Discreet EV charging point?

[JohnW2]

I imagine it'll get to the point where new nuclear plants will have to be forced through planning, regardless of opposition......

That might eventually happen but it would probably be decades (a lot of which would consist of arguing) from now before you would be likely to see such plants up and running, even if it does happen. I suspect that fusion plants (assuming they eventually happen) are probably more than a lifetime away.

Kind Regards, John

 

[flameport]

to the point where new nuclear plants will have to be forced through planning, regardless of opposition.

We should already be there.

Hinkley Point has barely started construction - it should already be finished and generating.
Several other nuclear stations should already be either in planning or under construction.

 

[ironsidebod]

...have a smart grid of devices that than talk and dynamic pricing to flatten out the peaks in the demand

The problem is, smart metering and devices will only allow the flexible charging. Until the working practices change in this country demand will still be in the morning and early evening. There's no point in the washing machine doing the laundry at 10 in the morning if it's going to sit damp for six hours until someone gets home to put it out, it'll just smell.

The kettle taking advantage of a lull in demand deciding to boil for a brew at 2 in the afternoon is no good when I get home at 5 and want a warm cuppa then. Will any of us use our lights during the day when it's cheaper and not use them at night? Slightly extreme examples I know but they illustrate the problem well enough.

The smart metering in the first instance and foreseeable future will just result in us being price gouged as we'll be unable to do anything about our usage patterns.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I imagine it'll get to the point where new nuclear plants will have to be forced through planning, regardless of opposition...... it would be nice to think that by that time we would have a smart grid of devices that than talk and dynamic pricing to flatten out the peaks in the demand to allow nucleaer to meet the base demand, and also to allow available renewables to be taken advantage of when they are available. however I am very doubtful of this!

Road transport uses 45 million litres of petrol and a little over 77 million litres of diesel per day. Of course there are efficiency differences, but that is over 1.2 TWh per day. What's our total generating capacity?

There are over 25m cars on the roads in the UK, of which less than 100,000 are electric. What's would happen if they were all electric? Where would they charge during journeys in the day? How would they charge overnight?

Consider your average budget to mid price hotel - Travelodge/Premier Inn/Holiday Inn/etc, with a low-hundreds number of cars in the car park. And they all want to recharge overnight. Hotel supply going to cope, is it?

What about the electrical equivalent of this? How easy would it be to supply?

Sorry, folks, electric cars are a pipe dream. As long as the take-up is minuscule everything is fine, but if we all, or even a significant minority, buy into the idea that they are the future then the future becomes a destroyed electricity network and cars that sit immobile.

 

[SimonH2]

Rather than install a cable, is it practical to install a duct so that when the time comes you are able to pull in a cable ?
Usually the issue is along the lines of "it won't be reasonably practical to pull up the floor later" - whether that's because it's a solid floor, or will have something like laminate down, or ... Just installing a duct along (part of ?) the route from CU to where the charger might be needed could be all you need.

 

[stillp]

Interesting paper from National Grid here: http://www.hl.co.uk/news/2017/7/13/electric-car-boom-will-fuel-demand-for-power-says-national-grid

 

[EFLImpudence]

Apart from everything else, how will the increase from Europe be possible with, presumably, them being in the same situation (if they're still talking to us).

"In all of the scenarios, new nuclear power stations are assumed to be built and the capacity of interconnectors that provide backup power from Europe rises from 4GW now to between 10GW and 19GW in 2030."

 

[ban-all-sheds]

The number of plug-in cars and vans could reach 9m by 2030, up from around 90,000 today

So even though the figures in that report look like a massive problem, they are only predicated on 9M EVs. What happens if there are 2 or 3 times that many?

 

[EFLImpudence]

There might not be that many.

I presume by then they will be heavily taxed to make up for the lost revenue from petrol.

 

[DursleyDonkey]

Gas fired micro CHP?

 

[dishman]

Best method is to forget about it until you have an electric car.

