Luckypants

My personal view is we need to get building more pumped storage hydro schemes to capture the excess renewables. At present Coire Glas is the most advanced plan for such schemes and should be progressed urgently IMHO. There are opportunities for similar schemes in Wales and Lake District, but NIMBYism gets in the way. We have a lot of wind power in north Wales now, mainly offshore that could be harnessed by more schemes like Dinorwig or Trawsfynnedd.

I'll weigh in as an ID.4 owner (as you have been chatting with one anyway). I have a 77kWh battery ID.4 (Enyaq 80 equivalent) which gives me 4.1 miles/kWh in general driving of mainly B-roads and some A-roads in summer which gives a max range of 300 miles. This then goes down to about 3.6 in winter. On the motorway I generally cruise about 65mph and get 3.9 summer and 3.5 winter. Wet roads make a dent in those figures. This economy is for V3.0 and above version of the MEB software, which you will get if buying new but you should insist on the software being upgraded if buying used. Economy on V2.x of MEB software was significantly worse. The software on Enyaq is much the same. Hope that's helpful.

I skim watched the video as those issues were known to me. They did not mention the huge amounts of electricity required to produce hydrogen. This alone makes hydrogen a non-starter for me, it is far more efficient to use that electricity to power a direct replacement technology. e.g. heat pumps over a gas ,hydrogen or oil boiler. More on this from Fully Charged show (now Everything Electric Show), I may have shared this before.

The battery swap idea on ships is the same as cars such as the Nio ET5. I think it makes sense on ships as the number of ships needing this service will be smaller than car numbers and also the TEU batteries work wonderfully with infrastructure already in place. with cars, if 20 cars turn up for a battery swap, its the same problem as not enough chargers at a location, there will be queueing. If a car swap station runs out of charged batteries, we'd be back to the not enough chargers scenario we have now.

Gridserve do have a lot of experience with battery tech at their charging facilities, using them at both Braintree and Norwich Forecourts to buffer solar generation from the roofs and nearby. In addition they can make extra revenue with grid support discharge or by taking power when prices are negative. So using batteries at places where there is a weak grid connection is probably obvious to them. For MSAs, they are leveraging a government initiative to provide battery power to enable chargers to be installed.(https://nationalhighways.co.uk/about-us/new-charging-systems-to-help-electric-vehicle-drivers-on-our-motorways/) The batteries are meant as an interim solution while the grid connection is built out, then re-used at another location with grid connection issues. However, they may be used long term where sites have particular issues such as Tebay whose nearest 33kV connection is 5 miles away and at capacity, so nearest viable connection is 10 miles away. Tebay is likely to use a solar and battery solution permanently and have applied for planning for a solar farm on land next door.

For those whinging about charging in Cornwall etc, here is a user maintained map of charging HUBS down that way. There are plenty of single or double rapids down there too. The problem is lemming tourists all turning up at the same chargers to "charge over lunch" at the same time. There were no queues at the 16 charger Osprey hub at Buckfastleigh for instance. https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1JFz9IAoX8-vjav4aSMsiJ6u0mQuYIWE&usp=sharing

Agree. For me I use previous car as a benchmark as similar in size to the ID.4. Current price of £1.48 ppl around here means my price per kWh before EV is more expensive is 59p/kWh. So basically any public rapid charger is more expensive than previous diesel car. Charging at home is the only way to be sure of cheaper running costs, otherwise you are into the realms of buying a subscription then searching for chargers which use that service and there is a discount. I do think CPOs are taking the urine with their current prices, since the very high wholesale prices of the recent past have dropped a lot over the past few months to levels they were when prices were in the 40p range. I hope we start to see some price competition soon, perhaps with the likes of Sainsburys opening charger hubs it will happen.

Also, maybe a little over budget, but have you looked at the e-Up/Mii electric/Citigo-e? The prices of 3 year old cars are just over budget, genuine 120 winter range and 160 in summer, CCS charging which is more common than the Leaf Chademo and recharges relatively quickly on AC thanks to 36kWh battery and 7kW charging. Might be worth taking a look.

This might help.

and of course, being the mighty Clarkson he didn't stop at all for a pee, a drink, food, stretch legs or just a rest. Obviously he then turned around immediately on getting to Edinburgh to drive back again without doing something there (work, dinner, sleep?).

