It's strange that fuel pumps have to be accurate within - 0.5  and  1% but we are expected to accept losses of 15% in ev charging

 

They always use the same mantra " " you are saving that much against fossil fuel prices that it doesn't matter"

 

42 minutes ago, Stonekeeper said:

It's strange that fuel pumps have to be accurate within - 0.5  and  1% but we are expected to accept losses of 15% in ev charging

 

They always use the same mantra " " you are saving that much against fossil fuel prices that it doesn't matter"

 

I guess it all comes down to where the charging losses occur.  
 

if it’s onboard the vehicle for any reason then that not really the charging points issue, they have provided what the vehicle has asked for. 

Btw completely agree charging points do need legislation (if it doesn’t already exist) to ensure they accurately measure how much is requested by the vehicle being charged. 

Crap like the £1 for the 9kWh is again Home Charging on a discount tariff.

 

Not my home tariff of 22 pence a kWh. £1.98

PodPoint @ Tesco 44 pence on a 7kW. £3.96

Council Charger down the road @ 55 pence a kWh even for a 7 kWh charger £4.95

 

Having a 32.6 kWh battery with 29.6 kWh usable i know just how much the account shows for kWh i have to pay compared to what the car says has been charged. 

Again the issue is that you are taking what the car says has been consumed as gospel, who’s to say that’s accurate?

 

is there any independent checking or legislation around what’s recorded by the charge point as having been consumed?

 

does the cars record take into account such things a maybe air con running or radio on which could be ignored by the on car charging system  but would be classed as overall consumption by the charge point?

I think the real issue with charging regulations or the lack thereof is that there needs to be some form of regulation, especially over the price per kWh when it comes to public chargers, however the argument that I would expect to be presented by the providers is that it costs money for the chargers, the large charging hubs have to be located wherever there is suitable grid connection point. This point could be away from the main arterial routes like the Electric Forecourt in Braintree. They do take up a pretty large chunk of real estate when compared to a fossil fuel filling station, which has the capacity to yield a far bigger return on capital employed per hour than electric chargers could return.

 

Yes there are mitigating circumstances which could help redress the balance slightly, for instance a filling station will need to hire some staff members whereas charge points all are self-service via either a credit/debit card or an account or a phone app., but the filling station will always win out on that front.

 

However, all that being said, something does need to be done to give buyers of BEVs some sort of confidence about their running costs, even when home is impossible if the big switch over to electric power isn't to stall on the way.

8 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

I think the real issue with charging regulations or the lack thereof is that there needs to be some form of regulation, especially over the price per kWh when it comes to public chargers, however the argument that I would expect to be presented by the providers is that it costs money for the chargers, the large charging hubs have to be located wherever there is suitable grid connection point. This point could be away from the main arterial routes like the Electric Forecourt in Braintree. They do take up a pretty large chunk of real estate when compared to a fossil fuel filling station, which has the capacity to yield a far bigger return on capital employed per hour than electric chargers could return.

 

Yes there are mitigating circumstances which could help redress the balance slightly, for instance a filling station will need to hire some staff members whereas charge points all are self-service via either a credit/debit card or an account or a phone app., but the filling station will always win out on that front.

 

However, all that being said, something does need to be done to give buyers of BEVs some sort of confidence about their running costs, even when home is impossible if the big switch over to electric power isn't to stall on the way.

I don't think there should be regulation on price per kwh for electric charging , after all there isn't regulation (that I'm aware of) of price per litre for petrol & diesel etc (other than the fuel duty escalator which is only part of the pump price) . Market forces determine the pump price.

The whole EV market is already been driven to a greatish degree  by artificial non market forces, do we really need to add price fixing to that?

What may be needed is regulation to prevent monopolies (which technically already exist) and some sort of regulation to ensure that the charger are accurately metered (in the same way traditional fuel pumps are regulated)

Edited 19 May, 20242 yr by Winston_Woof

12 minutes ago, Winston_Woof said:

I don't think there should be regulation on price per kwh for electric charging , after all there isn't regulation (that I'm aware of) of price per litre for petrol & diesel etc (other than the fuel duty escalator which is only part of the pump price) . Market forces determine the pump price.

The whole EV market is already been driven to a greatish degree  by artificial non market forces, do we really need to add price fixing to that?

