GigaFactory

[Roger BestParticipant @rogerbest89007]

I am afraid that I think people are worrying about stuff too much, but not by a huge margin.

Supply of cars is not the issue, the Chinese are producing plenty that are affordable and the costs will drop as less fully-loaded versions come onto the market. Some European brands went up-market and stopped being affordable by the masses long ago (Jaguar Land Rover for a start).

Charging at home is easy, just plug it in for 16 hours and you can top up anything. On-street parking could be easy but councils don't even have the staff to do the paperwork let alone do any planning and the electricity companies are run for (huge) profit not to help people.

The one biggy is service stations for long-distance travel. I don't mind the idea of plugging in, I prefer to stop every few hours, ideally every hour, but I don't want to wait for a charger or have to sit there for half an hour longer than my cup of coffee took, the flow through service stations is huge so every parking place needs a charger.

That will be unaffordable without some seriously cheap borrowing. The usual model in recent times is that the taxpayer gives a cheap loan to a company to make profit out of the taxpayer. Both Labour and Conservative have done that so I hope it is not considered too political by the moderators. Its very interesting that the railways have become more state-owned of late and I suggest that that is the way we need to install the charging systems.

Its also worth noting that Tesla have managed to satisfy their demand without state intervention, so it can't be anything to worry about.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

New cars of any type have never been and never will be affordable for hundreds of thousands of motorists .

Second-hand battery cars will never be affordable by the same motorists if the car is being sold because the battery is reaching the end of its life.

Re-charging at home will never be possible for hundreds of thousands of motorists – including me – as we do not have private off-street parking!

Street-side charging is just not practicable or affordable except perhaps in a few estates of very expensive homes being built with the facilities from new. Even some modern estates now built, are 'Nouveau Pastiche' style terraces enforcing on-street parking that can be some distance from one's home. Their aim was to deter car ownership on a notion that no-one needs or should go anywhere other than work-places near-by. The idea of chargers on lamp-posts came from one or two politicians, most of whom show no technical knowledge at all. In any case the system would require vast quantities of high-power cables and chargers installing in thousands of miles of residential streets with enough room for all those charger parking bays as well as the normal parking, to be at all realistic.

The half-hour coffee-break while your own car is re-charging to at least a reasonable level is only part of it. As a hint on waiting times, VW claims for its latest electric model, a theoretical 180-mile range from a high-power charge for 30 minutes. There will never be enough public chargers, or the space for them, on busy motorways and commuting-routes, to avoid queues that cannot possibly be forecast; especially on cold, dark Winter nights. So a long trip will require considerably more planning, timing and precautions than we would presently think normal.

The public chargers and car connectors must also be of one consistent standard and the units must offer the option to pay by credit and debit cards as on many petrol-pumps now. Easy for us on this forum to say that though. We are engineers. Politicians are not!

[VicParticipant @vic]

Humans have poor memories. The arguments made against modern and future technologies are very similar to those made against the very ones we use today. Many people don’t like change and make illogical arguments about things they don’t fully understand. Some of them are even second guessing technologies yet to be developed. We really don’t know how this is all going to play out but the decision has been made to get rid of out dated technology that had a limited timescale anyway. Whether EV’s remain long term or are replaced with something else shouldn’t be of any great concern to anyone on here as they won’t be around anyway. There are many myths about EV’s already and making up more just because some folks have no imagination to tackle the problems isn’t fooling anyone. And it’s certainly not fooling those in power – at the moment.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Nigel Graham 2 on 10/07/2021 21:20:05:

[…]

Re-charging at home will never be possible for hundreds of thousands of motorists – including me – as we do not have private off-street parking!

[…]

.

I saw my first example of what I think was an EV charging cable laid across the pedestrian pavement last week

… it had one on those ‘speed-bump’ cover strips over it.

Hopefully this is not a sign of things to come !

If I see it again, I will check the vehicle.

MichaelG.

.

