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Cool. So, funds have been appropriated to complete a national grid upgrade to support the switch along with a charging station network compatible will all manuf

Cool. So, funds have been appropriated to complete a national grid upgrade to support the switch along with a charging station network compatible will all manufacturers too?

Scoundreller 6y ago
You know how these projects go: Rich people: meh, this won’t change our lives much Poor people: SOL
- maccard 6y ago
  Poor people aren't going to be affected by this. They're not buying new cars. This ban us on the sale of new vehicles, a second hand market will exist after the fact.
  - lumberjack 6y ago
    Used ICE cars will very quickly go up in price making them less affordable for the poorer classes.
    - speedgoose 6y ago
      I would guess most people will not buy an used ICE car in 10 years when they can also buy an used electric car. The people into ICE engine sure, but they are not that many and rarely buying economical ICE cars.
      - Hamuko 6y ago
        I doubt the range issues with EVs are fixed in 10 years.
        speedgoose 6y ago
        In UK? It's a small island. It's already fixed unless you buy a city car.
        Hamuko 6y ago
        It's not that small.
        speedgoose 6y ago
        True. I checked a better route planner, a great app to plan electric vehicles trips, and driving from Brighton to Glasgow today in 2020 is 7h10m of driving and 36m of charging with a tesla model 3. Let's round up to 1h of charging. I don't think it is a problem today, and even less in 10 years with better cars and a bigger charging network. Sure you may lose some time because you will have slightly longer breaks, but it's fine in my opinion and don't forget that electricity is cheaper than gaz (unless you charge to 100% on Ionity without using a car from a Ionity constructor).
        Hamuko 6y ago
        >driving from Brighton to Glasgow today in 2020 is 7h10m of driving and 36m of charging with a tesla model 3 Is that under the assumption that it's a warm day?
        speedgoose 6y ago
        It was with 10°C. I put -10°C and it takes 8 minutes longer according to the app.
        maccard 6y ago
        > Sure you may lose some time because you will have slightly longer breaks, Unless you've got two drivers, a 7 hour trip likely requires more than a 35 minute stop to eat, and rest anyway.
        olivermarks 6y ago
        Traffic is very congested and slow in the UK, what looks like a short trip can take hours
      - sokoloff 6y ago
        My Nissan LEAF (pure EV) is almost 6 years old. It's going to be near-valueless (selling for parts) within another 6 years due to battery degradation [and not starting with that much range in the first place]. That's after one major battery-out warranty repair by Nissan already. The last two ICE cars I had, I bought them when they were 12 and 9 years old, rather than planning how to get them parted out at that age. I've very much enjoyed having an EV (especially as the guy who turns the wrenches), but they don't last anywhere near as long as ICE cars without major infusions of cash for the battery. My next car is very likely to be another 6-10 year-old ICE car where I'd probably never consider buying a 6-10 year-old pure EV.
        brianwawok 6y ago
        LEAF went the cheap route of battery with bad thermal management. I think current generation of other BEV should get you at least 10 years. Not going to yet match my 16 year old Honda I have in my driveway as my backup car, but getting closer!!
        sokoloff 6y ago
        All of that's true, but largely not helpful to the working poor who today can buy pretty reliable 15-20 year old Corollas, Civics, CR-Vs, etc for $1500-3000 and expect to drive them for 5 years or more and have them be every bit as useful at 25 years old as they were when they were 25 months old. "other BEV should get you at least 10 years" isn't nearly the same as "will get you 25 years if it doesn't rust out or get crashed".
        brianwawok 6y ago
        Sure, but do realize those 25 year old cars are likely polluting 2-10x more than modern cars. The sooner we can get the oldest cars off the road, the best chance our planet has.
