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But as of May this year apparently there were only 45000 electric cars in the whole of the Netherlands. It's the scale of the impending issue which holds the key. Would they cope with 450,000 using the same methods ? Then bear in mind that 450,000 is still peanuts. Re the yob issue , they don't have our lot.
Interesting bilbo. I know there has been discussion on whether the grid can cope with millions of cars hooking up. I seem to think there will be various solutions including BEV and FCEV. I do get irritated when I see claims of 100% renewable car charging from the grid.
Just walked down a street in Amsterdam with most cars hooked up to metered lamp posts. Seems you use a little gadget to control billing, no need to trail power cables to houses. A bunch of cables come out of the base of the lamp and voila.
Do kids come out and kick the cables? No, I asked a guy coupling up and he asked "why would they want to?".
Hymn sheet? We're on it C n C.
... even if you have a garage attached to your house, add the partner and a couple of kids still at home to the mix, all with cars, its not viable either. The model of a one car family with it charging up on the drive overnight does not reflect reality. When you add their needs to those of flat and terrace house dwellers, all needing to charge cars somewhere, the common sense of fcevs really comes home, in my opinion.
Any time scale significantly short of the current petrol rate will have massive impact. Instead of an acceptable ( most of the time ) stop/start flow represented by garage forecourts, you will have what? A massive headache doesn't really cover it. It's manageable at the moment presumably because most of the very few BEV owners are green minded garage owner types. Look to the future with requirement for tens of millions and I think the word is chaos.....
Personally, I wouldn't pin all my hopes on better charging rates. The Volts and Amps get tricky to handle up at the levels required for rapid charging, and then there's the issue of how to get that power safely into the battery without degrading the battery life. Porsche are aiming for stations of 350kW, which is probably something close to 850 Volts and 400 Amps (or maybe 1700 Volts and 200 Amps). For context UK household electricity is 240 Volts and 13 Amps.
I'm not sure how EV charging cable connectors make their connection but I worry that even 0.01 Ohm resistance would generate 1.6kW of heat if it were trying to carry 400 Amps. I believe the feed cable from these sorts of stations is water cooled, but what stops the connectors from burning up?
Battery charging rates will get better.
But we should also be concentrating on developing power units for the high mileage and high powered vehicles; taxis, buses, trucks . With all the developments going on around the world hydrogen would seem to be the better option to electrical power; the longer the voyage the better. hydrogen power now available for mopeds and steel mnufacture. Interim fuel for ships being gas, ferries, tugs going onto electric for now- well developed. Peak power may arrive sooner than we all anticipate, the speed of changeover depending on the will of governments to support extensions to the relevant infrastructure to enable it to happen.
I suspect that given enough demand it all starts to fall down. I also suspect , as said many many times on this board , that there will be BEV's and FCEV's. Horses for courses both in terms of customer/driver type and maybe influenced by residential area type. In terms of charging points in terraced areas and for apartment blocks I struggle to see how this will work. You will need a point by car or an evening game of musical cars will ensue. Can't see it and also can't see how this is financially viable. We already have a large part of the infrastructure/logistics for H2. Garage Forecourts. The arrival of self driving cars may reduce the number of cars on the road (although you're just putting taxi drivers out of work to an extent)but will actually increase the number of journeys. A to B to A replaced by C to A to B to D plus D to B to A to C when there's a stop at B and C/D are self drive depots. Yours , glass half empty ( it's Monday). Good week all!
I suspect that given enough demand there will be a supply solution.
When a cable to a car is an odd sight it will be an issue, once every car has one it will not.
See also lamp posts, telecommunication boxes, post boxes, parking meters etc.
The arrival of self-driving cars will also reduce overall car ownership.
My question about owning a car was more to discuss how many younger people, based in cities, no longer own a car or know how to drive, they are "self-driving car ready".
Not just apartments. Terraces. By the million. Nowhere to plug in and even if some kind of solution is introduced , completely open to tampering/vandals. It's unfortunate but there are areas (with cars) where you wouldn't fit a window box let alone expensive charging equipment and cables etc. The closer you look the more worms escape from the can....
… and globally millions of people live in apartments. Therefore recharging from home is not a viable option for the masses.
Strange question! I have a car to travel around the south east, the home counties and the Midlands for my job and also to visit fruends and family who dont live in London We do leave the city yoy know! I think you'll find that actually a lot of us who live in flats or terraced houses and live in cities have cars. (Who knew eh!!)
Why do you need a car in London?
A lot of interesting stuff about charging up your car from home, feeding back to the grid etc etc .... ok in theory if you have a driveway and a garage. Many of us don't. I live in London and you park your car where you can (and pay highly for the privilege)
Or basically what people have now Bilbs. Why take backward steps , especially with regards to flexibility and convenience.
My experience is that" continuous improvement" a key tenet of the automotive industry will rapidly remove the battery life problem. The drivers will be 1) the effect on second-hand car values, 2) the shear hacking capability of car enthusiasts and 3) the need to differentiate battery car A from battery car B. It will take time, but in the same car bores chatter on about this and that they will also discuss battery life.
Now if I wanted to push H2 cars I would start marketing "longer life cars" fast filling, easy to use with no sudden change to the range.
I have possessed / spent out considerably on a great many rechargeables , mainly headlamps and high powered lights for night bike rides and fishing etc. To a man , given my usual lack of reading the instructions etc. and forgetting to monitor them for months on end , they have let me down. Sometimes completely , sometimes partially , whatever they have cost me many many £00's. I suspect that Bilbs and a few others will be fine , they will adopt a state of the art approach to battery care. They will create a new society , the RSPCB. Meanwhile there's the rest of us.....
Listening to "The Fully Charged Show" podcast this week it was a discussion on VtoG recorded at their Fully Charged Live event in June. They also mentioned that managing the battery along with the grid helps improve the life of the battery. I'm a bit of a sceptic so I'm not convinced that this is enough to counter the degradation which I'm sure will remain an issue with Lithium batteries.
p.s. GL and GWA !
Can't pretend I understand it all but it seems like you're okay if you don't a) charge your battery too high or b) let it's charge go too low. So presumably it means you can't drive it very far on a charge , you have to charge it more frequently and if you really want to save a fortune on new batteries then best you don't drive it at all ...... This way you can save some time and use it wisely working out the optimal charging routine ie. when , where , low long , how high , not too low , not whilst the kettles on , etc.
Thanks Hellie, really interesting view. I went looking for a view on the Leaf (more the UK type of car) and came across this https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/study-real-life-nissan-leaf-battery-deterioration which really is worth a good read. It seems that Nissan's software under-reported range thereby making range anxiety worse for drivers but the whole life cycle issue is clear in their case too. What I also find interesting is what happens under partial charge (after all, what happens in say the Rasa when the super capacitor is full of energy does it bleed power back to battery?) https://cleantechnica.com/2016/05/31/battery-lifetime-long-can-electric-vehicle-batteries-last/ seems to suggest that partial discharge and recharge actually help extend life.
If you're right Hellie then where on earth are we going with this BEV nonsense? As has been said on here many times , it doesn't stack up.
If the car went through an 'one' extra full cycle charge while connected to the Grid every night (ignoring the full charge needed for driving), the battery would last 1500 / 365 = 4 years. The gird connection would accelerate the demise of the battery