The biggest issue I can see with a en mass switch to EV’s still come down to charging for literally millions of people. I just Google Earthed a typical (?) suburban street and for those who want to check it’s Melling Street in Plumstead which is incidentally where my father in law lives. I counted the lampposts on either side of the street and the total is six. Given that lampposts are seen as a way of providing on street charging points in addition to dedicated charging points, I don’t see how it helps much. How would someone living in one of the terraced houses in that typical street hope to charge their EV ? Lampost charging would be chaos with cars competing for the space to charge and how exactly would people charge vehicles from a charging point from their property even if it was practical to have one fitted. These are not small issues that need resolving but massive issues that are duplicated up and down the country for millions and millions of car owners.
Can't the terraced house/non driveway plebs make do with public transport?
If you can't afford a proper abode, you have no right to use the new EV technology.
keep it for the elite.
I live in a terraced street where there are quite a few EVs. Every lampost has been adapted with a charger, but a lot of owners run a cable out overnight. They put a cover over the cable, and don't drape the cable as shown in the photo above.
Surely people can pay an electrician and / or build to run a cable from the house to the road in a small trench. Might cost the same as a couple of full tanks of petrol!
Think you’d need permission from the council. And what would cover the trench? A grille? Perhaps that could catch on if councils allowed it. But as Carter says, it’s not straightforward.
And perhaps expensively pointless if you can’t secure the parking space in front of your house which in many streets and roads is very much the case.
Shooters, you seem to be seeking out negatives, when the reality is that these changes are happening now, slowly at first, but more rapidly as time passes.
I live in a terraced street in the Battersea/Clapham area, and every lamppost in our street is equipped with an EV charge point. In addition all the people with EVs have a charge socket at home, so they can take advantage of the cheaper overnight rates.
There’s not really an issue with parking outside your own house, especially bearing in mind that you don’t need to charge your car every night. And if you do need to charge urgently you can use any one of the lamppost chargers - and it’s still cheaper than petrol, per mile.
These residents use the same cable ducts that television links truck use when running their cables to live cameras. Perfectly safe, but I imagine a minor irritation for wheelchair users. Having said that, I’ve never seen a wheelchair in our street in the 22 years I’ve lived here. And the car I’m looking at (Hyundai Inster) charges from 0-80% in 20 mins. Future generations of batteries will do the same as six or seven minutes. No more having to drive to a petrol station to fill up. Sounds good to me.
And when the first person trips and sues you......
I'm chuckling away picturing every traffic management and road works guarding inspector rolling their eyes at the thought of having to fine and bollock utilities for having a sign out of place or a spelling mistake then preparing for the earful they will rightly get when these things are littering pavements.
They are last resorts, temporary measures and used by people who know what they are doing and how to secure them properly. They are still trip hazards and if I use my own gathered first hand witnessed evidence of how fucking badly a lot of people drive in this country and how lane discipline is a lost art I do not believe people will be using these correctly and a lot of well intended EV drivers getting sued
The weight of them is becoming an issue in car parks. The scrunching and chewing up of the surface from EVs turning without moving at any pace.
Its presented an opportunity for one of my mates who sells an elastic-tarmac product but thats only being bought by people that give a shit about potholes in their car park
'analysis found that any extra wear is “overwhelmingly caused by large vehicles – buses, heavy goods vehicles”. Road wear from cars and motorcycles is “so low that this immaterial”, they said.
'However, in the longer term, the assumption that electric cars will always be heavier is also open to question. Auke Hoekstra, an energy transition researcher at the Eindhoven University of Technology, estimates that batteries are cramming twice as much energy into the same weight every decade. If that continues, the weight problem will disappear before it has started.
T&E’s Mathieu said governments should incentivise smaller cars through policies such as taxes and parking charges. That would have benefits far beyond road wear: it would use fewer resources, limit carbon emissions, and make car park scrapes less likely.
“It is not inevitable that EVs are much heavier” than internal combustion engine cars, Mathieu said. “We can and should shift from [internal combustion engines] to EVs, while at the same time reversing the SUV trend.”
The verdict
Extra weight from electric cars could cause some problems at the margins, and in the short-term. However, most EV drivers are unlikely to ever experience problems directly.
Some car park owners may be affected, and if electric trucks are heavier when they become widespread that could add to road maintenance costs.
But almost all of the direct costs will be borne by infrastructure maintenance budgets. The ECIU’s Walker said concerns about extra weight for EVs were simply “massively overstated”. However, he added that carmakers do have a responsibility to produce smaller electric cars, after years of focusing on the most profitable SUVs.
The extra weight of electric cars is not likely to accelerate the destruction of roads, bridges and car parks. Weight concerns threaten to be a distraction from the ultimate prize: cutting carbon emissions to net zero.
Potholes
'Motoring organisations The AA, RAC and FairCharge have hit back at claims that the weight of electric vehicles is responsible for a decline in the quality of roads.
According to the latest Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey report by the Asphalt Industry Alliance more than half of the local road network in England and Wales is reported to have less than 15 years’ structural life left, with the amount needed to fix the backlog of carriageway repairs increasing to a record high of £16.3 billion.
Following the publication of the report some national media outlets have put the blame for the deteriorating road network on heavier electric vehicles and larger cars which they say are helping push Britain’s crumbling roads to ‘breaking point’. This is despite the ALARM survey not even mentioning electric vehicles at all.
According to one report “EVs cause twice as much stress on tarmac because they greatly outweigh their petrol or diesel equivalents”.
The RAC’s Head of Policy Simon Williams labelled the assertion that EVs are partly to blame for the poor quality of the UK’s roads as “misguided”.
