Would you have an electric car if you had the money for a new car and were in the market for one?

[ace llani]

Just for reference - had to charge up on a trip last week, and took a photo of the screen on the charge point.

Instavolt-
charging at 30 lw

28 miles added to range.

Cost?

£5.84

This was at a KFC in Shrewsbury, points are cropping up at fast food or coffee places, so you end up having a pit stop yourself and spending more money.

There's charging points on most Welsh council car parks, rarely fast chargers.so our Leaf would take 4 hours to charge up 100 miles.
But you have to pay to park, while you are charging, so that's an extra £4 (unless it's dusk til dawn).


My neighbour has a Nissan van, which does 300 miles on a charge, so that would be good. Charge at home, on cheap rate over night.

Been told the cost of a replacement battery for the Leaf is £8,000 (good slice back on the scrap battery).

It's only getting worse - we've had ours a year. There's a few more fast chargers (not many) but a lot more demand.

Two fast chargers have been added to a car park in Newtown, where we shop. The car park, roads etc have been dug up to feed the supply.

Been ongoing for over a month.

Tesco in Newtown have a 50kw DC fast charger, and 4 22kw AC chargers.
The fast charger is in constant demand, often a queue. It trips out now every time - cools down, goes again, repeat. We're OK with this because it's 10 miles from home so a splash and dash, but impossible to get a good charge.

AC chargers are 22kw, but our car can only take 7kw maximum, so again it's 4 hours to add 100 miles on these points.

When I look at my car, I see a Sinclaire C5

[ace llani]

On the positive side (no pun intended) we use it almost always for school run, and grocery shopping.

On charge overnight means we set the heater on timer, so when you get in on frosty mornings, the car is toasty warm, and defrosted, and you don't have to wait for the engine to warm up if not plugged in. Ours has a heated steering wheel, and seats, which is good - this runs off the small battery, not the traction battery. Blow heater uses up battery power, so de mist and keeping warm on a trip is also a ballache.


No oil or filters, cam belt, DPF, turbo, exhaust pipe etc. to worry about which is a bonus

[Mr. Dazzle]

In a weird kind of way you (as in everyone else, not actually you unfortunately ) actually want there to be a shortage of fast chargers for now.

For all the government incentives and what not, the thing which will really drive growth in the number of chargers is user demand

That's precisely bugger all help to you personally, I know.

[mangocrazy]

In a weird kind of way you (as in everyone else, not actually you unfortunately ) actually want there to be a shortage of fast chargers for now.

For all the government incentives and what not, the thing which will really drive growth in the number of chargers is user demand

That's precisely bugger all help to you personally, I know.

Isn't that a bit back to front? As a prospective purchaser of an EV, one of the things that would weigh heavily on your decision to purchase would be availability (or not) of charging points. If you felt the numbers weren't there, you'd probably defer your purchase. I suspect most of the early adopters have the facility to charge at home, thus removing a lot of the anxiety about insufficient charging points. When it comes to the much larger tranche of motorists who don't have the option to charge at home, the availability of charging points is number 1 priority.

[Mr. Dazzle]

And there's no commercial incentive to install chargers until people want them. Its chicken and egg.

But if there's loads more demand than is currently satisfied someone is gonna step in and make the profit.

[mangocrazy]

Which is where Government need to step in, if they're serious about meeting climate targets. They're happy to use the stick (ICE ban from 2030) but need to make more use of the carrot.

[Mr. Dazzle]

They already are TBF, all kinds of grants are available. Just ask Couchy.

[Count Steer]

It would be nice if there was some visible evidence of overall strategy and planning on
transport infrastructure (like charging points) rather than just leaving it to a rag, tag and bobtail of independents, petrol companies and individual local authorities. Universal connectors, payment by the usual means instead of multiple specific apps/cards, neighbourhood secure park n' charge sites (at non-rip-off rates) in high density zones where home charging isn't feasible, a thorough overhaul of motorway services to make them places where you might actually want to stay for more than 30 seconds ie bookshops, local produce shops*, lounges, child friendly and child-free areas etc etc instead of just overpriced ubiquitous junk food and coffee, unused gaming machines and places selling phone cases. They are pretty awful mostly.

