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Comment by edent | Hacker News Reader

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/ to see what's going on.

(Source - was an EV owner, worked on the standard, keep an eye on developments.)

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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.

Most people in London don't have cars. Especially those living in flats and blocks.

Most people in most other cities do have cars.

I don't think that tells the full picture.

Take a look at 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.

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.

And those in the outer boroughs will either have room for a charging system or can drive a hybrid.

Or just keep driving the diesel/petrol car they already have - no one is banning the use of existing cars after they ban the sale of /new/ cars.

It's a lot easier to live in London without a car than outside it. As far as I know most new flats in London don't allow car parking anyway.

(I am a non driving Londoner and it's pretty good. I don't think I'd feel the same way in many other places)

What you highlight is nothing compared to what's needed, from chargers, to grid upgrades, to actual electricity production.

> There is definitely enough energy and the grid can cope easily.

https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero-sto...

You can see the grid investment at https://www.nationalgrid.co.uk/our-network/investing-in-our-...

Chargers are a non-issue. Every EV can charge from a standard 13 amp socket. Plug it in overnight and you'll be full the next morning. Or, upgrade to a 7kW charger - which usually come as part of a new car purchase.

The joy of 240V single phase.

Right now in some areas there are restrictions on new housing because the grid is saturated, charging stations are delayed because the grid cannot cope, and renewable production projects are also delayed because the grid cannot take it.

So, clearly the grid cannot cope.

Then, is electricity production growing 2 digits a year? Nope.

Yes, an EV can charge from a 13A socket, for people who have off-road parking... and anyway what happens when everyone plug their cars in the evening on a socket, or worse 7kW charger? The substation blows up... charging is a big issue, it is actually the issue.

Charging stations delays because of grid: https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/07/24/uk-faces-ev-charge...

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-infra...

Renewable projects delayed because of grid: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65500339

Don't substations there already deal with everyone plugging in a 13A load at the same time because of this [1]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_pickup

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