He said: “A long-term lack of investment in local roads from central government is unquestionably the cause as this has led to a 45% reduction in maintenance carried out by councils in England in the last five years alone.
“Shockingly, government data shows 60% of English councils didn’t carry out any life-extending surface dressing work on their roads in the 2022/23 financial year which means existing defects have simply been left to deteriorate. If water gets into any cracks in the road and freezing conditions follow, surfaces crumble and potholes appear as vehicles of any weight pass over them.
“Any attempt to say the weight of EVs is responsible for a decline in the quality of our roads is a distraction from the reality that our roads have been neglected for too long. We badly need to start treating our roads like the national assets they are, instead of poring good money after bad by just filling potholes which are, of course, purely the symptom of a far deeper problem.”
Edmund King, AA President, said the recent headlines “beggared belief”.
He said: “The current state of the roads is due to years of underspending, sub-standard repairs, roads only being resurfaced every 80 years, and all of this exacerbated by record rainfall over the last nine months. To suggest that the one million EVs on the roads, out of 41.3 million licensed vehicles, are to blame for the potholes is barking. Obviously 44 tonne trucks can add to wear and tear, but it is estimated that on average an EV is about 300lbs heavier than a comparable petrol car, that is the weight of one heavy passenger.
“Perhaps the next headline should be ‘heavy passengers cause potholes. It beggars belief.”
Quentin Willson, motoring broadcaster and Founder of FairCharge, said:
“The notion that heavier electric cars are causing a pothole crisis on our roads makes no sense at all. What about all the vans, trucks, fuel tankers, car transporters and 44 tonne HGVs – not to mention all the two tonne SUVs? EVs are definitely not the heaviest vehicles on our roads by a massive margin. This is just another nonsensical EV myth.”
Craig Andrews, Technical Director for leading highway and runway maintenance specialist Foster Contracting, said:
“The failing UK road network is nothing to do with electric vehicles. It’s decades of under funding before EVs ever hit the roads. Cars of any kind have very little impact on a pavement. It’s the HGVs that cause the stress and do the damage.”
Colin Walker, Head of Transport at the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, said:
“Attempts to pin the blame for the UK’s pothole problems on electric vehicles shows that media misinformation about EVs isn’t going away. Rather than making alarmist and unevidenced claims, wouldn’t it be better if our media used its influence to help its readers access the benefits and savings that come from EV ownership? After all, EVs can save their owners as much as £1,300 a year to run – handy savings in the midst of a cost of living crisis. And, increasingly powered by electricity from British windfarms rather than oil imported from abroad, EVs can help secure our energy independence and protect us from future global price shocks.”
Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA) Chair Rick Green commented:
“Our Annual Local Authority Road Maintenace (ALARM) survey reports are based on both qualitative and quantitative feedback received from those responsible for maintaining them and have for many years highlighted the link between highway maintenance funding and the condition of the local road network.
“ALARM 2024, once again, reports that local authorities don’t have the funds to keep the carriageway to their own target conditions and that lack of investment is the reason for continued deterioration and a network in decline.
“Reasons identified by local authority engineers needing to deal with unforeseen costs included rising traffic volumes and increased average vehicle weights on a deteriorating network. Feedback received from local highway authorities (LHAs) indicates a perception that there may be an impact due to heavier vehicles (with whatever drivetrain) especially on evolved, unclassified roads that would not have been designed to deal with today’s larger and heavier vehicles, let alone HGVs’ total and axle weights.'
I'm talking about car parks and the way vehicles are turned on their axis without moving and you've found a hatchet piece about roads
But according to the experts, slightly heavier EVs are NOT the problem. It is probably down to poorly maintained car parks and heavier cars in general, particularly larger SUVs.
Many purchased as totally unnecessary status symbols by those who feel the need to flaunt their assets to impress others.
Which brings me back full circle. They are unobtainable
I have never gotten strapped up with PCP and have intention of doing so, used EVs are not trusted as proven by the arse falling out of them as soon as they leave the forecourt.
That’s nonsense. Unless you have stats you can point to, it’s purely anecdotal.
The price of used EVs is evidence enough, too much risk too little reward.
So providing you get suitable rewards you’ll be happy to play your part in saving our planet ?
I have zero interest in owning an EV myself. I'm happy for others to drive them and they can make sense for people who rarely travel beyond their immediate area, particularly cities.
I'm not sold on your premise that EVs will 'save the planet'. I don't buy it in the slightest.
All too often, this type of rhetoric comes from people who take to a plane several times a year and probably eat meat.
All the time we have virtue signalling political masters using huge quantity of carbon to have self congratulatory jollies around the world in the name of forcing me to reduce my carbon footprint (COP), all the time we have major conflict around the world, all the time we all buy our shiny new carbon saving equipment from the other side of the world rather than produce it locally, all the time that too many of us chuck things away because they are so last week, and all the time that our world population is already far too big for the earth's resources, with nobody trying to address that, then I'm not going to self flagellate because I want to ride a 45yr old motorbike or drive a diesel Transit for work.
TT, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. People who give up meat might be helping the planet, people who don’t fly on planes might be helping the planet, people ditching polluting cars might be helping the planet, people who by locally produced goods might be helping save the planet, but not many people will do all of these things. But every little helps. And of course, no one has ever claimed that EVs alone will save the planet.
Hex has literally claimed that EVs will save the planet on this thread(at least twice), hence my wording.
BTW, I'm for all doing our bit and agree that it's not like that everyone will buy into all the recommended ways to improve things.
