Externally located electric meters

[JohnD]

You can't dye electrons, though.

I meant, you aren't allowed to, but people do it all the time.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

As you , such a system would (in conjunction with GPS) also allow charges to vary according to location and time-of-day - which one can argue is either good or bad.

And could be used to enforce speed limits, bus lane use etc.

To say nothing of being a wonderful tool for a surveillance state.

 

[JohnW2]

Even though many people choose to break the laws in question, I'm not sure that one can necessarily knock something because it could be helpful in enforcing the law (or detecting those who broke it).

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I've no problem with speed limit etc enforcement.

 

[SimonH2]

Cars can be made to not charge except via a "proper" charging point. Visiting Aunt Mabel is no different from visiting anywhere - either where you go has charging facilities or it does not. If it does not then your choices are:

1. Make sure you have sufficient range before you set off.
2. Visit a charging station on the way there or the way back.
3. Use a public parking space with a charger when you get to where Auntie lives.
4. Don't go in your car.

1 doesn't work unless aunt Mabel is less than half a charge worth away, 2 is debatable as there simply won't be available ones if/when lecky vehicles talke off as TPTB want them to, 3 ditto, 4 is simply 'avin a larf
But if aunt Mabel doesn't have a car, why would she have a dedicated charging point - and why should not having a charging point mean not having visitors. Also, have they standardised the chargers yet, as in ANY lecky car can charge from ANY charger ?

in the same way that you aren't allowed to put red diesel in your car, or convert chip fat without paying duty.

They do have a process for spotting red diesel users - it's not the red die, but other additives they detect. Also, you have to give your details to buy red diesel.
And for normal domestic quantities, you are now allowed to convert chip fat etc - up to 2,500l/year of converted fuel IIRC.
But yes, these are similar but they are easier to spot if done routinely. Roadside gas analysers can detect red diesel exhaust, and are (AIUI often deployed at high risk venues such as where farmers go with their Land Rovers). Compliance largely relies on the heavy penalties is caught doing it.
Detection for using a "13A lead" for charging would be impractical without having people going round residential areas at night looking for them. I think that would be politically untenable.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

1 doesn't work unless aunt Mabel is less than half a charge worth away,

For "Aunt Mabel" substitute any destination you like.

2 is debatable as there simply won't be available ones if/when lecky vehicles talke off as TPTB want them to

Applies to any destination you like.

, 3 ditto,

Ditto.

4 is simply 'avin a larf

Applies to any destination you like.

But if aunt Mabel doesn't have a car, why would she have a dedicated charging point - and why should not having a charging point mean not having visitors.

Applies to any destination you like.

And these all apply to IC engined cars too - if you don't have enough petrol in yours to visit auntie you get some on the way, or you don't go. You don't expect to be able to fill up from a storage tank in auntie's garden.

It's #2 that's the real killer.

Detection for using a "13A lead" for charging would be impractical without having people going round residential areas at night looking for them. I think that would be politically untenable.

It would, and no form of differential pricing for EV use could be brought in until there was a system of handshaking between vehicle and meter.

 

[AndyPRK]

Automatic compensation: Customers should be automatically compensated for each day their meter malfunctions and provides an incorrect reading

I beginning to think I will get one if this goes through

 

[SimonH2]

And these all apply to IC engined cars too - if you don't have enough petrol in yours to visit auntie you get some on the way, or you don't go.

The difference being that (in large parts of the country), fuels for IC engined vehicles are ubiquitously available - and rapidly supplied. If you do the maths (no, I can't remember the energy content of petrol and diesel), putting a few hundred miles worth of petrol or diesel into a car in just a few minutes represents a massive effective power flow. It think all of us here realise that there is no way whatsoever that you could put in the equivalent of a (say) 6 pump filling station and charge electric vehicles at sensible rates. It works for one or maybe two cars - anything more and the local grid just wouldn't cope, and nationally we wouldn't have the generation capacity. I vaguely recall having seen someone do the maths and arrive at figures in the MW range

 

[JohnW2]

The difference being that (in large parts of the country), fuels for IC engined vehicles are ubiquitously available - and rapidly supplied. ...

Indeed, and I presume that's what BAS was referring to when he wrote ...

... It's #2 that's the real killer.

