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This wholly depends on your use case. Most of my miles are done on long journeys. I live in a terraced house and can’t charge at home. UK charging infrastructu

by gmac 3y ago

This wholly depends on your use case. Most of my miles are done on long journeys. I live in a terraced house and can’t charge at home. UK charging infrastructure seems pretty underdeveloped so far. My 2018 petrol car does 600 miles on a tank. The upshot of all that is that an EV would give me half the range at twice the cost, and a headache every time I needed to charge it. I really want EVs to get better, and I’m sure they will. But for now, they’re hugely inferior for me.

gambiting 3y ago
>>I live in a terraced house and can’t charge at home I'm still waiting to hear how the government plans to solve this or incentivize private investment for this setup to work. Because yeah, if you live in UK and don't have a private drive then I have no idea how you're using an electric car, unless you literally have a Tesla and live right next to a supercharger(I know one person with that setup and it works fine for them, it's literally one 20 minute stop a week and they get enough charge to last them a week). >>Most of my miles are done on long journeys. Funnily enough, for that use case you should be ok-ish, as most motorway stops in the UK are now equipped with rapid chargers, so if you're just driving up and down the country you should be able to just charge when you stop for a break, and with modern EVs easily doing 200+ miles per charge this really shouldn't be an issue. The other thing is - you are an outlier if most of your driving is done on long journeys. Most people use their car to do a school run and commute to work, usually no more than 30-50 miles a day. If that's your setup(and you can charge at home), then EVs(and PHEVs to a large extent) are just a no brainer.
- throwaway68834 3y ago
  >Most people use their car to do a school run and commute to work, usually no more than 30-50 miles a day. I assume that to be true in most places, however, one has to consider that even those people occasionally make long distance travels. What happens if for whatever emergency I have drive 500 mi across the state, keep an ICE just in case? Hit the hay to wait for my car to recharge?
  - gambiting 3y ago
    >>What happens if for whatever emergency I have drive 500 mi across the state, keep an ICE just in case? Uhm, you either rent a car locally if that's an option, or in any modern EV realistically you'd drive for 250 miles, then do a 45 minute stop to recharge and then do the other 250 miles. It would end up being marginally slower than in a normal car. Also depends on the emergency, right - at 500 miles that's at least 10 hours of driving, it can't be that urgent. If someone is literally dying you'd get there faster in a normal car, I suppose - but somehow I don't pick my cars based on some incredibly rare situation. If you regularly have to address "emergencies" 500 miles away then I guess yes, don't buy an EV.
    - throwaway68834 3y ago
      500 mi is a 8 hours drive on a highway with light traffic, unless you are make-shift ambulance it sounds within reasonable limits of an urgency. >I don't pick my cars based on some incredibly rare situation. If you regularly have to address "emergencies" 500 miles away then I guess yes, don't buy an EV. Mr. Joe may also want to take his family for a summer trip, or attend some business at the capital city, it's not as unreasonable or rare as you think for the average person to account for the 1-2 times per year he might want or need to make a long distance trip when making their purchase. >in any modern EV realistically you'd drive for 250 miles, then do a 45 minute stop to recharge I'm not getting this kind of number, Google claims charging time is 31h–39h (220V) for an ID.3 and 21h–32h (220V) for a Nissan Leaf.
      - Propelloni 3y ago
        You are moving the goal post, just saying. > Mr. Joe may also want to take his family for a summer trip, or attend some business at the capital city, it's not as unreasonable or rare as you think for the average person to account for the 1-2 times per year he might want or need to make a long distance trip when making their purchase. No, it is not unreasonable or rare to do two long-distance trips a year. But what holds true for an emergency that requires you to drive 800km holds also true for a leisure or business trip where you can plan a little more beforehand. > I'm not getting this kind of number, Google claims charging time is 31h–39h (220V) for an ID.3 and 21h–32h (220V) for a Nissan Leaf. Of course not. You are looking at charging times for plugging in an extension cord from a household outlet (which in Europe is 220V AC at 16A, therefore ~3500W). It's like saying that refueling your 30t truck with a garden hose is taking really long. Well, duh! The fast chargers you find on highways are usually DC chargers with varying specifications. IIRC, the smallest DC chargers you can find (at least in mainland Europe) are 500V at 125A, so ~62000W. These load your average car battery in less than an hour, IFF your car can do it (not all new ones can, so watch out). Really high-performance EV like Porsche Taycan or Tesla S can charge much faster, if the DC charger allows it. There are modells that go up to 240kW, which would charge a recent Tesla S with 100kWh battery in less than 30 minutes from empty to 100%.
