At least no one will try to nick it
(They would need a recovery truck anyway).
At least no one will try to nick it
(They would need a recovery truck anyway).
Imo, the infrastructure is already good enough. I just want to avoid a 45 minute stop to a journey I do every fortnight and there are already EVs on sale that can achieve that.
True, but only Tesla - their superchargers are generally very fast. Thatās the only EV I would consider for such journeys on a regular basis.
If youāre interested in the Volvo do check how fast it can charge at the chargers you can actually use. You may be stuck using chargers rated at 50kW that may deliver less than that, and charging to full (rather than 80%) can take ages. The Tesla chargers are often 120kW.
Check out Ionity and such. 150kW network rolling out.
Great, theyāre currently building their third UK charging stationā¦
I went in my Dutch colleagueās Tesla Model 3 this week. Very quiet and smooth, also pretty comfortable. Now the best-selling new car in NL.
Small boot, though. And the giant iPad is very tacky close up - more like a giant Android tablet you get off Amazon for £30. And it is stuck to a particularly nasty bit of fake wood which looks kind of out-of-place.
They arenāt the only ones. BP are deploying a 150 kW network.
Thereās a balance to be struck between range, quantity of chargers and speed of chargers. Whatās most important to you is driven by your travel circumstances.
I wish you could see outside of the bubble of your own circumstances
The Ionity ones are actually 350kW, which is impressive. Ten minutes to fill up a 50kWh battery - it solves the range issue really. We need those in every service station. (Note that most cars take a lot less than that - my Ioniq is limited to 47kW charge speed, thatās one of the reasons I didnāt want to buy now.)
The infrastructure required once EV use scales up is substantial. If 20 fuel pumps is common at a service station, weāll need 100+ fast chargers at least, given how long cars stay there. And cars will have lower range, so need to fuel up more often. Itās going to be a problem sooner than we think, I reckon.
I donāt agree. Most charging will be done at home which you canāt do in an ICE car today.
Yeah a lot of EVs will be fully charged when they set off, for sure. However, surely a lot of ICE fuelling at service stations is because people need to fuel then - it costs an extra fiver or more, so bunging some in close to home always makes sense. Yet still they are well utilised.
Itās complicated. A lot of EV early adopters are city dwellers, who may not have the facility to charge at home, and indeed may have a lower-range EV. I have been looking at the charging provision in St Albans and frankly itās awful. If more than about 20 people get EVs who donāt have home charging then it will start to get very crowded.
For long journeys, the issue can be quite pressing. You are likely to want to charge when your car is at 20% or so, and youāll charge to 80% as after that it tends to slow down. So youāre already looking at your car having half its stated range. Thereās a lot of chatter on EV sites about the motorway Ecotricity stations being a bit wank, what happens when even more people come to rely on them?
Really, if I did a lot of long journeys (rather than about 3 per year) then the only EV I would consider would be a Tesla right now.
I predict lots of insurance claims from substandard mains cables.
However, surely a lot of ICE fuelling at service stations is because people need to fuel then
It is, but early patterns are that people are charging to ājust enoughā to get them home say. There are a number of reasons: one is cost - itās generally cheaper at home (free Supercharging aside), another is that EV users realise that charging speeds go off a cliff above 80%, so thereās really limited value in them sitting in a service station to go from 80 to 100% unless they really need to.
Just a quick intermissionā¦
Two quite fast cars are quite fast.
Two quite fast cars are quite fast.
Yeah, but it makes Tesla fanbois cry.
I went in my Dutch colleagueās Tesla Model 3 this week
thats a bit anti social, couldnāt have waited until you got to a convenience?
Have you got any videos of it beating a Seat Leon ST Ecomotive? Around that track in Germany if possible.
Have you got any videos of it beating a Seat Leon ST Ecomotive? Around that track in Germany if possible.
Why would I?
To make the Seat Leon St Ecomotive fanboys cry too. Make my winky twitch that would.
To make the Seat Leon St Ecomotive fanboys cry too.
Iād imagine sitting behind the wheel would achieve that - wondering where their lives went so wrong to end up in one.