        sokoloff 6y ago
        Order of magnitude, making a car creates about as much emissions as driving it over its lifetime. [0] If we typically average even just 20 years from an ICE and 10 from a BEV, the BEV starts out way behind in the green race and might never catch up. Stopping making new inefficient cars is good. Scrapping working perfectly good cars is an alloy of good and bad. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/sep/23/carbon-footprint-new-car https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/20...
  - mattr47 6y ago
    And the demand for second hand cars will explode, prices will increase and the poor will be most affected.
    - whimsicalism 6y ago
      Yeah, and banning CFCs affected the ability of poor people to have AC. The price we pay for a functioning environment.
    - maccard 6y ago
      The demand for second hand cars is already there. In 2030 people aren't going to turn around and say "wow hmm I all of a sudden want a second hand combustion engine car" and find themselves priced out. The first people to be priced out will be the price who buy cars 2-3 years old and drive them until they need a major repair. Realistically, there's 20 years before the full impact of this policy will be felt at the bottom of the used car market, and the "poor" (who are a large group) will be hit by this law. That means there is 20 years to come up with an incentive or a solve. It's easy to dismiss progress with a one line snarky quip on the internet, and this is a hugely positive move.
    - olivermarks 6y ago
      Petrol prices will make running ICE vehicles impractical, seems likely a lot of filling stations will be removed as the forced transition to centrally controlled and permissioned hybrid/EV transportation is gradually increased.
      - olivermarks 6y ago
        https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/charges-for-using-roads-to-fill-40bn-black-hole-t2bz9k6br https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/charges-for-using-ro...
- fulafel 6y ago
  Carless household # has been increasing in the uk. Helping the poor by enabling them to buy new fossil cars after 2030 won't have very good bang for the buck.
- hannob 6y ago
  Poor people have much lower car ownership to begin with. It's irrelevant for most of them. If you want to do traffic policy for the poor the best you can do is making walking safer.
  - Scoundreller 6y ago
    I’m pretty sure the %age of income spent on auto related expenses goes up as you go down the income curve. All comes down to how you define poor (is it homeless? « Lower class »? Whatever Boris Johnson would think of as a bad living situation?)
LeoPanthera 6y ago
The UK is small, it's smaller than California alone, and most people will be able to charge their cars at home. Far more important than a charging station network is investment in on-street charging for people who don't have access to a garage. Charging at home is far more important than charging on the road. In any case, a grid upgrade will not be required. The "grid overload" story is fossil fuel industry propaganda. You can find the details here: https://www.virta.global/blog/myth-buster-electric-vehicles-will-overload-the-power-grid https://www.virta.global/blog/myth-buster-electric-vehicles-... ...but the salient point is that if 80% of all passenger cars become electric, this would lead to a total increase of 10-15% in electricity consumption. (Far, far from the "order of magnitude" claim.) And even this ignores the vehicle-to-grid features of modern EVs, which can actually put power back into the grid during periods of high demand.
- stingraycharles 6y ago
  It’s not just the building of distribution points, which can be at home. It’s the sheer overall volume of electricity consumption going up per household, sometimes even an order of magnitude. Most electrical grids will need to be upgraded to accommodate this. This is doable, but costs money and takes time.
  - LeoPanthera 6y ago
