EV general discussion

mid_gen said:
Possible doing all the heavy lifting here. Until there are fast chargers as ubiquitous and reliable as petrol stations, there is still a major problem.

I'm having to start doing a 120 mile round trip commute from Jan, I would love to get an EV, and nearly did, but decided I don't want the stress. I live in a terrace with no-offstreet parking. No charging at work. I'd be 100% reliant on 8 BP pulse chargers at the village hall, of which only 2 spaces are EV only, and half of them are out of order frequently.

Ended up reluctantly buying a diesel beater that I'll run for another 5 years and maybe we'll be closer to a position where it's practical to run an EV without home charging. Maybe with these incompetent ****s out of government next year we might get some co-ordinated national action to sort things out.
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I find the ones which are behind parking spaces are often broken. A few in my local area have been reversed in to, so I suspect that might be a common thing.

The council doesn't seem to arsed about fixing them. I guess once they are installed, the box is ticked.
 
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b0rn2sk8 said:
I’ve pulled into the drive on 0% before having knowingly driven past a bunch of rapid chargers while thinking ‘nah it’s peeing it down, I’ll make it’.

The power limit hasn’t kicked in yet so I probably had 20 miles left in it despite it showing 0% on the dash for at least a mile from home.
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I actually stopped at South Mimms services on the way home to grab a bite to eat. The GoM said I'd have about 10-20 miles of range left when I got home so I decided to plug into the Applegreen(?) chargers there for a quick 10 minute top-up. However, the charger didn't work on the first attempt so I said *** it and just parked up to grab the food, then continued my trip... The car could easily have routed me to the guildford superchargers if it thought there was a risk of running out of electrons so I decided to trust it.
 
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b0rn2sk8 said:
I’ve pulled into the drive on 0% before having knowingly driven past a bunch of rapid chargers while thinking ‘nah it’s peeing it down, I’ll make it’.
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On the drive home collecting my I Pace I played charger station bingo. I travelled a good few miles on 0% coming off the M4 Cardiff East services.

I have tickets for Le Mans 24 and might take the I Pace. I have two old JDM cars which would be way more fun to take but not nearly as comfy. The distance isn't a deciding factor at all.
 
I thought the whole point in driving to Le Mans was to roadtrip it in something fun/interesting. Then get waves from the locals.
 
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EddScott said:
I have tickets for Le Mans 24 and might take the I Pace. I have two old JDM cars which would be way more fun to take but not nearly as comfy. The distance isn't a deciding factor at all.
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If I had the choice of driving to Le Man in our old MX-5 (now sold) or our Model 3, I’d have taken the Tesla any day of the week.

If it was the choice between the 1.6 diesel C4 we owed and the MX-5, I’d have taken the C4 any day of the week.


Nasher said:
I thought the whole point in driving to Le Mans was to roadtrip it in something fun/interesting. Then get waves from the locals.
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Looking ‘cool’ is way down the priority list when considering a 700km motorway drive…

Call me old be comfort is the top of my priority list, call me old but I’d want to get to the destination in a state where I can fully enjoy it would by my priorities.

Getting to the destination in a state where you cant hear, your body is rattled to an inch of its capacity and having a bad back from driving in a cramped little car are not attractive prospects.
 
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I thought I'd share this article here because I need somewhere to rant about it. Another hit pieces on EVs by the sun:

www.thesun.co.uk

Inside Britain's biggest EV hub…where drivers say charging is a nightmare

THIS is Britain’s largest EV hub where drivers claim charging is a nightmare and costs more than traditional fuel. The vast “gigahub” at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Cen…
www.thesun.co.uk www.thesun.co.uk

"Lorenzo Santana, who was attending the recent Motorcycle Show at the venue, told MailOnline: "It's not so simple as tapping your bank card on the side of a machine.
"To use it, you have to either have an RFID card or an app - and there seems to be a glitch with the app."

Why are the sun quoting mail online here ? did they just go googling for anybody making a slightly negative comment about the place and just include it in the article. Of course it requires an app or an RFID card, yes it probably should be mandated by government that all EV chargers have to offer contactless payment with a credit / debit card. But until that point this is just normal. If you get yourself one of those RFID cards it's incredibly simple.

"It is much more expensive than charging it at home."Lorenzo claimed that, when he uses his home charger overnight, he pays just 6p per kWh, whereas the public charger at the NEC was charging him 69p.
He added: "It works out as expensive as fuel." His concerns were echoed by Jamie Stevens, who was charging up nearby and said he wouldn't buy an electric car again if he had a choice.