- maptime 3y ago
  For terrace houses it comes back to who owns the pavement and creating a compelling proposition for the customer and the EV charging provider In the short term very thin flat cables are being tested. But this assumes you can park opposite your house. Councils are happy to lease pavements to providers but it's not a lucrative proposition right now for 95% of UK streets, it's also victim to a negative feedback mechanism where home owners won't buy EVs because charging is hard which creates low demand Councils can't solve it without investment, most likely it will solve itself when the majority of high income charging locations have been constructed. Most charging companies are operating on long-term investments leveraging debt. It's going to take years to solve, and that's without worrying about the grid infrastructure
- nsteel 3y ago
  Where I am in London there're 7.7kW chargers built into some lamposts. It's about 30-40p per kWh depending on when you start. There's also a couple of other providers with roadside chargers in random residential roads. I think they've got the scaling about right for the current demand but if everyone in the area had an electric car it wouldn't work. I can go 290 miles at £0.016/mile when charging at home. At the (expensive) motorway services it's then £0.15/mile to rapid-charge. The unleaded at that services is £1.60/l so at 42 mpg (guess) it's about £0.17/mile. The EV version of my car is more expensive than petrol but it's not 2x. A petrol car is more expensive to run and fuel (in the UK, at least).
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    > 290 miles at £0.016/mile when charging at home. Is that from solar? Or some tariff granting 6p/kWH delivered?
    - nsteel 3y ago
      https://octopus.energy/smart/intelligent-octopus-go/ https://octopus.energy/smart/intelligent-octopus-go/
      - sokoloff 3y ago
        Thanks. Is that energy and delivery-of-energy combined for 7.5p/kWh? (Here we are charged separately for each of those tasks and, for me, the delivery of energy is over 59% of the total bill. Any alternate supplier is competing only for the supply of energy.)
        sitkack 3y ago
        Did your powerlines get privatized?
        sokoloff 3y ago
        This probably explains it better than I can: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/what-do-i-need-to-know-about-my-electric-supply-options-in-massachusetts https://www.mass.gov/info-details/what-do-i-need-to-know-abo... As far as I know, the distribution has for a very, very long time been managed by a private, regulated monopoly utility.
- marsokod 3y ago
  In bigger cities there are a lot of streetlight chargers popping up, like these ones: https://www.fmconway.co.uk/our-services/surecharge https://www.fmconway.co.uk/our-services/surecharge It will take some time to be more widespread, but I think this and small 7kW stations here and there (like the ones from Source London) charging will be the technical solution. As for how this will be incentives, I don't expect to see much until ICE are banned. 65% to 75% of households in the UK have off-street parking, that's more than enough for charging providers to get established and have different types of cost effective chargers. Once ICE are banned, then there will probably be incentives to cover dead zones. Unfortunately, that's usually how it goes and people living there are usually getting things last, like for broadband, 5G.
- willyt 3y ago
  If you're living in a terraced house with a front garden that is too small to put a drive in then you are probably living in a dense neighbourhood that can support frequent public transport. In cities like London, Newcastle, Liverpool or Glasgow that's already going to be a metro/subway/tube line. In one of the smaller neglected northern towns that could be a tram-train than can travel on street but achieve 80mph on a grade separated right of way to take you into the big city or to the major transport interchange or wherever. Just rent a car when you go on holiday, walk the kids to primary school and pick up your shopping on the way back from the station or get it delivered like it used to be in the old days. If everyone in that neighbourhood gets an electric car they are probably going to have to dig up all the streets to replace the ancient power cables to support the on-street charging which would cause even more chaos than putting in a tram. It would help solve the obesity epidemic with everyone walking a bit more and save the vehicles for people that need them like people who are mobility impaired, builders, etc.
  - sandworm101 3y ago
