me for 90+% of my journeys but I still wouldn't want to have to plan stops in advance of a lengthy journey. So, I actually ordered a filthy big petrol SUV yesterday as my back-up!
My daughter has a Tesla and it was set up to be controlled with Smartphone so didn't have the electronic card with her. Parked in underground car park and when she returned had no WiFi signal to get into the car. Expensive 400 mile round trip to get home and return with the card.
But worse was to come, last week she was parked in a car park and as she put it into auto it up it took off at full speed, brakes didn't function and knocked an Astra into the next parking bay. Reversed back and as she put it back into drive it did the same again. Many other similar episodes reported but Tesla denying any problem but now with the lawyers. She couldn't understand what was happening, checked where her feet were when she cameo a halt and her foot was still hard on the brake pedal. I assume Tesla has digital fly by wire controls for accelerator and brake as it just couldn't otherwise happen.
Blimey. Thats a bit of a shocker.
Was lucky enough to be given a drive of our friends Tesla Model X when I was in LA. Its a stunning car and it feels like you're driving a spaceship, especially with the iPad display and the roof opening doors.
Not a patch on their supercharged V8 F Pace though.
Was really surprised how many Tesla's were on the road in California. Every other car seemed to be a Tesla.
Stuck on the A3 yesterday for nearly two hours, a lady in a Tesla looking very worried! She just made it to the services, something else to think on, if you do get stuck in traffic the battery will not last forever even if your original journey was within the limits!
I suppose there are bound to be a good few years of minor through to significant problems with this technology and I still think we are some years away from getting things universally right. It will come together though but at this point I think electric cars are off limits for the average person.
For every mile of motorway there is a phone point. Surely a quick win would be to convert these to emergency charging points. Obviously there'd need to be measures put in place to stop people from clogging up the hard shoulder, but surely measures like this would go a long way to allaying public fears.
My daughter has a Tesla and it was set up to be controlled with Smartphone so didn't have the electronic card with her. Parked in underground car park and when she returned had no WiFi signal to get into the car. Expensive 400 mile round trip to get home and return with the card.
But worse was to come, last week she was parked in a car park and as she put it into auto it up it took off at full speed, brakes didn't function and knocked an Astra into the next parking bay. Reversed back and as she put it back into drive it did the same again. Many other similar episodes reported but Tesla denying any problem but now with the lawyers. She couldn't understand what was happening, checked where her feet were when she cameo a halt and her foot was still hard on the brake pedal. I assume Tesla has digital fly by wire controls for accelerator and brake as it just couldn't otherwise happen.
Blimey. Thats a bit of a shocker.
Was lucky enough to be given a drive of our friends Tesla Model X when I was in LA. Its a stunning car and it feels like you're driving a spaceship, especially with the iPad display and the roof opening doors.
Not a patch on their supercharged V8 F Pace though.
Was really surprised how many Tesla's were on the road in California. Every other car seemed to be a Tesla.
Same in Oslo. My buddy lives in a well-to-do suburb called Asker. Its crawling with them. Apparently Norway has dubbed the Tesla “ The Asker Passat”. Still not clear where they go with them. You really dont want to run out of battery in the Norwegian winter on the way to your country hut.
In the road next to us one of the lampposts has a charging point in it. Haven’t yet worked out how any user of the charging point is charged for its use nor whether if I wanted one next to my house how easy it would be to arrange.
Saw a thing in the news last week to say we would need more power generation to deal with the demand of plug in electric cars ?
We will plus massive infrastructure investment in every road in the country. At present the local networks of cables and sub stations could not possibly cope with even 20% of all cars being electric.
I guess this thread is as good a place as anywhere to ask the question...can anyone point me to a webpage which has a comprehensive list of all new cars available, to help me choose my next one? What was the old print book that did that , Glass’s guide or something. 7 years ago What Car had a decent search page where you whacked in your criteria and it came up with matches. That,s how I chose a car I had never previously heard of. But they seem not to have that any more. Really surprises me. Any suggestions?
Saw a thing in the news last week to say we would need more power generation to deal with the demand of plug in electric cars ?
We will plus massive infrastructure investment in every road in the country. At present the local networks of cables and sub stations could not possibly cope with even 20% of all cars being electric.
