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Has the UK been doing the huge infrastructure investments needed to support charging of all of these cars? I'm curious how major urban places like London will h

by dmix 3y ago

Has the UK been doing the huge infrastructure investments needed to support charging of all of these cars? I'm curious how major urban places like London will handle this. Every person living in a skyscraper won't have a port to charge in unless the landlords make major investments. I lived in a new-ish building in Toronto and the underground parking only had 5 ports for >100 cars. Can't imagine poor people living in older buildings will ever get that, so they'll be waiting in long lines for chargers I guess (or have to buy ICE cars which I imagine will increase in cost). Gas stations would also need to do major investments at a pace that keeps up with the rapid shift or go out of business. I saw the small electricity pole type stations when I was in London on the regular narrow side streets, which is one solution, but it was also a nice neighbourhood I was staying in. I'm curious how wide that's deployed.

kibwen 3y ago
The previous law still allowed for hybrids to be sold beyond 2030, and hybrids don't need to be plugged in.
- jtbayly 3y ago
  Hybrids that are never plugged in are just slightly more efficient ICE cars.
  - pnpnp 3y ago
    But in fairness they do have the option of plugging in, which is massively more efficient than gas-only. I know not everyone will do that, but lots of people will.
    - robocat 3y ago
      Hybrids can have batteries that are simply not worth charging. I think my 2005 hybrid has a 50Wh battery and certainly no way to externally charge it. From article: The government also confirmed that under the revised plan all [sales of new] hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars would also be banned from 2035
    - jtbayly 3y ago
      Some can plug in. I'm not sure how many, though. I thought plug-in hybrids were new in the last few years, and I thought many hybrids are still being sold that cannot plug in.
dboreham 3y ago
Nope.
orra 3y ago
> Can't imagine poor people living in older buildings will ever get that Less of a problem than you think. Car ownership is much higher in middle and upper classes, than working class. It's also less common in the densest populated areas, because residential off street parking is barely a thing in the UK. I imagine there'll be a mixture of solutions: possibly-robotic services to shunt parked cars around (for the few charging spots), car clubs, battery swaps, fast/high wattage charging, converting substantially more street parking to low wattage charges...
- LeoPanthera 3y ago
  The law only banned the sale of pure-ICE vehicles. Hybrids were never to be banned, and you don't have to plug in a hybrid.
  - jtbayly 3y ago
    You've claimed this a lot, but the article says the opposite, and you've not addressed that.
    - LeoPanthera 3y ago
      The law as it stands does not ban hybrid sales after 2030. The new law bans nothing after 2030, and will apparently ban hybrids after 2035. If this modification passes, which I understand it currently has not, I would hope that 12 years is plenty of time to prepare.
- dmix 3y ago
  > Car ownership is much higher in middle and upper classes, than working class. True, isn’t gas very expensive in the UK too? I guess even less of them will own cars now.
edent 3y ago
Yes. Most petrol stations have chargers. Every motorway service station has chargers. Lots of supermarkets have EV chargers. Some councils have lamp post charging. About 70% of UK homes have off street parking. Smart meters allow for time of day pricing for EVs. Lots of solar on domestic properties which can be diverted. Grid is increasingly able to support feed in. V2G being actively explored. Most commercial EV chargers report their status in real time. There's a proposed government standard for locating those chargers and seeing their status. You can look at https://www.zap-map.com/live/ https://www.zap-map.com/live/ to see what's going on. (Source - was an EV owner, worked on the standard, keep an eye on developments.)
- mnd999 3y ago
  The 30% that don’t have off street parking are mainly in cities though where electric will have the most impact on air quality and that’s a problem.
  - ljf 3y ago
    Most people in London don't have cars. Especially those living in flats and blocks.
    - pxeger1 3y ago
      Most people in most other cities do have cars.
      - edent 3y ago
        I don't think that tells the full picture. Take a look at https://www.ons.gov.uk/census/maps/choropleth/housing/number-of-cars-or-vans/number-of-cars-3a/no-cars-or-vans-in-household https://www.ons.gov.uk/census/maps/choropleth/housing/number... In Birmingham, about a 3rd of people have no car. But if you zoom in to central, it's about 2/3rds of people have no vehicle.
    - mnd999 3y ago
      Yeah in central that’s true. The currently ULEZ expansion controversy (at least the bits of it that aren’t shady Twitter / Facebook bot farms trying to engineer a Tory mayor) does indicate that a lot of folks in outer boroughs rely on their cars.
mnd999 3y ago
You don’t really need a car in central London. With the transit, on street rental bikes, Uber / Bolt and Zipcar you’ll get around just fine.
- dmix 3y ago
  I use to naively believe stuff like this too when I was a single bachelor living downtown in my 20s.
  - mnd999 3y ago
    Try it sometime. It works for me and I’m not a single bachelor or in my 20s. But I’m in Toronto next week, without a car so I guess I’ll see how I go there.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
gumballindie 3y ago