    The "grid overload" story is fossil fuel industry propaganda, I'm afraid. You can find the details here: https://www.virta.global/blog/myth-buster-electric-vehicles-will-overload-the-power-grid https://www.virta.global/blog/myth-buster-electric-vehicles-... ...but the salient point is that if 80% of all passenger cars become electric, this would lead to a total increase of 10-15% in electricity consumption. (Far, far from the "order of magnitude" claim.) And even this ignores the vehicle-to-grid features of modern EVs, which can actually put power back into the grid during periods of high demand.
    - ben_w 6y ago
      > And even this ignores the vehicle-to-grid features of modern EVs, which can actually put power back into the grid during periods of high demand. I expect this is the part which will require more investment than anything else, as it will mean electrifying office car parks — the UK is further north than every American state except Alaska, so winter sunsets happen before the work day ends. It certainly shouldn’t be impossible, but the current UK government is prone to acting as if they can make things happen just by saying so rather than spending money or doing any planning.
intricatedetail 6y ago
These are just details. Next government will have to worry. We just need to collect grease from EC companies...
dangus 6y ago
Were funds appropriated to build gas stations? And also: considering the progress that’s been made with EVs in just the last 5 years, project that out and it’s going to be a situation where you’d have to be mad to buy a gas car over electric in 2030. That’s a full 10 years from now. New gas cars won’t be price competitive by then. If you don’t believe me just take a look at what Volkswagen is doing with their upcoming EVs. So, sure, they’re being “banned,” but I really do wonder who in their right mind will be wanting to choose a gas car for a brand new vehicle in 2030.
- dnh44 6y ago
  Lots of people only have access to street parking and won’t be able to charge their cars overnight.
  - _ph_ 6y ago
    Chargers can installed at the sides of those streets. For overnight charging, 16A is ample. Alternatively: charge the cars wherever they drive to. So at workplaces, shops etc.
    - dnh44 6y ago
      Yeah those are solutions, I'm just struggling to imagine that infrastructure being built in time to not be a major inconvenience. Unless it is built I could see the attraction of not wanting an electric car in 2030.
- bonzini 6y ago
  Improving the grid is not the same as building gas stations. Petrol can be moved in advance and stored. A gas station is essentially a big hole underground filled with inflammable liquid, plus filling a tank is fast enough (compared to even 15min for a partial supercharger "refill") that you can build them away from densely populated regions. A parking lot downtown, with 500 car capacity, might need several hundred kW of power at peak every day (50 km * 0.15 kWh/km * 500 / 8 hours = 475 kW). Anything above 100 kW requires MV distribution and a local transformer. At least they could allow people to book their charging slot and stagger the charging of all those cars, though. There are worse cases. Ski resorts will have people visiting for a day on the slopes, possibly after a 100 miles drive or so, and needing their cars charged by the time they leave, maybe 6-7 hours later. But at least these are in sparsely populated regions, and often close to hydroelectric dams too, so it's not impossible to bring more electric power. By the time those people go back home they will have to charge as well to get ready for next day's commute the though. In fact, every night people will come home and charge their cars. In this case (unlike the parking lot) there is no centralized distributor that could try to stagger the charging of all these cars. And perhaps it will only be a couple days a year on long weekends or bank holidays, but there will be cases when a condo with 100 flats will also need a sustained power of hundreds of kW for several hours... and all other boxes of flats will have the same need on exactly the same day. This means building lots of HV and MV transformation stations (which are not exactly cheap) in densely populated regions. Where are the plans to estimate this need and to build this infrastructure?