Ref: https://www.evcableshop.co.uk/can-you-run-ev-cables-across-a-pavement/

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 10/07/2021 22:12:03

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 10/07/2021 22:07:04:

I saw my first example of what I think was an EV charging cable laid across the pedestrian pavement last week

… it had one on those ‘speed-bump’ cover strips over it.

I’ve come across a few guys who have had to do that . Generally it all gets coiled up after the charge is finished.Big issue is whether you get to park outside own house – need cooperative neighbours
What are the other options for such folk? Either a right to have a cable run under the pavement and a locked cover-box on the kerb or perhaps a pole on the kerb and an overhead pulley?

Such things will come out in the wash

[J HancockParticipant @jhancock95746]

" And it is not fooling those in power—-at the moment ". Vic

Totally disagree with you there , it certainly has them completely fooled.

This whole "renewable energy" policy is way above their little heads to understand.

[ChrisHParticipant @chrish]

This has been quite a fasinating topic. I must say that the prospect of electric cars in the hands of the general population fills me with dread with their so rapid accelleration and quietness. Its bad enough now with the speed little boy racers, and little girl racers too (around here the girls seem as bad if not worse than the boys, in that at least they have achieved equality!) drive at, but in the future I can just see so many accidents just waiting to happen.

What has not been really discussed but has been alluded to is where all this charging power is going to come from, although the lack of practibility for recharging facilities for many living without private driveways has been well noted. What we are basically doing by going electric is removing loads of little power plants from the road and replacing them with big power plants elsewhere.

To put this into some sort of numbers to illustrate the scale of the problem, and considering just cars, a quick search of the internet revealed that there are some 32 million cars on the road in the UK, give or take a few hundred thousand, of which just 4 percent are on the road at any one time – the other 96% are either parked up at home (80%) or someplace else (16%) according to the RAC, so 4% of 32million gives 1.280,000 cars on the road at any one time average. Assume the average car engine is 100kW, (some will be greater, some less but you have to start somewhere!) then thats 128,000,000 kW or 128,000mW. A big power station was considered to be 2000mW, Hinkley Point C nuclear being constructed is 3200mW. What would be a base load to recharge all those 1,280,000 cars on the road is anyones guess, but if we were to consider just 500,000 x100kW cars would require charging at any one time that's 50,000 mW, or just over 15 Hinkley Point C power stations. You can play with percentages and can come up with all sorts of figures, greater and smaller. but this serves to illustrate the size of the problem, and before distribution losses add to the demand.

And have we embarked on a massive programe to build masses of power stations to recharge not only the cars but all the other electric vehicles – no, of course we haven't, we're too busy shutting down perfectly good fossil fuel power station to do that. I'm being a bit sarky here! But the point here is that sometime along the line we will run out of power unless we do something about it sharpish; alternatively, invest in warm clothing, blankets and candle, you may need it when the lights go out in midwinter when the renewables and whats left in the power geration game struggle to supply the county's base load results in frequent blackouts.

The recharging points availability has been discussed but we also have to consider that this massive roll out of electric vehicles will need a new power distribution network across the countryside to the recharging points, and also upgrading the supply cables to private houses especialy if this hasn't been done for many years and the current supply is down the equivalent of a piece of wet string which it may be in some old areas.

Where is the money, the labour force, the materials (materials especially for batteries and copper for cables on top of the general building materials) and the political will to enact all this work coming from. I have no idea, but none of it appears to have been thought through to me at this time.

I am all for a greener and more sustainably future, with less damage to the plant, but we need to be sensible in the targets sets and it needs to be achievable and I am far form convinced we are going about things in the right way.

And the stupidity of stopping supplying gas boilers for private houses is mind boggling.  It makes absolutely no sense to use gas to produce heat to generate electricity for that electricity to provide heat for a private house – makes more sense to cut out the middleman and use the gas to provide heat directly in the private house.  

As I grow older I find less and less make any sense any more………!

Chris

Edited By ChrisH on 14/07/2021 12:35:45

[Ex contributorParticipant @mgnbuk]

I’m actually just as interested in the decline in Diesel cars as we really need to get them off our streets as soon as possible. Luckily the message is getting across. Hopefully the complete ban on using Diesel cars can be brought forward by ten or fifteen years.

