Electric vehicles

[XTiffy]

Jaco, as usual nonsense, Electric bikes are banned on safety grounds.
I have encountered non-electric bikes on virtually every train I have travelled on in recent months. This is a busy channel, I can't keep up!

 

[Terry - Somerset]

There are several different issues at play in the EV debate - each used selectively depending on the pre-conceived conclusions:

• it matters not whether the net zero strategy exists to benefit health, environment, or energy security - all (IMHO) are legitimate aspirations. Folk are free to disagree but have no democratic alternative.
• the UK is a democracy - flawed but a better system than most. Decisions which don't enjoy general public consent will only prevail if events force acceptance of otherwise unacceptable measures. Covid lockdowns are an example when faced with a pandemic..
• distribution - needs to be expanded by 3-4 over the next 25 years. Domestic average electricity consumption is ~3000 kWh per household. EV (~12k pa) would add ~3000kWh. Space heating is ~12000 kWh but reduced using heat pumps.
• generation needs to increase 3-4 fold - it needs planning and investment but is achievable if barriers to development are at least contained - eg: never ending public enquiries.
• financial benefits of EV vs ICE are simply a function of government tax policy. The current benefits will diminish once the transition to EV becomes unstoppable.
• cheap swift travel has become a necessity. Society has evolved with social, work, leisure, education, family, healthcare etc all reliant on swift and cheap. Any plan to reverse this will be democratically resisted unless part of a very long term (decadal+) coherent strategy.

A personal view:

• I support the elimination of fossil fuels as swiftly as can be reasonably achieved
• with planning and commitment the distribution and generation network can be expanded as required. It will not be cheap - the consumer will pay. The only question is whether taking longer or starting later reduces the costs - personally not in favour
• the generation and distribution infrastructure can be minimised by reducing energy usage - eg: better insulation, smaller vehicles, limit waste etc
• fuel duties and VAT account for ~5% of UK taxation. Taxation of energy should be increased and other taxes reduced (tax neutral overall) to encourage economy.
• the energy and transport strategy should be coordinated with more local services - health, education, employment etc.
• public transport has a role in large urban areas but IMHO is not the future of transport generally. This will be with small autonomous EV pods in urban areas, and continued private vehicles in more rural areas where transport needs will be more difficult to solve.

 

[Jacob]

Jaco, as usual nonsense, Electric bikes are banned on safety grounds.

OK

I have encountered non-electric bikes on virtually every train I have travelled on in recent months. This is a busy channel, I can't keep up!

I've had great difficulty with bikes on trains and many people say the same. We even had to "pack" our bikes in one journey which meant taking off wheels, lowering saddles and handlebars to reduce height to 1m or less. Just a loose wrap around with plastic sheet made them legitimate but really difficult to manoeuvre, especially when changing trains.
OTOH I've been on trains crammed tight with bikes, so it varies from line to line.

 

[Jacob]

............
• fuel duties and VAT account for ~5% of UK taxation. Taxation of energy should be increased and other taxes reduced (tax neutral overall) to encourage economy.

Fuel should have been incrementally taxed heavily from a long way back - to reduce usage but also to price people into change of habit/technology etc.

• public transport has a role in large urban areas but IMHO is not the future of transport generally. This will be with small autonomous EV pods in urban areas, and continued private vehicles in more rural areas where transport needs will be more difficult to solve.

Sounds good! Why not flying pods while we are at it? Let's make the future really futuristic!

 

[RogerS]

We charge at 10A, so around 2.5kWH. Not every night and not all night long.

That is nothing compared to evening time when people cook on their induction stoves, boil the kettle and someone uses an electric shower.

I can't fault that line of reasoning but for one thing. Namely that a lot of people will be pushing (probably unnecessarily) for Ultra-fast chargers at home and they are seriously electric-hungry. Guess we shall have to wait and see.

As you say, it's horses for courses. Both my wife and I like driving a manual ICE car. I drove an electric courtesy car and loathed it. So bland.

 

[paulrbarnard]

I can't fault that line of reasoning but for one thing. Namely that a lot of people will be pushing (probably unnecessarily) for Ultra-fast chargers at home and they are seriously electric-hungry. Guess we shall have to wait and see.

As you say, it's horses for courses. Both my wife and I like driving a manual ICE car. I drove an electric courtesy car and loathed it. So bland.

I think it depends on the car. Take a test drive in a Rimac. I suspect it wouldn’t be so bland.
Seriously though when you compare like models the EV out perform the ICE.

