wyx087

Energy storage can mean: Used as a sink, storing the energy when there is excess demand Used as a two-way buffer, storing and then retrieving the energy when needed We have already achieved number 1 on a large scale with today's technology. You are thinking of #2 and it is entirely configurable, you can say "tomorrow morning I need 100% battery at 7am", this is achievable with today's tech, but not yet widely available. Don't necessarily need large upgrades at large charging hubs. You can put in energy storage as buffer. Existing examples are Tesla South Mimms services 12 stall supercharger (which continued to operate even during power cut), Braintree GridServe electric forecourt. For homes, 3 phase is definitely not needed. 7kW charging will be the standard. It is 32 amps (out of 100 amp house fuse) will top up almost 50kWh over 7 hours, meaning recharging 150-250 miles everyday during off-peak periods. Agree with these. The metric is both localised pollution and also vehicle lifetime greenhouse gas emission. But even with greenest hydrogen, I'm guessing lifetime greenhouse gas emission will be not much better than existing most efficient ICE cars. Green electricity isn't emission free unfortunately. Have you seen my 2 family cars? As you've pointed out, current public charging infrastructure is not there yet. (perhaps except for a Tesla) Have you considered buying an EV with 350 miles range for your very regular and time-critical 300 miles journey? The long range versions of Tesla you've tried can easily achieve over 300 miles. They've been shown to degrade around 5% after 100k miles. Do remember there are low-spec petrol cars with shorter range....... you wouldn't buy a 300 miles range petrol car (eg. my parent's Volvo S40 mk2 1.6l) for your use-case either.

I believe that is listed as "Transportation, storage and distribution" on the graph. I think you've answered your question on upgrading the grid: it doesn't need upgrading. Vast majority of all vehicles are parked overnight during low demand periods. So battery electric vehicles can be used as energy storage as well as current vehicle duties. I completely agree with these points. Mining lithium is the least of the worries, it's the other materials that's the bigger problem, mainly cobalt. When we get better battery tech, I'm sure car manufacturers will be eager to adopt. But on the other hand, turning one ICE sale to EV sale today means (on average) 10+ years of zero tailpipe emissions from today, We cannot afford to wait for the next best thing. Cars live a long life and a polluting ICE car will pollute for the duration of its lifetime.

When I replace my Octavia with a BEV, if these green plates are still around, I'm tempted to swap the Leaf plates to same style so they match. It's virtue signalling, nothing else. Just to rub it in with neighbours. (who have objected to ULEZ and another runs a Jag V8)

Not sure if confirmation bias, but seems like most of the branded vans I see doing deliveries around here North London are now electric. What do you guys think of the green "flash" on license plate for zero tailpipe emission vehicles?

Sole rapid charger locations, it's time they become extinct. The eGolf owner shouldn't be expecting a full charge from a rapid anyway. They are either uninformed or just selfish. EV charging slows down near the top end. Luckily you got there when it finished charging, otherwise you might be there waiting over 1 hour from start to finish, waiting for the car to trickle charge the last few percent. Looks like there's 7kW posts nearby, if they are not going to be around when the car gets enough charge, they should never be using the rapids, should be using the 7kW posts.

Hard to say whether it's right for you or not. What's EDF's rates and off peak rates? How much electricity would you be using on that off-peak? Most of the time, tariff like these will increase peak-rate slightly. The important thing is working out your overall average pence/kWh. Use off-peak rate to push down overall per-kWh. If worked out to be similar, then it's not worth the bother. Eg. my current provider Bulb charges 12p for off-peak and 20p for peak time. I think 18 or 19p if not on time-based tariff. But with my solar panel, I hardly use anything during peak time. Over 60% of my usage is during off-peak, (was 70% when commuting). So I stubbornly continue to use the existing Economy 7 "dumb" meter.

I find this website to be an excellent resource: https://abetterrouteplanner.com/ Plot a long-ish route, play around with the variables to see how each affects your range and how you charge up during the journey. The better the EV, the less external variables affect the performance (range, power). Nissan Leaf is probably the worst EV due to its range is horrendous when cold and charging speed drops like a brick when battery is hot. Tesla Model 3 would be at the other end, where it has many cleaver tricks to preserve its performance, eg. after supercharging, it can use battery heat to warm up the car rather than dumbly using stored electricity.

Energy storage is only really required for synthetically made fuel, where it has to be generated from electricity and stored waiting for fuel-up. How much time does a passenger car typically spend parked? When it is parked, it can be plugged in. When it is plugged in, battery EV is in effect a connected battery that can take (or even give) energy according to fluctuating energy production/demand. This effectively cuts out the unnecessary intermediate storage part completely. The vast majority of cars is parked somewhere overnight. Overnight is least carbon intensive and the grid has the most spare capacity: https://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-UK-grid-CO2-intensity-variations-by-year.html#fullyear2009 This is rather unrealistic, EV range only really need to satisfy either daily driving requirement or single leg of a journey between rest-stops. I'm sorry that you have to drive 400 miles almost everyday. Driving continuously for 400 miles is ~7 hours non-stop on the motorway, this is very dangerous. As long as combustion of those new fuels have been extensively researched and have zero tailpipe emissions that could turn out to be a serious health risk, then I'm all for it. EV in its current form (overnight charging) isn't for everyone, there is still need for direct replacement to petrol station forecourt refuelling model.