....and breathe....

* I think there are two that are a bit like this.

[ace llani]

In a weird kind of way you (as in everyone else, not actually you unfortunately ) actually want there to be a shortage of fast chargers for now.

For all the government incentives and what not, the thing which will really drive growth in the number of chargers is user demand

That's precisely bugger all help to you personally, I know.

The demand already is way above the number of fast chargers available - rare there's one free, if not a queue. Like I said, it's worse now than a year ago when I got my Leaf. 'Charge anxiety' on every trip that needs a charge.

To visit my mom in the Midlands, it's 90 miles each way. Car is supposed to do 120 miles on a full charge if you drive real steady.
This should mean I could drive there on a full charge, then stop over and drive back on a full charge by charging overnight at Mom's (you can charge off a standard 13 amp socket - 3kw. Just means it takes 8 hours minimum to top up. We do this at home.

It never gets 100 miles out of a charge. And it's best to charge in shorter hops, like at 35%. I plan a route using Zapmap - an app like a satnav that includes chargers at appropriate distances on your route. First time I used to car to go to Mom's, I hit 3 charge points with issues. One wasn't even there..

I got the car to save money on fuel. But it's nowhere a cheap to run as you're led to believe, and nowhere near worth the hassle.

Great shopping trolley, shit otherwise.

[ace llani]

It would be nice if there was some visible evidence of overall strategy and planning on
transport infrastructure (like charging points) rather than just leaving it to a rag, tag and bobtail of independents, petrol companies and individual local authorities. Universal connectors, payment by the usual means instead of multiple specific apps/cards, neighbourhood secure park n' charge sites (at non-rip-off rates) in high density zones where home charging isn't feasible, a thorough overhaul of motorway services to make them places where you might actually want to stay for more than 30 seconds ie bookshops, local produce shops*, lounges, child friendly and child-free areas etc etc instead of just overpriced ubiquitous junk food and coffee, unused gaming machines and places selling phone cases. They are pretty awful mostly.

....and breathe....

* I think there are two that are a bit like this.

Charging points are owned by the charging companies, of which there are many.
Geniepoint, Podpoint, Instavolt etc. The charging stations are sited at commercial locations, designed to encourage custom, so always at supermarkets, McDonalds, KFC, Costa etc.

The charge point isn't controlled by the company who's car park it's on.

I was told it costs about £30k to install a 50kw DC charger. They want to earn their money back and profit.

[Cousin Jack]

No way am I having an EV until they sort out the infrastructure with ultra-fast chargers available pretty well everywhere, and the range is sorted too. I have a petrol car, and a hybrid petrol car. I am planning on replacing both of them with hybrids just before they stop allowing the sale of them.

At the moment most journeys in an EV would be OKish, although charging would be a real PITA. However I recently needed to do a 250 mile fast trip at very short notice, and repeat the trip in the opposite direction less than 24 hours later. The chance of my car being fully charged at the point I knew I needed to make the trip is quite small, and the buggeration factor of having to stop for an hour or two en-route to top up makes it a no from me.

[Count Steer]

It would be nice if there was some visible evidence of overall strategy and planning on
transport infrastructure (like charging points) rather than just leaving it to a rag, tag and bobtail of independents, petrol companies and individual local authorities. Universal connectors, payment by the usual means instead of multiple specific apps/cards, neighbourhood secure park n' charge sites (at non-rip-off rates) in high density zones where home charging isn't feasible, a thorough overhaul of motorway services to make them places where you might actually want to stay for more than 30 seconds ie bookshops, local produce shops*, lounges, child friendly and child-free areas etc etc instead of just overpriced ubiquitous junk food and coffee, unused gaming machines and places selling phone cases. They are pretty awful mostly.

