EV chat

woodbar

woodbar

Active Member
EEPhil said:
Don't they produce home chargers now? If they haven't made a bodge of those they might survive.
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I believe they do and don't know if they are any good?

Trouble is the sales of EVs is slowing I understand and what about the multitude of people that live in terraced properties with no garage or hard standing for their car? I think some councils are allowing a charge point mounted on your garden wall but surely that would entail running the cable across the pavement to connect to your EV? What about Health an Safety considerations! Or, of course they could all go and use a vastly overpriced public charging point that might be available and that works of course!
 
woodbar said:
I believe they do and don't know if they are any good?

Trouble is the sales of EVs is slowing I understand and what about the multitude of people that live in terraced properties with no garage or hard standing for their car? I think some councils are allowing a charge point mounted on your garden wall but surely that would entail running the cable across the pavement to connect to your EV? What about Health an Safety considerations! Or, of course they could all go and use a vastly overpriced public charging point that might be available and that works of course!
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I would assume you are obliged to put one of those rubber ramps over the cable to remove the trip hazard.
 
trog said:
I would assume you are obliged to put one of those rubber ramps over the cable to remove the trip hazard.
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Which almost certainly no-one will do. And I'm not convinced in the dark under street lighting a rubber ramp would be sufficient legally and/or in practice.
 
[Off topic] "They" are now talking about running channels across the pavement to sink a cable into, which is all very well but what if you can't get to the kerb outside your own house?? I know plenty of places it's hard enough to find a parking space at all, let alone outside your own house.
 
Black Hole said:
[Off topic] "They" are now talking about running channels across the pavement to sink a cable into, which is all very well but what if you can't get to the kerb outside your own house?? I know plenty of places it's hard enough to find a parking space at all, let alone outside your own house.
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Some places have/could install chargers in street lights
 
trog said:
I would assume you are obliged to put one of those rubber ramps over the cable to remove the trip hazard.
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It probably would be a requirement but how and who will enforce it - the Police are too busy sifting social media for for comments that might offend someone or attending multiple attacks on innocent people by knife wielding yoofs!

Chargers in street lights won't work as you would need a street light for every parking sized bay in the street - it would turn night in to day I suppose!

Putting channels in pavements won't work for the reason stated - I have at least 3 friends who can never find a space outside their property, sometimes not even in the same street. If the usual culprits who repair our roads and pavements get the task it would probably still be a trip hazard anyway 👷‍♀️

I think this is a total disaster waiting to happen. I believe that on occasions we only just about produce enough energy to keep the National Grid stable. What is going to happen when many millions of people, who have only bought their EV because that is/will be the mandated choice, all try to charge them? We will definitely need a few more power stations, gas or nuclear, and what is the lead time for getting those built and commissioned - way past 2030 I imagine? I think Net Zero and compulsory EVs will both fail and cost huge amounts of expenditure and guess who is, or will be, paying for all of that. You might be getting zero emissions whilst driving your EV but what about when you are charging it, mining and transporting the battery components, manufacturing and disposal at end of life recycling etc. I believe some studies have suggested the lifetime emissions for EVs exceed that of an ICE propelled vehicle.

I think we might see similar to the Diesel fiasco, "Yes, I know we told every one to buy a Diesel powered car but we have now done some proper evaluation and discovered...... bla bla"

Sorry, way off topic, but just giving my thoughts to the previous posts!
 
woodbar said:
I think we might see similar to the Diesel fiasco, "Yes, I know we told every one to buy a Diesel powered car but we have now done some proper evaluation and discovered...... bla bla"
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Civil servants correctly advised the government at the time the real facts about diesel. Politicians of the time chose to ignore some parts of that and picked only the parts they liked. Proper evaluation was done, and suppressed for political reasons.
 
Owen Smith said:
Civil servants correctly advised the government at the time the real facts about diesel. Politicians of the time chose to ignore some parts of that and picked only the parts they liked. Proper evaluation was done, and suppressed for political reasons.
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Well, that's politicians for you! Common sense, honesty and knowledge would be a welcome change.
 
woodbar said:
I think this is a total disaster waiting to happen. I believe that on occasions we only just about produce enough energy to keep the National Grid stable. What is going to happen when many millions of people, who have only bought their EV because that is/will be the mandated choice, all try to charge them? We will definitely need a few more power stations, gas or nuclear, and what is the lead time for getting those built and commissioned - way past 2030 I imagine? I think Net Zero and compulsory EVs will both fail and cost huge amounts of expenditure and guess who is, or will be, paying for all of that. You might be getting zero emissions whilst driving your EV but what about when you are charging it, mining and transporting the battery components, manufacturing and disposal at end of life recycling etc. I believe some studies have suggested the lifetime emissions for EVs exceed that of an ICE propelled vehicle.
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Echoes my own thoughts.
 