As I've said a number of times though, the biggest problem by far is world population explosion, nothing else matters without that being addressed.
Perhaps you are ‘reading’ what you want to see and that applies to the fossil fuel industry narrative and my posts. As @JamesSeed correctly posted, every little helps. Nothing is perfect - everyday recycling is far from perfect. It’s getting better, slowly, but does serve to constantly remind us of some of the actions we all need to take. Ultimately, our personal vehicles of the future will be much more environment friendly but how they are manufactured and powered has yet to be decided. One things for certain, it will be incremental progress and we are nowhere near yet !
for our 2nd car - we currently lease a Toyota Aygo for my missus, coming round to renegotiating the renewal of this and looked into changing to an electric car of similar ilk.
simply can't justify the eye watering cost of it so will be sticking with petrol for now.
would happily change this one to an electric one if the costs could anywhere near justify it
Just use a charge gully or similar https://www.chargegully.com/. Good luck getting a local council to approve though.
If you check out the links to other gully companies that I posted a couple of pages back you will see that local authorities are interested in these solutions. Why wouldn’t they be ? It’s got to happen somehow.
for our 2nd car - we currently lease a Toyota Aygo for my missus, coming round to renegotiating the renewal of this and looked into changing to an electric car of similar ilk.
simply can't justify the eye watering cost of it so will be sticking with petrol for now.
would happily change this one to an electric one if the costs could anywhere near justify it
A year or so back I heard a prediction that 2025 would see the crossover point where EV prices equated to ICE cars. I wonder what the current prediction is.
The biggest issue I can see with a en mass switch to EV’s still come down to charging for literally millions of people. I just Google Earthed a typical (?) suburban street and for those who want to check it’s Melling Street in Plumstead which is incidentally where my father in law lives. I counted the lampposts on either side of the street and the total is six. Given that lampposts are seen as a way of providing on street charging points in addition to dedicated charging points, I don’t see how it helps much. How would someone living in one of the terraced houses in that typical street hope to charge their EV ? Lampost charging would be chaos with cars competing for the space to charge and how exactly would people charge vehicles from a charging point from their property even if it was practical to have one fitted. These are not small issues that need resolving but massive issues that are duplicated up and down the country for millions and millions of car owners.
Can't the terraced house/non driveway plebs make do with public transport?
If you can't afford a proper abode, you have no right to use the new EV technology.
keep it for the elite.
I live in a terraced street where there are quite a few EVs. Every lampost has been adapted with a charger, but a lot of owners run a cable out overnight. They put a cover over the cable, and don't drape the cable as shown in the photo above.
Surely people can pay an electrician and / or build to run a cable from the house to the road in a small trench. Might cost the same as a couple of full tanks of petrol!
Think you’d need permission from the council. And what would cover the trench? A grille? Perhaps that could catch on if councils allowed it. But as Carter says, it’s not straightforward.
And perhaps expensively pointless if you can’t secure the parking space in front of your house which in many streets and roads is very much the case.
Shooters, you seem to be seeking out negatives, when the reality is that these changes are happening now, slowly at first, but more rapidly as time passes.
I live in a terraced street in the Battersea/Clapham area, and every lamppost in our street is equipped with an EV charge point. In addition all the people with EVs have a charge socket at home, so they can take advantage of the cheaper overnight rates.
There’s not really an issue with parking outside your own house, especially bearing in mind that you don’t need to charge your car every night. And if you do need to charge urgently you can use any one of the lamppost chargers - and it’s still cheaper than petrol, per mile.
These residents use the same cable ducts that television links truck use when running their cables to live cameras. Perfectly safe, but I imagine a minor irritation for wheelchair users. Having said that, I’ve never seen a wheelchair in our street in the 22 years I’ve lived here. And the car I’m looking at (Hyundai Inster) charges from 0-80% in 20 mins. Future generations of batteries will do the same as six or seven minutes. No more having to drive to a petrol station to fill up. Sounds good to me.
You’ll excuse me for sniggering at the example of all street lampposts in Battersea / Clapham having EV charging points. Get yourself down to SE18 or Welling and see how many you can find. As for that example you provided of a charging cable across the pavement. To me that seems like a non solution possibly bordering on illegal. Imagine an average street with terraced houses with let’s say every fifth house with that “ramp”. Pushchairs, wheelchairs, mobility scooters and perhaps even more significantly blind people needing to navigate that. It’s not on and unacceptable. The fact you’ve never seen a wheelchair in your street is actually a crass comment. As for if you do need to charge urgently you can use one of the street lampposts I’d say that finding one without a car parked in the way and if you can find one at all, would be a challenge in the majority of roads. I of course understand that things will slowly improve everywhere but the infrastructure challenges are in my opinion are not being addressed anywhere near speedily enough. Negative ? Possibly, but at present there’s not much that encourages me go EV.
This notion of saving the planet is a strange one when you think about it. It's a lump of rock that was here long before us and will be here long after we've gone in geological terms. The battle is to stop the climate making the planet inhospitable for life to be sustained as we know it now, but I do know why people say it and shouldn't split hairs. Besides which, I'm sure I often say it myself 😉
we have had an EV for around 3.5 years. Largely our experience has been positive. They are easy and comfortable to drive.
they are expensive. However that is offset for us as the insurance cost is less, the servicing costs are much less and the fuel cost is way way less.
The vehicle has been reliable, comfortable and has yet to catch fire. Although the estimated mileage left is often little more than guesswork from what I can tell.
we have a two fold advantage. A driveway with charger, and solar panels.
The key bit is the driveway. Personally I think if you have one you can fit a charger on then financially it will even itself out cost wise.
