Car problems due to lockdown

Sorry, I'm "off on one" ... but whilst I am ...

I was looking at this post

The most important US energy chart of the year is out: 8 big takeaways - Electrek

showing energy generation (in USA, but ...). I was aware of the waste from Well-to-Wheels - the amount of energy to Pump from the well, transport, and (mainly) refine the oil. And then the fact that the Internal Combustion Engine isn't very efficient (it generates a lot of heat - hence the radiators etc.)

But that article brought home the "Rejected Energy" components (I have paraphrased)

"For a coal fired power station 2/3 of the energy is discarded as heat appearing as clouds of vapour from cooling towers, such as at Didcot"

"Small internal combustion engines are one of the most wasteful forms which, along with jet planes, are mostly producing heat and only 20-25% converts to propulsion. Compare to an EV, which is over 90% efficient"

and that is after the refining process which itself is hopelessly inefficient - an EV can drive further on the energy used to make a gallon of Petrol than a car can drive on that gallon :(

 

Me again ...

My electricity consumption is poor (compared to "average") :( because we have several hefty Servers here running 24/7 ... but we are attempting to smooth that consumption with battery buying most juice overnight when North Sea Wind would otherwise be on curtailment, and a (postponed) Spring project would be adding enough PV to make us self sufficient and not need to do that.

I need to work on Fine Tuning so that little bit of Export doesn't happen around 16:00 ... and the extra PV would mean no Off-peak charging of battery, and enough for the car to drive on Sunshine too

 

All good points FC, thanks I don't suppose you will be surprised to hear that I have some thoughts

Currently constrained by battery production, so not going to happen "overnight", but the boss of the National Grid would disagree with you

5 Myths about electric vehicles busted | National Grid Group

I don't know how anyone without off-street parking would currently cope. Low mileage drivers may be able to charge up whilst doing the weekly shop, but one of the key benefits of an EV is always starting off with a full tank each day. Change of Thinking needed on Refuelling : an ICE either once a week or when it is getting low compared to "EV" of "whenever you can" ... bit like when my kids have 20 friends round and they all plug in their Mobile Phones without so much as a by-your-leave Although ... when we visit friends they offer me to plug in before I ask ...

Even with off street parking the landlords are going to have to be compelled to put in chargers. We did half the car park at work, government paid for 50%. We see that as a perk for employees of course, but even so the cost isn't huge (spread over several car ownerships), and perhaps where landlord and occupant are willing the occupant can pay in some way/portion.

But, yeah, we are in the days of early adopters so currently only anyone keen needs to apply (and we are only just out of the "only people with deep pockets" stage, and certainly not yet at the "£-for-£ replacement for ICE" stage - but that isn't far away IMO)

That's going to melt the cable I hope they aren't also growing Cannabis in the loft, and bypassing the meter, otherwise the whole street is going to have dim lights ...

No disagreement from me on that, but we've dug up the street for mains Water, Sewerage, Electricity, Telephone, Cable, Fibre ... putting some more infrastructure in is just more of the same to my mind ...

There has been a fair bit of activity on adding Car Chargers to Street Lamps - now using LEDs and not sucking the same power as they used to. I find it hard to believe there is enough juice left over to charge a street full of cars ... but just taking averages it may be doable
And of course, now the future has arrived unexpectedly, everyone is going to work form home and there won't be any commuting<thud> Joking apart, Mileage has fallen significantly over the last 10 years

Jan 2019 Guardian "A major analysis of 23m MOT tests has revealed that the average distance driven each year in cars in the UK has fallen again, down 10% from a decade ago ... The number of teenagers holding a driving licence has dropped by almost 40% in two decades, with many young people rejecting car ownership and preferring to communicate via smartphone rather than meet face to face"

Average annual mileage is about 7K now. If not used at all at weekend that would be 30 miles a day, which is about an hour to charge (assuming 7kW charger as installed at homes). So with 10 hours 9PM to 7AM only 10% of the cars in the street need to charge at the same time ... glossing over some technical challenges there ...

Me too. I am very sceptical there will be enough batteries by then ... that would need something like 100 equivalents to the Tesla Gigafactory ... but there will be some technical breakthroughs in that time (well "there had better be"!)

But I see a huge upside if that deadline is achieved. Reduction in pollution will save us a fortune in cleanup, and NHS cost for respiratory complications (great to have that reduction just now, at the same time as the Respiratory impact of Covid-19). A huge reduction in balance of payments deficit with Oil States given that the UK is in the fortunate position of being able to make Juice from North Sea Wind. And chuck into that equation the cost if we needed a Gulf War to protect Oil supply ... seems like a no brainer to me, but Government has to deal with all the "business as usual" lobbyists

As with all such things the early adopters are the ones prepared to pay. They stimulate demands, which leads to companies tooling up for scale production / "economies of scale" and breakthroughs in tech. Early adopters also provide vehicles into the 2nd hand market for trickle down. The price has fallen very quickly - my like-for-like replacement after 3.5 years was 22% cheaper and had 20-30% more range. Lots of Auto companies in the wings tooling up to produce more affordable EVs ... the VW ID for example. A bit like the rollout of North Sea Wind the pundits have seriously under-predicted what would be achieved in practice. I expect more-of-that. Tesla's share price is ridiculous, but I think it IS an indicator of what the pundits think will come to pass ...