I suppose that a corresponding (albeit totally different) problem would arise if petrol-engined vehicles had only recently appeared in quantity, and owners/drivers were wondering how on earth they would get fuel to undertake long journeys (and how much it would cost to create the necessary supply infrastructure).

As I think you are implying, I'm far from convinced that anyone (including government) who is advocating widespread change to EVs has actually done, or looked at very carefully, the maths of the 'fuel supply' issue!

Kind Regards, John

 

[EFLImpudence]

Are you two saying that they are fibbing to us and the quiet green future is not possible?

 

[SimonH2]

I suppose that a corresponding (albeit totally different) problem would arise if petrol-engined vehicles had only recently appeared in quantity, and owners/drivers were wondering how on earth they would get fuel to undertake long journeys (and how much it would cost to create the necessary supply infrastructure).

Indeed, and that did in fact happen - when the first cars arrived there were no filling stations. However, with a liquid fuel like the new fangled "petroleum spirit" (or "motor spirit"), it was a simple option to put it in tin cans and sell it via existing retail supply chains - originally you bought your petrol from a chemist. It was also easy to take extra cans with you.
I actually do have first hand experience of having to deal with limited availability of alternative fuels. A mate used to rally a Series II/III (a bit of a "bitsa") Land Rover, running primarily on LPG. I also ran my Discovery on LPG - at times with a broken petrol system so LPG only. Now, when you look at a map of LPG stations it would seem to be no problem - I could fill the Disco at one of the four stations there were in or around Newtown on the way to Builth Wells. But being mid Wales, none of these would be open when we were passing - so we carried several large cylinders of propane with us, probably contravening all sorts of regulations

As I think you are implying, I'm far from convinced that anyone (including government) who is advocating widespread change to EVs has actually done, or looked at very carefully, the maths of the 'fuel supply' issue!

No, tell me it isn't so

Are you two saying that they are fibbing to us and the quiet green future is not possible?

I'm not sure that they are fibbing, I think it's more a case of being so out of touch that they (or it would seem, at least a significant number of those making the decisions) believe the hype put forward by the green lobbyists

 

[JohnW2]

Are you two saying that they are fibbing to us and the quiet green future is not possible?

I agree with Simon. I don't think that 'they' (particularly the politicians) are deliberately fibbing. Rather, I think that they are probably sincere in what they say and believe, but appear to have been very poorly informed and advised.

Mind you, we can all be very wrong. I remember, I suppose back in the 60s, seeing a major debate going on regarding how we could implement a nationwide mobile communications system, and thinking that, of the various options being considered, a cellular network (such as we now have) required such an extensive and expensive infrastructure that it was 'unthinkable and a non-starter'. However, it appears that I could not have been much more wrong ... and had anyone then suggested anything like 'an Internet' to me, goodness knows what I would have thought about their sanity!

Kind Regards, John

 

[EFLImpudence]

As with filling stations, I presume that the cellular network was investment in the pursuit of profit by companies.

Are you suggesting that Mr.Musk and other producers will be 'installing' power stations so that we may do more than park one of their cars?

 

[JohnW2]

As with filling stations, I presume that the cellular network was investment in the pursuit of profit by companies.

Undoubtedly - but I seem to recall that, all those decades ago, there were 'goverment targets' in relation to the establishment of a nationwide cellular network (which we still have not fully achieved in 2018!).

Are you suggesting that Mr.Musk and other producers will be 'installing' power stations so that we may do more than park one of their cars?

Who knows? I'm not really 'suggesting' anything - merely making the same observations about 'the realities' that many/most other thinking people presumably must be observing.

I think one difference is probably that the government's ideas for very rapid escalation of the number of EVs would, if achieved, represent a very much more rapid increase in demands on the infrastructure than was the case with the (really pretty slow and gradual) increase in numbers of petrol-fuelled vehicles.

Kind Regards, John

 

[John D v2.0]

I'm not sure how the assumption arose that we need to fill our EVs in the same place and manner as oil powered cars. You could equally say it's a problem that we have to drive to a special small place with all sorts of safety rules and stand with a nozzle waiting for some liquid to flow. If so I can understand making it super quick.
Change to a situation where you can stop anywhere convenient (put them all the way along roads connected at any point) and charge without having to stand there at the same time, it doesn't seem so ridiculous to spend a little longer charging.