As a modern diesel car is no more polluting than a modern petrol car, but is more efficient – why the hate ?

Diesel car emissions are not the problem in cities – it is diesel lorries and busses that cause the problems & their contribution is reckoned to be less than wood burning stoves.

If the real issue is CO2 (as we were told at the time diesels were being popularised), modern clean diesels would appear to be still a major contributor to reducing CO2 emissions until something really game-changing comes along WRT to battery technology (less weight, longer life, less environmental impact).

I will miss diesel cars when they are no longer available – modern diesels are more economical, have longer service intervals & are better to drive (IMO) than modern petrols & no more polluting.

Nigel B

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by mgnbuk on 14/07/2021 13:47:31:

[…]

If the real issue is CO2 (as we were told at the time diesels were being popularised) …

.

But the real issue is the particulates … but they weren’t trendy

MichaelG.

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

ChrisH

Your math assumes large numbers will recharge on the road. The reality is most folk with BEV's top up at home usually at night when the grid has spare capacity and some cheap deals can be got. Power usage therefore will be based on annual mileage – what's that these days 5K?
Lockdown has eaten into my driving intentions – I only do some 7K miles at the mo' so car only needs plugging in once a week for 6-8hrs

pgk

[Ex contributorParticipant @mgnbuk]

But the real issue is the particulates … but they weren’t trendy

Check out the latest Euro 6 emission levels for both petrol & diesel cars – the particulate levels are the same for both. And a major source of vehicle related particulates is not engine related – brake & tyre dust – EVs will also produce these. By all accounts, both sources are less than particluates from burning wood ineffieciently in wood burning stoves in built-up areas.

One of the things that came out of VW cheating situation was a more detailed examination of what actually comes out of tailpipes in "Real World Driving" rather than during "official" test regimes. One suprise was that many direct injection petrol engines were worse for particulate emissions than some earlier generation diesels, but they were not at that time tested for such. If you look at the current Euro 6 levels, you will see that particulate levels are set for both diesel & DI petrol engines now.

I had (for a while) a Euro 6d Ford Transit motorhome – a not particularly economical vehicle, but after 5600 miles (when I got rid of it) the exhaust tailpipe was clean to the point that when a white paper towel was wiped around the inside of the pipe it was barely discoloured.

Nigel B.

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Plug charging points in isolated areas will charge whatever they like

Diesel Transit vans will be running around the countryside charging up stranded motorists at 100 quid a pop

Edited By Ady1 on 14/07/2021 14:47:42

[Stuart BridgerParticipant @stuartbridger82290]

The ideal situation for home charging has to be Solar PV plus a power bank. But how many homes can accommodate this? Suitable roof layout and direction, plus it is a significant investment. It certainly doesn't work for my property. Sucking huge amounts of power off the grid is not attractive to me and if everyone goes that way can the grid support it? I already have a ground source heat pump, which is not cheap to run

Second point is whole life cost of the vehicle. I have an 11 year old diesel Saab. It passes the E5 emissions MOT fine and owes me nothing. I have no plans to replace it in the short term. I generally try and avoid cities. Locally Oxford is so car unfriendly, so I tend to use public transport anyhow (diesel bus??) I know at some time I will have to make a decision, but I am holding off as long as I can.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Interesting times ahead I'm afraid.

Whatever the answer is, it is not carrying on as we are today. Energy derived from fossil fuels is, over the next 10 to 20 years, going to cost a bomb and Internal combustion cars are only worth having if the forecourt price of fuel is cheap. How keen will anyone be to drive an IC car when petrol costs £10 or £20 a litre? Or more. Buying a new petrol car today is already close to being an obviously bad financial decision and it's going to get worse. Whatever their past virtues, petrol engined cars are not future-proof.

