Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) Electric Cars

It would be a nightmare if EV numbers rise but charging points at say motorway services didn’t keep pace so there were several cars queuing for a charger.

If there are queues at the Tesco petrol station it still only takes a few minutes wait to refuel, not a few hours.

A fair comment Tim but the alternative regime is looking through rose tinted spectacles I suspect. What of the users who due to laziness and overconfidence from manufacturers claims just plug their car charger into 13 amp socket overnight. Car battery will be replenished to some degree but will eventually end up deplete.

Remember that in over a hundred years of motoring with IC engines folk still run out of petrol despite fuel station availability.

This subject assumes substantial take up by 2040 with most not having an ICE backup by then. However an optimistic view by BNEF shows only 32% passenger car take up world wide by 2040 as below and in article here with other predictions much less!

I echo Ruut's comments. I am on my 3rd Model S. History goes a bit like this.

S85 registered 1/1/15 drove for 53,000 miles, total maintenance costs were 2 sets of tyres nothing else ( it would have been one set but I made a mistake and didn't get the extra load version of the tyre which meant one set only achieved 10,000 miles). Sold the car at 2 years old and got S90D.

83,000 miles in 2 years and 4 months. Maintenance costs, 1 set of winter tyres and one set of summer tyres on top of those supplied when new. I did also make another mistake. The cars do not have to be serviced to maintain warranty. However Tesla recommend a battery coolant change on the 2016 models and newer. The mistake I made was thinking it was at 50,000 miles or 4 years whichever was first so when the car was 18 months old I booked it ibn for a 50,000 mile service in anticipation of getting the battery coolant changed. When I collected it I found out that it was only done at 4 years so I had a service done that I could have avoided that cost about £600. Still cheap overall maintenance costs for 83,000 miles.

My latest Tesla, S100D I picked up this past summer. Mileage is only 15,000 so far (been out the country for 7 weeks during that time plus bought an new Aston and Lancia just before the Tesla which I've added miles to along the way). I have put winter tyres on at the moment so that's the only cost but they will last 2 winters comfortably.

Once you've bought an electric car you adapt journeys to fit in with your cars range and the charging network. This is why Tesla works and I wouldn't consider any other electric car unless my average daily drive was less than about 80 miles. Right now I can get in my car and drive to the Arctic Circle, the south of Spain, the south of Italy or the far east of Hungary just as easily as a petrol or diesel car. My typical drive time to Geneva is about an hour longer than when I drove in the Range Rover. I like to stop every couple of hours on long trips for a cup of tea, breakfast, lunch, dinner etc and that's the perfect time to charge up. The Tesla nav system actually plans your route with stops along the way and recommends how long to charge at each stop to get to the next most convenient charge point.

I don't have a problem with charging at home at night, means I can start each day with a full tank. I don't have to rely on the grid being able to do it either due to a decent size solar array and 40kw battery system that can store unused solar to charge the car at night if needed.

Just had a look - Tesla Model X 100D Price from £91,650 - the official Tesla site says "real world range 195 - 225 miles".

Not dissing the Tesla, just pointing out that @ £91K + - it IS not a run of the mill car?

There is one issue that no one has picked up on for those living in country areas with one person with a 300 mile Tesls type range car and say a 100 mile rage car and also a heat pump.

Oil boilers used in the country dwellings will be replaced with electric heat pumps that produce say 3KW of heat for each KW electrical input to the pump.

A nice 5 bedroom house with reasonable insulation needs 15KW of heat and even with a heat pump that is 5KW or 20 amps.

A 300 mile range car even with a 7KW home charger after say a 250 mile drive will take well over 12 hours to charge. at 30 amps.and could be needed first thing in the morning.

If the 100 mile range car battery is flat as well we are talking abut 5 hours or so to do that assuming the house have a second 7KW charger. Therefore another 30 amps.

If we allow a further 5 KW for an electric cooker say another 20 amps.

Therefore we need 100 amps at times and 80 for a reasonable period.

Most home supplies are 80 or 100 amp supplies.

Even with clever mains contol systems this could be an issue.