Without this it does make it less easy. The charging infrastructure has improved. The issues out there I find are:
1. reliability - chargers can be fiddly bits of technology and I have had times where a charger simply doesn’t work (had it yesterday - fortunately there was another location less than a mile away that worked).
2. the mess of apps needed to charge - it has got better with more chargers accepting contactless/card payment. However I currently have 8 different apps for different organisations plus one that acts to consolidate them all. The apps vary from good to awful. They really should all be able to work with me just sticking a card in but they don’t.
Ultimately the future is less cars of all types not different ones. Electric vehicles are part of this solution and I think we neglect the local impact on air quality (appreciating the type microparticles that are shed by a cars is something that needs more work).
we have a petrol vehicle too that I use for work. Simply because - as others have said. Not replacing a vehicle is better for the environment by quite a long way than replacing it with any form of car.
The biggest issue I can see with a en mass switch to EV’s still come down to charging for literally millions of people. I just Google Earthed a typical (?) suburban street and for those who want to check it’s Melling Street in Plumstead which is incidentally where my father in law lives. I counted the lampposts on either side of the street and the total is six. Given that lampposts are seen as a way of providing on street charging points in addition to dedicated charging points, I don’t see how it helps much. How would someone living in one of the terraced houses in that typical street hope to charge their EV ? Lampost charging would be chaos with cars competing for the space to charge and how exactly would people charge vehicles from a charging point from their property even if it was practical to have one fitted. These are not small issues that need resolving but massive issues that are duplicated up and down the country for millions and millions of car owners.
Can't the terraced house/non driveway plebs make do with public transport?
If you can't afford a proper abode, you have no right to use the new EV technology.
keep it for the elite.
I live in a terraced street where there are quite a few EVs. Every lampost has been adapted with a charger, but a lot of owners run a cable out overnight. They put a cover over the cable, and don't drape the cable as shown in the photo above.
Surely people can pay an electrician and / or build to run a cable from the house to the road in a small trench. Might cost the same as a couple of full tanks of petrol!
Think you’d need permission from the council. And what would cover the trench? A grille? Perhaps that could catch on if councils allowed it. But as Carter says, it’s not straightforward.
And perhaps expensively pointless if you can’t secure the parking space in front of your house which in many streets and roads is very much the case.
Shooters, you seem to be seeking out negatives, when the reality is that these changes are happening now, slowly at first, but more rapidly as time passes.
I live in a terraced street in the Battersea/Clapham area, and every lamppost in our street is equipped with an EV charge point. In addition all the people with EVs have a charge socket at home, so they can take advantage of the cheaper overnight rates.
There’s not really an issue with parking outside your own house, especially bearing in mind that you don’t need to charge your car every night. And if you do need to charge urgently you can use any one of the lamppost chargers - and it’s still cheaper than petrol, per mile.
These residents use the same cable ducts that television links truck use when running their cables to live cameras. Perfectly safe, but I imagine a minor irritation for wheelchair users. Having said that, I’ve never seen a wheelchair in our street in the 22 years I’ve lived here. And the car I’m looking at (Hyundai Inster) charges from 0-80% in 20 mins. Future generations of batteries will do the same as six or seven minutes. No more having to drive to a petrol station to fill up. Sounds good to me.
You’ll excuse me for sniggering at the example of all street lampposts in Battersea / Clapham having EV charging points. Get yourself down to SE18 or Welling and see how many you can find. As for that example you provided of a charging cable across the pavement. To me that seems like a non solution possibly bordering on illegal. Imagine an average street with terraced houses with let’s say every fifth house with that “ramp”. Pushchairs, wheelchairs, mobility scooters and perhaps even more significantly blind people needing to navigate that. It’s not on and unacceptable. The fact you’ve never seen a wheelchair in your street is actually a crass comment. As for if you do need to charge urgently you can use one of the street lampposts I’d say that finding one without a car parked in the way and if you can find one at all, would be a challenge in the majority of roads. I of course understand that things will slowly improve everywhere but the infrastructure challenges are in my opinion are not being addressed anywhere near speedily enough. Negative ? Possibly, but at present there’s not much that encourages me go EV.
Please don't take this the wrong way but can I ask where you get your infrastructure information from ? I recall you have mentioned there are fewer charging stations where you live compared to London.
for our 2nd car - we currently lease a Toyota Aygo for my missus, coming round to renegotiating the renewal of this and looked into changing to an electric car of similar ilk.
simply can't justify the eye watering cost of it so will be sticking with petrol for now.
would happily change this one to an electric one if the costs could anywhere near justify it
A year or so back I heard a prediction that 2025 would see the crossover point where EV prices equated to ICE cars. I wonder what the current prediction is.
Whatever the prediction is, it will be making an assumption about the extent to which Chinese EVs are allowed access to Western markets. The mood currrently is for trade barriers and this supposedly on the grounds of security risks. I don’t wish to sound complacent about the Chinese “threat” but there is an argument, put forward by smart people such as Martin Sandbu at the FT that the only way we will cut vehicle emissions quickly enough is with full embrace of this Chinese tech. The risk of doing that is, he argues far lower than the risk to the planet, and the lives of future generations, of carrying on as we are. I tend to think he is right and agree that some of the arguments against this are driven by over-dependence of Western economies on ICE production. After all, look at the billions spent on junk stuff people import on the Shein and Temu websites. Don’t tell me they are squeaky clean private businesses, and thats before we even start on the environment issues around the production and logistics.