VBprogrammer 6y ago
I'd heard somewhere that the idea that the national grid would need upgraded is vastly overstated but doing some back of the envelope maths does seem like it could potentially be a problem. My workings were 32 million licenced cars, 40kwh each (obviously bigger batteries are already available but you'd hope not every car would need charged from scratch). Works out as over 1000gwh, you'd have say 10 hours to charge them so you could bring that down to 100gw. Average electrical consumption in the UK is about 30gw. I appreciate it's a gross over estimate as most cars won't do nearly that many miles every day. Average mileage in the UK is typically around 10k miles. A 40kw battery nets somewhere around 200 miles, so needs to be fully charged perhaps once per week on average. That cuts the above significantly but it's still of the order of the UK's current average consumption.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  I think average consumption is wrong figure to be looking at here. You can charge EVs overnight when consumption is typically lower.
  - VBprogrammer 6y ago
    I accept that but for the moment there is no centrally organised way to do this, car charges have timers and the like built in for sure, but that is asking a lot to expect everyone to set it. The majority of people will come home and plug in. This should be easy to fix but it is another thing which needs to be rolled out and working in the next 10 years.
    - fulafel 6y ago
      Flat rate electricity prices over the day aren't sustainable anyway with the transition to renewables, price signaling is coming.
    - _ph_ 6y ago
      In Germany, if you have a heat pump you can get special discounted rates if you let the utilities company switch off the pump for some time during peak demand. The same scheme could immediately be used for electric car charging. Actually I expect the utilities to be a big pusher for charging infrastructure, which is then controlled to even stabilize the grid.
anomie 6y ago
The Uk is making decent progress on this already. I live in a London suburb and there’s been a huge rollout of charging points already - within a few hundred meters of my flat there are at least 6 high voltage charging points. There’s also a big rollout of charging points built into existing lampposts - by tapping existing power lines these are very cheap to install. The chargers are run by a few different networks but you pay for usage so it’s quite possible to just sign up to them all and carry 2 or 3 cables.
- hogFeast 6y ago
  London getting that lavish investment once again. The only place near me is a supermarket 15 minutes away.
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  The Uk is making decent progress on this already. I live in a London suburb and there’s been a huge rollout of charging points already - within a few hundred meters of my flat there are at least 6 high voltage charging points. How many people live within a circle of "a few hundred metres" in London? It averages 4700/km^2 across all of Greater London according to Wikipedia, it will be denser in the middle. How many cars is that? TFL says average of 0.3 cars/person. So that would be 1410 cars or 235 per charging point.
_visgean 6y ago
According to [0] the UK actually does not need to upgrade the network. I would also check [1] - the government task force that coordinates this. This is also interesting article: [2]. The company I work for is also engaged in a project that would allow using fleet of EVs as a power storage. (e.g. buying energy when it is cheap - during wind peaks and selling when it is expensive, but I dont know much about that project.) [0] https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/5-myths-about-electric-vehicles-busted https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/5-m... [1] https://www.lowcvp.org.uk/projects/electric-vehicle-energy-taskforce.htm https://www.lowcvp.org.uk/projects/electric-vehicle-energy-t... [2] https://www.wired.co.uk/article/electric-vehicle-car-infrastructure-charging-point https://www.wired.co.uk/article/electric-vehicle-car-infrast...