For anyone who drives high mileage the maths already work. For a typical Rep an EV saves £100 a month (on fuel) for each 10K miles driven a year. So for someone doing 30K miles p.a. they can chuck an extra £300 a month into Finance ... that buys a lot more car

That's true of course (at the Model-S/X / iPace end). But you are overlooking the average buyer for the Model-3 who is either a fan, an anorak, an Eco Warrior, or just keen to have a go. Still £40K ... but that is price point for plenty of car buyers (particularly when also considering total-cost-of-ownership) and Tesla are easily selling all they can make; Other good choices available; the Renault Zoe is a great piece of kit, as are the Korean ones (almost zero availability though ) and VW ID is going to be pushed hard in EU.

I don't know why they have continued to be popular. No sophisticated Battery Management System, so the battery takes a caning ... a lot of Leafs have been sold though

One upside of the Leaf rubbish BMS is that there are dirty cheap 2nd hand ones available, for anyone not needing to do many miles

Government could provide incentives of course ... for reasons that I cannot fathom in UK they are doing almost all their pump-priming with Company Cars (0% benefit in kind tax for the employee and 100% first year tax write-off for the company). For Ordinary Joe there is only a very modest Subsidy on the EV car price, £0 road tax and some congestion charge etc. exemptions

Norway is the best example (but of course they have benefit of massive Sovereign Wealth Fund, and masses of Hydro Power ...). They charge 0% VAT on EVs, and as consequence 50% of new cars sold are EV ... if that is what a 20% price subsidy can achieve why wouldn't we be doing that too?

Speaking for you then I think the price-point for you will be "soon". Dunno how long you own a car, but my guess would be that for new car buyers (apart from the "every year for show" buyers) its probably between 3 and 5 years. So if you bought a new car now then in 3 or 5 years when you come to replace the EV landscape will be completely different. I think buying a Diesel now would be a very foolish decision in terms of 2nd price in the future.

For those down the bottom of the pile my biggest concern is the cost they face with their old, inefficient, Diesels as the price of fuel is escalated to force everyone to EV. As ever the poor will be seriously disadvantaged in the fall out.

not to gloss over that, but I am not too concerned. At the outset we have to make the journey from A-to-B. I expect that the first EV vehicles were an Eco disaster ... I see various Embodied Carbon breakdowns now, which in general seem to show that an EV takes a bit longer to recoup the embodied carbon than ICE, but of course thereafter, for the rest of its life, it is ahead.

Cobalt in battery is decreasing towards zero ... to take one example ... so I am comfortable with some pollution / rape of earth minerals in short term if it gets us to a better place thereafter. ICE has had, what?, 150 years to reach the current maturity. EV needs a bit of slack to be allowed to mature. But questions will need to be asked if that does not lead to the answers to your very valid points

 

Cable is locked into car, and charger. Need to unlock car (and also "nozzle") to release ... can chop it with bolt cutters if you just want the copper of course, but not without some decent rubber gloves

Wireless (induction) charging would solve that, but personally I think the charging losses are unacceptable.

indeed. Trivial to add wiring for a charger at the outset, £500 to do it later :(

 

I know very little about electric cars, I'm not sure if this has been mentioned ,but once we all pretty much stop using fossil fuel the government will start charging more for electricity.

I don't think that the bloke in the street will benefit.

Oh it all looks cheap now, but that will change big time.

As for mileage dropping that is mostly down to congestion.

 

I think more likely that they will charge for "miles driven" - hard to charge for electricity only for cars - but, yeah, "same thing" as tax will be needed to pay for roads.

I keep reading that self-driving cars are going to reduce traffic. I can't figure how that will be as self-driving cars will have to "deadhead" to next pick-up, instead of just "park up". And, given how cheap electricity is, it will be much cheaper for me to say to car "Drive around slowly until 5PM, charge up, and then pick me up" rather than "Find a space in multi-storey and pay for parking" !!

 

Well i tend to that this is where meters come in you will be forced to have a separate meter for car charging.

Tax will be needed to pay for roads, now that's a novel idea

 

But ... I can plug into 13 AMP plug ... either at home, or at a friend's house where they don't have a dedicated car charger ...

I think metering of Juice for EVs is going to be really difficult to achieve and thus they will raise the money some other way. But either way, the tax will need to be raised ...

That I can believe ... but it is solvable of course, with infrastructure, and only "difficult" if no one has the courage to invest. The city of Shenzhen, in China, has 16,000 electric buses - they must have solved the problem ... probably built a row of Coal power stations next to the bus terminus ...

Tesla have a number of Supercharger sites in UK with 16 stalls, and several under construction which are bigger than that; at peak they would be using 100kW per stall ... so they must have put the infrastructure in. Their Truck "megachargers" are going to be around 480kW per stall and Tesla don't seem to have any anxiety about getting power. Pity your bus company doesn't have a way to solve that.

