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?
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-...
...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.
Most electrical grids will need to be upgraded to accommodate this. This is doable, but costs money and takes time.
...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.
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.
The grid capacity is fine, however.
And "build more power plants"...so simple...part of the problem is that actually building more power plants is more complex than just typing a post out or observing it should be true. This is linked to the issues that I mentioned in the previous post (when the govt moved towards green power a decade or so ago, investment went through the floor...more recently, they have introduced price caps...the reason why the UK hasn't built power plants is because the govt asked companies to build them, and they said no...which is why the govt has had to hand out big subsidies to nuclear).
Btw, if you aren't familiar with something, ask more questions (I know this because I used to work as an analyst, and part of my coverage was these companies) rather than assume that someone has made a basic mistake. The power market is local, not global. What is happening in the US isn't happening everywhere else (the UK is far further down this road than anyone else).
See for example a study from our government about this exact subject (in Dutch): https://www.kimnet.nl/binaries/kimnet/documenten/rapporten/2...
The summary is that if there were 4 million vehicles charging overnight, it would cause a total of 20GW of electricity. Our current total consumption (including industry) is 33GW, so this would cause a significant increase in electricity consumption.
Dividing this number by 8760 (the number of hours in 2019) gives us 40,203,196 KW, or 40 GW total energy consumption. Assuming that electric vehicles are 5x more efficient than ICE, gives us about 8GW of electricity needed to replace all petrol and diesel consumption in the UK.
According to [1] the UK's peak consumption is currently 61.9 GW with a theoretical maximum of 75.3 GW. So to replace all non-commercial fuel used would be 13% of the peak usage.
According to [2] the UK's total electricity generation in 2019 was 323.7 TWh which is 3.237x10^11 KWh which is roughly equivalent to the total energy value for non-commercial diesel and petrol calculated above. Assuming again the 5x efficiency gain that would mean a ~20% increase in the amount of energy that would need to be generated.
[0] https://www.ukpra.co.uk/en/about/facts-and-figures
[1] https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/ofgem-publications/76160/13537-elec...
[2] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
I'm not so sure. Using the province of Ontario, since I have the link handy:
* http://www.ieso.ca/power-data
The demand the last few days peaked at 18:00 (local/ET) at 16.5-17K (MW), while its lowest point is at 02:00 at about 11.5K.
Would overnight car charging really exceed the ~5500 MW of power that needs to be handled already?
Admittedly that was almost 3 years ago, but I still wouldn't have anywhere to charge it at home...
15 amps at 230v won't charge very quickly.
Ubitricity has shown a concept where they have smaller extender posts off the lamp posts, which I guess they'll be able to install if an area gets really busy.
Absolutely. I think there are more on-street charging stations in that neighbourhood than there are in my entire city...
You seem to have hijacked my point with something that's bothering you though :(
If anyone wants to see an example of light pole charging, the Fully Charged YT channel had an episode of one example:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKaEhBjt1ls
See also pop-up chargers for streets without poles:
Edit: this article talks about one street in London being the first to have car chargers built in an is from March this year.
https://www.fleeteurope.com/en/new-energies/europe/analysis/...
The main difference is that (a) each street light is actually ~ 10W, and (b) the wiring is massively over-specified. Quoting from a local authority source for street lights, [1], the minimum conductor area allowed (for the 220-270 VAC supply) is 6 mm^2, for a total thermal current limit of around ~55A. If you have, say, 100 lamps on a single "ring main", you still only have a power draw of ~1 kW, where the cable is rated to 55 V x 220 A ≈12.1 kW minimum.
[1] https://www.durham.gov.uk/media/3075/Street-Lighting-Specifi...
How many people in the UK live in a detached or a semi-detached house?
is probably their deceptive response.
It was sometimes hard to get parked here never mind near your house or by a lamp post. Take a look at the street on Google street maps (Link below). These are old houses built over a century ago and many are now multiple occupancy with 1-3 cars per house. Counting lamp posts and cars (when full) there's probably one lamp post to every 15-20 cars. So lamp post charging is not going to work practically here and this is typical of many such streets.
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5646881,-0.0087098,3a,75y,68...
Imagine if everything adopted this model. Gas at the pump changes price mid fill-up. You'd fret that you'd be gouged for a million dollar gallon in the moment that you glance away. Or if there were TOU in addition to data caps on your internet connection - streaming a movie might be more expensive than you bargained.
So yes, in principle I agree that pricing everything to the most-granular and timely degree is economically correct, but it's also absolutely exhausting as a consumer. There's only so much cognitive burden to be tolerated. At some point apathy takes over.
No, most people in the UK live in terraced housing with no assigned parking spot - it's hit and miss whether they get to park outside their house or not when they come home from work. You also can't trail cables across the sidewalk (or pavement, as they say over there) - that would upset the disability people, for one thing.