I was referring to the comment "25 min food break removed" in the spreadsheet you screen shotted. On his 1000km challenges, total time is used for the EV trip as he eats while charging. There was a lot of debate in his live stream about including the food break in his PHEV 1000km challenge (I wasn't watching that, I'm not quite that sad!) and eventually it was excluded to make it 'fair'. My point was, if you include the biological needs of humans, ICE and EV times for long journeys are pretty much the same and is far more likely to be affected by outside factors such as traffic and weather.

If you include the 25 minute food break in the Ceed test, the next 9 cars in the list are faster. After all, humans need re-fuelling too and in an EV that happens simultaneously with fuelling the car. I'm not saying an EV is faster to 1000km but I'm also pointing out an ICE car is not faster either. I'm saying EVs have got to the point where for a long drive they are just as quick as a fossil car and all other trips they are just as quick / slow. The limit on ICE long distance travel has long been biological rather range and that is now the case with EVs too.

Fully charged covered the EQXX when it did the run to Silverstone. Here's a couple of videos they did covering it.

I'm just rounding out this thread by saying I eventually got Hankook 4S2 fitted. No dealer / online supplier could get me 4 Hankooks, the best any could do was 3. These were obviously the only three in the country in my size. I did cast about a bit for alternatives and came close to getting Bridgestone WeatherControls as I had these on my previous big car (Karoq) and found them to be very good. The Bridgestones were a good price from Costco, but logistics / life got in the way of me getting to Costco for a few weeks. I got fed up and asked local fitter to check for Hankook availability again, hey presto plenty of stock but in a warehouse somewhere, so Hankook must have imported a load. I've just had them fitted this morning and they look good on, not quite as fat as the Bridgestone Ecopia they replace but actually seem to sit on the rim better. A few miles show very little in handling differences (once I set the tyre pressures correctly!) so happy with my choice so far. I'm expecting a bit of hit in fuel consumption, but that is not significant given the mileage this little car does. Winter is a long way off yet to really test them but I'm happy to have replaced the disintegrating tyres.

Large swathes of rural UK areas have jo coverage for smart meters. Usually because of no O2 coverage but plenty of other mobile coverage. Flats where the meters are buried in the basement of the block and have no signal. If you are not a town dwelling house owner, it's a problem.

With 40% still in the car, why wait at Rugby for a charger? They could have gone up the road to the next set of chargers (e.g. Hilton Park) Didn't charge overnight at their stay. People still thinking in petrol station 'fill-ups' terms, even when they have an EV. Also with the coffees etc. it seems like they don't go very far normally and come across as nervous drivers / travellers. Found myself rolling my eyes a few times.

Well that's very light on detail and the process for magically transforming into "syngas" which we can use how? More BS to get a research grant from a gullible sponsor?

As I recently found out, you cannot get a Tracker tariff now without a smart meter. Octopus might have class leading tariffs but smart meters are de rigeur to get on any of them. My MP has been working for two years (and me 18 months before that) to try to get smart meter coverage to our rural area. You might want to persue that.

Thanks for the details, you must drive a crazy amount for work. However, you mean getting your TAXABLE income below the 40% threshold, your actual earnings are way in excess if you can 'dump' £30K into a pension. No problem with you doing that, crack on with keeping your money out of the taxman's hands!

How do you manage to get an extra £8k of tax free allowance over the rest of us mere mortals?

@toot Completely agree. In North Wales we have one of the highest standing charges, yet we have one of the largest off-shore windfarms in the UK off the coast. We have two large windfarms just up the road from our village. Like you, I have no objection but why do I pay more for my leccy than other parts of the UK that generate nowt? Even my suggestion that the windfarm community benefit fund money (bribe to objectors) should be used to subsidise the leccy bill of those affected was scoffed at by the powers that be, but was popular with bill payers. Instead, the money is used for grants for 'community projects' that should be funded by the council.

Unable to get a smart meter is one very common reason.

14 in the central island plus two towing charging spots, one below the island and one to the left looking at the photo. The Osprey press release has better shots of the towing bays or go to zap-map and see a photo of one in action (model X towing a caravan)

Fair enough Colin. My experience of a long range EV (77kWh ID.4) in Scotland has been positive. Last summer holiday was around 900 miles in the North around Sutherland and Skye. We frequently travel to the Borders. The situation in North Wales is improving quickly now, especially destination charging - I live in the area so this is first hand.

If you charge at 20% battery you are missing out on a significant portion of your range AND the fastest part of the charge curve.. Much better to get down to 5% or thereabouts for your intermediate charges for a faster journey. I get having a good buffer in the highlands where you might be scuppered if a charger isn't working, but on the major road network it isn't needed.