 

[worn thumbs]

As a Navy veteran I have had total knee replacement surgery 250 miles away from my home on the South Coast. This has required several visits by public transport. As I have a railway station nearby (a mile or so), I get driven to the station (no I can't walk that far), The rail trip which in spite of Jacob's view is far better that in the days of British Rail, which I remember very well, dirty old trains, truculent staff etc. The reality of strikes etc. meant often traveling the day before and staying in a hotel to meet Hospital appointment times. The trains have mostly run to time and has required two, three or even four changes each trip. One of the changes meant just six minutes to change platforms (lift not working), so I have plenty of recent experience of travel by train. Mostly better than I expected. One oddity was travelling up via the West Coast but back via the East coast. So I believe in subsidising Rail travel but get better co-ordination with bus timetables and prefrably integrated bus & rail stations. For the E car enthusiasts why do the railways ban E-bikes?

We must have travelled on the same trains in the old days.In one two year spell I took the train to London five times and on four of the trips,the train broke down.We recently had some new trains for our regional services and I believe its the first time in my lifetime that we haven't been palmed off with ex-Southern or Midlands rolling stock that has been given a coat of paint and some new cushions after a couple of million miles of service.An observation I had the chance to make is that during the two very different times I worked close to a rural line,there were two trains in the morning and two in the evening that carried a decent number of passengers,otherwise a lot of fresh air was being moved around.Which still doesn't make it an economical form of transport for a family outing.Just try walking into a station and asking the price of a ticket to anywhere more than a hundred miles away....
The notion of solar panels on the surface of a car is superficially appealing.In reality they currently (!) seem to peak at around 350 watts per square metre and I suspect it would take rather a long time to "save" the cost of the panels.I believe that BMW in particular are pushing the development of hydrogen fuelled internal combustion cars.This might be a good stopgap measure while we get fifteen or so nuclear power stations built to power the EVs.

 

[RogerS]

I think it depends on the car. Take a test drive in a Rimac. I suspect it wouldn’t be so bland.
Seriously though when you compare like models the EV out perform the ICE.

Like everything, the test drive is all. When we were replacing our car, I drove a comparable auto inthe same manufacturers range. Changedown was, well, shall we say, tardy. Friend of mine has an auto Merc. It 'learns' his driving style and for the most part he pootles. But, he said, the trouble comes when you're having to pull out into a pretty steady stream of traffic. You spot a safe gap and put your foot down and the auto box dithers. Almots a case of "Oh, he's put his foot down. Must be a mistake. I'll do nothing..Oh, he's still got his foot down. Must mean he means it'. By which time that safe gap has got decidedly more stressful.

 

[RogerS]

Have we talked about where all that extra generating capacity is going to come from if everyone is charging overnight ?

 

[Agent_zed]

The notion of solar panels on the surface of a car is superficially appealing.In reality they currently (!) seem to peak at around 350 watts per square metre and I suspect it would take rather a long time to "save" the cost of the panels.

check out Vehicle | Aptera might not be to everyones taste but personally I think they look great. Much more interesting than the metallic grey box that is pretty much every car from the past 20 years.

They get around 700 watts of continuous charge from the solar cells apparently which is enough to get daily commuter mileage for free.

 

[paulrbarnard]

check out Vehicle | Aptera might not be to everyones taste but personally I think they look great. Much more interesting than the metallic grey box that is pretty much every car from the past 20 years.

They get around 700 watts of continuous charge from the solar cells apparently which is enough to get daily commuter mileage for free.

Personally I would rather have the panels on the roof of my house along with a big storage battery bank.

 

[Cobbs]

check out Vehicle | Aptera might not be to everyones taste but personally I think they look great. Much more interesting than the metallic grey box that is pretty much every car from the past 20 years.

They get around 700 watts of continuous charge from the solar cells apparently which is enough to get daily commuter mileage for free.

Depending on the amount of sunshine of course - and I say that as a huge fan of electric cars. Also of course, they won't get much of a charge if you have to park on one of the covered decks of a multi-storey...

 

[Cobbs]

Personally I would rather have the panels on the roof of my house along with a big storage battery bank.

We have solar panels on the barn roof, take full advantage of cheap night-time electric too, but I'd still like to have panels on the car as well.

 

[Agent_zed]

Depending on the amount of sunshine of course - and I say that as a huge fan of electric cars. Also of course, they won't get much of a charge if you have to park on one of the covered decks of a multi-storey...