Again, how is this news that public EV charging costs more than at home. Jamie obviously should have done a bit of research before buying an electric car if it came as a shock to him that public charging isn't cheap.

And back in September, The Sun spoke exclusively to Michael Lawlor, who claimed that the mega charging station is too difficult to find.
Michael told us: "It's a great set up here but my sat nav couldn't find it, only Google Maps, and we had to come off the motorway heading north to reach it.

Spoke exclusively huh ? must be a pretty damning stuff to be counted as an exclusive. Whats that ? the exclusive is that she couldn't use map ? Oh per-lease !

It's stuff like this that makes me think the Chinese have the right idea with media control. Sometimes I think press freedom is the best thing in the world. Articles like this ? not so much.
 
Fr0dders said:
Of course it requires an app or an RFID card, yes it probably should be mandated by government that all EV chargers have to offer contactless payment with a credit / debit card. But until that point this is just normal. If you get yourself one of those RFID cards it's incredibly simple.
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I get the sentiment but if there is one thing that EV drivers tend to rage about but is such a minor issue in reality is having to use an APP to start a charger.

Contactless payment is an unnecessary burden on AC chargers. Even busy slow AC chargers get used 2-4 times a day, it’s just not worth it, particularly now roaming will be required shortly.

Those AC chargers at the NEC are going to get used once per day at most. They are already expensive enough as it is because they cater for a captive audience, adding contactless payment on top will materially increase the cost.

I was at the NEC a few weeks ago, I made the active choice not to pay BP 69p/kWh. I paid half that when I stopped for a pee at Rugby services and that was enough to get me to the NEC and back home again.

P.S. stop clicking those nonsense articles. They only post 5 a day because people click and comment on them. It’s literally all about the AD revenue.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
I get the sentiment but if there is one thing that EV drivers tend to rage about but is such a minor issue in reality is having to use an APP to start a charger.

Contactless payment is an unnecessary burden on AC chargers. Even busy slow AC chargers get used 2-4 times a day, it’s just not worth it, particularly now roaming will be required shortly.

Those AC chargers at the NEC are going to get used once per day at most. They are already expensive enough as it is because they cater for a captive audience, adding contactless payment on top will materially increase the cost.

I was at the NEC a few weeks ago, I made the active choice not to pay BP 69p/kWh. I paid half that when I stopped for a pee at Rugby services and that was enough to get me to the NEC and back home again.

P.S. stop clicking those nonsense articles. They only post 5 a day because people click and comment on them. It’s literally all about the AD revenue.
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The burden is on putting all the app framework on these machines. Having a contactless payment thing on the side is easy. It's not a problem that needs solving. We have self service fuel pumps, pressure washers, tyre inflators and vacuums at your local filling station. None of them need an app

The EV charging companies want an app because they use it as a data gathering exercise and it enables them to harvest user data they can sell to advertisers to offset the cost of building it. Your average driver wouldn't stand for a basic service like this being locked behind an app. Can you imagine the uproar if they did it with petrol pumps ? it's just taken as a given that EV drivers are tech savy and will have a smartphone with an app. But if we are intending to meet this target of 100% of new car sales being for an EV - it's going to have to go. You won't be able to assume that just because somebody has an EV - they have a smart phone capable of running apps.

The sooner it gets mandated that EV chargers have to accept contactless payment for those that don't need or want a smartphone the better.
 
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Yes.

On 24 October, the UK government officially approved the UK Public Charge Point Regulations 2023, first proposed in July. One requirement that will take effect immediately is the requirement for charge points to clearly display charging prices in pence per kilowatt-hour (p/kWh). This is aimed at providing users with straightforward comparisons of charging costs.
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www.ampeco.com

New UK public charge point regulations: A Bold Move Towards 99% Reliability

On July 11, 2023, the UK government introduced a draft of the Public Charge Point Regulations outlining a plan to shape the future of public EV charging.
www.ampeco.com www.ampeco.com

  1. Contactless payment for electric vehicle charging
Contactless payment means using a payment card or phone with a contactless payment feature without the necessity of signing contracts or registering with a CPO.

In the case of a newly established public charging station 8 kilowatts or higher, CPOs are obligated, within a span of one year, to facilitate contactless payment methods (such as card or phone tapping).

For pre-existing rapid charging stations (exceeding 8kw) that were operational prior to the enactment of these regulations, contactless payment must also be realized within one year.

