EV general discussion

[tamzzy]

EVs needing to charge at a rapid 80% of the time seems massively pessimistic! Obviously everyone's usage is different, but in 6 years/~50k miles of EV ownership I've had to charge on a rapid maybe a total of 20-30 times

i just used dannyjo's assumption

What do we think absolute peak sales could be because walking around Cambridge I doubt even 20% of the houses could home charge.

though i would probably hazard a guess that the denser parts of the country with rows and rows of victorian terraces (london/brum etc) that don't have their own driveway would find it harder to home charge as roadside parking is a free-for-all
cross-pavement charging only works when you are able to park close enough to your property for the cables to reach

but yes, 80% is indeed a bit pessimistic

 

[b0rn2sk8]

The people that live in those dense single family homes in the middle of cities are a lot less likely to own a car.

 

[bigmike20vt]

The people that live in those dense single family homes in the middle of cities are a lot less likely to own a car.

this is true.... but it is also true that it is generally those kind of people who need to be discussed for the transition and not the generally 90% FUD which is peddled by a lot of the media .

 

[m4rmite]

17% of households in the uk don't have access to a car.

 

[tamzzy]

The people that live in those dense single family homes in the middle of cities are a lot less likely to own a car.

Clearly not been to that shizzlehole called Birmingham where cars are double parked on these said streets

 

[Rroff]

though i would probably hazard a guess that the denser parts of the country with rows and rows of victorian terraces (london/brum etc) that don't have their own driveway would find it harder to home charge as roadside parking is a free-for-all
cross-pavement charging only works when you are able to park close enough to your property for the cables to reach

Lots of towns have significant amount of housing still being Victorian terraces with a good percentage of those being streets where the houses are straight on to the road with no individual parking.

The town I grew up in those streets with terraces with a front garden increasingly the front garden is being dug up to make a parking place to charge an EV - I used to live on this street for a bit around the time the left hand Street View image was taken, and now pretty much every house on the left has the front garden turned into parking, which looks a bit horrific actually, and talking to an old neighbour they said most did it to accommodate EVs, though there aren't many EVs at the time of the updated Street View:

 

[tamzzy]

Lots of towns have significant amount of housing still being Victorian terraces with a good percentage of those being streets where the houses are straight on to the road with no individual parking.

The town I grew up in those streets with terraces with a front garden increasingly the front garden is being dug up to make a parking place to charge an EV - I used to live on this street for a bit around the time the left hand Street View image was taken, and now pretty much every house on the left has the front garden turned into parking, which looks a bit horrific actually, and talking to an old neighbour they said most did it to accommodate EVs, though there aren't many EVs at the time of the updated Street View:

That's pretty tame in comparison
Double parking so that emergency vehicles can't pass:


No front lawns to convert either

 

[Journey]

and talking to an old neighbour they said most did it to accommodate EVs, though there aren't many EVs at the time of the updated Street View:

When were you talking to this neighbour? There's not a single BEV on that street so I call anecdote BS.

 

[tom_e]

Clearly not been to that shizzlehole called Birmingham where cars are double parked on these said streets

Same in wolves all the old terraced streets are back to back with cars.
From a quick look it's only London that has a significant amount of houses approx. 40% without a car, look at the rest of the country and it drops to approx. 20% and those figures are a few years old.
Those figures don't account for houses with more than one car either.

 

[Rroff]

That's pretty tame in comparison
Double parking so that emergency vehicles can't pass:

It could get pretty bad even when I lived there quite a few years ago now - at night there wouldn't be a space left to park with people doing silly things like double parking or blocking the junction, etc. I was woken up a couple of times by the bus driver just sitting on the horn for 10-15 minutes until someone eventually moved a car and even had the police put in the window of a car and move it before.

 

[Rroff]

When were you talking to this neighbour? There's not a single BEV on that street so I call anecdote BS.

The Street View is earlier this year things have changed even more since - though last time I went passed I could only see 2-3 charging points installed and only a couple of EVs - but during the day a lot of the cars are gone. One of the neighbours is a distant relative who I used to hang out with when we lived there.

 

[Journey]

The Street View is earlier this year things have changed even more since - though last time I went passed I could only see 2-3 charging points installed and only a couple of EVs - but during the day a lot of the cars are gone. One of the neighbours is a distant relative who I used to hang out with when we lived there.

So people changed their drives before they got an EV then, so nothing to do with having one? I just looked up and down the street there is one house with a charger from March 26 images. So basically people wanted off street parking but they still have 'normal' cars. I highly doubt more than one garden has been made into a drive way since March.

