‘Why did it take nine hours to go 130 miles in our new electric Porsche?’ | Hacker News Reader

‘Why did it take nine hours to go 130 miles in our new electric Porsche?’

theguardian.com

16 pointspseudolus22 comments

This is basically the same conclusion made by Jeremy Clarkson and James May when they were driving and comparing their respective VW Golf (petrol) and BMW i3 (EV) cars to the south of England (around the same area where the owners of the EV car reside). The EV charging infrastructure in the UK is just simply not ready yet as of now.

To accelerate the infrastructure for the EV, the electric companies should subsidies to improve the home owners' plugs for sharing and fast charging their home electricity for their own usages and general public EV charging consumptions. Within overnight they will probably have more number of reliable charging points than the petrol stations' fueling points and then recoup the investment (ROI) in less than a year.

British government really need to get their act together since they are planning to bring forward the deadline for full EV adoption by the year 2030[1].

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/21/uk-plans...

Can't say I'm surprised to hear petrol service stations are neglecting to keep their EV chargers operational...

How much longer before home owners start offering public EV charging from their driveways? Do any charging infra companies market units to this demo? I have plenty of space to install something on my land, and electricity is on hand, just give me a turnkey solution to make money from it and get it registered in all the nav/location apps.

This is plugshare.com

plugshare.com sells kiosks that turns any piece of land with power and internet access into a charging port you'd find in a grocery store parking lot?

At a glance it's just a charging location/routing service app.

That's a pretty tiny portion of what my comment was about.

The problem is that residential charging is slow. An L2 charger will only add 20-25 miles of range per hour. No-one is going to leave their car at a random place long enough to get any meaningful charge.

In fact, I think L2 chargers should be banned from retail businesses, as they're just a gimmick and for vanity only. The average customer stays what, 45 minutes to an hour, netting maybe 20 miles of range?

I don't even bother with L2 charging except at the office. At home I just use L1 as an evening/overnight charge is enough for me.

> In fact, I think L2 chargers should be banned from retail businesses, as they're just a gimmick and for vanity only. The average customer stays what, 45 minutes to an hour, netting maybe 20 miles of range?

If your average drive to a retail business is ~20 miles, it sounds like a perfect fit to me.

Certainly far from anything warranting a "ban".

Paying to put 1 gallon of gas in your car at your local mall would sound ridiculous because gas stations are everywhere.

They only make any sense because of the lack of fast charging infrastructure. They show up on charging maps that drives traffic. They're essentially noise if you need to fill up.

If my car could passively receive 1 gallon of gas without my presence wherever I park, at a fair price, while I'm going about my business, I most certainly would not turn it down. Even with gas stations everywhere, it's a nuisance to frequent them, especially considering most of my trips don't really require more than 1-2 gallons of gas.

It'd basically eliminate most of my need to ever fill up from empty, that would become an exceptional circumstance on long distance trips.

TLDR: should of bought a Tesla.

Related: Car journalist and a friend vintage car restorer try out new AUDI E-tron, starting price in Poland $91K for basic poor-spec! https://youtu.be/nPaBLJFBFhI?t=1700

restorer: I need the assurance I will be able to charge. We used to plan ahead in the Soviet Bloc due to fuel rationing etc..

journalist: no problem, AI powered car computer does all of this for you, let me demonstrate

at this point they decide to plan a route from Warsaw, capital of Poland, to second biggest city (former capital) 310km away. Computer fails to even recognize the name of the second biggest city (despite being localized), but even 3 minutes later after typing it letter by letter it takes additional 30 seconds of UI spinner to arrive at "unable to find suitable charging stations en route". $91K car unable to drive from Capital of EU country to the second biggest city.

It looks like they were unlucky in the number of chargers stops they went to that were either not working or were already occupied.

It does say that they didn’t want to use a 7kw charger because of the time it would have taken to charge it; perhaps it would have helped them if they had.

Most of the stories I have heard of people with electric cars are good, but most charge and drive from home. The motorway network has lots of fast chargers but they are not reliable in terms of whether they are working.

Given the uk wants to end the sale of fossil fuel vehicles in the next 10 years there will have to be a lot more investment in motorway charging spots if they are going to succeed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply-side_economics should fix https://archive.is/EnFUU

As far as I’m concerned, until electric cars are as convenient to charge as gas is to fill up with, it’s a no-go for me. There simply isn’t the infrastructure where I live and frequently travel in the Eastern US to meet my driving needs. This story seems extremely plausible to me.

Something does not add up. Looking at plugshare.com the road from Bournemouth to Kent is absolutely plastered with fast chargers. This article is a EV FUD hit job.

I've had similar experiences in the US (Seattle area). Chargers are regularly out of service, and for extended periods of time.

There are a few Electrify America fast chargers near that have at least 3 out of 6 chargers out of service, and have been in this state for the last 2-3 months. EVgo chargers are so hit or miss that I don't even bother.

I've tried to fast charge in a smaller city and required me to call in and provide my credit card # just to charge.

I absolutely will not take my EV on an extended drive as I don't want to have to worry about finding a charger.

> Linda Barnes and her husband had to visit six charging stations as one after another they were either out of order, already had a queue or were the slow, older versions that would never be able to provide a fast enough charge in the time.

I’ve been watching a few EV road tests on uk based YouTube channels. It seems the road tests which where positive of the vehicles had similar issues. The reviewers showed there was a surprising amount of charging infrastructure displaying apps with charger locations, however when they got to the chargers they may of been several at the site but only one/two working etc with the rest out of order.

The article seems the opposite of a EV fud job, the couple come across as pro EV, they say they love their EV and where incredibly unlucky with the set of circumstances . The article seems to be highlighting some real issues that need to be resolved. Charger infrastructure in the UK looks to be progressing well but probably due to low usage state of repair is probably low after installation and if only ev vehicles can be sold after 2030 the scaling up problem needs to be resolved.

Remember that website recently that showed you which McDonald's had working sundae machines?

Watching car reviewers on YouTube a common problem is that the computers controlling the chargers would not accept your card/you have to be a member of the particular charger network, or the charger would be out of order, all points mentioned in the article.

I've come to realise the UK is/has transformed to a 3rd world country pretty rapidly..

where does plugshare talk about the kw of the charger? i.e. they owned a porsche taycan which needs at least 50 kw.

I've checked several chargers in my location that I know of that would not be able to charge a taycan. however I could not find anything on plugshare how much kw a charger (besides tesla once) has.

Orange colored chargers are fast chargers, at least 50kW. Maybe you need to enable displaying them in the filters? In addition, abetterrouteplanner.com gives a 15 minutes allego 160kW charging stop on route to Kent. This article is very very fishy.

ah I tought orange means some kind of "private, pay chargers" because the green once looked like the free once in my area.

edit: scary in my area (not england) I can only count ~6 high power charger stations in like 100km range.

That they cited no data and used a single anecdote gives up their bias.

The supercharger network will be a distinguishing feature for probably around 3 more years.

I agree. Europe will aggressively build chargers, but at the same time EV sales will skyrocket.

The third party networks will work out some kind of shared system like ATMs work today, but that won't happen overnight.

There will be teething problems for a while yet that you can just avoid by buying a Tesla.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com