> Has the UK been doing the huge infrastructure investments needed to support charging of all of these cars? Have they? Everything in the uk is regressing. The government will likely extend it in 2035 as well. Things are really really bad, but the aligned media does a good job at hiding it.
rcarr 3y ago
We haven’t even been maintaining stuff we’ve already got (see the concrete crisis) let alone putting in the infrastructure for this.
mytailorisrich 3y ago
No. The grid is not keeping up, charging stations are not keeping up, electricity production is not keeping up, etc. Many people had been warning that 2030 was not realistic in that not tenable. That date was picked in jest by Boris Johnson to one up the EU, which picked 2035, anyway...
- have_faith 3y ago
  > The grid is not keeping up You've mentioned this a few times in the thread but the national grid say there is already enough capacity plus more investment happening. Where do you get this from?
  - mytailorisrich 3y ago
    Don't read BS PR, look for actual related news. Charging stations delays because of grid: https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/07/24/uk-faces-ev-charger-grid-strain-delays-hamper-summer-plans/ https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/07/24/uk-faces-ev-charge... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/09/09/electric-cars-generators-national-grid-ev-charging/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/09/09/electric-car... Restrictions in West London because of grid: https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-strategies/better-infrastructure/infrastructure-coordination/development-service/west-london-electricity-capacity-constraints https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-strategies/better-infra... Renewable projects delayed because of grid: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65500339 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65500339 And of course electricity production has to go up a lot to accommodate the new demand... probably the equivalent of several nuclear power plants.
    - have_faith 3y ago
      Quote from your first link > In order to complete the works a number of consents are required and we are working with the relevant statutory authorities and other parties to ensure the works are completed as soon as possible and certainly before the end of the year At a country grid level, we already generate enough electricity with plenty to spare. Usage has dropped from it's previous peak years ago. There's always going be areas that are harder to hook up with extra high powered lines quickly. This has nothing to do with whether the grid can cope or not. You seem to have an agenda.
have_faith 3y ago
Half of all Londoners don't own a car (they rarely need one). I live in Sheffield which is over half a million people, much more if you includie the greater area. According to a quick google we have 157 charging points (across less locations). I have no idea if that's good or not, I don't drive electric yet. I live in an arguably affluent area. Maybe 1 in 20 cars nearby are electric. It's all terraced housing with on-road parking, none of which is ever in front of your house. There's no charging stations nearby that I know of. Half of the housing stick in Sheffield is like this (no designated parking). It does make the prospect of having an electric car less appealing if I can't take advantage of home charging.
cmckn 3y ago
I think owning a personal vehicle will definitely get more complicated and less convenient with the transition to electric (at least for a period of time); but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. Folks will have to lean more on public transit, bike lanes, etc; which will change how public funds are allocated over time. It could be a virtuous cycle.
andylynch 3y ago
I’m not familiar with other UK cities but London planning policy in dense areas for some time now has leaned very heavily towards car-light, preferably car-free developments. I don’t have the stats to hand right now, but where tower blocks are being built, a large minority if not majority of households don’t even have a car.
johanvts 3y ago
Charge at the office, charge at the supermarket, wherever you go. I don’t drive much but having a 22kw AC charging car I can get charged for the week in 45 minutes of swimming. Having a charger at home is convenient, but not really necessary.
- tuatoru 3y ago
  What fraction of cars are BEVs where you live? Will you still be able to charge at the supermarket when every other car is fighting for the same chargers, do you think? Reliability hasn't been an outstanding feature of chargers to date.
  - johanvts 3y ago
    I think so yes. They make money on those chargers so I imagine they will keep putting them up as demand grows.
jinushaun 3y ago
The expectations that it is a requirement for apartments and office buildings to have chargers on-premise in order to make EVs viable is ridiculous. We don’t have gas/petrol stations now in those places. The solution is to require all gas/petrol stations to install EV chargers. The network already exists.
- Eavolution 3y ago
  I disagree. I think electric cars are fundamentally different. If 50 people want to fill up a petrol car, they go to a petrol station with 10 pumps and they're all out in 15m because filling doesn't take long at all. You can probably get more chargers in the same area as pumps, however it takes so much longer to charge a car that those 50 people would be there for hours. I think the solution to electric cars is everyone charges their car when they're not using it, so lots of on street chargers and charging at home for people with a driveway.