    >> probably living in a dense neighbourhood that can support frequent public transport. Not always a thing. Plenty of "dense" neighbourhoods have less-than-ideal transport systems. Few of even the most dense run 24/7 bus/train service. Not everyone works a 9-5 job near a bus station. Im in a dense area, in an apparment building beside the largest hospital. Bus service doesn't start until 6am, meaning it isnt an option for my work. Nearest passenger train is hundreds of miles away.
  - michaelt 3y ago
    > If you're living in a terraced house with a front garden that is too small to put a drive in then you are probably living in a dense neighbourhood that can support frequent public transport. Pick a random terraced road in Bristol [1] or Birmingham [2] or London [3] or Norwich [4] and you'll find terraced house residents are not yet living without cars. If our nation's goals require such people to live without cars, I would say we're a long way off - and we're not particularly moving in that direction either. Hell, the current government's plan for the next election is essentially the opposite. [1] https://maps.app.goo.gl/JUVD3xy4qRuP78VP8 https://maps.app.goo.gl/JUVD3xy4qRuP78VP8 [2] https://maps.app.goo.gl/CGfDGEibG3zQij8MA https://maps.app.goo.gl/CGfDGEibG3zQij8MA [3] https://maps.app.goo.gl/TXZYFuuQC3aQiam56 https://maps.app.goo.gl/TXZYFuuQC3aQiam56 [4] https://maps.app.goo.gl/srs27pyGuzobhp1V9 https://maps.app.goo.gl/srs27pyGuzobhp1V9
- Fatnino 3y ago
  I can easily go much longer than an EV battery without needing a break. A modern minivan can get myself, 3 passengers and all their luggage from the bay area to LA without even stopping for gas. In the event that we start without a full tank, the gas stop in middle adds 150 seconds to the trip. This simply isn't possible yet with an EV. I expect it will maybe happen someday, but not yet. As for putting the most miles on long trips: Say I drive 10 miles a day to work and back, and I drive to LA only once a month. Hey presto, most of my driving miles are on the rare but long journey.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - stavros 3y ago
    Yeah, but why do the miles count? So you need to stop for half an hour every 300 miles, is that such a big deal? You've still spent less time per month refueling your car.
    - throwaway2037 3y ago
      Yeah, yet another bullshit EV post. I just Googled the distance between two unrealistic endpoints in SF & LA: Union Square (SF) and Union Station (LA). It is 380 miles. When they stop to use the toilet and stretch halfway, they can recharge in Central Valley. In 10 years of talking to "EV deniers / haters", nothing you can say will convince them. And, seriously, how often is the _general_ population driving 380 miles to between two major cities? Once or twice a year at max.
      - stavros 3y ago
        Yeah, I don't understand this article. Who doesn't want an electric? I drive around the city all the time, 100 miles once a month, more than 400 maybe once a year. The disadvantages affect me once a year, the advantages every day. To me, an EV is a no-brainer, in fact I was test driving the Mercedes EV just yesterday. The only thing stopping me from getting one is that my ten-year-old car is still fine. Definitely not getting a new ICE, though.
- Angostura 3y ago
  People around me have started running cabled from the house over the pavement, protected by those anti-trip mats, when charging. So far the council haven't taken any action against them. Not sure it's a long-term practical solution though, what with safety, vandalism and no guarantees that you can get a parking space outside your house. Perhaps mandated 50% charging places in every supermarket carpark?
- jstanley 3y ago
  > if you live in UK and don't have a private drive then I have no idea how you're using an electric car I have a friend in this situation. He charges it at other places, although the council are apparently going to dig a small trench in the pavement (free of charge) to allow him to run a charging cable from his house to the car without disrupting foot traffic. But that's still contingent on being able to park right outside his house, which is a rare luxury.
- HPsquared 3y ago
  A lot of people who drive Teslas are middle-class office workers, and charge at the office car park.
  - erik_seaberg 3y ago
    My office has about four chargers to support a few hundred drivers. They can't be reserved. Is this unusual?
- arpinum 3y ago
  Charge at the grocery store during the weekly shop.
- Glatoono 3y ago
  It will be very easy in the longterm: Charging at work, at the super market, publicly etc. Supercharging in itself is easy enough too. My EV has a big battery (given) but im charging publicly for nearly 2 years but my company already plans charging stations next year and other locations of my company already have them.
- smileysteve 3y ago
  Many gas stations are buying chargers. BP just order $100m of Tesla chargers. QuickTrip (gas stations) around me have 2+ chargers. Gas stations will need to have chargers to stay in business (and electrification will impact their business); With 5% electrification, gas stations have already lost ~5% of their business, if they can recoup 2% from people without high speed charging at home or for road trips, they can make up in margins (especially as a 20 min charge up is more likely to get a user in store than a 5 minute fill up) Grocery chains, working locations, state parks, county parks have been incentivized to put chargers. So have local shopping centers.