What may be needed is regulation to prevent monopolies (which technically already exist) and some sort of regulation to ensure that the charger are accurately metered (in the same way traditional fuel pumps are regulated)

I was not advocating a fixed price but a maximum price, not sure why you thought I was. When take a ICE vehicle for filling and the price is say £1.45 per litre at garage A, then you know that its going to be within 1 or 2 per litre at garage B and C. The only time there is any real difference is on motorways where the price per litre will always be slightly more then if you were to leave the motorway and find a local garage.

 

Currently from what I gather from this forum and many of the YT channels, there can be and are some pretty big swings between different suppliers / groups, and sometimes as much as 20p or more per kWh.

Edited 19 May, 20242 yr by Graham Butcher

1 minute ago, Graham Butcher said:

I was not advocating a fixed price but a maximum price, not sure why you thought I was. When take a ICE vehicle for filling and the price is say £1.45 per litre at garage A, then you know that its going to be within 1 or 2 per litre at garage B and C. The only time there is any real difference is on motorways where the price per litre will always be slightly more then if you were to leave the motorway and find a local garage.

 

Currently from what I gather from this forum and many of the YT channels, there can be and are some pretty big swings between different suppliers / groups, and sometimes as much as 20p or more per kWh.

It may have been the phrase "that there needs to be some form of regulation, especially over the price per kWh when it comes to public chargers,"

Apologies if I took that out of context as suggesting fixed (or regulated if you prefer)  pricing

Petrol & diesel prices are not regulated, it is simply market forces. EV Chargers should IMHO follow the same model after all the chargers (although publicly accessible) are not necessarily publicly owned eg by local councils.

Again should even local council owned chargers be price regulated as that could be construed as being anti competitive when compared to privately owned publicly accessible chargers ?

9 minutes ago, Winston_Woof said:

It may have been the phrase "that there needs to be some form of regulation, especially over the price per kWh when it comes to public chargers,"

Apologies if I took that out of context as suggesting fixed (or regulated if you prefer)  pricing

Petrol & diesel prices are not regulated, it is simply market forces. EV Chargers should IMHO follow the same model after all the chargers (although publicly accessible) are not necessarily publicly owned eg by local councils.

Again should even local council owned chargers be price regulated as that could be construed as being anti competitive when compared to privately owned publicly accessible chargers ?

Yes, I do feel that council owned or privately owned chargers that are available to the public to use, should all be contained within a maximum price structure. They are free charge anything they like upto the maximum, so its not anti-competitive at all, it stops price gouging.

1 minute ago, Graham Butcher said:

Yes, I do feel that council owned or privately owned chargers that are available to the public to use, should all be contained within a maximum price structure. They are free charge anything they like upto the maximum, so its not anti-competitive at all, it stops price gouging.

Again though is there any such comparable maximum price structure in place for liquid fuels such as petrol?

Actually there’s a thought (thinking about market force pricing). 
 

why aren’t the energy companies installing publicly accessible chargers open to all but potentially giving preferential rates to their customers directly linked to their home energy bill?

Just now, Winston_Woof said:

Again though is there any such comparable maximum price structure in place for liquid fuels such as petrol?

I don't know the answer to that but you do have the many garages to choose from generally, the same cannot be said at the present moment for electric.

1 minute ago, Graham Butcher said:

I don't know the answer to that but you do have the many garages to choose from generally, the same cannot be said at the present moment for electric.

And that’s likely due to the growth of EVs being artificially stimulated

7 minutes ago, Winston_Woof said:

Actually there’s a thought (thinking about market force pricing). 
 

why aren’t the energy companies installing publicly accessible chargers open to all but potentially giving preferential rates to their customers directly linked to their home energy bill?

I think that is the way it might ultimately go in the future, I'm sure the technology already exists to do that. Does anybody know if this is currently possible?

 

Thinking about it, it might to some extent remove some of the current objections from possible buyers who cite not be able to charge at home as a barrier to buying a BEV?

Edited 19 May, 20242 yr by Graham Butcher

Councils should not be providing "Free" charging to anyone except employees driving Council vehicles in the course of their work to reduce Council costs.

 

The benefit should be for all Council tax payers, it's their money.

 

They should set charges to cover the cost of supply and maintenance of the equipment.