The biggest issue I can see with a en mass switch to EV’s still come down to charging for literally millions of people. I just Google Earthed a typical (?) suburban street and for those who want to check it’s Melling Street in Plumstead which is incidentally where my father in law lives. I counted the lampposts on either side of the street and the total is six. Given that lampposts are seen as a way of providing on street charging points in addition to dedicated charging points, I don’t see how it helps much. How would someone living in one of the terraced houses in that typical street hope to charge their EV ? Lampost charging would be chaos with cars competing for the space to charge and how exactly would people charge vehicles from a charging point from their property even if it was practical to have one fitted. These are not small issues that need resolving but massive issues that are duplicated up and down the country for millions and millions of car owners.
Can't the terraced house/non driveway plebs make do with public transport?
If you can't afford a proper abode, you have no right to use the new EV technology.
keep it for the elite.
I live in a terraced street where there are quite a few EVs. Every lampost has been adapted with a charger, but a lot of owners run a cable out overnight. They put a cover over the cable, and don't drape the cable as shown in the photo above.
Surely people can pay an electrician and / or build to run a cable from the house to the road in a small trench. Might cost the same as a couple of full tanks of petrol!
Think you’d need permission from the council. And what would cover the trench? A grille? Perhaps that could catch on if councils allowed it. But as Carter says, it’s not straightforward.
And perhaps expensively pointless if you can’t secure the parking space in front of your house which in many streets and roads is very much the case.
Shooters, you seem to be seeking out negatives, when the reality is that these changes are happening now, slowly at first, but more rapidly as time passes.
I live in a terraced street in the Battersea/Clapham area, and every lamppost in our street is equipped with an EV charge point. In addition all the people with EVs have a charge socket at home, so they can take advantage of the cheaper overnight rates.
There’s not really an issue with parking outside your own house, especially bearing in mind that you don’t need to charge your car every night. And if you do need to charge urgently you can use any one of the lamppost chargers - and it’s still cheaper than petrol, per mile.
These residents use the same cable ducts that television links truck use when running their cables to live cameras. Perfectly safe, but I imagine a minor irritation for wheelchair users. Having said that, I’ve never seen a wheelchair in our street in the 22 years I’ve lived here. And the car I’m looking at (Hyundai Inster) charges from 0-80% in 20 mins. Future generations of batteries will do the same as six or seven minutes. No more having to drive to a petrol station to fill up. Sounds good to me.
Looks like a nailed on insurance claim waiting to happen, probably just a question of whether it’s the car insurance, house insurance or your personal/legal insurance policy that you can use I guess.
Popped over to Kingston yesterday and one of the floors of the car park I usually use seems to be getting along with the refurbishment they’ve been working on for a few weeks or more. Yesterday, behind the clear plastic sheeting we could see fhey’ve installed Tesla charging points, one either side of the pillars that support the floors above. That tends to suggest, though, that only two cars will be able to park/charge on the space that previously parked 3 vehicles. That pattern seems to have been repeated across the whole floor of the car park.
Very dangeruos for a blind person, it is bad enough with wheely bins being left out on pavements. The cover does not cover the complete width of the cable.
Just to add to the above and possibly worthy of a separate post, they’ve installed this configuration on level 2 or 3 (didn't take notice which) of a 11 storey car park. Not that anyone should try and retrieve their car in the event of a fire, let alone a multiple EV one, but it probably means 8 or 9 levels full of other cars would be going nowhere ever again under their own steam if a fire ever did break out.
Just to add to the above and possibly worthy of a separate post, they’ve installed this configuration on level 2 or 3 (didn't take notice which) of a 11 storey car park. Not that anyone should try and retrieve their car in the event of a fire, let alone a multiple EV one, but it probably means 8 or 9 levels full of other cars would be going nowhere ever again under their own steam if a fire ever did break out.
That's terrible. I can't imagine how much damage would be done to 2 floors of EVs by 9 floors of ICE cars which, according to research, are far more likely to catch fire.
The biggest issue I can see with a en mass switch to EV’s still come down to charging for literally millions of people. I just Google Earthed a typical (?) suburban street and for those who want to check it’s Melling Street in Plumstead which is incidentally where my father in law lives. I counted the lampposts on either side of the street and the total is six. Given that lampposts are seen as a way of providing on street charging points in addition to dedicated charging points, I don’t see how it helps much. How would someone living in one of the terraced houses in that typical street hope to charge their EV ? Lampost charging would be chaos with cars competing for the space to charge and how exactly would people charge vehicles from a charging point from their property even if it was practical to have one fitted. These are not small issues that need resolving but massive issues that are duplicated up and down the country for millions and millions of car owners.
Can't the terraced house/non driveway plebs make do with public transport?
If you can't afford a proper abode, you have no right to use the new EV technology.
keep it for the elite.
I live in a terraced street where there are quite a few EVs. Every lampost has been adapted with a charger, but a lot of owners run a cable out overnight. They put a cover over the cable, and don't drape the cable as shown in the photo above.
Surely people can pay an electrician and / or build to run a cable from the house to the road in a small trench. Might cost the same as a couple of full tanks of petrol!
Think you’d need permission from the council. And what would cover the trench? A grille? Perhaps that could catch on if councils allowed it. But as Carter says, it’s not straightforward.
And perhaps expensively pointless if you can’t secure the parking space in front of your house which in many streets and roads is very much the case.
Shooters, you seem to be seeking out negatives, when the reality is that these changes are happening now, slowly at first, but more rapidly as time passes.
I live in a terraced street in the Battersea/Clapham area, and every lamppost in our street is equipped with an EV charge point. In addition all the people with EVs have a charge socket at home, so they can take advantage of the cheaper overnight rates.