figassis 3y ago
It's one of those things where you need govt funded ev charging infrastructure. Once people are at ease about always being able to charge, this might improve.
- nikster 3y ago
  The opposite - I was watching MKBHDs review of the solar roof - he was charging his Tesla model S ... using only the roof for 11 months out of 12! That means - total energy independence. I can get a solar roof and no longer need "the government" ie, a bunch of criminals, to "help" me. Strangely this is never on the news. Ever. Go figure.
  - jorvi 3y ago
    Must be painful for you to drink water, drive on roads and have (semi-)breathable air each day. Such crooked things the government spreads..
    - madengr 3y ago
      [dead]
    - zo1 3y ago
      It's very confusing how consent is super important everywhere but immediately put aside when it comes to government. Could we not do consent and government at the same time? Possible but it would be highly inconvenient and people wouldn't like the consequences. At the very least we need referendums on all the big contentious issues.
      - danielheath 3y ago
        "Consent of the governed" is the founding mythos (whether that rings true for you or not) of democracy.
      - jorvi 3y ago
        Ah yes, that terrible tyranny of being connected to the grid and having to pay into the maintenance of it. How dare they? Fascist scum!
nikster 3y ago
Yeah - there are many use cases still where EVs are way worse or even totally inadequate. Yours is one. Cold countries is another (sorry Canadians... don't buy Teslas just yet...). EV performance is horrific in cold conditions. But the majority of use cases at this point is - EVs are way better. City driving, less than 100 miles per day, which is what most people do in most countries, charge at home, etc.
- fragmede 3y ago
  Yes, like that famously warm country, Norway, where 87 percent of the country’s new car sales are electric.
  - vel0city 3y ago
    Norway is generally warmer than a lot of Canada. Most of the population of Canada don't get the warming of the Gulf Stream.
  - threemux 3y ago
    EV suffering range loss in cold conditions is well documented. Norway has tons of EVs purely because of massive government incentives.
    - ceejayoz 3y ago
      The question becomes “is that loss important?” I suspect people overestimate the frequency in which they drive 250 miles a day.
      - Dalewyn 3y ago
        Yes. No. The nice thing about fuel cars is you almost never need to think about range beyond the refueling visit to a gas station once every week or two. If you're going on an extended road trip, you know you could skip a dozen gas stations and still be fine. I drove an EV before alongside a fuel car, and I constantly considered whether the bloody thing had enough range for the day or journey. The constant mental load, light as it was, is something I don't have to deal with driving fuel cars. Having ease of mind is priceless.
sandworm101 3y ago
Im in a similar boat. I dont own my own house, and likely never will. There are no commercial chargers anywhere near me, and those far away are not cheap. My climate (-30/40 in winter) is not ideal for batteries. And my drives, other than to work each day, are generally longer (nearest costco is 200miles). I dont see EVs as a practical option, not for a decade or more.
cricalix 3y ago
Similar in some parts of Germany. My partner currently lives in the "standard" house setup - multiple apartments in a purpose built building, several buildings grouped together. There's a road about 60 metres away, on street parking, and there's always more cars than spaces. No way to do EV charging unless the local council equivalent did something to lay in charging points - but there's not really any official parking bays either, it's just "squeeze in where you can". A lot of city infra just isn't set up for at-home charging in older cities, and it's a non-trivial retrofit.
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  The answer to this is local regulations that force landlords to build EV charging on demand. The city can also provide rebates to the landlords. If the world is serious about EVs, we need to be serious about expanding the necessary infra.
- nicoburns 3y ago
  The council have started doing just that in parts of the UK. It’s quite easy to do because streets already have electrical supply. And a charger is pretty simple if you don’t need it to be a fast charger.
delecti 3y ago
I'll readily admit to not having a fantastic grasp of UK geography, but it seems like a typical EV's range (and your car's tank) can already take you a significant portion of the length of your country. If most of your miles are on long journeys, then surely you're more likely to encounter some of the UK's charging infrastructure along the way, right?