Cool. So, funds have been appropriated to complete a national grid upgrade to support the switch along with a charging station network compatible will all manufacturers too?

Scoundreller 6y ago

You know how these projects go: Rich people: meh, this won’t change our lives much Poor people: SOL

maccard 6y ago
Poor people aren't going to be affected by this. They're not buying new cars. This ban us on the sale of new vehicles, a second hand market will exist after the fact.
- lumberjack 6y ago
  Used ICE cars will very quickly go up in price making them less affordable for the poorer classes.
  - speedgoose 6y ago
    I would guess most people will not buy an used ICE car in 10 years when they can also buy an used electric car. The people into ICE engine sure, but they are not that many and rarely buying economical ICE cars.
    - Hamuko 6y ago
      I doubt the range issues with EVs are fixed in 10 years.
      - speedgoose 6y ago
        In UK? It's a small island. It's already fixed unless you buy a city car.
        Hamuko 6y ago
        It's not that small.
        speedgoose 6y ago
        True. I checked a better route planner, a great app to plan electric vehicles trips, and driving from Brighton to Glasgow today in 2020 is 7h10m of driving and 36m of charging with a tesla model 3. Let's round up to 1h of charging. I don't think it is a problem today, and even less in 10 years with better cars and a bigger charging network. Sure you may lose some time because you will have slightly longer breaks, but it's fine in my opinion and don't forget that electricity is cheaper than gaz (unless you charge to 100% on Ionity without using a car from a Ionity constructor).
        Hamuko 6y ago
        >driving from Brighton to Glasgow today in 2020 is 7h10m of driving and 36m of charging with a tesla model 3 Is that under the assumption that it's a warm day?
        speedgoose 6y ago
        It was with 10°C. I put -10°C and it takes 8 minutes longer according to the app.
        maccard 6y ago
        > Sure you may lose some time because you will have slightly longer breaks, Unless you've got two drivers, a 7 hour trip likely requires more than a 35 minute stop to eat, and rest anyway.
        olivermarks 6y ago
        Traffic is very congested and slow in the UK, what looks like a short trip can take hours
    - sokoloff 6y ago
      My Nissan LEAF (pure EV) is almost 6 years old. It's going to be near-valueless (selling for parts) within another 6 years due to battery degradation [and not starting with that much range in the first place]. That's after one major battery-out warranty repair by Nissan already. The last two ICE cars I had, I bought them when they were 12 and 9 years old, rather than planning how to get them parted out at that age. I've very much enjoyed having an EV (especially as the guy who turns the wrenches), but they don't last anywhere near as long as ICE cars without major infusions of cash for the battery. My next car is very likely to be another 6-10 year-old ICE car where I'd probably never consider buying a 6-10 year-old pure EV.
      - brianwawok 6y ago
        LEAF went the cheap route of battery with bad thermal management. I think current generation of other BEV should get you at least 10 years. Not going to yet match my 16 year old Honda I have in my driveway as my backup car, but getting closer!!
        sokoloff 6y ago
        All of that's true, but largely not helpful to the working poor who today can buy pretty reliable 15-20 year old Corollas, Civics, CR-Vs, etc for $1500-3000 and expect to drive them for 5 years or more and have them be every bit as useful at 25 years old as they were when they were 25 months old. "other BEV should get you at least 10 years" isn't nearly the same as "will get you 25 years if it doesn't rust out or get crashed".
        brianwawok 6y ago
        Sure, but do realize those 25 year old cars are likely polluting 2-10x more than modern cars. The sooner we can get the oldest cars off the road, the best chance our planet has.
        sokoloff 6y ago
        Order of magnitude, making a car creates about as much emissions as driving it over its lifetime. [0] If we typically average even just 20 years from an ICE and 10 from a BEV, the BEV starts out way behind in the green race and might never catch up. Stopping making new inefficient cars is good. Scrapping working perfectly good cars is an alloy of good and bad. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/sep/23/carbon-footprint-new-car https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/20...
- mattr47 6y ago
  And the demand for second hand cars will explode, prices will increase and the poor will be most affected.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    Yeah, and banning CFCs affected the ability of poor people to have AC. The price we pay for a functioning environment.
  - maccard 6y ago
    The demand for second hand cars is already there. In 2030 people aren't going to turn around and say "wow hmm I all of a sudden want a second hand combustion engine car" and find themselves priced out. The first people to be priced out will be the price who buy cars 2-3 years old and drive them until they need a major repair. Realistically, there's 20 years before the full impact of this policy will be felt at the bottom of the used car market, and the "poor" (who are a large group) will be hit by this law. That means there is 20 years to come up with an incentive or a solve. It's easy to dismiss progress with a one line snarky quip on the internet, and this is a hugely positive move.
  - olivermarks 6y ago
    Petrol prices will make running ICE vehicles impractical, seems likely a lot of filling stations will be removed as the forced transition to centrally controlled and permissioned hybrid/EV transportation is gradually increased.
    - olivermarks 6y ago
      https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/charges-for-using-roads-to-fill-40bn-black-hole-t2bz9k6br https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/charges-for-using-ro...
fulafel 6y ago
Carless household # has been increasing in the uk. Helping the poor by enabling them to buy new fossil cars after 2030 won't have very good bang for the buck.
hannob 6y ago
Poor people have much lower car ownership to begin with. It's irrelevant for most of them. If you want to do traffic policy for the poor the best you can do is making walking safer.
- Scoundreller 6y ago
  I’m pretty sure the %age of income spent on auto related expenses goes up as you go down the income curve. All comes down to how you define poor (is it homeless? « Lower class »? Whatever Boris Johnson would think of as a bad living situation?)