However, everywhere where in-street parking is regular over night, there should be power outlets at the street side. They are quite common in the scandinavik countries, as even ICE cars used to be plugged in over night for heating the motor.
Their numbers don't add up. My apartment consumes around 400kWh a month. Assuming I charge a Tesla with 82kWh battery and I use it all in a month, the additional energy consumption is: 82/400 = 20%. And that is only on the fat chance that I will be driving less than I do today.
So prove me wrong.
It's physics. All the energy that the cars consume has to come from somewhere. And people will drive more especially because the car is now somehow 'green'
And when private electricity consumption is very small, wtf was with the move to LED lighting for and the ban of incandescent bulbs?
And the switch from incandescent to CFL/LED did save a lot of energy in total, both for residential and business applications. I once read the number that the net load was reduced by 1 GW due to the change. That is a reasonably sized nuclear power plant.
[0] https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/5-m... [1] https://www.lowcvp.org.uk/projects/electric-vehicle-energy-t... [2] https://www.wired.co.uk/article/electric-vehicle-car-infrast...
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.
Rich people: meh, this won’t change our lives much
Poor people: SOL
The price we pay for a functioning environment.
It's easy to dismiss progress with a one line snarky quip on the internet, and this is a hugely positive move.
Is that under the assumption that it's a warm day?
Unless you've got two drivers, a 7 hour trip likely requires more than a 35 minute stop to eat, and rest anyway.
Round here many people drive Diesels for their economy (11% extra energy per gallon compared to Petrol) though currently with the Diesel price premium over Petrol being roughly 11% more that's no longer true but diesel engines do last longer.
I'm not opposed to EVs but I don't think there'll be cheap ones like my Diesel if ever or at least for a long long time. And no one has said about future taxes on EVs. All that ICE fuel tax revenue will have to be replaced as it dwindles away. The 800 LB Gorilla in the room that no one mentions is "pay as you drive" I suspect.
> but diesel engines do last longer. "Longer" kind of doesn't matter these days. Sure, a diesel engine will literally never die, however my first car was a 1.4L peugeot with 260,000 miles on it. The engine and chassis were the only parts that hadn't been replaced by the time I got it, which is 25 years of your current mileage.
> I'm not opposed to EVs but I don't think there'll be cheap ones like my Diesel if ever or at least for a long long time.
A person commuting 200 miles per week, driving an old, heavily polluting car is likely to be one of the most affected by these changes. People with your driving habits are the reason that regulations like this have to exist in these forms. Poeple will hyper=optimise for their own benefit, as all of the externalities aren't costed. At the very least, buy a post-2008 diesel with a DPF in it.
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.
"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".
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/20...
> The last two ICE cars I had, I bought them when they were 12 and 9 years old,
You're comparing technology that's had 100 years to develop, with the first iterations of EVs. You're right in that a current 2 year old EV likely has a much lower resale value than a 2 year old ICE vehicle. But remember that the Model S has been on sale for less time than the time between now and when this ban comes into place. Buying a 6 year old EV right now seems like a terrible idea, buying a 6 year old EV in 2035 will likely be a very different story.
I fear that we might instead have a time period where fundamental battery technology (or our ability to harness it) will not permit a retention of 75% of range over a 20-year period. It might be like the cars of the 50s though 80s which rarely made 250K miles without major engine service.
Cars used to have 5 digit odometers in miles and it was a noteworthy event to “roll one over”. Now, the worst crapbox you can buy will do 100K easily and many of the Japanese imports will do 300K miles with a few external accessories being changed along the way.
Of course, we could find ourselves in an apple-google situation where the cost of the cars themselves is reduced to a price point that a mass market can stomach, and the cars are "disposable". That thought makes me sad.
It also makes me sad, both from an ecological standpoint, but also from a financial standpoint. I see a lot of people making car payments that are $400+ for 72-month loans. (The average car loan length in 2019 was 69 months for a new car and perhaps an even more astonishing 65 months for used cars.)
Then, because they have a loan, they have to have expensive collision insurance and maybe even gap insurance. Then, because it's an expensive liability they see everyday, they feel like they have to take it to the dealership for repairs (to "protect their 'investment'"). Some people feel like they need to build a little house to protect it (which needs a curb cut and associated extra land usage), etc.
If it were more commonly accepted to drive a "millionaire next door" 15-year old Camry or CR-V, I think we could go easier on the world and on people (maybe except for people who work in the automotive new-car supply chain).
Until then, I can be happy that people buy so many new cars so often, because if they didn't do that, there wouldn't be any cheap used cars for me to buy and DIY-repair to avoid the shop rate and parts markup. :)
If you want to do traffic policy for the poor the best you can do is making walking safer.
All comes down to how you define poor (is it homeless? « Lower class »? Whatever Boris Johnson would think of as a bad living situation?)
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.
> This should be easy to fix but it is another thing which needs to be rolled out and working in the next 10 years.
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.
Alternatively: charge the cars wherever they drive to. So at workplaces, shops etc.
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?