Where you live makes a big difference to viability of Teslas or any EV. The nearest Super Charger is 80 miles in Dundee or 90miles Inverness, promised for Aberdeen but when? My usual journeys I dont pass any sort of charger. An EV driver told me public chargers are free in Scotland except in Moray. Will otherwise sound EVs be scrapped because the battery is shot & a replacement is more than the car value. A dedicated network of EV battery recyclers will be needed.

Provision of chargers where there is demand is a significant business opportunity for someone. I can't see why the market wouldn't react to meet this need.

As for batteries, firstly the experience of EV users is that batteries are lasting far longer than originally expected, so there isn't a problem with cars having to be scrapped because the batteries have died prematurely, and secondly there is already a well- established network of EV battery recyclers, repurposing them into 2nd life storage -and the main challenge they have is actually getting hold of batteries because they are lasting so well in cars.

There are undoubtedly some disadvantages to EV ownership but it really doesn't help to keep trotting out these canards. Let's face it, we don't have a choice, life is going to be very different for all of us over the next 10 or 20 years and to imagine there's not going to be any progress in resolving remaining issues is hopelessly pessimistic. We may as well embrace the oppotunities the future will bring rathe rthan clinging on to an unsustainable past.

Tim,

I'm convinced that for the urban majority electric cars are viable, or will be within the next 5 years.

For the 17% of us that live in rural areas I do not see electric cars ever being viable. The electricity distribution infrastructure is a long, long way away from offering the capability.
We have a single phase 80A supply: I asked Scottish and Southern, the local infrastructure provider, if they would quote for 3 phase supply to the house.
They said it wasn't possible without an upgrade to the local substation and re-cabling the street and they would not quote.
A local housing development has stalled as SSE have said that providing 80A power for 32 new houses is 3 years away, for the same reasons, unless the developer foots the bill. The business case doesn't stack up.

It is time that the urban liberals who have run this country, and most of Europe, for the last 30 years had a big reality check and faced up to the need to provide for all, not the WOKEs in the urban jungles.

I can't see the problem, a single phase 80A supply is entirely enough to keep a couple of EVs charged in normal usage. I live out in the country, even when I was working I didn't need to do more than 30 miles in a normal day, now I'm retired I doubt I do 60 miles in a week in a car, all sub 10-mile short trips are Pedelec and the occasional non-Morgan long journey would be easily planned around if we had an EV.

As it is, our Fiat 500 is only 5 years old and there's no sensible sustainability argument to change it for at good 5 years or so, but when the time does come I'll have no qualms whatsoever about switching to an EV.

I do enjoy reading the comments for and against EV and ICE vehicles, and it seems there may be some misconceptions in terms of fundamentals relative to charging at home...?

I note that there seems to be an assumption that because the main breaker/fuse in modern homes may well be rated at 100 amps might equate to 100 amps being the allowable demand for that house at any and all times..?

It has been quite some time since I was involved in calculating electrical loadings, and it was never a favoured pastime, however the all important part of such calculations was DIVERSITY FACTOR, and which was applied when determining the supply cables dimensions be that to a cooker, a tower block,a housing estate or a factory..... I think I can remember being told some time back in the 70`s that the supply cabling and transformer sizing to a domestic housing estate was calculated at circa 6 amps per house.... which would be considerably less than the main fuse for any house in the estate would be rated at..?

Applying diversity factor allows for average usage expectations and not maximum possible demand.. and as such equates to reduction in cable sizing working out loading on an electrical shower in the bathroom or the loading on the national grid, which it seems up till recently has coped with sudden extra loading caused by TV viewers at the half time whistle been blown on world cup football games or advert breaks in soap operas creating very sudden high demands of electrical energy.

I also note that there were recent failings in the UK distribution network management after lightning strikes that caused mayhem in London and other parts of the country... Yeah we take so much for granted..?

If we take the above into account in very general terms, my hope is that there may be a plan to cope with whatever extra loading is placed upon electricity supplies which may be considerable in time. I suspect that there may well be a requirement for householders to install whatever means of electrical generation might be suitable based upon their home`s location be that solar wind or ground heat source, and of course REDUCE to a minimum their own usage by increasing insulation of the whole home. As for monitoring each households effectiveness relative to supply and demand, I guess your smart meter will provide minute by minute data on YOUR usage to those who need to know...and how that might be controlled in time....?

Yup overnight charging seems ideal but how that works out in terms of demand on electricity supplies overall..... hmm..?