LeoPanthera 6y ago

The UK is small, it's smaller than California alone, and most people will be able to charge their cars at home. Far more important than a charging station network is investment in on-street charging for people who don't have access to a garage. Charging at home is far more important than charging on the road. In any case, a grid upgrade will not be required. The "grid overload" story is fossil fuel industry propaganda. You can find the details here: https://www.virta.global/blog/myth-buster-electric-vehicles-will-overload-the-power-grid https://www.virta.global/blog/myth-buster-electric-vehicles-... ...but the salient point is that if 80% of all passenger cars become electric, this would lead to a total increase of 10-15% in electricity consumption. (Far, far from the "order of magnitude" claim.) And even this ignores the vehicle-to-grid features of modern EVs, which can actually put power back into the grid during periods of high demand.

stingraycharles 6y ago
It’s not just the building of distribution points, which can be at home. It’s the sheer overall volume of electricity consumption going up per household, sometimes even an order of magnitude. Most electrical grids will need to be upgraded to accommodate this. This is doable, but costs money and takes time.
- LeoPanthera 6y ago
  The "grid overload" story is fossil fuel industry propaganda, I'm afraid. You can find the details here: https://www.virta.global/blog/myth-buster-electric-vehicles-will-overload-the-power-grid https://www.virta.global/blog/myth-buster-electric-vehicles-... ...but the salient point is that if 80% of all passenger cars become electric, this would lead to a total increase of 10-15% in electricity consumption. (Far, far from the "order of magnitude" claim.) And even this ignores the vehicle-to-grid features of modern EVs, which can actually put power back into the grid during periods of high demand.
  - ben_w 6y ago
    > And even this ignores the vehicle-to-grid features of modern EVs, which can actually put power back into the grid during periods of high demand. I expect this is the part which will require more investment than anything else, as it will mean electrifying office car parks — the UK is further north than every American state except Alaska, so winter sunsets happen before the work day ends. It certainly shouldn’t be impossible, but the current UK government is prone to acting as if they can make things happen just by saying so rather than spending money or doing any planning.

intricatedetail 6y ago

These are just details. Next government will have to worry. We just need to collect grease from EC companies...

dangus 6y ago

Were funds appropriated to build gas stations? And also: considering the progress that’s been made with EVs in just the last 5 years, project that out and it’s going to be a situation where you’d have to be mad to buy a gas car over electric in 2030. That’s a full 10 years from now. New gas cars won’t be price competitive by then. If you don’t believe me just take a look at what Volkswagen is doing with their upcoming EVs. So, sure, they’re being “banned,” but I really do wonder who in their right mind will be wanting to choose a gas car for a brand new vehicle in 2030.

dnh44 6y ago
Lots of people only have access to street parking and won’t be able to charge their cars overnight.
- _ph_ 6y ago
  Chargers can installed at the sides of those streets. For overnight charging, 16A is ample. Alternatively: charge the cars wherever they drive to. So at workplaces, shops etc.
  - dnh44 6y ago
    Yeah those are solutions, I'm just struggling to imagine that infrastructure being built in time to not be a major inconvenience. Unless it is built I could see the attraction of not wanting an electric car in 2030.
bonzini 6y ago
Improving the grid is not the same as building gas stations. Petrol can be moved in advance and stored. A gas station is essentially a big hole underground filled with inflammable liquid, plus filling a tank is fast enough (compared to even 15min for a partial supercharger "refill") that you can build them away from densely populated regions. A parking lot downtown, with 500 car capacity, might need several hundred kW of power at peak every day (50 km * 0.15 kWh/km * 500 / 8 hours = 475 kW). Anything above 100 kW requires MV distribution and a local transformer. At least they could allow people to book their charging slot and stagger the charging of all those cars, though. There are worse cases. Ski resorts will have people visiting for a day on the slopes, possibly after a 100 miles drive or so, and needing their cars charged by the time they leave, maybe 6-7 hours later. But at least these are in sparsely populated regions, and often close to hydroelectric dams too, so it's not impossible to bring more electric power. By the time those people go back home they will have to charge as well to get ready for next day's commute the though. In fact, every night people will come home and charge their cars. In this case (unlike the parking lot) there is no centralized distributor that could try to stagger the charging of all these cars. And perhaps it will only be a couple days a year on long weekends or bank holidays, but there will be cases when a condo with 100 flats will also need a sustained power of hundreds of kW for several hours... and all other boxes of flats will have the same need on exactly the same day. This means building lots of HV and MV transformation stations (which are not exactly cheap) in densely populated regions. Where are the plans to estimate this need and to build this infrastructure?

