Electric cars.

I have some thoughts on EVs. Long post, sorry about that, hopefully of some use to some.

Background: I have been driving EV for over 5 years. First one did 95,000 miles in 3.5 years. 2 years ago we replaced the "ICE backup" 2nd car with EV. All told, with family members, we have bought 5 EVs.

I'm a geek. So I am perfectly happy with spreadsheets, planning, and all that jazz. Mrs K is NOT. But she has done truly awful journeys (blizzards, lousy charging infrastructure) back in the early days when there was far less "infrastructure" than now - with a fair bit of "phone support" admittedly, but it all turned out OK

I have never run out of juice. That would be all but impossible. The car tells me exactly how far I can go, and for the destination in my SatNav what my arrival juice will be, and whether I need to charge (and WHERE I can do that) and so on.

If I got there and the charger was bust I'd have a problem. But so I would at a motorway service station if I arrived on "empty" to find they had a power cut / whatever. Basically "unlikely but possible".

ICE - Internal Combustion Engine i.e. Petrol or Diesel
EV = Electric Vehicle
Hydrogen - Forget it. Just move on.

So here I go:

Price

Expensive - covered that earlier in the thread

For someone that can afford it, but is uncomfortable with the price (that was me back on day one) some things to consider:

• Cheap to run, per mile (until Road Tax is imposed on EVs) - save 5p a mile if current car is 60MPG, and 15p a mile if 30MPG. Favours high mileage drivers
• Depreciation may be significantly less than ICE
• If ICE becomes unpopular that may be more significant. Increasing Fossil Fuel tax, banned from town centres, increasingly frowned upon by peers maybe?
• If EV becomes more desirable with people wanting 2nd hand EV, that will increase demand (and no method of increasing "supply" of 2nd hand EVs retrospectively ).

Longer journeys

3rd party charging infrastructure in UK is terrible. Whilst it is getting better it is difficult to know if an unfamiliar route will have good, bad or indifferent chargers. Tesla has that cracked, because they own their charging infrastructure (and you can also charge a Tesla at 3rd party, just the others cannot use Tesla chargers). For the rest, they are reliant on 3rd party charging infrastructure and some good, some bad, and plenty (currently) old-and-slow.

At the very least a "long trip" requires significant planning, and time allowed for charging. There are tools available ... but "planning" is not for everyone, compared to "Petrol forecourt available every few miles without any thought"

Although ... in Norway planning for Fossil Fuel journeys is now becoming a thing as demand drops, and pumps are replaced with EV chargers

When Norway started EV transition there were very few models, and limited supply. When we transition there will be far more availability, and government will be turning the screws, more models available, ICE vs EV price will be approaching parity, so my prediction is it will happen faster - I reckon that will happen 3 years from now, although some potential stumbling blocks: short-supply of EVs could cause the price to be set based on "demand", and Battery Supply might be a limiting factor.

Of course, if you never drive out of range, or have a Backup ICE for long journeys, all that will not be a concern

Home charging.

You can charge "in town whilst you shop", once a week, but it is far from ideal, and what if all the chargers in the car park are busy when you go shopping? And that will probably be "same price as Petrol"

Home charging installation is subsidised but IMHO the installers jack up the price for "subsidised installations" so the saving isn't great. Also, depends how straightforward your wiring is. If your fuse board is on the wall just inside where you park your car then "easy". If you park "down the drive a bit" and want the charger there you are going to have to dig up the drive. If you park inside the garage the supply there will almost certainly not be sufficient, so a new cable will have to be run from fuse-box to garage. Easy if they are near to each other ... otherwise "expensive" applies. Its a big fat cable ...

A reasonably straightforward installation may well cost £500 (on top of subsidy). You may be better off getting your local sparky to do it, and not taking the subsidy, and choosing "any charger that suits you best".

There are chargers which can divert any excess from the PV on your roof into the car (not all can do that sort of "trickle charge" rate). And others that will support load balancing of 2+ EVs charging at "same time" or "sequentially" overnight.

