Electric Car Charging Gov to Invest £Billions

Joined
16 Apr 2004
Messages
5,448
Reaction score
953
Country
United Kingdom
UK Construction Week - News (constructionbuzz.co.uk)

Who drives electric? More and more electric vans, buses and even lorries around these days, which is all good. I'm thinking of electric next March, but how do you cope with the 500 mile round trip? That's a couple of stops of an hour or two each innit? And how will this work when there are half a dozen cars lined up waiting for the charger?
 
Sponsored Links
Joined
1 Apr 2016
Messages
11,637
Reaction score
400
Country
United Kingdom
UK Construction Week - News (constructionbuzz.co.uk)

Who drives electric? More and more electric vans, buses and even lorries around these days, which is all good. I'm thinking of electric next March, but how do you cope with the 500 mile round trip? That's a couple of stops of an hour or two each innit? And how will this work when there are half a dozen cars lined up waiting for the charger?

Depends on how you plan to use it. It's fine to drop the kids off and the local shopping. How many 500 mile round trips do you do?

Wall chargers are not that expensive these days - not sure if the OLEV grant is still kicking around. Trickle charge works fine for low mileage use.
 
Joined
16 Apr 2004
Messages
5,448
Reaction score
953
Country
United Kingdom
Trying to work it out I reckon about 75% of my work journeys are 30, 40, 50 miles in and around town in the day, which is ideal for electric. 20% between 50 and 200 miles. I do about 5 or 6 bigger trips a year; by that I mean 400+ miles. TBH I can't think of the last 500 miler but I did Leeds twice last year - that's just over 400 miles.
 
Joined
31 May 2016
Messages
9,466
Reaction score
1,232
Country
United Kingdom
Tesla Model 3 will get you 250 miles + on a full charge and then you can top it up at a rate of 10 miles / minute on a super charger and a bit less on a 100kw charger. Given traffic, you are unlikely to want to drive more than 3-4 hours without a 20 minute break anyway, so you really don't need to worry about range.
 
Sponsored Links
Joined
28 Jul 2018
Messages
6,243
Reaction score
481
Country
United Kingdom
If you can afford one of the longer ranged EVs with decent fast charging like Teslas, iPace, Ford Mustang, E-Tron, VW id3 or 4, KIA Miro or Hyundai Kona, then as long as you're able to find a fast charger on your route then long distance isn't a problem.

But if you can't afford one with a large battery, or one without the ability to fast charge then properly long journeys will be more awkward and you can end up having to waste too long at chargers, or have to spend more time planning your trip around your vehicle.

The main challenge to long distances at the moment is that the charger networks are still a bit too unreliable. Tesla Superchargers are the gold standard but for everyone else there's too many examples of chargers being broken or out of service to make it worry free. But it's changing.
 
Joined
13 Sep 2010
Messages
5,597
Reaction score
839
Location
Wrong side of The Channel
Country
United Kingdom
I won't be giving up petrol or diesel until I'm forced to. Still the cheapest and most practical transport. When everyone's charging cars and using their ASHPs to warm their homes, the windmills will never keep up.
 
Last edited:
Joined
15 Sep 2017
Messages
31,433
Reaction score
2,579
Location
S. Uplands
Country
United Kingdom
What happens if you drive 250 miles, stop at a service station with chargers and there's a queue for them?

Not much good if you have to wait 3 hours for a super rapid charger to come free.
 
Joined
7 Jan 2010
Messages
12,105
Reaction score
2,280
Location
Dystopia, a small island too close to Europe
Country
United Kingdom
If only electric cars were 'green'.
R7df54462841a9c7555b1f44fabd62c7d
 
Joined
14 Jan 2005
Messages
1,646
Reaction score
229
Location
Glamorgan
Country
United Kingdom
Wall chargers are not that expensive these days - not sure if the OLEV grant is still kicking around. Trickle charge works fine for low mileage use.

OLEV grant has recently been reduced from £500 to £350 to install a home charger point.
 
Joined
16 Apr 2004
Messages
5,448
Reaction score
953
Country
United Kingdom
Not much good if you have to wait 3 hours for a super rapid charger to come free.
It's hard to imagine what the situation is going to be like when the number of EVs is twenty or thirty times what it is now.
 
Sponsored Links
Top