VBprogrammer 6y ago

I'd heard somewhere that the idea that the national grid would need upgraded is vastly overstated but doing some back of the envelope maths does seem like it could potentially be a problem. My workings were 32 million licenced cars, 40kwh each (obviously bigger batteries are already available but you'd hope not every car would need charged from scratch). Works out as over 1000gwh, you'd have say 10 hours to charge them so you could bring that down to 100gw. Average electrical consumption in the UK is about 30gw. I appreciate it's a gross over estimate as most cars won't do nearly that many miles every day. Average mileage in the UK is typically around 10k miles. A 40kw battery nets somewhere around 200 miles, so needs to be fully charged perhaps once per week on average. That cuts the above significantly but it's still of the order of the UK's current average consumption.

nicoburns 6y ago
I think average consumption is wrong figure to be looking at here. You can charge EVs overnight when consumption is typically lower.
- VBprogrammer 6y ago
  I accept that but for the moment there is no centrally organised way to do this, car charges have timers and the like built in for sure, but that is asking a lot to expect everyone to set it. The majority of people will come home and plug in. This should be easy to fix but it is another thing which needs to be rolled out and working in the next 10 years.
  - fulafel 6y ago
    Flat rate electricity prices over the day aren't sustainable anyway with the transition to renewables, price signaling is coming.
  - _ph_ 6y ago
    In Germany, if you have a heat pump you can get special discounted rates if you let the utilities company switch off the pump for some time during peak demand. The same scheme could immediately be used for electric car charging. Actually I expect the utilities to be a big pusher for charging infrastructure, which is then controlled to even stabilize the grid.

anomie 6y ago

The Uk is making decent progress on this already. I live in a London suburb and there’s been a huge rollout of charging points already - within a few hundred meters of my flat there are at least 6 high voltage charging points. There’s also a big rollout of charging points built into existing lampposts - by tapping existing power lines these are very cheap to install. The chargers are run by a few different networks but you pay for usage so it’s quite possible to just sign up to them all and carry 2 or 3 cables.

hogFeast 6y ago
London getting that lavish investment once again. The only place near me is a supermarket 15 minutes away.
goatinaboat 6y ago
The Uk is making decent progress on this already. I live in a London suburb and there’s been a huge rollout of charging points already - within a few hundred meters of my flat there are at least 6 high voltage charging points. How many people live within a circle of "a few hundred metres" in London? It averages 4700/km^2 across all of Greater London according to Wikipedia, it will be denser in the middle. How many cars is that? TFL says average of 0.3 cars/person. So that would be 1410 cars or 235 per charging point.

_visgean 6y ago

According to [0] the UK actually does not need to upgrade the network. I would also check [1] - the government task force that coordinates this. This is also interesting article: [2]. The company I work for is also engaged in a project that would allow using fleet of EVs as a power storage. (e.g. buying energy when it is cheap - during wind peaks and selling when it is expensive, but I dont know much about that project.) [0] https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/5-myths-about-electric-vehicles-busted https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/5-m... [1] https://www.lowcvp.org.uk/projects/electric-vehicle-energy-taskforce.htm https://www.lowcvp.org.uk/projects/electric-vehicle-energy-t... [2] https://www.wired.co.uk/article/electric-vehicle-car-infrastructure-charging-point https://www.wired.co.uk/article/electric-vehicle-car-infrast...