Here's the link for anyone interested in looking at no EV's on a street that changed its drive ways to accommodate EV's

Street View · Google Maps

Explore a place in a more immersive way in Google Maps.

www.google.com

 

[dannyjo22]

though i would probably hazard a guess that the denser parts of the country with rows and rows of victorian terraces (london/brum etc) that don't have their own driveway would find it harder to home charge as roadside parking is a free-for-all
cross-pavement charging only works when you are able to park close enough to your property for the cables to reach

but yes, 80% is indeed a bit pessimistic

It's not even Victorian houses. Cambridge has a lot of cyclists but houses are still not single car, they are multiple. The ratio is 1.32 cars per household with over 30% not owning a car at all. My road of 80 houses was built in 2006 and less than 20% of houses can park on a drive and charge. Even the newer bigger development's are not built around parking cars on drives, the narrow roadway is littered with cars and parking on path ways.

 

[Rroff]

So people changed their drives before they got an EV then, so nothing to do with having one? I just looked up and down the street there is one house with a charger from March 26 images. So basically people wanted off street parking but they still have 'normal' cars. I highly doubt more than one garden has been made into a drive way since March.

Here's the link for anyone interested in looking at no EV's on a street that changed its drive ways to accommodate EV's

Where possible people are going to change their setup to accommodate an EV before they buy one (and a lot of those at the end of the street have been changed recently).

End of the day that is what someone I know who still lives on the street claimed as being the motivation for a whole load of the houses digging up their front gardens recently and it seems to be a trend increasingly happening elsewhere with that kind of housing.

 

[Kenai]

My street is similar, loads of front gardens lost to parking. A small handful are EVs.

I think people just don't like parking on the road and want their own personal space.

 

[Journey]

Where possible people are going to change their setup to accommodate an EV before they buy one (and a lot of those at the end of the street have been changed recently).

End of the day that is what someone I know who still lives on the street claimed as being the motivation for a whole load of the houses digging up their front gardens recently and it seems to be a trend increasingly happening elsewhere with that kind of housing.

Like I said anecdote BS though, some guy says something he thinks, and you post it showing what he said isn't true based on the fact no one has an EV. Unless he went up and down the street asking everyone why they put a drive way in then I'll go based on the GMaps evidence. What also seems plausible is a good amount of the houses are rented out and the landlord changed them, or the tenant changed etc. but hey I don't know since that would be guessing.

 

[Rroff]

Like I said anecdote BS though, some guy says something he thinks, and you post it showing what he said isn't true based on the fact no one has an EV. Unless he went up and down the street asking everyone why they put a drive way in then I'll go based on the GMaps evidence. What also seems plausible is a good amount of the houses are rented out and the landlord changed them, or the tenant changed etc. but hey I don't know since that would be guessing.

This was my previous post about it:

On a sort of related note - noticed Google Maps had updated recently for the road I used to live on and nearly every house on the opposite side to the side I lived on which didn't have drives have dug up their front gardens to make parking spaces, which looks really odd, talking to someone who still lives there they said it was due to EV adoption though I can only see one with a charging point installed at the time Street View was updated.

Longer boring explanation that wasn't really forum worthy:

There is a family living there still who is a distant relative who I used to hang out with when we lived there who we still keep in touch with from time to time, when I mentioned about it having seen the changes on Street View they said that was the motivation behind changing their garden, though at the time they didn't have an EV but it was in the pipeline, and that was why several of their neighbours had been motivated to do similar recently. When I passed through more recently there was a small increase in EV ownership vs the Street View and it seems to be a growing trend generally with similar streets around here.

When I lived there most of the houses were freehold and the people living in them mostly own the houses, though I'm not sure how much that might have changed in more recent years, but I know some of the same neighbours still live there. There definitely isn't a lot of rented / leasehold houses on that street.

Not sure why you are so grumpy about it.

 

[Journey]

Not sure why you are so grumpy about it

How is challenging an anecdote that seems totally off being anything other than looking for the real answer. Believe whatever you want, as of March 2026 the pictures show naff all in BEV's on that street one house with a charger. I find it really odd people would spend many thousands of pounds to put a drive way in and maybe even a dropped kerb, then not buy the planned car - as said above people just want to park off the road and can't be arsed pruning gardens.

 

[Rroff]

How is challenging an anecdote that seems totally off being anything other than looking for the real answer. Believe whatever you want, as of March 2026 the pictures show naff all in BEV's on that street one house with a charger. I find it really odd people would spend many thousands of pounds to put a drive way in and maybe even a dropped kerb, then not buy the planned car - as said above people just want to park off the road and can't be arsed pruning gardens.

Street View only shows you so much and it is behind what is actually happening - a lot of people are going to be looking to prepare for EV ownership with the general trend of things ahead of potentially owning one especially if they are seriously considering it as a later car move.

Sure the overall parking situation will also be a motivating factor, but it was kind of curious that a whole string of them made the change in a relatively short space of time after so long of not doing so and one of the big motivations seems to be planning for EV ownership.