Electric cars for people with no driveways

The bigger problem is people who can’t park outside their house. People in flats, people with street parking that have to park their house 100 metres up the road in the evenings etc. What are they going to do?

In some areas there wouldn’t even be enough lamp posts around to cater for more than 1 or 2 cars nearby and in some areas there aren’t even any lamp posts at all. I’ve been in residential parking for flats that not only has no decent lighting around, but minimal space to be able to install any kind of charging points.

I’m sure there is or will be a solution but I don’t know what it is. Then again it’s not my job to figure it out :)
 
chaparral said:
More like nicking the cables and selling them on ebay :D

It would be a totally stupid idea if someone could just simply unplug these cables and walk off with them.
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The local ****** would just cut it off at either end to steal the copper. Like they do with phone lines etc :/
 
snapdragon69 said:
It takes 20 minutes to recharge an EV to 80% using an expensive 480V DC fast charger. What about a van that drives round and charges the cars while you sleep or work using a heavily-silenced 3 phase diesel generator (or gas turbine) with a high output DC charger on board. Can do several simultaneously too.
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LOL Don't think the idea of buying an EV is for it to be charged with a Diesel generator

Might as well just of bought a diesel car or van to start with
 
WJA96 said:
Isn’t that the point though? It’s only cheaper to charge at home because they haven’t taxed it yet? You only get the government grant if you install a smart meter, capable of charging you extra for charging your car.

As far as I’m aware, very few people currently refuel their ICE cars at home. As charging gets faster you’ll just get used to plugging your car in once or twice a week at the supermarket or train station.

One of the last Conservative party leadership candidates had a policy that while they were digging up the roads for installing fibre for broadband they should install 3-phase electricity for houses too. It makes a lot of sense, but obviously it didn’t take in anyone’s imagination.

And yes, you will want 3-phase electricity when you can’t get a gas boiler anymore and it has to be electric. And that’s coming too. About the same time as electric will be the only engine option. Expect to see designated parking spaces with charging being the ‘thing’ on new-build estates very soon.
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It's cheaper to charge at home even allowing for tax. At 114p per litre and 40 mpg, a petrol car costs ~4.4p per mile (net of taxes) to run. You'd have to be charging an EV at 15.4p per kWh to equal that. But buying electricity overnight at 5p per kWh or less is pretty straight forward.

As for the rapid charging stuff, it's difficult to see how that won't wind up being horrendously expensive. Most people are going to want to charge at the same times; on the way to or from work. So enough chargers will be needed to cater for this demand. Additionally, if people are charging during commuting times, peak demand is going to rise substantially. That means a load of new power generation (or possibly vast amounts of battery storage) will be needed.

It'll likely work out easier and cheaper to simply put low speed charging everywhere, so people can top-up regularly. Most people are parked at work for 7 or 8 hours. That's enough for up to 200 miles of range on a 7kW charger. An hour at the supermarket is enough for 25 miles. A 2.5 hour movie is enough for 62 miles. It's quite possible to create infrastructure which means people don't need to charge at home.
 
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McPhee said:
It's cheaper to charge at home even allowing for tax.
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They haven’t started taxing home charging yet! It won’t be cheap once they tax the living daylights out of it.

That was my point about why the subsidy only covers smart chargers. They have to be centrally controlled to be able to vary the tariff. And that’s exactly the government grant requirement.

The government does this from time to time. They will give you an incentive then tax it like crazy.
 
WJA96 said:
For petrol it is indeed illegal in the UK, not so for diesel. You can store and dispense that as you see fit. Diesel doesn’t burn the way that petrol does. It’s actually quite safe in that regard.
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Good point, I hadn’t considered diesel as I’d never stored that at home as I had a petrol station 500 metres from my home in London.
 
Toothy1911 said:
Don't know street lamp power specs, assume 240V, so maybe not fast charging? But suspect vast majority would be suitable.
But in any case, it's been done. I think these are the biggest player right now.
https://www.ubitricity.co.uk/
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It’s not about the voltage, it’s about how many phases you can bring into the equation. In the UK most houses have single phase 240V supplies from the mains in the street but most factories and offices have 3- phase power which can deliver the high current required to charge big batteries fast. For a (fairly small) fee you can have your house converted to 3 phase and that lets you have a much bigger charger fitted at home. But when that only goes to 22kW so you need DC electricity to get the really high power charging systems and again, you can have that at home if you want it. At a (high) cost. It was £2950+VAT to get 3-phase electricity to my house and I thought was decent value but when they quoted me £53000 to have a DC inverter installed I declined their offer ;)
 