Lucky National Grid are planning for this, as are the energy companies, be that discounts for overnight charging, increase in home storage/solar, advancement in battery technology.
We've worked out that if/when we go EV we would need to fully charge a car like a VW ID3/Kia eNiro once a fortnight, and could be done overnight on an EV tariff. We're still a while away from having a majority of cars being EVs and the rest of the network will catch up.
Look at the deal Tesco and VW have done on the charging network.
you get a plug with a smart meter and you pick your own tariff. Greenwich Borough are in charge and are consulting in where to put the next ones, you can ask them here
Let’s hope that the planning and investment for electric cars infrastructure is better than that for super fast broadband which has been unbelievably bad and much easier.
I guess this thread is as good a place as anywhere to ask the question...can anyone point me to a webpage which has a comprehensive list of all new cars available, to help me choose my next one? What was the old print book that did that , Glass’s guide or something. 7 years ago What Car had a decent search page where you whacked in your criteria and it came up with matches. That,s how I chose a car I had never previously heard of. But they seem not to have that any more. Really surprises me. Any suggestions?
I guess this thread is as good a place as anywhere to ask the question...can anyone point me to a webpage which has a comprehensive list of all new cars available, to help me choose my next one? What was the old print book that did that , Glass’s guide or something. 7 years ago What Car had a decent search page where you whacked in your criteria and it came up with matches. That,s how I chose a car I had never previously heard of. But they seem not to have that any more. Really surprises me. Any suggestions?
Comments
Great debate, thanks all.
Anyhow, back to topic...
I regularly see an owner of a Renault Zoe charging his car with an extension lead from his flat! He lives on the second floor and the lead hangs over his balcony and is plugged straight into the car. He seems to be lucky in that he always gets that space outside his flats.
Extension Rebellion won't be happy about it but -
My daughter has a Tesla and it was set up to be controlled with Smartphone so didn't have the electronic card with her. Parked in underground car park and when she returned had no WiFi signal to get into the car. Expensive 400 mile round trip to get home and return with the card.
But worse was to come, last week she was parked in a car park and as she put it into auto it up it took off at full speed, brakes didn't function and knocked an Astra into the next parking bay. Reversed back and as she put it back into drive it did the same again. Many other similar episodes reported but Tesla denying any problem but now with the lawyers. She couldn't understand what was happening, checked where her feet were when she cameo a halt and her foot was still hard on the brake pedal. I assume Tesla has digital fly by wire controls for accelerator and brake as it just couldn't otherwise happen.
It's dead easy at the moment to have a electric car for pottering around town if you can afford to have a "filthy" big SUV in the garage for the longer journeys, whereas if you only have one car in your household, it's a massive lifestyle change.
I don't use my car much (not driven to work for over 20 years) but my petrol car is really handy for certain journeys. If at the last minute I decided to go up to Preston on Saturday, I could do it. And then drive home again afterwards.
Until an electric car can cope with such journeys, I wouldn't want one.
My EV arrives first week in April - it's a company car so in reality it's free based on the changes to the benefit in kind taxation in April. It will cost me about £20 a week in electricity.
It will do me for 90+% of my journeys but I still wouldn't want to have to plan stops in advance of a lengthy journey. So, I actually ordered a filthy big petrol SUV yesterday as my back-up!
Was lucky enough to be given a drive of our friends Tesla Model X when I was in LA. Its a stunning car and it feels like you're driving a spaceship, especially with the iPad display and the roof opening doors.
Not a patch on their supercharged V8 F Pace though.
Was really surprised how many Tesla's were on the road in California. Every other car seemed to be a Tesla.
We've worked out that if/when we go EV we would need to fully charge a car like a VW ID3/Kia eNiro once a fortnight, and could be done overnight on an EV tariff. We're still a while away from having a majority of cars being EVs and the rest of the network will catch up.
Look at the deal Tesco and VW have done on the charging network.
you get a plug with a smart meter and you pick your own tariff. Greenwich Borough are in charge and are consulting in where to put the next ones, you can ask them here
https://www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/info/200259/transport_and_travel/711/electric_vehicle_charge_points
edit: you used to be able to but the project looks closed so would have to enquire further how to get one close to home
https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/new-and-used-cars/article/best-cars/best-electric-cars?
https://www.parkers.co.uk/which-car/
Not great but a start!