There’s not really an issue with parking outside your own house, especially bearing in mind that you don’t need to charge your car every night. And if you do need to charge urgently you can use any one of the lamppost chargers - and it’s still cheaper than petrol, per mile.
These residents use the same cable ducts that television links truck use when running their cables to live cameras. Perfectly safe, but I imagine a minor irritation for wheelchair users. Having said that, I’ve never seen a wheelchair in our street in the 22 years I’ve lived here. And the car I’m looking at (Hyundai Inster) charges from 0-80% in 20 mins. Future generations of batteries will do the same as six or seven minutes. No more having to drive to a petrol station to fill up. Sounds good to me.
I should have thought if that has gone in without council permission and someone trips over it, the householder is going to get the arse sued off him or her.
The biggest issue I can see with a en mass switch to EV’s still come down to charging for literally millions of people. I just Google Earthed a typical (?) suburban street and for those who want to check it’s Melling Street in Plumstead which is incidentally where my father in law lives. I counted the lampposts on either side of the street and the total is six. Given that lampposts are seen as a way of providing on street charging points in addition to dedicated charging points, I don’t see how it helps much. How would someone living in one of the terraced houses in that typical street hope to charge their EV ? Lampost charging would be chaos with cars competing for the space to charge and how exactly would people charge vehicles from a charging point from their property even if it was practical to have one fitted. These are not small issues that need resolving but massive issues that are duplicated up and down the country for millions and millions of car owners.
Can't the terraced house/non driveway plebs make do with public transport?
If you can't afford a proper abode, you have no right to use the new EV technology.
keep it for the elite.
I live in a terraced street where there are quite a few EVs. Every lampost has been adapted with a charger, but a lot of owners run a cable out overnight. They put a cover over the cable, and don't drape the cable as shown in the photo above.
Surely people can pay an electrician and / or build to run a cable from the house to the road in a small trench. Might cost the same as a couple of full tanks of petrol!
Think you’d need permission from the council. And what would cover the trench? A grille? Perhaps that could catch on if councils allowed it. But as Carter says, it’s not straightforward.
And perhaps expensively pointless if you can’t secure the parking space in front of your house which in many streets and roads is very much the case.
Shooters, you seem to be seeking out negatives, when the reality is that these changes are happening now, slowly at first, but more rapidly as time passes.
I live in a terraced street in the Battersea/Clapham area, and every lamppost in our street is equipped with an EV charge point. In addition all the people with EVs have a charge socket at home, so they can take advantage of the cheaper overnight rates.
There’s not really an issue with parking outside your own house, especially bearing in mind that you don’t need to charge your car every night. And if you do need to charge urgently you can use any one of the lamppost chargers - and it’s still cheaper than petrol, per mile.
These residents use the same cable ducts that television links truck use when running their cables to live cameras. Perfectly safe, but I imagine a minor irritation for wheelchair users. Having said that, I’ve never seen a wheelchair in our street in the 22 years I’ve lived here. And the car I’m looking at (Hyundai Inster) charges from 0-80% in 20 mins. Future generations of batteries will do the same as six or seven minutes. No more having to drive to a petrol station to fill up. Sounds good to me.
You’ll excuse me for sniggering at the example of all street lampposts in Battersea / Clapham having EV charging points. Get yourself down to SE18 or Welling and see how many you can find. As for that example you provided of a charging cable across the pavement. To me that seems like a non solution possibly bordering on illegal. Imagine an average street with terraced houses with let’s say every fifth house with that “ramp”. Pushchairs, wheelchairs, mobility scooters and perhaps even more significantly blind people needing to navigate that. It’s not on and unacceptable. The fact you’ve never seen a wheelchair in your street is actually a crass comment. As for if you do need to charge urgently you can use one of the street lampposts I’d say that finding one without a car parked in the way and if you can find one at all, would be a challenge in the majority of roads. I of course understand that things will slowly improve everywhere but the infrastructure challenges are in my opinion are not being addressed anywhere near speedily enough. Negative ? Possibly, but at present there’s not much that encourages me go EV.
Please don't take this the wrong way but can I ask where you get your infrastructure information from ? I recall you have mentioned there are fewer charging stations where you live compared to London.
There are BP Pulse, Genie and Osprey charging stations within ten mins of where I live but only three. I don’t know any roadside charging points near me but that’s not to say there aren’t any. To be honest my main gripe with the infrastructure isn’t what is obviously a growing network of these public charging stations. My point is that most streets where houses don’t have drives are completely devoid of lampost charging points and I think unless local authorities allow pavement channels to be installed, and at what cost I think most drive less terraced and semi-detached will struggle and that doesn’t look like changing very quickly. I’m not anti EV. Until I looked a bit deeper into it I was considering changing to one early next year. I’m now not because I don’t think it suits my needs at this point.
Tesla have the lead on charging infrastructure. If I need to supercharge then I set the map to the nearest supercharger. If re-routes me if they are all busy. The car preconditions the battery so I get maximum charging. I turn up, reverse in, plug in the car and off it goes. No messing with cards or different apps etc. Other manufacturers need to catch-up, been caught napping.
I appreciate the guy in charge of Tesla is a bit of an acquired taste. The Tesla products are very good.
I would also say the latest models are a very good product from the perspective of a car for driver and means of transport. The earlier models are less so.
A statement by West Yorkshire Combined Authority -
In West Yorkshire most of our street lamp columns are at the back of the pavement. This means that lamp column chargers are often not an option, because charging cables would still need to be safely taken across the pavement to reach the lamp post. We are considering suitable locations and complimentary solutions for lamp column chargers and some maybe installed through the LEVI programme.