All other coloured hydrogen are such a con, they are like "self charging hybrids", the energy still comes from fossil fuel. Only viable alternative to power trasnports besides using batteries would be green hydrogen and possibly synthetic fuel for existing engines. But green hydrogen only retains about 70% of its input power when you get it into your car. From electricity production to wheel efficiency is shockingly bad. Until we have completely limitless free energy, wasting efficiency like this simply does not make any sense what so ever. Currently, there is a paradigm shift in how we fuel our cars. It makes total sense to use this opportunity to use the most efficient approach. Hydrogen has its place for energy/weight critical applications. That would be shipping industry from giant container ships to long haul trucks. Passenger cars can already do 300+ miles range and recharge in 20min, we really don't need to suffer the horrendous efficiency loss.

Welcome to the real EV ownership. This is why I've been saying this for a LONG time. Rapid chargers are like fuel pumps, people depend on it to continue their journey, so they NEED to be installed in a forecourt fashion, multiple chargers at a single location. Still able to provide services should a few chargers break. Also greatly reduce possible queuing time. Unless there's CCTV, you can freely unplug and restart a charging sessions to avoid the overstay fee. They work based on the amount of time car is connected during a single charging session.

https://gridserve.com/2021/06/30/gridserve-launches-the-gridserve-electric-highway/?LeadSourceCode=crm1017 Looks like the big announcement is for Gridserve to re-launch Electric Highway under their own brand. https://electrichighway.gridserve.com/ Also, their chargers will be enabled for dual-charging soon. Similar to Tesla chargers (Tesla chargers are hidden, their stalls are numbered 1A and 1B which share the same charger), where 2 cars can use a single charger. As one car charging slows, the second car ramps up, rising charger hardware utilisation and improving customer experience. If Tesla takes any longer, I might as well buy a Enyaq instead of Model Y as Supercharger advantage shrinks, thanks to Gridserve.

Great news: Gridserve is completely buying out Electric Highway https://www.gridserve.com/2021/06/08/ecotricity-completes-electric-highway-sale-to-gridserve/ "And the Electric Highway needs a growth spurt, to make sure that it stays ahead of driver demand and continues to play it’s key role, as the network that delivers more miles every year than any other. For this the Electric Highway needs an owner with access to serious funding and real commitment to the cause – I’m delighted to have found the ideal company to hand the baton to, in GRIDSERVE." At least Ecotricity CEO is up front about his lack of commitment over last few years.

Electric buses in Newcastle (from a London tube enthusiastic channel)

Shared on SpeakEV, UK's faster-than-50kW (that isn't a Tesla or ultra-expensive CCS-only Ionity) charging points mapped: https://voltonomics.com/maps/new-gridserve-ecotricity-ev-charge-points-at-uk-motorway-services/ Also this user-generated map tracking Electric Highway upgrades https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?hl=en&hl=en&mid=1otTlinrsR3oWlKaGIiXX8YorukkiS38V&ll=52.846660634122244%2C-0.16879083836845332&z=7

The side towards rear 3/4 is the right place to place charging ports. It won't be frozen in winter, it is not at most often damaged part of the car. The issue is that charging location is not standardised, Some cars on the left, some on the right. But you don't want cable to be too long and become unwieldy + a trip hazard. Liquid fuel gotten around this by having just long enough hose attached to the top + the connector that can be inserted in any orientation. I think I've seen chargers with large overhead attached cable that can be moved to the other side, thus able to reach left or right hand side. Place it at the middle of a bay and that should be good enough. Often, with these early chargers, the problem is road layout designer hasn't driven an EV. Thinks just plunk a charger down anywhere at end of the bay is okay. Here's a crazy idea: CCS port on the car where charger handle is sideways, cable goes out towards the back rather than down. So it doesn't require such long cable to reach.

Looks like bonnet is about same or shorter, all of the extra length goes into the cabin, especially the rear seat. This is the reason why EV platforms need to be designed from the ground up, allowing full utilisation of spaces. I'd consider the Koreans are only second to Tesla, they are leading in EV technology among the traditional car manufacturers. VAG ID MEQ platform being close second.

£37k for entry level...... while entry level ID3 is £32k. Is there going to be a Skoda version of ID3? I'd love a Octavia-like version of ID3 for £30k.

Wow, he did a 10,000 miles Rally in a Leaf? I wonder what the rapid charging network would be like in South America. Also, which truck he'll be using.... Rivian?

Indeed, we don’t know the route. But we know different regions have different rapid standards: - North America: Type 1 CCS - Europe: Type 2 CCS - China: GB-something - Japan: Chademo More important for this trip, I’ve no idea on Africa or South America standards, but the infrastructure is unlikely to be as well built out. But as long as there is civilisation with electricity, all EV can get a charge anywhere because the onboard charger is globally compatible. Just not rapid enough to cover as much ground as ICE cars.

I guess he won't be doing rapid charges due to incompatibility. There was a guy transported his very early Model 3 to UK as first stop in his Euro trip. He couldn't get any charging speed faster than 11kW using the onboard AC charger. None of UK supercharger and rapid chargers worked.

Greedy automakers..... EV's can already stand on its own as good product at very competitive total cost of ownership. The grant should really go into funding electric highway charging hubs across all major trunk roads.

Agree. (where's the agree +1 reaction) The kickdown part of the accelerator pedal should always provide 100% full power no matter the drive mode.

Grrrrr. I was hoping to benefit from the grant when purchasing a Model Y. Ah well, this is expected. Hopefully that money goes towards rapid charging infrastructure.

Also, the AC chargers doesn't have cable attached. So if PHEV driver think like using petrol station and only going by name (as you said) they'll still use the rapid chargers. *sigh* But at least the infrastructure is there at that location.

At 3:40. That's the single outdated Chademo+Type2 charger at Leigh Delamere. It's a horrible stop where other nearest charger are ~20 miles away each way. I have stopped a few times because it's the perfect location for London-Bristol for my Leaf. But EVERYTIME I am extremely anxious approaching this place. Great news, long overdue!