Electric Vehicles - the truth about, Channel 4

[Warden]

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I said the same thing today, how many people wouldn’t have made it to work today, cause there cars weren’t charged up, it will be chaos in years to come

Does the same not apply to ICE cars if you just leave enough fuel in your car to get you to the local petrol station next morning,(as I have done in past) and there is a power cut are you not in the same situation. I posted earlier my car does about 170 miles per charge I top it up when the range is around 60 miles, From home, in the future there will be many thousands of public charging points up and down the country.
Like I said at the moment they are not for everyone but as technology improves the range (which it will) EV,s will become the norm, When I got my first car there were only about 4 cars on the street (yes I am that old) now most houses have 2 cars as the population grows we cannot bury our heads in the sand, I lived at Tinsley (South Yorkshire) next to the M1 and Meadowhall for about 20 years the pollution there was so bad it would sting your eyes we cannot go on this way and yes it will affect everyone eventually (maybe not me) but I do not want to leave a poisonous atmosphere for my Grandchildren and Great Grand children to remember me by, does anybody?

 

[Mike atkinson]

Does the same not apply to ICE cars if you just leave enough fuel in your car to get you to the local petrol station next morning,(as I have done in past) and there is a power cut are you not in the same situation. I posted earlier my car does about 170 miles per charge I top it up when the range is around 60 miles, From home, in the future there will be many thousands of public charging points up and down the country.
Like I said at the moment they are not for everyone but as technology improves the range (which it will) EV,s will become the norm, When I got my first car there were only about 4 cars on the street (yes I am that old) now most houses have 2 cars as the population grows we cannot bury our heads in the sand, I lived at Tinsley (South Yorkshire) next to the M1 and Meadowhall for about 20 years the pollution there was so bad it would sting your eyes we cannot go on this way and yes it will affect everyone eventually (maybe not me) but I do not want to leave a poisonous atmosphere for my Grandchildren and Great Grand children to remember me by, does anybody?

I agree, things have to change, but I think we need the infrastructure in place, before we force petrol and diesel vehicles off the road

 

[Griffo]

One thing that never gets mentioned when anyone talks about Electric cars is, are the cables in the ground big enough for all the extra power they'll need to carry to provide the charge for all these new cars. Bearing in mind some of those cables have been in the ground for the best part of 60yrs, the answer is no.

Your right, I worked for a well hated national utility company for a couple of years, looking at many schemes with local government to provide enough infrastructure to power the new commitments that most of them have made about no cars in the city centres unless electric and the electrification of the bus networks. Fact is the infrastructure isn’t up to it and cannot be reinforced / increased in the timescales, commitments have been made for. Not to mention the non standardisation of car charges and the fact the councils haven’t yet worked out how they will bill jo public for using the charges without investing even more on data networks to connect and control the paying for a charge. finally that extra load is massive, to put one bus depot on charge with 12 routes that’s usually 24 buses for a bus to do about 100km it’s about 200kw of charge, so 12 buses on charge at a time, call it 10 hours a charge, you need an extra 240kw per hour that’s about worst case 1000A an hour or about putting on 100 electric kettles (full time for 10 hours). That’s just one depot one operator, now round that up for a city, then add on taxi’s then jo public! It just not achievable in our lifetime!

 

[BarryS]

We are sitting on one of the world's richest shale gas reserves. This can be utilised safely. But no. we prefer to be hostages. to Russia and France.

 

[BarryS]

Your right, I worked for a well hated national utility company for a couple of years, looking at many schemes with local government to provide enough infrastructure to power the new commitments that most of them have made about no cars in the city centres unless electric and the electrification of the bus networks. Fact is the infrastructure isn’t up to it and cannot be reinforced / increased in the timescales, commitments have been made for. Not to mention the non standardisation of car charges and the fact the councils haven’t yet worked out how they will bill jo public for using the charges without investing even more on data networks to connect and control the paying for a charge. finally that extra load is massive, to put one bus depot on charge with 12 routes that’s usually 24 buses for a bus to do about 100km it’s about 200kw of charge, so 12 buses on charge at a time, call it 10 hours a charge, you need an extra 240kw per hour that’s about worst case 1000A an hour or about putting on 100 electric kettles (full time for 10 hours). That’s just one depot one operator, now round that up for a city, then add on taxi’s then jo public! It just not achievable in our lifetime!

I read somewhere that if 60% of road-going vehicles ran on electricity ......we would need another 17 power stations .

 

[grey]

When we electrified trains, we electrified the rails, not the actual train.

Whilst it would be unreasonable to expect the roads to be fully electrified, it may be feasible to place charging stretches under the road every 5 miles or so.

Cars that pass over, are constantly being charged, leaving little or no need to charge it yourself.

 

[muskrat]

I'd like to know what the plan is for those who simply cannot charge at home. Round my way there are streets upon streets of houses with either no front garden or yard, or a very little one not big enough to park a car. Are they expecting everyone to leave their cars at some massive out of town charging areas every night and get the bus home?
The hospital where I work has very limited staff parking. So loads of people have to park in nearby streets. What are they supposed to do?
I get the feeling this really hasn't been thought through.

 

[frozengiblet]

Electric Vehicle Charging For Councils - Joju Solar

Local councils are at the forefront of electric vehicle infrastructure provision within thier local area. Joju Solar are the ideal partner to help develop and deliver regional electric vehicle infrastructure programmes.

www.jojusolar.co.uk

 

[richox12]

Does the same not apply to ICE cars if you just leave enough fuel in your car to get you to the local petrol station next morning,(as I have done in past) and there is a power cut are you not in the same situation.