You are using kW rather than kWh ... Given that average daily commute is 30 miles then that 224kW is needed for one hour. With scheduled timing over a 10 hours period during the night, when the grid is running at a fraction of day time, that is 24kW continuous, shared across 14 houses, for 10 hours.

if they all charge at once for the same hour ... Actually I think its a lot more than your figure.

Google says "there are around 35 million cars in the UK". 30 miles a day, so 10kWh each, = 350 gWh. Current generation is 360 TWh p.a., so about 1 TWh per day. I make that extra 350 gWh for EVs a 35% increase?? If I have got that right it is definitely significant. (dunno if there is an offset from not refining / transporting the oil into Petrol ... but I think refineries get their power from burning the muck that is left, rather than buying it from the grid, so "probably not")

UK has generating capacity of around 100 gW, so in 24 hours that would be 2.4 TWh and projection for 2035 (after allowing for phasing out coal all together and gas reducing by 50%) is 140 GW which is 3.36TWh. I know we can't run all the generation flat out, but clearly plenty of it is off / idling during the night, so the maths is not miles off.

But everyone won't be able to charge their car at the same time

You've left out the massive increase in Renewables which is replacing the old knackered stuff

That is the UK generating capacity. Renewables is the top line

Not sure about that. Plenty of chatter about car batteries discharging to the grid ("Vehicle to Grid" - V2G) to cover for "peak", meaning we can manage with less actual generating capacity, instead of the present situation where we have to have enough in reserve to cover the absolutely worst scenario, and those gas turbine Peaker Plants spinning at the Ready just so everyone can put the kettle on when Eastenders finishes That would be a good use of V2G

I think static batteries might turn out to be good for that ...

Two choices there: Glass half full, or Glass half empty. We seem to have got cables out to the North Sea and distribution for that power. (I have no idea what wiring was required for that). I have read that e.g. Drax has massive Renewables nearby specifically because it makes it easy to reuse the Wires and Pylons that were already in place. Same for Chernobyl Solar Plant apparently ...

I'm not sure about "completely rewired". I'm no expert on electricity, but my understanding is that the DNO has to allow me to have 16 PV panels and a 7KW car charger. Of course they might have to upgrade some bits ... but I reckon that figure was arrived at on the basis that much of the current infrastructure would be fine. I have the 16 PV panels and 7KW charger, and DNO agreed 14kW battery and a further 32 PV panels (i.e. they have not requiring a restriction on Export). I'm not planning to export anything, but as I understand it they have to calculate that all of my gear may go into Warp Drive at the same time ... so where I am (rural, I would describe my utilities service as "the end of a long line of cable" ...) they are able to accommodate me, and my neighbours. The village has PV on probably 50% of the roofs, and 100% of the social housing ... They haven't rewired anything ... yet ... and have accommodated a significant amount of peak generation (flowing the other way compared to EV charging, but its the same requirement for "copper diameter" in the wire)

My view on those is that they are contentious ... opinions split on whether we need them. Therefore they take ages to happen, if at all

OTOH North Sea Wind, like North Sea Oil before it, was seen as A Good Thing and therefore happened PDQ. The UK government has been more outspoken about addressing Climate Change than most other countries ... yeah, I know, at the end of the day they are still a bunch of useless politicians ... but they are facing in the right direction, and not got much dissent. I think of all the major capital projects EVs have a good chance.

Great looking car, better drivers-car than Tesla, but disappointingly large number of snags IMO.

I'm a Tesla fan. I have tried to be neutral in my comments because I am a fan of EVs in general, migration to EV transport to get rid of Oil, the pollution associated with it and Climate Change issues and so on. Plus having been in the fortunate position to have driven over 100,000 miles in them I think they are far better than Petrol / Diesel.

But on your specific point my actual circumstance has some relevance. I have had two Model-S and in the family we have had 3 x Model-3 - both the baby short range and the longer range (but not the Performance). Both Model-S went to the detailers and they found no paint faults to rectify. Of the 3 x Model-3 we had one had a door slightly out of alignment which they adjusted there and then. We found no other faults. Yeah, that fault should never have got through PDI, and Tesla is definitely different in that regard, and aspects of their Purchase and Service side are dreadful. But I haven't got a good word to say about some aspect of every car I have ever owned ... even the posh ones get forum posts from unhappy punters.

But I have no problem with folk that don't like Tesla as a car - "Driving an iPad" is not for everyone that's for sure And as I said their sales process, and anything relating to Service, is often dire. Service Staff are fantastic and keen, but that is only once you get there and booking a service appointment is only possible through arms-length electronic, inflexible, systems.

If its is costing that then the owner is unfortunate in having problem wiring / long cable runs to sort out. OLEV grant should pay for the wall charger itself, given-or-take, and straightforward wiring should be around £500. Yup, not small-beer, but 5,000 miles of driving will pay for it. And you never have to visit a smelly petrol forecourt ever again.