by gmac 3y ago

gambiting 3y ago

>>I live in a terraced house and can’t charge at home I'm still waiting to hear how the government plans to solve this or incentivize private investment for this setup to work. Because yeah, if you live in UK and don't have a private drive then I have no idea how you're using an electric car, unless you literally have a Tesla and live right next to a supercharger(I know one person with that setup and it works fine for them, it's literally one 20 minute stop a week and they get enough charge to last them a week). >>Most of my miles are done on long journeys. Funnily enough, for that use case you should be ok-ish, as most motorway stops in the UK are now equipped with rapid chargers, so if you're just driving up and down the country you should be able to just charge when you stop for a break, and with modern EVs easily doing 200+ miles per charge this really shouldn't be an issue. The other thing is - you are an outlier if most of your driving is done on long journeys. Most people use their car to do a school run and commute to work, usually no more than 30-50 miles a day. If that's your setup(and you can charge at home), then EVs(and PHEVs to a large extent) are just a no brainer.

throwaway68834 3y ago
>Most people use their car to do a school run and commute to work, usually no more than 30-50 miles a day. I assume that to be true in most places, however, one has to consider that even those people occasionally make long distance travels. What happens if for whatever emergency I have drive 500 mi across the state, keep an ICE just in case? Hit the hay to wait for my car to recharge?
- gambiting 3y ago
  >>What happens if for whatever emergency I have drive 500 mi across the state, keep an ICE just in case? Uhm, you either rent a car locally if that's an option, or in any modern EV realistically you'd drive for 250 miles, then do a 45 minute stop to recharge and then do the other 250 miles. It would end up being marginally slower than in a normal car. Also depends on the emergency, right - at 500 miles that's at least 10 hours of driving, it can't be that urgent. If someone is literally dying you'd get there faster in a normal car, I suppose - but somehow I don't pick my cars based on some incredibly rare situation. If you regularly have to address "emergencies" 500 miles away then I guess yes, don't buy an EV.
  - throwaway68834 3y ago
    500 mi is a 8 hours drive on a highway with light traffic, unless you are make-shift ambulance it sounds within reasonable limits of an urgency. >I don't pick my cars based on some incredibly rare situation. If you regularly have to address "emergencies" 500 miles away then I guess yes, don't buy an EV. Mr. Joe may also want to take his family for a summer trip, or attend some business at the capital city, it's not as unreasonable or rare as you think for the average person to account for the 1-2 times per year he might want or need to make a long distance trip when making their purchase. >in any modern EV realistically you'd drive for 250 miles, then do a 45 minute stop to recharge I'm not getting this kind of number, Google claims charging time is 31h–39h (220V) for an ID.3 and 21h–32h (220V) for a Nissan Leaf.
    - Propelloni 3y ago
      You are moving the goal post, just saying. > Mr. Joe may also want to take his family for a summer trip, or attend some business at the capital city, it's not as unreasonable or rare as you think for the average person to account for the 1-2 times per year he might want or need to make a long distance trip when making their purchase. No, it is not unreasonable or rare to do two long-distance trips a year. But what holds true for an emergency that requires you to drive 800km holds also true for a leisure or business trip where you can plan a little more beforehand. > I'm not getting this kind of number, Google claims charging time is 31h–39h (220V) for an ID.3 and 21h–32h (220V) for a Nissan Leaf. Of course not. You are looking at charging times for plugging in an extension cord from a household outlet (which in Europe is 220V AC at 16A, therefore ~3500W). It's like saying that refueling your 30t truck with a garden hose is taking really long. Well, duh! The fast chargers you find on highways are usually DC chargers with varying specifications. IIRC, the smallest DC chargers you can find (at least in mainland Europe) are 500V at 125A, so ~62000W. These load your average car battery in less than an hour, IFF your car can do it (not all new ones can, so watch out). Really high-performance EV like Porsche Taycan or Tesla S can charge much faster, if the DC charger allows it. There are modells that go up to 240kW, which would charge a recent Tesla S with 100kWh battery in less than 30 minutes from empty to 100%.
maptime 3y ago
