I’m sure they will be more than happy to just charge* a fortune for suspension repairs.
*intended.
I do wonder what the overnight spare capacity of the grid is. Less with solar obviously 
This is the nub of it. I can’t see any efforts at the moment to think through this puzzle and instead all we are seeing is the car industry busy convincing the people to switch from ICE to EV and dressing this up as championing environmentalism by them and a heroic action by buyers 
The lack of credible strategy will inevitably lead to 99% of the effort being forced into 1% of the time remaining to change, so classic race towards the edge of the cliff and hoping that braking in the last 10m is going to somehow avoid catastrophe.
Still, as long as a few people get the shiny and the opportunity for a bit of misplaced smug by being early adopters then that’s all okay then 
Generally lots due to wind (by far the biggest contributor to renewables).
What do you mean by capacity? Apparently the UK has enough electricity being generated to charge the necessary amount of EV’s but it’s the ability to supply them all at once, but then, if every ICE car needed to be filled up at 7pm on a tuesday the garage network would have a few issues too. I see this as a bit of a straw man issue as not everyone will be charging at the same time and smart charging can very easily fix the issue.
I see the main issues with EV’s as:
-
Range anxiety. Yes a ‘thing’ at present, more or less so depending on your location and home situation, if you can charge at home or your destination it quickly becomes moot. Adding more fast chargers and the progress of technology will ‘fix’ this so I see it as a non issue, unless you are doing regular 500 mile trips under time pressure in which case, sure, ICE / hybrid car for you.
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Charging accessibility. This is a bit of a catchall of - no offroad parking, no standard way of paying for a charge, etc. This is improving with tap and go chargers appearing that work off your debit card. The on street charging is an issue though but not insurmountable given the right legislation.
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Misunderstandings (willful or otherwise) about EV’s. they are slow, the batteries wear out in a couple of years, they are badly made, they cost more to service, etc. Do some research and most of these are shown to be utter rubbish.
and
- They don’t go brum brum… fuck off you child.
- For some reason they are all fucking ugly as hell.
Minimum use vs peak use. If we can get all the cars charging over night then potentially we can can already handle a lot of cars charging.
90% of cars on the road are ugly as hell anyway as they are either SUV’s or tiny barnacle looking things. The days of decent looking cars is over thanks to a combination of health and safety and a weird obsession with making things look like they are from the past.
nope - i am looking at EVs. We probably have about 12 months to go with existing car. Not one, maybe the e-pace, is attracting me…but I am not sure i want another SUV (yet).
Saw my first Taycan at the weekend, certainly didn’t look ugly to me. OK, it’s a very lot of money, but it’s obvs possible to make them look ok.
I found myself wondering the other day if a missing piece in charging infrastructure might be supermarkets. For sure, many of them already have a token number of chargers but the nature of how we use the places has some natural advantages.
- You drive your car there anyway.
- Even the fastest and most determined weekly shop takes about the length of time a high voltage charger can meaningfully dent a battery
- It all ties in. Get to the checkout and it’s £x for the food £x+50% for your alcohol and then £x for the electricity- do you have a club/nectar card for some points too?
Back to the car, shopping in the boot, untether it and fuck off. For long range commuters, additional infrastructure is going to be needed but, at my current usage, I’d be more than handled in the time it takes me to do a shop.
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I stood next and sat in one charging in my OPC, i think they look bland and non-descript to be honest. The interior is a nice place to be, but that is Porsche.
As I said the UK generates (or buys) enough electricity to charge ‘all’ the EVs predicted when they are in the majority, what the current grid cannot do is get that through the wires to where it’s needed all at once, just as if every ICE car in the UK needed to be filled with fuel at the same time the garage network would fail.
This can mostly be fixed by some grid improvements (sorely needed anyway) and by smart charging.
All I want is to plug my car in and have it charged enough to do my commute or whatever in the morning. This may involve 9 hours of full bore charging but most likely require a few hours top up as the national average is (generously) 20 miles round trip for a daily commute. If my phone can pretty accurately predict and suggest a destination based on when I plug it into my car then I’m sure a charging schedule that doesn’t leave you cursing can be derived from your usage habits. Naturally there will be outliers but for the majority it’ll work fine.
Add to that the effect 'rona is having on our working and commuting habits and I can’t actually see this being a real issue.
I want the numbers.
not if you shop online - and massive numbers of people are moving to online.
Fair enough, eyes of the beholder and all that.
Example from yesterday per the Western Power Carbontracer app for my local 33kV substation:
Usage at 01:00 - 39MW
Usage at 18:00 - 62MW
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Note use of indefinite article. I am eternally grateful for those that shop online though as they are both out of my way and ‘enjoying’ whatever the bored underpaid drone selected for them rather than the stuff you’d choose if you can see it. Heroes the lot of 'em.
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In this worst-case scenario, peak EV electricity demand could reach 30GW, far more than the 18GW highlighted in the press. This is equivalent to half of current peak demand on the GB grid.
Sum Up from…
So all those EV’s COULD be supported just not at peak times - hence the need for smart charging as the majority of the answer…
You drove a Macan.
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