 

"Free" is a myth.

4 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

I think that is the way it might ultimately go in the future, I'm sure the technology already exists to do that.

It’s probably trivial. 
 

I’ve no idea if this actually happens but presuming say the VIN (or other identifier) was recorded as part of the charging handshake then if the same identifier was registered on the home energy bill then you could have plug and pay charging. 

Meanwhile elsewhere. 
 

intersting view

 

 

16 minutes ago, Winston_Woof said:

Actually there’s a thought (thinking about market force pricing). 
 

why aren’t the energy companies installing publicly accessible chargers open to all but potentially giving preferential rates to their customers directly linked to their home energy bill?

 

 

Is that not similar to how Tesla charging works albeit to the Tesla account. Lee's video the other day featured a man who said he can even charge his Tesla with nothing in his account.

9 minutes ago, Stonekeeper said:

 

 

Is that not similar to how Tesla charging works albeit to the Tesla account. Lee's video the other day featured a man who said he can even charge his Tesla with nothing in his account.

Quite possibly

5 hours ago, Stonekeeper said:

I think @J.R. is talking about the wiring to the point that the car plugs into, not from there to the car. It would need to be 7KW . 32 amp capable. 11 kw would require 3 phase electric supply in the uk not sure about France regs.

 

No I was referring to the cable to the car from the Charge Point that I have now learned thanks to @Ootohere is not a charger after all, my response which I now understand was 100% wrong was to whoever it was said that voltage drop would be negligible along the length of the charging lead.

 

My new knowledge leads to more questions than answers.

 

Why the hell are these switching units pretending to be chargers so expensive if they dont contain a transformer? I appreciate that they have RCD protection but the regs require a 30ma one upstream of that anyway, the same protection you would be required to have in case you cut through the mains lead with your (mains powered) lawnmower.

 

Even the Chinese ones from Ali-Express etc are a fortune for what I now realise they contain.

 

OTOH I better understand why the manufacturers want honky-tonk thousands of pounds to replace the charging units in the vehicle if the contact pins deform and overheat, still a complete rip off but in line with their usual stupid spares price mark ups.

7 minutes ago, Winston_Woof said:

Meanwhile elsewhere. 
 

intersting view

 

 

I don't really accept the premise that the market is only growing at 0.8%, I think is pure BS. How many people on this forum have a set of winter and summer tyres, how many people are buying a second car, may a fun day, a car for the wife, a city run about and another as long distance cruiser. Sons and daughters buying cars all the time so the tyre market must be growing, surely.

Podpoint Home data sheet

 

https://cdn.yesss.co.uk/documents/1960382_03_S7UC3_Datasheet_e4ed07b6d89be3f17f6c87f250f27318.pdf

6 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

I don't really accept the premise that the market is only growing at 0.8%, I think is pure BS. How many people on this forum have a set of winter and summer tyres, how many people are buying a second car, may a fun day, a car for the wife, a city run about and another as long distance cruiser. Sons and daughters buying cars all the time so the tyre market must be growing, surely.

Until I joined this forum I never even gave thought to using summer and winter tyres in the UK and I’ve been driving since 82. 
 

in fact it’s never really come up with other car forums I’ve been on over the years. 
 

are Skoda drivers really that different or are the members here no representative of the wider population most of whom probably just use all season tyres in the UK

Edited 19 May, 20242 yr by Winston_Woof

13 minutes ago, J.R. said:

 

No I was referring to the cable to the car from the Charge Point that I have now learned thanks to @Ootohere is not a charger after all, my response which I now understand was 100% wrong was to whoever it was said that voltage drop would be negligible along the length of the charging lead.

 

My new knowledge leads to more questions than answers.

 

Why the hell are these switching units pretending to be chargers so expensive if they dont contain a transformer? I appreciate that they have RCD protection but the regs require a 30ma one upstream of that anyway, the same protection you would be required to have in case you cut through the mains lead with your (mains powered) lawnmower.

 

Even the Chinese ones from Ali-Express etc are a fortune for what I now realise they contain.

 

OTOH I better understand why the manufacturers want honky-tonk thousands of pounds to replace the charging units in the vehicle if the contact pins deform and overheat, still a complete rip off but in line with their usual stupid spares price mark ups.