For terrace houses it comes back to who owns the pavement and creating a compelling proposition for the customer and the EV charging provider In the short term very thin flat cables are being tested. But this assumes you can park opposite your house. Councils are happy to lease pavements to providers but it's not a lucrative proposition right now for 95% of UK streets, it's also victim to a negative feedback mechanism where home owners won't buy EVs because charging is hard which creates low demand Councils can't solve it without investment, most likely it will solve itself when the majority of high income charging locations have been constructed. Most charging companies are operating on long-term investments leveraging debt. It's going to take years to solve, and that's without worrying about the grid infrastructure
nsteel 3y ago
Where I am in London there're 7.7kW chargers built into some lamposts. It's about 30-40p per kWh depending on when you start. There's also a couple of other providers with roadside chargers in random residential roads. I think they've got the scaling about right for the current demand but if everyone in the area had an electric car it wouldn't work. I can go 290 miles at £0.016/mile when charging at home. At the (expensive) motorway services it's then £0.15/mile to rapid-charge. The unleaded at that services is £1.60/l so at 42 mpg (guess) it's about £0.17/mile. The EV version of my car is more expensive than petrol but it's not 2x. A petrol car is more expensive to run and fuel (in the UK, at least).
- sokoloff 3y ago
  > 290 miles at £0.016/mile when charging at home. Is that from solar? Or some tariff granting 6p/kWH delivered?
  - nsteel 3y ago
    https://octopus.energy/smart/intelligent-octopus-go/ https://octopus.energy/smart/intelligent-octopus-go/
    - sokoloff 3y ago
      Thanks. Is that energy and delivery-of-energy combined for 7.5p/kWh? (Here we are charged separately for each of those tasks and, for me, the delivery of energy is over 59% of the total bill. Any alternate supplier is competing only for the supply of energy.)
      - sitkack 3y ago
        Did your powerlines get privatized?
        sokoloff 3y ago
        This probably explains it better than I can: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/what-do-i-need-to-know-about-my-electric-supply-options-in-massachusetts https://www.mass.gov/info-details/what-do-i-need-to-know-abo... As far as I know, the distribution has for a very, very long time been managed by a private, regulated monopoly utility.
marsokod 3y ago
In bigger cities there are a lot of streetlight chargers popping up, like these ones: https://www.fmconway.co.uk/our-services/surecharge https://www.fmconway.co.uk/our-services/surecharge It will take some time to be more widespread, but I think this and small 7kW stations here and there (like the ones from Source London) charging will be the technical solution. As for how this will be incentives, I don't expect to see much until ICE are banned. 65% to 75% of households in the UK have off-street parking, that's more than enough for charging providers to get established and have different types of cost effective chargers. Once ICE are banned, then there will probably be incentives to cover dead zones. Unfortunately, that's usually how it goes and people living there are usually getting things last, like for broadband, 5G.
willyt 3y ago
If you're living in a terraced house with a front garden that is too small to put a drive in then you are probably living in a dense neighbourhood that can support frequent public transport. In cities like London, Newcastle, Liverpool or Glasgow that's already going to be a metro/subway/tube line. In one of the smaller neglected northern towns that could be a tram-train than can travel on street but achieve 80mph on a grade separated right of way to take you into the big city or to the major transport interchange or wherever. Just rent a car when you go on holiday, walk the kids to primary school and pick up your shopping on the way back from the station or get it delivered like it used to be in the old days. If everyone in that neighbourhood gets an electric car they are probably going to have to dig up all the streets to replace the ancient power cables to support the on-street charging which would cause even more chaos than putting in a tram. It would help solve the obesity epidemic with everyone walking a bit more and save the vehicles for people that need them like people who are mobility impaired, builders, etc.
- sandworm101 3y ago
  >> probably living in a dense neighbourhood that can support frequent public transport. Not always a thing. Plenty of "dense" neighbourhoods have less-than-ideal transport systems. Few of even the most dense run 24/7 bus/train service. Not everyone works a 9-5 job near a bus station. Im in a dense area, in an apparment building beside the largest hospital. Bus service doesn't start until 6am, meaning it isnt an option for my work. Nearest passenger train is hundreds of miles away.
- michaelt 3y ago