Good point. Although the conduit idea is not a bad one. Perhaps conduit and for the mean time use the desired area with a normal socket, (which will be quite useful for garden tools) is the best solution.

It was just a thought really.

The rest of the thread raises some very interesting issues.

With Volvo stopping combustion only cars by 2019. From what I have read it will be a mix of hybrid, plug in hybrid and all electric from then on. I would expect other manufactures to follow suit.

It is probably going to be a hybrid mix (as the most popular option) for the next few decades I would imagine. Along with a lot of development in energy recovery, brake by wire (which is already available in top of the range models I think) etc.

I also wonder what the environmental cost will be with all the raw material extraction (lithium etc). I cannot imagine it is very environmentally friendly.I wonder what the availability is like too.

Maybe hydrogen will start to become attractive again. However there are many issues with that from what I have briefly read (producing the volume required quickly enough). The Japanese (honda especially) have been experimenting with it for two decades at least and do have some road going models available (in Japan).

 

[SimonH2]

Maybe hydrogen will start to become attractive again.

It's never been attractive other than in the eyes of people with no clue about practicalities. It's expensive to make (needing either massive amounts of lecky which isn't carbon free unless we build a shedload of more nuclear, or it comes from coal with massive CO2 emissions), needs massive amounts of energy to get into a state for storage (compression to high pressures and/or cooling to very low temperatures), it's difficult to store (high pressures and/or low temperatures - plus everything is porous to hydrogen), and difficult to dispense - and for good measure, you get a very small amount of fuel in a large and heavy tank in the car. And for good measure, there's nothing at all in common with the distribution system for any other fuel - so a completely new infrastructure required.
What you can do with it, is use it to make other things like methanol. With some minor tweaks that would cost about nothing if done during design, any petrol vehicle could run on a petrol/ethanol/methanol mix - meaning that you could introduce it and people could use it in their existing cars, filling from existing pumps, drawing from existing tanks, supplied with the existing infrastructure. Thus something like methanol (which is liquid at normal atmospheric pressure and ambient temperature) could be introduced without any real problem.

But for electric and hybrids - I wonder what the battery warranty is ? My youngest car is 10 years old, my oldest is 29 this year - I bet neither of them would be viable if they needed a new battery at the sort of prices I've heard bandied about. I don't think they've been around (in large volumes) for long enough to truly know how well they last.

 

[dishman]

I thought that was the case with Hydrogen....lots of impracticalities...

But for electric and hybrids - I wonder what the battery warranty is ? My youngest car is 10 years old, my oldest is 29 this year - I bet neither of them would be viable if they needed a new battery at the sort of prices I've heard bandied about. I don't think they've been around (in large volumes) for long enough to truly know how well they last.

I read that the battery issue is "solved" by some kind of lease, whereby you pay an ongoing monthly cost so that the battery can be replaced further down the line.

https://www.zap-map.com/battery-leasing-schemes-key-pushing-electric-vehicles-mainstream/

https://www.driving.co.uk/car-clinic/what-do-you-need-to-know-before-buying-a-used-electric-car/

 

[winston1]

I thought that was the case with Hydrogen....lots of impracticalities...



I read that the battery issue is "solved" by some kind of lease, whereby you pay an ongoing monthly cost so that the battery can be replaced further down the line.

https://www.zap-map.com/battery-leasing-schemes-key-pushing-electric-vehicles-mainstream/

https://www.driving.co.uk/car-clinic/what-do-you-need-to-know-before-buying-a-used-electric-car/

I wouldn't say that solved it. £70 a month or £4000 every five years, you still pay.

 

[dishman]

Hence my " marks. It was an ironic solved.

I would expect the lease to come bundled with the car price in some fashion, maybe even a discount for taking one out. It at least should ensure there is still a viable second hand market for your car at the end of the battery life.

Without the lease, you have a car that has a potential huge upfront cost of battery replacement for the new owner, many would be reluctant to purchase in this scenario. If the lease can be transferred then it will make the car a lot more saleable.

Not ideal, yes it still costs, but it is a solution.