EEPhil said:
Whatever happened to the idea of cars powered by a hydrogen fuel cell? That's all gone very quiet.
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"They" don't want to get into hydrogen generation and distribution, but they will have to because you're not going to run HGVs, JCBs whatever by battery!

There is an experimental/limited trials project in Wales.

Whatever other disadvantages H2 has, I say the lower efficiency overall is irrelevant if it is quicker to refuel than batteries. Regardless, refuelling H2 carries risk. But fast-charging Lithium batteries is risky too.

Personally I would like to see H2 internal combustion rather than fuel cell EV, and if it were possible to adapt existing vehicles to running on H2, preferably as a dual-fuel (like you can with LPG), that would convert the fleet to carbon-free much faster than having to buy new.

I have contemplated a race between my reasonably powerful family hatchback and the insanely powerful Tesla. I've always said I could beat one over a 400-mile race, but more interesting would be to start a race (over any distance) with completely empty tanks!

Mods: please split out the EV chat to The Arms.
 
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woodbar said:
It probably would be a requirement but how and who will enforce it -
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The local councils are always looking for ways to raise extra cash and they could just sub out the issue to private companies in the same way they do with littering and take a cut of money raised from fines, a quick photo of the offense followed by a fine in the post would be a great earner for them.
 
Off topic but EV related. The collapse of NCP car parks was being discussed on TV yesterday ( financially) and it was mentioned that some car parks limit the amount of EV cars allowed on each floor as they cannot take the extra weight.
 
Black Hole said:
start a race (over any distance) with completely empty tanks!
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Where would you start from? I presume somewhere you can fill/charge rather than a random place without either, although that might make more interesting viewing.
 
prpr said:
Where would you start from? I presume somewhere you can fill/charge rather than a random place without either, although that might make more interesting viewing.
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It doesn't matter really, I figure I could still walk to a garage and back quicker than a flat Tesla could get some charge!
 
trog said:
The local councils are always looking for ways to raise extra cash and they could just sub out the issue to private companies in the same way they do with littering and take a cut of money raised from fines, a quick photo of the offense followed by a fine in the post would be a great earner for them.
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On the face of it that would be a solution but ultimately a loss of revenue for the council?

Why pay a third party contractor, with separate management, staff costs, plus profit etc. and just take, what would likely be a small percentage? Surely things like that should be combined and done "in house" by the councils who should gain some a bit of extra revenue, especially as most are struggling now? Oh, forget that, most councils seem not to be able to manage even a "celebration in a brewery". For example our recently created Somerset County Council, which amalgamated 5 are councils into one, to enhance cost savings have had to employ external consults to tell them how to save money! The result, they could save about 300k and the consultants fees were well over 1 million. Obviously something the highly paid and presumably qualified council financial managers could not work out? Similar seems to happen in the NHS, Prison Service/Security etc. etc. but of course it does mean when things go wrong they can then point the finger and say it's our contractor!
 
woodbar said:
On the face of it that would be a solution but ultimately a loss of revenue for the council?

Why pay a third party contractor, with separate management, staff costs, plus profit etc. and just take, what would likely be a small percentage? Surely things like that should be combined and done "in house" by the councils who should gain some a bit of extra revenue, especially as most are struggling now? Oh, forget that, most councils seem not to be able to manage even a "celebration in a brewery". For example our recently created Somerset County Council, which amalgamated 5 are councils into one, to enhance cost savings have had to employ external consults to tell them how to save money! The result, they could save about 300k and the consultants fees were well over 1 million. Obviously something the highly paid and presumably qualified council financial managers could not work out? Similar seems to happen in the NHS, Prison Service/Security etc. etc. but of course it does mean when things go wrong they can then point the finger and say it's our contractor!
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That is already what councils do (Not sure if all) for littering. In the days when I smoked I was waiting for a train and smoking outside the local station but they had removed the wall mounted ashtrays that I usually used so dropped my roll up down the drain in the road, as I entered the station I felt a hand on my shoulder and was given the option of paying an instant fine of £50 or £75 if I paid later. The fines are issued by a private company on behalf of the council with the council dealing with any challenges to the fine where you will be charged even more if you lose to cover "costs". The guys wear bodycams and can often be seen loitering around prime sites and get paid a commission on every fine they issue.
 
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