There are chargers that can be hooked up to electricity price ... so will charge the car when rates are low. At best times (blowing a gale in North Sea and middle of night when no one has the oven on ) they will PAY YOU to use the electricity (because otherwise the North Sea folk are paid to NOT produce excess electricity (so called "curtailment").

And then you could also have a Battery in the house (or an EV which allows "discharge to house" as well as "Charge"), and then all the possibility of buying-cheap and selling-high ...

So there are "options". More confusion available for the Punter ...

Charging rates:

13 amp plug about 5MPH (staying with rellies over the weekend)
Typical "home wall charger" 20-25 MPH - so 10 hours, overnight, would get you 200 miles for sure.

Almost certainly you will want to change to a cheap overnight tariff. The likes of Octopus (4 hours Midngiht-4AM @ 5p I think) have an introduction fee - dunno off hand but £50-100 for each party - so if you are doing that find a mate that has a referral code you can use

3rd party charging ranges from 50kW (all the old, existing, infrastructure) to 250kW+.
Absolute top end for an EV is 5 miles per kWh, 3 miles per kW is typical.

At 50kW 150 miles would take an hour
At 250kW 125 miles would take 10 minutes

But ...

There is a sweet-spot for charging, because as the battery fills up the charge rate has to slow down (because of "chemistry"). And you would be hard-pressed, and brave!!, to find a charger positioned perfectly so that you would arrive at 0%

I work on the basis of arriving at 10% and charging to 80%. Above 80% charging rate slows down a lot (and above 90% a LOT). So that is a "top up" of 70%. If your EV has a range, of, say, 200 miles (at real-world motorway speeds) then you would be charging 10% - 80%, i.e. 70% of 200 miles = 140 miles. If you stick to 70 MPH then that would be charging every 2 hours, that would suit my bladder. At a good charger (and IF your EV is capable of utilising that fast charge) you would stop for about 30 minutes ...

However, that is drive-charge-drive-charge ... cross-continent stuff.

If your EV can do 200 miles, but your journey is 250 miles (e.g. 125 miles there, and 125 miles back) then you stop for an extra 50 mile "top up". You only need enough juice to get back home ("a location that has charging when you get there"). It is not like Petrol where you fill the tank full once a week ... with EV "enough to get there" is fine, allowing for any detour and your personal squeaky-bum tolerance. That 50 miles top-up is 5 minutes at a fast charger. Most of my out-of-range journeys (in UK) are like that, its only when I drive to the Alps that I am doing drive-charge-drive-charge.

If your EV only has a range of 100 miles that's a different thing altogether. My EV will do 300 miles at motorway speed ... I paid (a lot) for that extra range, and I carry that extra weight around with me on every journey ...

Reimbursing Relies for a 13AMP charge:

They are probably paying 15-20p a unit, and 13AMP charging is around 2.5kW. So 30-40p and hour. If you charge overnight then a £fiver. They may not realise it is as little as that ... if they have an overnight off-peak cheap-rate it would only be a £quid for overnight 13AMP charge

 

Convenience

Come home, plug in, leave home every day with a full tank of fuel. No smelly forecourts. If you currently spend 5 minutes a week filling up - assuming you don't, also, queue at a busy supermarket forecourt to get best price - that is 5 minutes x 52 weeks = over 4 hours a year. Actually I think allowing for "turn off main road" and queue-to-pay it is more likely to be 10 minutes ... that's 8.5 hours a year. If you have to charge for 30 minutes "once a month" that works about about the same. Although, as Mrs K tells me, breaking your journey for 30 minutes is a major drag compared with lots of individual 5-10 minute stops ... For the driver it is a welcome and sensible break. For the passenger(s) it just makes the journey longer.

When I am ("solo") on business trips I sit for 30 minutes (either in car, or increasing my waistline at Costa with Coffee and Pastry :( ) doing emails. I would have to do those emails when I got home, so it is time-neutral for me. This suits high mileage travelling salesmen - cheap per mile, and time neutral.