Tesla have the lead on charging infrastructure. If I need to supercharge then I set the map to the nearest supercharger. If re-routes me if they are all busy. The car preconditions the battery so I get maximum charging. I turn up, reverse in, plug in the car and off it goes. No messing with cards or different apps etc. Other manufacturers need to catch-up, been caught napping.
I appreciate the guy in charge of Tesla is a bit of an acquired taste. The Tesla products are very good.
I would also say the latest models are a very good product from the perspective of a car for driver and means of transport. The earlier models are less so.
I’m guessing a supercharge to 80% would take 30 minutes to an hour ?
Tesla have the lead on charging infrastructure. If I need to supercharge then I set the map to the nearest supercharger. If re-routes me if they are all busy. The car preconditions the battery so I get maximum charging. I turn up, reverse in, plug in the car and off it goes. No messing with cards or different apps etc. Other manufacturers need to catch-up, been caught napping.
I appreciate the guy in charge of Tesla is a bit of an acquired taste. The Tesla products are very good.
I would also say the latest models are a very good product from the perspective of a car for driver and means of transport. The earlier models are less so.
I’m guessing a supercharge to 80% would take 30 minutes to an hour ?
Depends on the technology in the car - it can take as little as 15 mins.
Tesla have the lead on charging infrastructure. If I need to supercharge then I set the map to the nearest supercharger. If re-routes me if they are all busy. The car preconditions the battery so I get maximum charging. I turn up, reverse in, plug in the car and off it goes. No messing with cards or different apps etc. Other manufacturers need to catch-up, been caught napping.
I appreciate the guy in charge of Tesla is a bit of an acquired taste. The Tesla products are very good.
I would also say the latest models are a very good product from the perspective of a car for driver and means of transport. The earlier models are less so.
I’m guessing a supercharge to 80% would take 30 minutes to an hour ?
The problem with answering this question is it contains a lot of ‘it depends’ as every EV model is different and the charging stations differ as well. Firstly I think You may be aware that charging speed reduces for the final 20% to extend battery life.secondly, each EV will have a limit on the power it can take when charging. Eg my Volvo limit is 120kW. That doesn’t stop me charging at a 350kW station but I will be limited to drawing a maximum of 120kW. The charging stations are specified as ‘up to’ as it appears there may be an overall limit of the supply to the station so power is ‘shared’ accordingly. Charging stations have a variety of charging points, often some lower powered and some super fast, with prices depending on charging speed.
If you haven’t already done so it is well worth downloading some of the charging map apps. You will be able to see what is available and what is being used. Unhelpfully they cover different station owners. I have used Electroverse as charges go direct to my Octopus energy account. I just touched the charging point with the card to start and stop charging. I was surprised how easy it was. BP Pulse and Zapmap are the other apps I have loaded.
My Volvo has a range of about 240 miles. Over its life of 11 months it has done 5203 miles at an average of 29.1kWh/100 miles. When charging at home using 13amp plug, so about 2.5 to 3kW, it charges at about 2% per hour. I’m hoping my 7.5kW home charger will give me 3 times that. One advantage is that it can be set to only charge during daylight when there is spare supply from my solar panels.
This all sounds really complicated, but it isn’t !!!
Tesla have the lead on charging infrastructure. If I need to supercharge then I set the map to the nearest supercharger. If re-routes me if they are all busy. The car preconditions the battery so I get maximum charging. I turn up, reverse in, plug in the car and off it goes. No messing with cards or different apps etc. Other manufacturers need to catch-up, been caught napping.
I appreciate the guy in charge of Tesla is a bit of an acquired taste. The Tesla products are very good.
I would also say the latest models are a very good product from the perspective of a car for driver and means of transport. The earlier models are less so.
I’m guessing a supercharge to 80% would take 30 minutes to an hour ?
It took 20 mins over the weekend for that. It does get slower the busier the charge point are. So if all points are in use it will take longer. And yes depends on your car capability.
20 mins enough time for a trip to the loo and a quick drink.
You just have to think differently, plan differently and appreciate that it currently takes a little longer than filling up with flammable liquid.
I only use supercharger on longer trips (over 300 miles). Everything else I charge from home.
I haven't been to a forecourt garage in months. Fantastic.
Tesla have the lead on charging infrastructure. If I need to supercharge then I set the map to the nearest supercharger. If re-routes me if they are all busy. The car preconditions the battery so I get maximum charging. I turn up, reverse in, plug in the car and off it goes. No messing with cards or different apps etc. Other manufacturers need to catch-up, been caught napping.
I appreciate the guy in charge of Tesla is a bit of an acquired taste. The Tesla products are very good.
I would also say the latest models are a very good product from the perspective of a car for driver and means of transport. The earlier models are less so.
I’m guessing a supercharge to 80% would take 30 minutes to an hour ?
It took 20 mins over the weekend for that. It does get slower the busier the charge point are. So if all points are in use it will take longer. And yes depends on your car capability.
20 mins enough time for a trip to the loo and a quick drink.
You just have to think differently, plan differently and appreciate that it currently takes a little longer than filling up with flammable liquid.
I only use supercharger on longer trips (over 300 miles). Everything else I charge from home.
I haven't been to a forecourt garage in months. Fantastic.
How big are the cables for the 350kW chargers ? I had to get Mrs Hex to move the 120kW ones !
I can only speak for Tesla superchargers, but I found them fine. I'm quite fit and able, and when you reverse in the charge point is right next it.