by dmix 3y ago

kibwen 3y ago

The previous law still allowed for hybrids to be sold beyond 2030, and hybrids don't need to be plugged in.

jtbayly 3y ago
Hybrids that are never plugged in are just slightly more efficient ICE cars.
- pnpnp 3y ago
  But in fairness they do have the option of plugging in, which is massively more efficient than gas-only. I know not everyone will do that, but lots of people will.
  - robocat 3y ago
    Hybrids can have batteries that are simply not worth charging. I think my 2005 hybrid has a 50Wh battery and certainly no way to externally charge it. From article: The government also confirmed that under the revised plan all [sales of new] hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars would also be banned from 2035
  - jtbayly 3y ago
    Some can plug in. I'm not sure how many, though. I thought plug-in hybrids were new in the last few years, and I thought many hybrids are still being sold that cannot plug in.

dboreham 3y ago

Nope.

orra 3y ago

> Can't imagine poor people living in older buildings will ever get that Less of a problem than you think. Car ownership is much higher in middle and upper classes, than working class. It's also less common in the densest populated areas, because residential off street parking is barely a thing in the UK. I imagine there'll be a mixture of solutions: possibly-robotic services to shunt parked cars around (for the few charging spots), car clubs, battery swaps, fast/high wattage charging, converting substantially more street parking to low wattage charges...

LeoPanthera 3y ago
The law only banned the sale of pure-ICE vehicles. Hybrids were never to be banned, and you don't have to plug in a hybrid.
- jtbayly 3y ago
  You've claimed this a lot, but the article says the opposite, and you've not addressed that.
  - LeoPanthera 3y ago
    The law as it stands does not ban hybrid sales after 2030. The new law bans nothing after 2030, and will apparently ban hybrids after 2035. If this modification passes, which I understand it currently has not, I would hope that 12 years is plenty of time to prepare.
dmix 3y ago
> Car ownership is much higher in middle and upper classes, than working class. True, isn’t gas very expensive in the UK too? I guess even less of them will own cars now.

edent 3y ago

Yes. Most petrol stations have chargers. Every motorway service station has chargers. Lots of supermarkets have EV chargers. Some councils have lamp post charging. About 70% of UK homes have off street parking. Smart meters allow for time of day pricing for EVs. Lots of solar on domestic properties which can be diverted. Grid is increasingly able to support feed in. V2G being actively explored. Most commercial EV chargers report their status in real time. There's a proposed government standard for locating those chargers and seeing their status. You can look at https://www.zap-map.com/live/ https://www.zap-map.com/live/ to see what's going on. (Source - was an EV owner, worked on the standard, keep an eye on developments.)

mnd999 3y ago
The 30% that don’t have off street parking are mainly in cities though where electric will have the most impact on air quality and that’s a problem.
- ljf 3y ago
  Most people in London don't have cars. Especially those living in flats and blocks.
  - pxeger1 3y ago
    Most people in most other cities do have cars.
    - edent 3y ago
      I don't think that tells the full picture. Take a look at https://www.ons.gov.uk/census/maps/choropleth/housing/number-of-cars-or-vans/number-of-cars-3a/no-cars-or-vans-in-household https://www.ons.gov.uk/census/maps/choropleth/housing/number... In Birmingham, about a 3rd of people have no car. But if you zoom in to central, it's about 2/3rds of people have no vehicle.
  - mnd999 3y ago
    Yeah in central that’s true. The currently ULEZ expansion controversy (at least the bits of it that aren’t shady Twitter / Facebook bot farms trying to engineer a Tory mayor) does indicate that a lot of folks in outer boroughs rely on their cars.

mnd999 3y ago

You don’t really need a car in central London. With the transit, on street rental bikes, Uber / Bolt and Zipcar you’ll get around just fine.