....and breathe....

* I think there are two that are a bit like this.

Charging points are owned by the charging companies, of which there are many.
Geniepoint, Podpoint, Instavolt etc. The charging stations are sited at commercial locations, designed to encourage custom, so always at supermarkets, McDonalds, KFC, Costa etc.

The charge point isn't controlled by the company who's car park it's on.

I was told it costs about £30k to install a 50kw DC charger. They want to earn their money back and profit.

That's pretty much my point about the rag tag of outfits involved - all for commercial reasons pretty much unrelated to transport infrastructure planning.

(Also, for some reason I don't associate KFC and McD with planet-saving e-car owners )

[Mr. Dazzle]

New charging points all have to accept "normal" payment methods now without requiring sign up. There's also standardisation of charging cables. You can thank the EU

[Kneerly Down]

The charge point isn't controlled by the company who's car park it's on.

I was told it costs about £30k to install a 50kw DC charger. They want to earn their money back and profit.

My son's chocolate and coffee shop has a 50kW EV charger at it.
AFAIK he owns it - he controls the price, gets the revenue and pays for the leccy - but I think it has conditions on whose network it is connected to given the (possibly 100%) subsidised installation...before he owned it.
I'll have to look at the contracts at some point to see if he could go with a different provider or even just take the payments by card directly.

The current operator had it on free vend for a while even though he asked them to put it at 30p/kWh so he ended up losing £1500 on it last year. Still trying to recoup the money due to their error.
Fairly sure they are also putting it on free vend when people ring up to say there's an issue with their cards so he may well still be losing money on it.

[Count Steer]

New charging points all have to accept "normal" payment methods now without requiring sign up. There's also standardisation of charging cables. You can thank the EU

They sound sensible. We ought to join!

(Can we have some of the French services/aires too? )

[Kneerly Down]

The demand already is way above the number of fast chargers available - rare there's one free, if not a queue. Like I said, it's worse now than a year ago when I got my Leaf. 'Charge anxiety' on every trip that needs a charge.

My works office in the big city (Inv) has quite a few EV chargers on free vend but that's 70 miles away so it wouldn't be worth heading in even with a full on electric. It'd be rude not to top up when I have to go in though!

If they can get a free vend EV charger in the local office (15 miles away) I might even be tempted to go in once in a while.

[Couchy]

We install plenty of 25 - 150kw DC chargers. The 25kw ones start at £15k plus installation. The bigger ones can be an easy £50k install and more. Most have a new DNO connection and all in can be £100k or so. Gotta put a healthy margin on them. You’d need to see £100 margin a day to cover the finance and plenty do way more than that.
We run several 7kw charge points and they soon pay for themselves.

[Kneerly Down]

New charging points all have to accept "normal" payment methods now without requiring sign up. There's also standardisation of charging cables. You can thank the EU

It's a wonder that USB and HDMI became standards without the EU first mandating them.
I was going to blame the EU for 'EuroScart' connectors but I think that lies solely with the French.

[Count Steer]

New charging points all have to accept "normal" payment methods now without requiring sign up. There's also standardisation of charging cables. You can thank the EU

It's a wonder that USB and HDMI became standards without the EU first mandating them.

Would that be USB A, B, 3.0, Mini A, Mini B, Micro A, Micro B or Micro B Super Speed?

[Kneerly Down]

I have been thinking about hydrogen fuel cell cars and that I'd be much more interested if they could put in a bigger battery and have, say, 20 mile range on battery able to be charged at home from the grid and have the hydrogen fuel cell for range extending, especially given they have to have a battery within the electrical arrangement anyway.
As it is, the current Toyota Mirai only has a 1.2kWh battery, so in effect half a PylonTech US2000C so probably a fair bit less than £500 worth of Li-ion battery.