True but they reckon about 20miles a day free in the UK if you park in the open. It's got a 1000mile range apparently so probably don't have to worry about the odd day you have to park under shade.

For me this (or at least this concept - lightweight, self charging) is the future. There is a lot of talk about improvements to battery tech but think about the improvements to solar energy conversion. It's currently only about 20% conversion. imagine if you could increase that, coupled with better battery storage and better motors.

This would be truly off grid.

 

[sploo]

I can't fault that line of reasoning but for one thing. Namely that a lot of people will be pushing (probably unnecessarily) for Ultra-fast chargers at home and they are seriously electric-hungry. Guess we shall have to wait and see.

As you say, it's horses for courses. Both my wife and I like driving a manual ICE car. I drove an electric courtesy car and loathed it. So bland.

Demand Side Response and the mandated "smart" features for EV chargers are part of the solution. Essentially, there is communication between the car, the charger, and the network operator; designed to regulate the amount of current a charger can pull (in order to protect the grid).

Along with that tech comes a lot of features such as vehicle-to-grid (V2G); whereby parked EVs can be used as batteries, to aid the grid when necessary. The energy stored by just a single EV car is significant compared to the normal use of a household, so they can provide a lot of capacity.

I agree about the blandness of EVs though; as a "petrol head" they don't really excite me, but they are the future.

 

[Jameshow]

Not insisting, just getting resigned to the inevitable.

You can get to Pyongyang by train! 2 changes; Paris, Moscow.

See you later then!!

 

[Jameshow]

You should enjoy it there.

You beat me too it!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

.Just try walking into a station and asking the price of a ticket to anywhere more than a hundred miles away....

Twelve years ago I got one and half second class returns from Cornwall to London, and had to stand with serious foot ulcers from London to Plymouth on the return. A mere £375. I swore I'd never set foot on a train ever again.

 

[Jameshow]

There are several different issues at play in the EV debate - each used selectively depending on the pre-conceived conclusions:

• it matters not whether the net zero strategy exists to benefit health, environment, or energy security - all (IMHO) are legitimate aspirations. Folk are free to disagree but have no democratic alternative.
• the UK is a democracy - flawed but a better system than most. Decisions which don't enjoy general public consent will only prevail if events force acceptance of otherwise unacceptable measures. Covid lockdowns are an example when faced with a pandemic..
• distribution - needs to be expanded by 3-4 over the next 25 years. Domestic average electricity consumption is ~3000 kWh per household. EV (~12k pa) would add ~3000kWh. Space heating is ~12000 kWh but reduced using heat pumps.
• generation needs to increase 3-4 fold - it needs planning and investment but is achievable if barriers to development are at least contained - eg: never ending public enquiries.
• financial benefits of EV vs ICE are simply a function of government tax policy. The current benefits will diminish once the transition to EV becomes unstoppable.
• cheap swift travel has become a necessity. Society has evolved with social, work, leisure, education, family, healthcare etc all reliant on swift and cheap. Any plan to reverse this will be democratically resisted unless part of a very long term (decadal+) coherent strategy.

A personal view:

• I support the elimination of fossil fuels as swiftly as can be reasonably achieved
• with planning and commitment the distribution and generation network can be expanded as required. It will not be cheap - the consumer will pay. The only question is whether taking longer or starting later reduces the costs - personally not in favour
• the generation and distribution infrastructure can be minimised by reducing energy usage - eg: better insulation, smaller vehicles, limit waste etc
• fuel duties and VAT account for ~5% of UK taxation. Taxation of energy should be increased and other taxes reduced (tax neutral overall) to encourage economy.
• the energy and transport strategy should be coordinated with more local services - health, education, employment etc.
• public transport has a role in large urban areas but IMHO is not the future of transport generally. This will be with small autonomous EV pods in urban areas, and continued private vehicles in more rural areas where transport needs will be more difficult to solve.

Good luck bringing that on line in next 20 yrs!!

 

[Terry - Somerset]

Fuel should have been incrementally taxed heavily from a long way back - to reduce usage but also to price people into change of habit/technology etc.

The UK spent the best part of 100 years (certainly the last 60 since 1960's) evolving to take advantage of the private car. Changing behaviours will take decades - we could debate endlessly whether this should have started earlier but we are where we are.

Sounds good! Why not flying pods while we are at it? Let's make the future really futuristic!

Of course it sounds good because autonomous pods are grounded in near reality. I admire your enthusiasm for flying pods which need control over 3 dimensions and may be fundamentally less energy efficient - perhaps this is an aspiration rather than a proposition.