Yes & no. You plug in your car to charge overnight and expect it to be ready in the morning but due to an unforeseen power cut it's not. So masses are screwed - all at the same time. If you only leave a trickle of fuel in your tank it's your fault and you know the risk. Masses don't do this all at the exact same time i'd bet. I cannot remember the last time someone didn't get to work because they ran out of fuel on the way to the petrol station (even with the panic buying ).

 

[RedhillPhil]

If that's real it just makes a mockery of it all at the minute doesn't it.

Oh, it's real 100%.

 

[RedhillPhil]

We are sitting on one of the world's richest shale gas reserves. This can be utilised safely. But no. we prefer to be hostages. to Russia and France.

Can't use that. The great unwashed will protest and people will listen to them. If someone had the balls to tell them to do one in the early seventies we'd have been enjoying lots and lots of luvverly nuclear generated electroshitty.

 

[Warden]

Yes & no. You plug in your car to charge overnight and expect it to be ready in the morning but due to an unforeseen power cut it's not. So masses are screwed - all at the same time. If you only leave a trickle of fuel in your tank it's your fault and you know the risk. Masses don't do this all at the exact same time i'd bet. I cannot remember the last time someone didn't get to work because they ran out of fuel on the way to the petrol station (even with the panic buying ).

The majority of electric cars also have an inbuilt de-powering system. If the electronics detect you are close to running flat, the power available to drive the car will be decreased and the speed limited. This should give you the best possible chance of reaching a charging point. Mine starts warning me when I get below 40 miles left over 42,000 charging points at the moment in the UK, I assume that will increase tenfold if we go all electric.
Warden also said
" I usually wait till the range is 50/60 miles then just plug it in at night 174ish miles on clock next morning all at off peak charging, I have had three holidays since I got it and with the consent of the places I have stayed have used my trickle charger to top up while there,"3 pin plug"

If you only leave a trickle charge in your batteries it's your fault and you know the risk.
Almost nightly a month ago were people crying on tv cannot get to work because cannot get fuel did not hear any electric drivers?

The electric car market is growing quickly, with over 345,000 pure-electric cars on UK roads at the end of October 2021, and more than 675,000 plug-in models if including plug-in hybrids (PHEVs). at the moment we would have heard about it if there was a unsurmountable problem (big style)

Cannot get fuel

 

[richox12]

We don't hear much about problems with pure electric cars because, proportionately, there are not that many still and petrol/diesel are the vast majority. I don't know a single person with one. A couple of Hybrids yes. But that's it. Electric cars = 1% of all on the road if we have over 30,000,000 vehicles ??? So 29,700,000 or whatever fuelled by other means.

Further, I don't even know where there is a charging point between me and work and that's 20 miles. There might be but petrol/diesel pumps abound. And I'm not going to queue for x amount of time to use one then wait x amount of time to charge on my way to work or anywhere at the moment. With petrol/diesel - ordinarily - I can be in filled up and gone in just a few minutes max.

Infrastructure is simply not there and won't be for a very long time yet.

 

[Dave]

If I travel to say Alders Farm Fishery, the journey is 150miles each way - how do I get there and back in one day and where would I recharge?

If the range is 150miles that doesn't take into account additional demand on the batteries, ageing, etc, it's the 'test bed' range, a bit like the mpg figures often spouted by the manufacturers, impossible to achieve in practice.
So a charge on the way down, and a charge on the way back? How long does it take to charge the batteries?

 

[Warden]

My car already has a newer model that has (allegedly) a 273 mile range and be in no doubt there are cars around that do more than that and they will IMO get better remember this is just taking off, but back to my car, I would you can get route finders for electric chargers and there are a lot, I would do around 100-120 miles stop for a coffee or a bite to eat at a charging station top up while there there are rapid chargers that will give you 80% of a full charge in around 30 mins carry on to the venue win the match call in at a service station on the way back buy some flowers for the wife a pack of lager for myself from the winnings perfect day lol.
next car.

 

[62tucker]

Back a while we used to build a car with only drivers side door locking mechanism in and only the drivers seat.
Strange we thought but that was the car for the MPG test.
I sure stuff like that doesn’t happen today

 

[HawkerMan]

If I travel to say Alders Farm Fishery, the journey is 150miles each way - how do I get there and back in one day and where would I recharge?

If the range is 150miles that doesn't take into account additional demand on the batteries, ageing, etc, it's the 'test bed' range, a bit like the mpg figures often spouted by the manufacturers, impossible to achieve in practice.
So a charge on the way down, and a charge on the way back? How long does it take to charge the batteries?

Have a look at Zap Map it shows all the chargers locations. Typical charge times are 40 mins to get from 20% to 80% for most Ev's.

 

[richox12]

But that is 30 - 40 minutes I don't have to waste on a journey let alone 2 or 3 times on a journey. I can fill up my car 6 - 8 times in that amount of time. Chargers are too few and too slow.

Of course things will improve but they have a long, long way to go to be even close to the convenience & efficiency of current cars allied to the standard petrol station.

 

[pies]

Ive read somewhere most electric cars will only allow one fast charge in a 24h period

 

[Dave]

My car already has a newer model that has (allegedly) a 273 mile range and be in no doubt there are cars around that do more than that and they will IMO get better remember this is just taking off, but back to my car, I would you can get route finders for electric chargers and there are a lot, I would do around 100-120 miles stop for a coffee or a bite to eat at a charging station top up while there there are rapid chargers that will give you 80% of a full charge in around 30 mins carry on to the venue win the match call in at a service station on the way back buy some flowers for the wife a pack of lager for myself from the winnings perfect day lol.
next car.

So a journey of two and a half hours will have an extra 30minutes added to it whilst the car recharges - twice ?