dmix 3y ago
I use to naively believe stuff like this too when I was a single bachelor living downtown in my 20s.
- mnd999 3y ago
  Try it sometime. It works for me and I’m not a single bachelor or in my 20s. But I’m in Toronto next week, without a car so I guess I’ll see how I go there.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

gumballindie 3y ago

> Has the UK been doing the huge infrastructure investments needed to support charging of all of these cars? Have they? Everything in the uk is regressing. The government will likely extend it in 2035 as well. Things are really really bad, but the aligned media does a good job at hiding it.

rcarr 3y ago

We haven’t even been maintaining stuff we’ve already got (see the concrete crisis) let alone putting in the infrastructure for this.

mytailorisrich 3y ago

No. The grid is not keeping up, charging stations are not keeping up, electricity production is not keeping up, etc. Many people had been warning that 2030 was not realistic in that not tenable. That date was picked in jest by Boris Johnson to one up the EU, which picked 2035, anyway...

have_faith 3y ago
> The grid is not keeping up You've mentioned this a few times in the thread but the national grid say there is already enough capacity plus more investment happening. Where do you get this from?
- mytailorisrich 3y ago
  Don't read BS PR, look for actual related news. Charging stations delays because of grid: https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/07/24/uk-faces-ev-charger-grid-strain-delays-hamper-summer-plans/ https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/07/24/uk-faces-ev-charge... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/09/09/electric-cars-generators-national-grid-ev-charging/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/09/09/electric-car... Restrictions in West London because of grid: https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-strategies/better-infrastructure/infrastructure-coordination/development-service/west-london-electricity-capacity-constraints https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-strategies/better-infra... Renewable projects delayed because of grid: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65500339 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65500339 And of course electricity production has to go up a lot to accommodate the new demand... probably the equivalent of several nuclear power plants.
  - have_faith 3y ago
    Quote from your first link > In order to complete the works a number of consents are required and we are working with the relevant statutory authorities and other parties to ensure the works are completed as soon as possible and certainly before the end of the year At a country grid level, we already generate enough electricity with plenty to spare. Usage has dropped from it's previous peak years ago. There's always going be areas that are harder to hook up with extra high powered lines quickly. This has nothing to do with whether the grid can cope or not. You seem to have an agenda.

have_faith 3y ago

Half of all Londoners don't own a car (they rarely need one). I live in Sheffield which is over half a million people, much more if you includie the greater area. According to a quick google we have 157 charging points (across less locations). I have no idea if that's good or not, I don't drive electric yet. I live in an arguably affluent area. Maybe 1 in 20 cars nearby are electric. It's all terraced housing with on-road parking, none of which is ever in front of your house. There's no charging stations nearby that I know of. Half of the housing stick in Sheffield is like this (no designated parking). It does make the prospect of having an electric car less appealing if I can't take advantage of home charging.

cmckn 3y ago

I think owning a personal vehicle will definitely get more complicated and less convenient with the transition to electric (at least for a period of time); but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. Folks will have to lean more on public transit, bike lanes, etc; which will change how public funds are allocated over time. It could be a virtuous cycle.

andylynch 3y ago

I’m not familiar with other UK cities but London planning policy in dense areas for some time now has leaned very heavily towards car-light, preferably car-free developments. I don’t have the stats to hand right now, but where tower blocks are being built, a large minority if not majority of households don’t even have a car.

johanvts 3y ago

Charge at the office, charge at the supermarket, wherever you go. I don’t drive much but having a 22kw AC charging car I can get charged for the week in 45 minutes of swimming. Having a charger at home is convenient, but not really necessary.

tuatoru 3y ago
What fraction of cars are BEVs where you live? Will you still be able to charge at the supermarket when every other car is fighting for the same chargers, do you think? Reliability hasn't been an outstanding feature of chargers to date.
- johanvts 3y ago
  I think so yes. They make money on those chargers so I imagine they will keep putting them up as demand grows.

jinushaun 3y ago

The expectations that it is a requirement for apartments and office buildings to have chargers on-premise in order to make EVs viable is ridiculous. We don’t have gas/petrol stations now in those places. The solution is to require all gas/petrol stations to install EV chargers. The network already exists.

Eavolution 3y ago
I disagree. I think electric cars are fundamentally different. If 50 people want to fill up a petrol car, they go to a petrol station with 10 pumps and they're all out in 15m because filling doesn't take long at all. You can probably get more chargers in the same area as pumps, however it takes so much longer to charge a car that those 50 people would be there for hours. I think the solution to electric cars is everyone charges their car when they're not using it, so lots of on street chargers and charging at home for people with a driveway.