That’s a relief
Electric cars at work
- Thread starter Dave Herbal
- Start date
David M
Striker
Electrical version of a 5 litre portable petrol can. But possibly useful for folks in the same scenario as the OP?
Howard the Duck
Striker
This is no doubt a daft question but please humour me - from what I know of most electric cars the quick charge to about 80% takes around 45 minutes (if that's wildly wrong my whole question may be void) - as more people get electric vehicles what is the vision for how filling/recharge stations will work, say, along the A1 or M1. The number of points are enough when cars are taking five minutes or so to fill up with petrol or diesel but when most cars are taking 45 minutes what happens then?
Will they need to build more recharge points? Are they already?
Sorry if my assumptions are way off.
Will they need to build more recharge points? Are they already?
Sorry if my assumptions are way off.
A Teenstone
Central Defender
This is almost exactly the question I've wanted an answer for going back to a conversation I had with an electric car owner.
Depends hugely on the battery size and output of charger. My car has approximately 84kw of usable battery space, so a 50kw charger would give me 60% in an hour. It'll depend on how many miles per kWh they get, I get about 2.5-3.2 depending on traffic, road, temperature etc, so that's around 125-150 miles from that one hour at a rapid charge. You can get faster chargers than this, and many slower ones.
At 2.5 miles per kWh, and £0.25 per kWh, I'm getting about 10p a mile, which is about what a 50mpg car would get, at £1.30 a litre.
There certainly needs to be more charge points. Unfortunately at the moment it's all far too privatised and splintered. You need about six different apps to use the different types of charger - I have PodPoint, BP, Fastned and GeniePoint, plus Zap Map to find points. There are plenty of others too - Hubsta, Electric Blue, Ionity...
If the government are serious about EVs then they need to make it as easy as possible for people because it'll never be as easy as a petrol car. In my little Citroen I could pull up, hoy in 30 litres, pay and be gone in about 3 minutes. In my EV, I'm looking at a good hour or two on charge depending on the type of charger, and if it's a measly 7kw charger, I might get 70 miles over 4 hours. Fine at work, useless when travelling.
In an ideal world, there would be a single provider, with subsidised charging rates (average atm is about £0.25 per kWh) and government backing to put as many charging points in as many places as they can.
Wilfy
Striker
Another daft question possibly, do you get more miles per kw the smaller the car?
I don't know, but intuitively I'd say yes, as smaller cars are carrying less weight, and probably less power hungry.
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The VW E-Up (built in Sheffield) gets 5.3 miles per kwh, whilst the Fiat 500 gets 4.4.
The Tesla Model 3 gets 4.4 too, but that's Tesla. The other large EVs, like the Merc, Audi and Jaguar offerings get under 3 on average.
Wilfy
Striker
Some decent sized cars getting good miles on that list.I don't know, but intuitively I'd say yes, as smaller cars are carrying less weight, and probably less power hungry.
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The VW E-Up (built in Sheffield) gets 5.3 miles per kwh, whilst the Fiat 500 gets 4.4.
The Tesla Model 3 gets 4.4 too, but that's Tesla. The other large EVs, like the Merc, Audi and Jaguar offerings get under 3 on average.
Very good point.
Couple of weeks ago I was travelling back up from Dumfries on a Sunday afternoon, got to Abingdon services on the M74 around 5pm.
All the Tesla charge bays were full, there were several others parked at the end of the parking lanes waiting to jump in and get a spot. Saw one car move in the 30 minutes we were there, the missus was feeding the bairn so we were parked up and I listened to the Man U game.
Got me thinking, in a standard car I could fill the tank and be on my way inside 5 minutes
True, I suppose it's the size =/= performance issue.
Nah they definitely do need more chargers or at least a more unified system.
I guess it depends if you do many longer journeys too as I haven't used a services charge point in 18 months.
Home charger and a quick charge when I rarely go in the office.
Been to Pooley Bridge and back a couple of times no bother.
If you're doing longer trips regularly though I can imagine it being a worry/consideration.
Joe Public
Striker
Low carbon sources are in excess of 50% of the annual energy productions, where you getting 60% gas from? In 2020 is was 35.7% electricity produced via gas, 3.3% oil and other fuels, 1.8% coal. The rest (the majority) from low carbon and renewable sources.They’re e connected to the grid which is currently 60% combined cycle gas turbine, 15% nuclear, 5% offshore wind and the balance other.
G. B. National Grid status
www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk
There is no mechanism to specifically direct electrons generated by renewables into appliances. Renewable power supply is contracts not physics.
They'll definitely need more charging points. One thing is mind, the majority of the time most people can charge at home and will do so, especially if they benefit from a cheaper tariff overnight. Charge overnight and you might have 300 miles of range, plenty to avoid having to use chargers at service stations on most journeys. Apparently it isn't easy to retrofit charging points though, so it'll definitely be a big expense
I'm annoyed at my hybrid car like, didn't look into it properly (my own fault), can't charge at home and now found that it can't fast charge. So even to get my 30 miles of electric charge, no matter what charging point I go to, it'll take over 4 hours to charge. When work get a charger I'll use that, but until then I'll just use petrol because I'll never have the patience to sit at a bloody supermarket for that long (and they'd ticket me if I tried!)
Don’t want to kick a man when he’s down but you’ve made a pretty basic mistake by not spending more time researching into a big purchase.
To be fair it's a company car. I mainly went hybrid for the benefit in kind savings. Wasn't really arsed about using it in electric mode. Think it's on the road price is about £14000 more than my last one, and it isn't costing me a penny more due to the benefit in kind rate, so I'm happy regardless. Its a minor annoyance as charging the battery would save me a few quid, but work are getting a charger soon anyway so I'll use that
42
Striker
I thought the big selling point of EV's was that they're loads cheaper to fuel.
But it turns out that they cost a similar amount
I’m talking public charge points there. It’s about £0.14 at home, which is about 6p a mile I think.
If you can find me a petrol car that does 60 in under 5 seconds and costs 6p a mile to run, I’d be much obliged.
They’re a bit dangerous with that. Surprised it isn’t a legal requirement that they make noises at sub 40 speeds
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BigPete
Striker
It's a good job it was only going about 15.
Completely silent if any faster may have got me.