Also, its a battery, not an engine. It hasn't got to start the engine to "do stuff", so you can turn on the heater (or air con) from your phone before you have to venture out on a cold morning. Or just schedule it - back when I did go to the office I scheduled "leave home at 6AM Mon-Fri, and leave office at 5:30PM", and heating/cooling came on for 15 minutes prior to that. Or do that when you get up in restaurant to pay the bill ... proper 1st world problem! But then in my lifetime there are lots of things I never had, never needed, that are now invaluable. Central locking. Electric windows. Reversing camera. SatNav.

If the EV is plugged in at that time the EV will use "shore power" to heat the car (and the battery)

Running cost

Supposedly cheaper. Less maintenance - no oil and plug change, no metal-rubbing-on-metal to wear out. Uses "regen" to slow down (unless a child runs out in front of you and you jump on the brakes). So brake pads change is typically 150,000 miles.

Specialist job though, so you will be at Dealer to get anything done, and Dealer-prices. Although ... in Norway 3rd party "EV mechanics" are popping up, so there will come a time when that becomes a non issue, and you won't be limited to Dealer-only. There are YouTubes of EV owners doing their own home repairs - including upgrading the battery, and repairing one on a knackered old car. So "doable" ... but definitely not for everyone.

Service interval for EV is anything from what you are used to with ICE to "pretty much never" - which is what I do now. Depends what the warrantee requires of course ... worth checking that. This makes a difference to a high mileage driver: time-off-road for obligatory service is reduced.

Battery

I did 95,000 miles in my first EV in 3.5 years. It lost about 6% of range, which is "typical". Some of the earlier ones had no "battery management system" and had significant battery degradation as a result. But for a modern EV with a good BMS it shouldn't be a significant issue. the BMS "cools and heats" the battery to keep it at just the right temperature when when charging fast and so on so that the chemistry is treated gently.

Ownership

Totally my opinion, but I hear others say the same.

Much more relaxing. I do (well "did") a lot of long journeys for business. I arrived far more refreshed at the meeting, and on returning home. I also had a regular journey that requirement me to drive home 1.5 hours starting at 9:30PM on boring dual carriageway. With ICE I would be fighting sleep the last few miles ... that NEVER happened with EV.

I don't fully know why ... quieter for sure. Driving is easier and smoother. I read a psychologists report that said it was because EV drivers are "smug" Well if that's what it is then it works for me! Definitely less wear and tear on the driver IME.

Range

OK, my biggest hobby-horse.

The quoted range figures are useless. They are calculated based on a Mr and Mrs Average "combined cycle". But consider this (assuming you have home charging):

You come home, plug in, and leave home every day with a full tank.

There is absolutely no way you are going to run out "tootling around doing all the normal combined-cycle-journey short-trip stuff"

But when you "go somewhere" it will be at motorway speed, quite possibly with lousy weather / cold temperature / pouring rain. Worse case for range (for an ICE too). That is most definitely NOT a combined-cycle journey.

So I think the ONLY range figure which makes sense is "flat out on the motorway", because those are the only days when you will have a range problem, but there are no official figures for that use-case.

Touch and go? Slow down. At 50 MPH the consumption falls dramatically compared to 70 ... particular when 70 is actually "I didn't realise I was doing 90 officer, I could have sworn it was 70"

On journeys where I get held up in slow moving traffic, or a long stretch of 50MPH roadworks, my consumption drops remarkably

Do any top-up charge towards end of journey, once getting down to 10%. On long journeys when I have hit traffic / roadworks I have found I didn't need to top-up charge at all as a consequence.

Real World Data

No official data, but there are enthusiasts who provide do that. There is one YouTuber that I follow in particular: Bjørn Nyland. He started out as a Tesla Fan (MANY years ago) and now does a series of real-world tests of every EV that comes his way (**) including

• How many banana boxes does it hold?
• What's the 0-60. Actually "What's the 0-60 at 100%, 90%, ... 10%" charge
• What's the consumption on a decent motorway trip.
• How long does it take to drive 1000km (600 miles), including charging. (yeah, he drives that 10+ hour journey on every vehicle he tests ... try finding an Auto Magazine Journalist that does that!)

