Electric cars

[Kenneve]

One thing that seems to have been forgotten in the discussion, is where is all the additional electricity required for these chargers going to come from?
If you look on the Gridwatch website, you will see that on some particularly cold winter days, we are already getting close to maximum grid capacity.
Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue, having 1000s of electric cars vying for power, you may well be limited to night-time use only, when demand is lower.
It takes years to build a power station and the government is not even thinking about this issue at the moment.

Also, most houses have a limited power input capacity of around 25Kw, my house is only 15 Kw (ie 60amp main fuse)
Nobody will be fast charging from a domestic supply!
Whilst i applaud the concept of electric cars, i don't think the long term affects have yet been thought out.

[madasafish]

Subststions distribute electricity to households:


"In the UK a typical urban or suburban low-voltage substation would normally be rated between 150 kVA and 1 MVA and supply a whole neighbourhood of a few hundred houses. Transformers are typically sized on an average load of 1 to 2 kW per household, and the service fuses and cable is sized to allow any one property to draw a peak load of perhaps ten times this. For industrial customers, 3-phase 690 / 400 volt is also available, or may be generated locally.[19] Large industrial customers have their own transformer(s) with an input from 11 kV to 220 kV."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_distribution#220%E2%80%93240_volt_systems

A 65kw charger is   going to mess up the calculations above..

There are approximately 230,000 primary substations in the UK     http://www.emfs.info/sources/substations/


They are not going to be easy to upgrade.. Let alone the cabling to and from them...  With 15 years to 2035, to upgrade them all would means  15,000  upgraded every year if we started now and if they all needed to be upgraded..

Then there are 349,000 pole-mounted 11 kV/400 V transformers (same link as last)..


The numbers are staggering...

[peteo48]

Whilst I am normally supportive of "green" measures, it is also the case that there is a drive to eventually outlaw gas central heating boilers and replace, in part at least, with electrically powered heat pumps.

We are going to need a lot of electrons and a lot of battery storage. Is there a "joined up" strategy in existence?

[madasafish]

Whilst I am normally supportive of "green" measures, it is also the case that there is a drive to eventually outlaw gas central heating boilers and replace, in part at least, with electrically powered heat pumps.

We are going to need a lot of electrons and a lot of battery storage. Is there a "joined up" strategy in existence?

Of course there is a joined up strategy.
Smart electric meters wil stop you charging anything if demand is too much.
Problems solved..

[Jocko]

My intention is a 7.2 kW home charger. My shower is 8.5 kW. I assume that the Smart charger will switch off before the shower is switched on.

[sparky Paul]

Of course there is a joined up strategy.
Smart electric meters wil stop you charging anything if demand is too much.
Problems solved..

Not with the current generation of meters, there's only one output. They can disconnect you remotely, but they would have to turn the lot off. They might be able to dissuade you with a peak tariff, but I can't see how they can stop you charging when you want.

My intention is a 7.2 kW home charger. My shower is 8.5 kW. I assume that the Smart charger will switch off before the shower is switched on.

How will it know when you want a shower?

[richardfrost]

You can't solve new problems with old thinking.

Or so they say.

An EV carries it's power around in batteries which need to be refilled.

A trolley bus or train gets its power from a powered cable or rail.

An EV of the future will need to work on some combination of interchangeable batteries, charged 'fuels', regenerative charging, stationary power points, powered pickups along major routes, fuel cells and other forms of on board charging (Mr Fusion?).

[richardfrost]

How will it know when you want a shower?

Easy. Is it a Bank Holiday?

[sparky Paul]

How will it know when you want a shower?

Easy. Is it a Bank Holiday?

Birthday! 

[culzean]

Looks like cancelling HS2 and spending the £500 billion it will eventually cost on improving our electrical infrastructure - what is happening with our nuclear power station building plan,  seems we can afford a large white elephant but not nuclear power to run all these electron guzzling vehicles we are supposed to be buying !

[peteo48]

My Nissan Leaf driving pal has another pal who I met recently. He is an EV sceptic. He's completely signed up to reducing CO2 and other emmissions but makes the point that if we have 30 million EVs we will still have the traffic congestion, we will still have emissions from brakes and tyres (particulates) and we will have energy intensive car and battery production plus, possibly, a longer reliance on fossil fuels for power generation.

I don't think that invalidates an individual choice to go EV when the time comes but, long term, we probably need to get to a place where the car is part of a number of ways of getting about but not the main one. That must mean more and better public transport, encouragement of cycling and walking and so on. 

The future may well be shared autonomous EVs but I don't think I'll be around to see that.

[JimSh]

I don't think that invalidates an individual choice to go EV when the time comes but, long term, we probably need to get to a place where the car is part of a number of ways of getting about but not the main one. That must mean more and better public transport, encouragement of cycling and walking and so on. 

Yes, we're too fixated on cars. The problem is there's still a lot of money to be made from manufacturing them and oil  and now batteries to power them.

[sparky Paul]

I don't think that invalidates an individual choice to go EV when the time comes but, long term, we probably need to get to a place where the car is part of a number of ways of getting about but not the main one. That must mean more and better public transport, encouragement of cycling and walking and so on. 

I agree. I think I've said on here before that I'm a big believer in an extensive and heavily subsidised public transport system - more like the common European model, where publicly operated railways are a fraction of the cost here.

I'd love to be able to use trains, but you just can't afford it. The village's railway station was closed back in 1959, but we don't even have a bus service now that's been scrapped too.

[culzean]

Public transport in UK is a disgrace,  getting rid of guards on trains, no conductor on a bus and most UK stations have no staff ( ours certainly doesn't,  when you arrive there in the dark it is empty,  if I were a woman I would not be happy arriving there on my own,  bad enough for a bloke ).

[Jocko]

How will it know when you want a shower?

I assume it will sense the instant the load starts to increase and shut down then. Or maybe it will be smart enough to know when I'm on a promise (wish I was that smart).

Perhaps the new Rolls Royce mini nuclear power stations will be the answer to future electricity.

Autonomous taxis will be the future of personalized transport.

My stepdaughter has lived and worked in New Zealand, Hong Kong, mainland China and Chile, and she cannot believe how expensive and disjointed UK public transport is in comparison to these other countries. She now lives and works in London and she says at least there they have a fairly joined-up system with the benefit of the ubiquitous "Oyster" card.