If a private charging station becomes public after these rules start, CPOs must allow contactless payment within one year from when it becomes public.
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Providing contactless payment has real and substantial fixed costs that apply to every single terminal you own. It makes sense where you are taking a large volumes of transactions but it just doesn’t where you take 2-4 payments a day. They are not free, every single car terminal you see, the business operating it will be paying upwards of £20/month just to have it switched on.

All of those things you list take tens, if not hundreds of payments per day.

Contactless payments are already mandated for higher margin rapid chargers that have higher volumes of transactions per day.

By comparison building an app and bulk billing for a very simple device which is not actually any different to the charge point I have on the side of my house is very cheap. You can literally buy the same pod point charger for the side of your house as they deploy in public car parks.

Take the single site which sparked this conversation, it has 150 posts. If you put a contactless payment terminal on the device, it would push the hardware cost up by at least £100 per device. It would also cost the operator in the region of £20/month just to have it switched on. So £20 X 150 is £3000/month.

If you actually look at how many of those points are actually used at the moment it’s usually less than 40 a day. I was there during one of the biggest shows of the year which occupied almost every hall and over 130 were free.

So you need to make back £3000/ month from 1,200 customers. Adding £2 per charging session. Assuming a 30kwh average charge session, that would put up the kWh rate by 6p making it 75p/kWh for an AC charger.

Even if you assume all 150 chargers dispensed 30kwh a day, it would still add 2p/kWh plus the additional hardware costs to recover compared to the status quo.

AC chargers are meaning to be low cost, low margin commodity charging. People want it to be as cheap as possible. Contactless payments is just an unnecessary cost, particularly when most of them are now accessible on roaming networks so you can use a single app to cover the vast majority of them.
 
I think I fundamentally disagree with your take entirely. AC chargers aren't meant to be low cost commodity items. That's a 7kw charger.

What people really want is reliability and easy to use. Apps are an unnecessary cost and complexity.
 
How much did the tax-payer subsidise the Birmigham centre - last laugh ?
Not sure if it's mandated too but the Paris street chargers have credit card capability although you pay a premium, as you might have to in the UK (vs app)
 
Bug One said:
AC chargers aren't meant to be low cost commodity items. That's a 7kw charger.
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That's what I wrote. I'm talking about 7kw/11kw AC chargers. Few cars can actually take 22kw anyway so I lump them in the same category.

Bug One said:
What people really want is reliability and easy to use. Apps are an unnecessary cost and complexity.
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In reality, card payments add more technical complexity compared to app control and as already set out, they add a material amount of cost. They are not actually any more reliable and has similar failure points as an app based charger. It is fine if you can spread those costs out across a large number of customers, but that isn't going to happen with an AC charger that gets used 0-4 times a day.

If you are happy to pay the extra cost, then fine, if you gave people the choice of using an app or paying 5p/kwh more to pay by card, the vast majority would pick the app.

To make it abundantly clear, I'm not talking about DC rapid chargers. Although the irony is that from my own (i.e. anecdotal) experience of using EV chargers the only times I have had problems getting a charger started when it only took contactless payment, including on brand new Gridserve ABB 350kw units.
 
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b0rn2sk8 said:
That's what I wrote. I'm talking about 7kw/11kw AC chargers. Few cars can actually take 22kw anyway so I lump them in the same category.



In reality, card payments add more technical complexity compared to app control and as already set out, they add a material amount of cost. They are not actually any more reliable and has similar failure points as an app based charger. It is fine if you can spread those costs out across a large number of customers, but that isn't going to happen with an AC charger that gets used 0-4 times a day.

If you are happy to pay the extra cost, then fine, if you gave people the choice of using an app or paying 5p/kwh more to pay by card, the vast majority would pick the app.

To make it abundantly clear, I'm not talking about DC rapid chargers. Although the irony is that from my own (i.e. anecdotal) experience of using EV chargers the only times I have had problems getting a charger started when it only took contactless payment, including on brand new Gridserve ABB 350kw units.
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But don't Google and Apple take circa 30% tax on in app sales?
Or doesn't this apply to ev apps/ charging? Honest question.
 
m4rmite said:
But don't Google and Apple take circa 30% tax on in app sales?
Or doesn't this apply to ev apps/ charging? Honest question.
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No, not on physical goods. You can use your own payment method. It's the same reason as to why they don't take 30% of Amazon's sales via their app.

As mentioned, most are on roaming networks these days so if I ever have to use one, the chances are its on electroverse and is billed to my utility bill.
 
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