Being an IT nerd I find it really interesting. I have automated my home, and included in this is charging the car. So I get home, plug it in and the automation decides what needs to be done based upon rules I have set.
These same rules also decide when to heat my hot water, when my heating needs to run, how much power to give to the grid from battery or solar or how much to charge my battery and when depending upon the cost per kwh. All of this is designed to save me money and make the house work for me.
I started all this transition when the electric prices went mad. My aim is to be as independent as I can be so they can't fleece me again, and so I have more control.
I'm currently looking at vertical wind turbines to supplement the solar during the winter.
Next big thing will be vehicle to home where you use your car as a battery storage. I could probably run my house for over 10 days on my car battery alone.
The biggest issue I can see with a en mass switch to EV’s still come down to charging for literally millions of people. I just Google Earthed a typical (?) suburban street and for those who want to check it’s Melling Street in Plumstead which is incidentally where my father in law lives. I counted the lampposts on either side of the street and the total is six. Given that lampposts are seen as a way of providing on street charging points in addition to dedicated charging points, I don’t see how it helps much. How would someone living in one of the terraced houses in that typical street hope to charge their EV ? Lampost charging would be chaos with cars competing for the space to charge and how exactly would people charge vehicles from a charging point from their property even if it was practical to have one fitted. These are not small issues that need resolving but massive issues that are duplicated up and down the country for millions and millions of car owners.
Can't the terraced house/non driveway plebs make do with public transport?
If you can't afford a proper abode, you have no right to use the new EV technology.
keep it for the elite.
I live in a terraced street where there are quite a few EVs. Every lampost has been adapted with a charger, but a lot of owners run a cable out overnight. They put a cover over the cable, and don't drape the cable as shown in the photo above.
Surely people can pay an electrician and / or build to run a cable from the house to the road in a small trench. Might cost the same as a couple of full tanks of petrol!
Think you’d need permission from the council. And what would cover the trench? A grille? Perhaps that could catch on if councils allowed it. But as Carter says, it’s not straightforward.
And perhaps expensively pointless if you can’t secure the parking space in front of your house which in many streets and roads is very much the case.
Shooters, you seem to be seeking out negatives, when the reality is that these changes are happening now, slowly at first, but more rapidly as time passes.
I live in a terraced street in the Battersea/Clapham area, and every lamppost in our street is equipped with an EV charge point. In addition all the people with EVs have a charge socket at home, so they can take advantage of the cheaper overnight rates.
There’s not really an issue with parking outside your own house, especially bearing in mind that you don’t need to charge your car every night. And if you do need to charge urgently you can use any one of the lamppost chargers - and it’s still cheaper than petrol, per mile.
These residents use the same cable ducts that television links truck use when running their cables to live cameras. Perfectly safe, but I imagine a minor irritation for wheelchair users. Having said that, I’ve never seen a wheelchair in our street in the 22 years I’ve lived here. And the car I’m looking at (Hyundai Inster) charges from 0-80% in 20 mins. Future generations of batteries will do the same as six or seven minutes. No more having to drive to a petrol station to fill up. Sounds good to me.
And when the first person trips and sues you......
They’d lose, which is why these ducts are in regular use in the television industry.
Comments
They are last resorts, temporary measures and used by people who know what they are doing and how to secure them properly. They are still trip hazards and if I use my own gathered first hand witnessed evidence of how fucking badly a lot of people drive in this country and how lane discipline is a lost art I do not believe people will be using these correctly and a lot of well intended EV drivers getting sued
simply can't justify the eye watering cost of it so will be sticking with petrol for now.
would happily change this one to an electric one if the costs could anywhere near justify it
we have had an EV for around 3.5 years. Largely our experience has been positive. They are easy and comfortable to drive.
they are expensive. However that is offset for us as the insurance cost is less, the servicing costs are much less and the fuel cost is way way less.
The vehicle has been reliable, comfortable and has yet to catch fire. Although the estimated mileage left is often little more than guesswork from what I can tell.
we have a two fold advantage. A driveway with charger, and solar panels.
1. reliability - chargers can be fiddly bits of technology and I have had times where a charger simply doesn’t work (had it yesterday - fortunately there was another location less than a mile away that worked).
2. the mess of apps needed to charge - it has got better with more chargers accepting contactless/card payment. However I currently have 8 different apps for different organisations plus one that acts to consolidate them all. The apps vary from good to awful. They really should all be able to work with me just sticking a card in but they don’t.
we have a petrol vehicle too that I use for work. Simply because - as others have said. Not replacing a vehicle is better for the environment by quite a long way than replacing it with any form of car.
A statement by West Yorkshire Combined Authority -
Depends on the technology in the car - it can take as little as 15 mins.
Firstly I think You may be aware that charging speed reduces for the final 20% to extend battery life.secondly, each EV will have a limit on the power it can take when charging. Eg my Volvo limit is 120kW. That doesn’t stop me charging at a 350kW station but I will be limited to drawing a maximum of 120kW. The charging stations are specified as ‘up to’ as it appears there may be an overall limit of the supply to the station so power is ‘shared’ accordingly. Charging stations have a variety of charging points, often some lower powered and some super fast, with prices depending on charging speed.
If you haven’t already done so it is well worth downloading some of the charging map apps. You will be able to see what is available and what is being used. Unhelpfully they cover different station owners. I have used Electroverse as charges go direct to my Octopus energy account. I just touched the charging point with the card to start and stop charging. I was surprised how easy it was. BP Pulse and Zapmap are the other apps I have loaded.
This all sounds really complicated, but it isn’t !!!