  > If you're living in a terraced house with a front garden that is too small to put a drive in then you are probably living in a dense neighbourhood that can support frequent public transport. Pick a random terraced road in Bristol [1] or Birmingham [2] or London [3] or Norwich [4] and you'll find terraced house residents are not yet living without cars. If our nation's goals require such people to live without cars, I would say we're a long way off - and we're not particularly moving in that direction either. Hell, the current government's plan for the next election is essentially the opposite. [1] https://maps.app.goo.gl/JUVD3xy4qRuP78VP8 https://maps.app.goo.gl/JUVD3xy4qRuP78VP8 [2] https://maps.app.goo.gl/CGfDGEibG3zQij8MA https://maps.app.goo.gl/CGfDGEibG3zQij8MA [3] https://maps.app.goo.gl/TXZYFuuQC3aQiam56 https://maps.app.goo.gl/TXZYFuuQC3aQiam56 [4] https://maps.app.goo.gl/srs27pyGuzobhp1V9 https://maps.app.goo.gl/srs27pyGuzobhp1V9
Fatnino 3y ago
I can easily go much longer than an EV battery without needing a break. A modern minivan can get myself, 3 passengers and all their luggage from the bay area to LA without even stopping for gas. In the event that we start without a full tank, the gas stop in middle adds 150 seconds to the trip. This simply isn't possible yet with an EV. I expect it will maybe happen someday, but not yet. As for putting the most miles on long trips: Say I drive 10 miles a day to work and back, and I drive to LA only once a month. Hey presto, most of my driving miles are on the rare but long journey.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- stavros 3y ago
  Yeah, but why do the miles count? So you need to stop for half an hour every 300 miles, is that such a big deal? You've still spent less time per month refueling your car.
  - throwaway2037 3y ago
    Yeah, yet another bullshit EV post. I just Googled the distance between two unrealistic endpoints in SF & LA: Union Square (SF) and Union Station (LA). It is 380 miles. When they stop to use the toilet and stretch halfway, they can recharge in Central Valley. In 10 years of talking to "EV deniers / haters", nothing you can say will convince them. And, seriously, how often is the _general_ population driving 380 miles to between two major cities? Once or twice a year at max.
    - stavros 3y ago
      Yeah, I don't understand this article. Who doesn't want an electric? I drive around the city all the time, 100 miles once a month, more than 400 maybe once a year. The disadvantages affect me once a year, the advantages every day. To me, an EV is a no-brainer, in fact I was test driving the Mercedes EV just yesterday. The only thing stopping me from getting one is that my ten-year-old car is still fine. Definitely not getting a new ICE, though.
Angostura 3y ago
People around me have started running cabled from the house over the pavement, protected by those anti-trip mats, when charging. So far the council haven't taken any action against them. Not sure it's a long-term practical solution though, what with safety, vandalism and no guarantees that you can get a parking space outside your house. Perhaps mandated 50% charging places in every supermarket carpark?
jstanley 3y ago
> if you live in UK and don't have a private drive then I have no idea how you're using an electric car I have a friend in this situation. He charges it at other places, although the council are apparently going to dig a small trench in the pavement (free of charge) to allow him to run a charging cable from his house to the car without disrupting foot traffic. But that's still contingent on being able to park right outside his house, which is a rare luxury.
HPsquared 3y ago
A lot of people who drive Teslas are middle-class office workers, and charge at the office car park.
- erik_seaberg 3y ago
  My office has about four chargers to support a few hundred drivers. They can't be reserved. Is this unusual?
arpinum 3y ago
Charge at the grocery store during the weekly shop.
Glatoono 3y ago
It will be very easy in the longterm: Charging at work, at the super market, publicly etc. Supercharging in itself is easy enough too. My EV has a big battery (given) but im charging publicly for nearly 2 years but my company already plans charging stations next year and other locations of my company already have them.
smileysteve 3y ago
Many gas stations are buying chargers. BP just order $100m of Tesla chargers. QuickTrip (gas stations) around me have 2+ chargers. Gas stations will need to have chargers to stay in business (and electrification will impact their business); With 5% electrification, gas stations have already lost ~5% of their business, if they can recoup 2% from people without high speed charging at home or for road trips, they can make up in margins (especially as a 20 min charge up is more likely to get a user in store than a 5 minute fill up) Grocery chains, working locations, state parks, county parks have been incentivized to put chargers. So have local shopping centers.