WJA96 said:
It’s not about the voltage, it’s about how many phases you can bring into the equation. In the UK most houses have single phase 240V supplies from the mains in the street but most factories and offices have 3- phase power which can deliver the high current required to charge big batteries fast. For a (fairly small) fee you can have your house converted to 3 phase and that lets you have a much bigger charger fitted at home. But when that only goes to 22kW so you need DC electricity to get the really high power charging systems and again, you can have that at home if you want it. At a (high) cost. It was £2950+VAT to get 3-phase electricity to my house and I thought was decent value but when they quoted me £53000 to have a DC inverter installed I declined their offer ;)
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I used to have 3 phase at an old house. We installed for a workshop that used 3 phase welders and other bits as we were having new wiring done anyway. Bet the current owners are really glad of that now!
 
WJA96 said:
They haven’t started taxing home charging yet! It won’t be cheap once they tax the living daylights out of it.

That was my point about why the subsidy only covers smart chargers. They have to be centrally controlled to be able to vary the tariff. And that’s exactly the government grant requirement.

The government does this from time to time. They will give you an incentive then tax it like crazy.
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Difficult to see how they can "tax the living daylights" out of home charging without finding a way to prevent people simply using "dumb" chargers and 3-pin sockets. If they tax it too much, people will simply stop using smart chargers.

There is an alternative explanation for pushing smart chargers; they allow demand to be managed. The average driver covers 22 miles on an average day. They would consume less than 7kWh in an EV. Even if the car is only plugged in one night per week, it doesn't need to charge at 7kW to be full by morning.

WJA96 said:
It’s not about the voltage, it’s about how many phases you can bring into the equation. In the UK most houses have single phase 240V supplies from the mains in the street but most factories and offices have 3- phase power which can deliver the high current required to charge big batteries fast. For a (fairly small) fee you can have your house converted to 3 phase and that lets you have a much bigger charger fitted at home. But when that only goes to 22kW so you need DC electricity to get the really high power charging systems and again, you can have that at home if you want it. At a (high) cost. It was £2950+VAT to get 3-phase electricity to my house and I thought was decent value but when they quoted me £53000 to have a DC inverter installed I declined their offer ;)
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That has absolutely nothing to do with lamp post charging. Nobody is suggesting lamp posts will be able to supply high power DC charging. But could one lamp post supply a couple of cars with 3kW of electricity overnight? Maybe. And 3kW over 12 hours is 36kWh, enough for around 125 miles of driving.
 
They could monitor it from the car's end instead. With everything being "connected" now it wouldn't be hard. Though it would be super easy to cheat/hack.
 
I don't think we will see the end to liquid fuels entirely, unless battery (or super capacitor) tech comes on enough to allow people to fill almost as quick as a fuel station.
Vast majority of people will adopt electricity, and will have a solution to charge at home or work, or while you shop, etc.
I expect there to be an amount of hydrogen electric vehicles to come into play. Once fossil fuels are banned for new car sales.
This will allow those who really can't charge conveniently or need to travel without charging for whatever reason an option.
 
Nasher said:
They could monitor it from the car's end instead. With everything being "connected" now it wouldn't be hard. Though it would be super easy to cheat/hack.
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Plenty of options for how to do it.

I doubt it'll be a straightforward swap from one tax to the other. Per mile charging is a decent idea, except you can't really present people with a big bill after 12m and expect them to be able to pay it :p

High speed rapid chargers seem a prime target for taxation. Easy to do, and from a grid POV it's better if people don't use them unless they have to.
 
McPhee said:
Difficult to see how they can "tax the living daylights" out of home charging without finding a way to prevent people simply using "dumb" chargers and 3-pin sockets. If they tax it too much, people will simply stop using smart chargers.

There is an alternative explanation for pushing smart chargers; they allow demand to be managed. The average driver covers 22 miles on an average day. They would consume less than 7kWh in an EV. Even if the car is only plugged in one night per week, it doesn't need to charge at 7kW to be full by morning.
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Nope. The specification was written to allow them to tax car charging. There is a commons written answer about it from a couple of years back.

McPhee said:
That has absolutely nothing to do with lamp post charging. Nobody is suggesting lamp posts will be able to supply high power DC charging. But could one lamp post supply a couple of cars with 3kW of electricity overnight? Maybe. And 3kW over 12 hours is 36kWh, enough for around 125 miles of driving.
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It has everything to do with lamp-post charging. Because lamp-post have 3-phase power.

It’s already being done.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money...00-conversion-turn-lampposts-EV-chargers.html
 
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