(**) Because he is popular where a manufacturer won't lend him a vehicle an owner does so the Brand gets his warts-and-all whether they want it or not

His 1000km test is the most useful. He drove (at the outset) an ICE on that journey, so there is comparison to a real-world ICE trip, including refuel and "grab a coffee" stops.

And he has all that in an online spreadsheet. So possible to compare A and B brands in terms of actual, doable, long journey range.

Range in foul weather

Much is made of this - "EVs can't go anywhere in the winter"

Its not quite that bad! If you are NOT going out of range, and use twice as much energy as normal, so what? If you drive an ICE 5 miles to the local shop in winter the fuel economy will, also, be dreadful. The issue is that your ICE has a tank-range of, say, 600 miles and your EV, say, 200 miles.

If I have a long journey in winter then I do something differently to when I had ICE.

I Precondition the car before I leave. Turn it "on" 20 minutes before departure, whilst still plugged into the mains. That will make the interior nice and warm and also heat the battery. I will also fill up the battery to 100%

Once I set off (again, long journey, at motorway speed) I am doing 70 MPH and the heating of the cabin is "not a lot per mile driven". The battery is warm, its not quite as efficient as Summer, but it isn't terrible either. Probably 10% less range / more-energy at 0C in February.

But that is for a continuous, long, journey. If you are a travelling salesman and stop for an hour at a client the battery will then be stone cold. You will get that "set off energy penalty" at every stop. That IS a worst-case scenario to avoid with EV. (Plug into any 13AMP socket you can find lying around when you get to Client ... I'm brazen on that, I have dangled extension lead out of motel window at times ...)

yeah, -20C is a different ball of chalk. If we get that in UK the AA, RAC, BBC and Police will be saying "essential journeys only", and I'm not going to embark on a 200 mile journey ...

Beware of torrential rain, even a mid Summer thunderstorm. The tires have to push all that water out of the way whatever speed you are doing. Slowing down will get you the aero-saving, but you still have the cost of "pushing water out of the way". Then only time I have come close to running out was on a long journey in torrential summer rain.

Planning

Excellent website available "A Better Route Planner"

Put the Start / Destination in, choose the model of EV, the charge you will leave with (e.g. 100%), what you want to arrive with (e.g. if no charging available there), and set temperature if Winter / Summer etc. and see what it says.

It will tell you where to charge, how long it will take and so on. All that data (car's consumption and charging time) is based on actual real-world data from owners, and it has a very good reputation for being accurate.

So if you are thinking of buying an EV (or just curious) you could try London to Edinburgh and change Brands to see what the difference is. Try Tesla, if you like, to see what difference the use of dedicated Tesla charging infrastructure makes (you need to set the option for Tesla Chargers / Non-Tesla chargers)

Bjørn Nyland on YouTube and Spreadsheets and stuff

 

I think the difference between the introduction of flat TVs etc. are we were not all told that there was a time limit and if you continue to use your old one there would be penalties to pay.

 

So true FC, it winds me up that there ideas are so great, then why the need for force.

I said in another topic, those with the least are more giving and sharing than those with most. It's because we are more socially aware of those living on lower incomes and hardship.

The UK is so divided than ever before, recent events like Brexit has contributed to that but so has technology. The UK has a very high level of income inequality compared to other developed countries and that gap is not narrowing.

I am all for change, society would never move forward if we didn't. I strongly believe in alternatives, compromise, fairness, opportunity, choice etc etc. But when you start going down the route of force, you start to erode competition. Competition is healthy, its healthy for the consumer.

Look at Apple, they are to be charged by the EU and likely the UK for breaking competitions rules by abusing it's dominant position in streaming platform.
Then there is the football clubs that wanted to force through a breakaway league with no promotion or relegation. The richer clubs just wanted to get richer without even considering the fans.

Like you, I am all for change, force “be careful what you wish for”.

 

Never heard of using hydrogen in place of the usual gas.
Not sure how it could be phased in.
Can hydrogen be pressurised and stored in tanks at the location.

 

Would be good for making gas filled balloons.

 

Sounds good until you get round to the part where they will extract the hydrogen from methane which then leave co2

Or then extract it from water and use loads of electricity doing it.