We've got used to petrol being extremely cheap, but since the 1960s – even ignoring tax – the price has been rising steadily, and it's going to go through the roof. Those with long memories will remember severe difficulties during the 70's due to sharply rising prices and long queues caused by temporary oil shortages. High energy prices pushed many British manufacturing firms over the edge, and killed the US market for gas guzzlers. (Obese cars too big for european parking spaces and sharp corners, with huge engines, soft suspensions, poor cornering and acceleration, doing 12 miles to the gallon.) Another fuel crisis on the way, this time permanently. God isn't making any more fossil fuels.

Sadly, it's difficult to imagine futures different from our experience, even though human history is full of examples of time-honoured ways biting the dust. They all do eventually. My grandmother remembered England before the motor car, when horses ruled the road, and steam pulled trains. 70 years later her childhood world was gone. Squires, grooms, ostlers, inns, trams, dreadnoughts, ladies-maids, telegrams, knife-grinders, sailing ships, gold and silver coinage and Music Hall.

Our future will be different too. Quite likely people won't own their own cars – they'll be leased. Remember Radio Rentals? People may not drive themselves either: we are close to automatic cars that can be called up with an App, take us wherever, and drive off to recharge themselves. No need to worry about on street recharging, though the plan is to fit all new street furniture with chargers.

The conversion will cost a lot of money, but when a country can spend £480 Billion on Covid, I don't think that's a problem. Again, remember what the UK looked like in 1970: masses of victorian brick built homes, mills and factories, slag heaps, factory chimneys, dirt, abandoned railway lines, canals full of junk, foaming rivers, and old men with lung diseases. Dreadful times apart from my psychedelic flares and hippy hair do. I've stayed in hotels just like Fawlty Towers. 50 years later, England is a different place, and it's going to change again whether we like it or not.

The big question is how soft the landing will be. Could be very rough indeed, because those Tree-B*ggers are so influential! In my opinion very sensible to start the change early, my fear is we have left it too late. Rather like a party on the beach having so much fun they're trapped beneath the cliffs by the tide. Will Lassie save them, or are the hedonists going to drown…

The trick is to replace unsustainable ways of maintaining a high standard of living with sustainable ways of maintaining a high standard of living. It can be done provided people get on with it.

Dave

[ChrisHParticipant @chrish]

pgk

My maths does not assume large numbers will recharge on the road at all, that was not the point of the post – I was trying to give some idea of the generating capacity problem we will face as large numbers of vehicles will require to recharge per day on top of current electrical energy demands, which itself will only get larger as more homes, hotels, pubs, resturants etc etc etc type premises increasingly cook and heat buildings and provide hot water by electricity.

Yes those with private driveways will probably recharge overnight, or probably when they get in in the evening. However, the domestic load increases in the evening as folk get in, turn on lights, boost up the (now electric) heating and switch on cookers, ovens, tv's, kettles and washing machines etc. at a time when one renewable generator – solar power – is not generating at all because it's dark – throwing more pressure on the remaing power generators.

The point I was making is that current generating capacity comes pretty close to max on certain days in the winter as it is. The amount of electric cars needing recharging each day in the future, not to mention increasing electrical demand for heating cooking and hot water, is going to place an additional heavy load on the generating capacity and we as a country seem to be doing very little at all to address the problem; it is obvious, we need more power stations to be built for the future as we go all electric but nothing appears to be being done. Soon it will be too late and we will experience blackouts as daily demand exceeds available capacity at peak periods; perhaps when that happens it will focus the minds of people.

Plus we need to expand the distribution system to recharging service stations and private properties to supply all this extra power, and again nothing appears ti be being done to address that problem either.

No-one is even talking about either problem never mind planning for it. We need to wake up.

Chris

Edited By ChrisH on 15/07/2021 10:39:02

[J HancockParticipant @jhancock95746]

Like so much else , I am surprised GB National Grid Status website is not taken off-line for the truth it tells.

Without the import from France/Holland , 'lights-out' is an anti-cyclone away.