figassis 3y ago

It's one of those things where you need govt funded ev charging infrastructure. Once people are at ease about always being able to charge, this might improve.

nikster 3y ago
The opposite - I was watching MKBHDs review of the solar roof - he was charging his Tesla model S ... using only the roof for 11 months out of 12! That means - total energy independence. I can get a solar roof and no longer need "the government" ie, a bunch of criminals, to "help" me. Strangely this is never on the news. Ever. Go figure.
- jorvi 3y ago
  Must be painful for you to drink water, drive on roads and have (semi-)breathable air each day. Such crooked things the government spreads..
  - madengr 3y ago
    [dead]
  - zo1 3y ago
    It's very confusing how consent is super important everywhere but immediately put aside when it comes to government. Could we not do consent and government at the same time? Possible but it would be highly inconvenient and people wouldn't like the consequences. At the very least we need referendums on all the big contentious issues.
    - danielheath 3y ago
      "Consent of the governed" is the founding mythos (whether that rings true for you or not) of democracy.
    - jorvi 3y ago
      Ah yes, that terrible tyranny of being connected to the grid and having to pay into the maintenance of it. How dare they? Fascist scum!

nikster 3y ago

Yeah - there are many use cases still where EVs are way worse or even totally inadequate. Yours is one. Cold countries is another (sorry Canadians... don't buy Teslas just yet...). EV performance is horrific in cold conditions. But the majority of use cases at this point is - EVs are way better. City driving, less than 100 miles per day, which is what most people do in most countries, charge at home, etc.

fragmede 3y ago
Yes, like that famously warm country, Norway, where 87 percent of the country’s new car sales are electric.
- vel0city 3y ago
  Norway is generally warmer than a lot of Canada. Most of the population of Canada don't get the warming of the Gulf Stream.
- threemux 3y ago
  EV suffering range loss in cold conditions is well documented. Norway has tons of EVs purely because of massive government incentives.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    The question becomes “is that loss important?” I suspect people overestimate the frequency in which they drive 250 miles a day.
    - Dalewyn 3y ago
      Yes. No. The nice thing about fuel cars is you almost never need to think about range beyond the refueling visit to a gas station once every week or two. If you're going on an extended road trip, you know you could skip a dozen gas stations and still be fine. I drove an EV before alongside a fuel car, and I constantly considered whether the bloody thing had enough range for the day or journey. The constant mental load, light as it was, is something I don't have to deal with driving fuel cars. Having ease of mind is priceless.

sandworm101 3y ago

Im in a similar boat. I dont own my own house, and likely never will. There are no commercial chargers anywhere near me, and those far away are not cheap. My climate (-30/40 in winter) is not ideal for batteries. And my drives, other than to work each day, are generally longer (nearest costco is 200miles). I dont see EVs as a practical option, not for a decade or more.

cricalix 3y ago

Similar in some parts of Germany. My partner currently lives in the "standard" house setup - multiple apartments in a purpose built building, several buildings grouped together. There's a road about 60 metres away, on street parking, and there's always more cars than spaces. No way to do EV charging unless the local council equivalent did something to lay in charging points - but there's not really any official parking bays either, it's just "squeeze in where you can". A lot of city infra just isn't set up for at-home charging in older cities, and it's a non-trivial retrofit.

throwaway2037 3y ago
The answer to this is local regulations that force landlords to build EV charging on demand. The city can also provide rebates to the landlords. If the world is serious about EVs, we need to be serious about expanding the necessary infra.
nicoburns 3y ago
The council have started doing just that in parts of the UK. It’s quite easy to do because streets already have electrical supply. And a charger is pretty simple if you don’t need it to be a fast charger.

delecti 3y ago

I'll readily admit to not having a fantastic grasp of UK geography, but it seems like a typical EV's range (and your car's tank) can already take you a significant portion of the length of your country. If most of your miles are on long journeys, then surely you're more likely to encounter some of the UK's charging infrastructure along the way, right?