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

Chris,

You made the assumption that BEV's draw 100KW. My large Tesla averages 330wh/mile at motorway speed in the summer (less efficient winter, but then the newer Model 3 is way more efficient again, lighter and 3/4 size pack gets it further). If my math makes sense then average draw will be 1/3 of your figure. Yes I can stuff my foot down and pull 300KW+ but UK speed limits don't allow that beyond play time burning off the lights.

It helps to drop your 128GW to 43GW with 10GW spare capacity at night (when cooking etc finished) – so not quite as desperate… a mere doubling of capacity and 20+ years to get there…..

pgk

[ChrisHParticipant @chrish]

I actually used 50000Mw as a base figure, not 128,000Mw. I also said you could play with figures up and down but it served to ilustrate the problem.

You can argue for ever facts and figures based on all sorts of assumptions but the fact remains we need a load more power stations to cover the capacity for the future and we are doing naff all about it.

QED.

Chris

[ChrisHParticipant @chrish]

A tyre garage next to where my motorehome has its lock up recently had to stick a pair of new tyres on the back of a fairly new electric car, The car has front wheel drive and had done just 8,000 miles. The reason was put down to the weight of the batteries.

And the cost of new batteries is a "How Much?" question, a bit of a if you need to ask then you can't afford it question! Never mind running out of oil, what about running out of the materials to make batteries?

Chris

[David RileyParticipant @davidriley61024]

 This video **LINK** about JCB may be worth a look.

Edited By David Riley on 15/07/2021 15:21:26

Edited By David Riley on 15/07/2021 15:23:38

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

My Model S weighs around 2200kg roughly the same as a BMW X6 diesel. Yes the battery is a whopping 540kg. How much does a 3L diesel block weight?

Oh, I agree that hydrogen would be way better – IF one could make the stuff genuinely out of renewable power without too much energy loss. Saving 1/2 a tonne of weight can't be bad. Certainly there's work in that area but a long way to go.

My garage had to replace the front tyres of a diesal van at 11k miles due to the yahoo driving it…My tyres are on 18K miles and starting to look due for replacement soon..

The pack is warranted for 8 years and around £30K to swap out. In the US several independents are now repairing packs..

pgk

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

I think the overwhelming theme that I get from the above postings is that a political target has been declared and nobody has any plan how to get there, I worry that our electricity infrastructure, which is at present fragile, will never be able to be upgraded to cope with electric cars and the enforced move from gas heating to electric in the timescale. I also see there being the inevitable “class” division between those in future able to purchase and maintain EV’s and those who cannot, being consigned to “public transport” it will not accord well with the current mantra of “levelling up” society, could be trouble ahead methinks. Dave W

[Roger BestParticipant @rogerbest89007]

Its obvious that some contributors are losing sleep unnecessarily.

Many of the posted concerns are addressed here: National Grid

Worried about the government doing something about it? Well that is natural, however the PM was on telly today and he did talk about battery factories a lot in his "levelling up" speech so who knows he might put our money where his mouth is and chip in.

Banning cars isn't going to happen overnight, its going to take ages to replace them and a lot of investment, just like broadband has taken 20 years to get any good – for some of us. Boris said almost the same thing.

I think the National Grid have a plan. I know Nissan do, Jaguar Land Rover seem to, how many plans do we need?

[ChrisHParticipant @chrish]

The problem to consigning a sector of the public to use public transport rather than their own cars for mobility is that public transport for those in rural areas is not good, services are few and far between.

Public transport may be OK in cities but for folk living in the sticks its not much good if getting to town is on a Tuesday but the bus back is not till Friday.

Public transport in rural areas seems to have been run down almost to the point of non existence; it's stating the bleeding obvious but to entice Joe Public out their cars onto the bus there has to be a decent reliable frequent bus service available to entice them onto.

Chris

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

Citroen also have a plan ! They built the 1905cc diesel I addapted to power a 20Kv.a 3ph alternator ! 15 years ago it seemed a good idea, now it's a brilliant piece of foresight ? I agree that whilst we're all being guided to electric everything there seem to be no new powerstations being built so wat will happen ? Noel

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