Loads and loads.  The Girl at CPS says she will check if reported.  I told her it must show in front of you the repair on the 24th June, my reported fault on 26th and a ticket raised then and my various reported faults since.     Very nice and incompetent as usual.  So I got £1.10 of electric.  Paying £5 and now another £5 to get to 100% from 56%.   That is £10 for about 56 miles.    The other choice asd stopping during trip and a 55 pence a kWh charger 4 miles into the journey and might not have worked and 20 kWh would have been £11 anyway. 

24 minutes ago, Ootohere said:

Loads and loads.  The Girl at CPS says she will check if reported.  I told her it must show in front of you the repair on the 24th June, my reported fault on 26th and a ticket raised then and my various reported faults since.     Very nice and incompetent as usual.  So I got £1.10 of electric.  Paying £5 and now another £5 to get to 100% from 56%.   That is £10 for about 56 miles.    The other choice asd stopping during trip and a 55 pence a kWh charger 4 miles into the journey and might not have worked and 20 kWh would have been £11 anyway. 

In yours (and others) experience, is this typical of charging facilities at present?

11 minutes ago, Warrior193 said:

In yours (and others) experience, is this typical of charging facilities at present?

 

Charging where there are just 1,2,3 or even 3 chargers will always be risky in getting a charge.

 

Six is probably a minimum to be sure there will be several working chargers and there are now many places where there are 12,24, 36 of more chargers and most of them will be working. There will be times when all the chargers are being used and one may have to wait for a few minutes for a charger to become available but this is rare.

 

Rollout of chargers continues at a rate of another 2000 or so a month with highlights of TESLA V4 we can all use and Gridserve charging centres with great facilities and now 20% off cost with their new App. It is getting easier and cheaper on the motorways, less great on A roads and small towns rather than cities like Worcester where we are spoilt for choice.

 

 

 

Edited 4 August, 20241 yr by lol-lol

2 hours ago, lol-lol said:

 

Charging where there are just 1,2,3 or even 3 chargers will always be risky in getting a charge.

 

Six is probably a minimum to be sure there will be several working chargers and there are now many places where there are 12,24, 36 of more chargers and most of them will be working. There will be times when all the chargers are being used and one may have to wait for a few minutes for a charger to become available but this is rare.

 

Rollout of chargers continues at a rate of another 2000 or so a month with highlights of TESLA V4 we can all use and Gridserve charging centres with great facilities and now 20% off cost with their new App. It is getting easier and cheaper on the motorways, less great on A roads and small towns rather than cities like Worcester where we are spoilt for choice.

 

 

 

So in essence, it is really and truly a lottery at times whether you can get a charge or not, depending on the number of chargers at the location, the chances of them being out of service and the number of people deciding that they also need to charge at the same time. So if the uptake of electric cars were to suddenly begin to increase, and the rate was faster than the provision of new / repaired chargers and charging locations, then it could seriously impact severely on your times of reaching your destination. 

we went on holiday for a (5 day) week in North Wales (from Wigan) with the grandkids in the Superb. Wasn't quite a full tank when we left but we spent the whole week including driving around and getting home on the same tank without any fuss & drama ;o)

(oh and took no time at all to refuel )

Edited 4 August, 20241 yr by Winston_Woof

1 hour ago, Winston_Woof said:

we went on holiday for a (5 day) week in North Wales (from Wigan) with the grandkids in the Superb. Wasn't quite a full tank when we left but we spent the whole week including driving around and getting home on the same tank without any fuss & drama ;o)

(oh and took no time at all to refuel )

E vehicle infrastructure still has a long way to go, anecdotal evidence suggests that existing infrastructure is way off set standards on service availability.

Is there any control on charge pricing at present?

3 hours ago, Warrior193 said:

In yours (and others) experience, is this typical of charging facilities at present?

Simply jump in the Tesla and drive. Car works out where I need to charge if going longer distances. But human occupants needed a break before planned charging stops so just look on sat-nav screen and stop at next supercharger. Tesla supercharger always works flawlessly for me, has never failed to charge for me. They starts charging at fastest car acceptable speed on plug in every time, zero faffing about with apps/cards. Tesla's price for Tesla vehicle or those who pay monthly sub is also very, usually 30-45p outside 4-8pm.

 

These days, apart from using Tesla network, I only have Electroverse app and RFID (with Shell recharge as backup). Honestly, I have not had any problem since started using Octopus Juice (subsequently rebranded to Electroverse) and applying 6 minimum charger filter. Just ignore locations with few chargers. Although a bit more expensive to charge but it's a very rare event to needing worry about pricing for me.

 

During my 1500 miles trip busy late May bank holiday, zero time spent waiting for car to charge. See the thread I posted:

 

When renting a Tesla at Portugal, charging at Tesla supecharger were included in rental price. Also can return the car empty. So only spent a grand total of 10 minute at supercharger. 5 days only cost £180 to rent. Cheaper than renting petrol and having to return fully refuelled.

 

For easiest and best EV experience, I still think a Tesla is the way to go. They can now be had for under £15k. If public charging is a rare event, good EV's are available for £8k (Hyundai Ioniq).

10 minutes ago, wyx087 said:

If public charging is a rare event, good EV's are available for £8k (Hyundai Ioniq).

Can't comment specifically on the OG EV Ioniq but my GF has a OG Ioniq Hybrid and it's a really nice car to drive (although not as nice as my Superb) . Can't imagine there's much difference (other than the max range figure) 

1 hour ago, Graham Butcher said:

So in essence, it is really and truly a lottery at times whether you can get a charge or not, depending on the number of chargers at the location, the chances of them being out of service and the number of people deciding that they also need to charge at the same time. So if the uptake of electric cars were to suddenly begin to increase, and the rate was faster than the provision of new / repaired chargers and charging locations, then it could seriously impact severely on your times of reaching your destination. 

 

No not at all because I know in advance how many of the chargers are working and also how many are being used via either my Google software in the car or a quick flip over to ZAP or one of the other Nav Apps. As of last Friday there are now 100,000 connectors and the aim is to put in 300,000 but I can imagine that closing maybe not being reached as the latest batch of EV releases have 400 mile and more range and there are one due for arrival in the UK in the next few months with 500 and 600 miles of range.  Soon the average battery car being  sold will exceed the range of the average petrol cars either in operation or available. Diesel sales figures are dropping rapidly and look to becoming insignificant by next year.  So whether we will need 300,000 chargers as is now the vast majority of charging will be done either at the start of the journey, usually at home or at destination ie offices one is visiting, hotels where one is staying so maybe will will plateau well below 300,000 chargers but they will better ie faster and cheaper as electricity continues to get cheaper via wind farms and international sharing.

 

So those who half at least half a brain can work out where to go for that extra few kWhs to get where one wants to go ie the major hubs.  I think there will be a change to more people carrying batteries in the boot which can give some charge too.  Quite a few kWh is possible.  So the rate EV tech is moving I dont see a problem if one think and does act like a twonk just for the sake of click bait Youtube videos. 

 

Hydrocarbon fuel stations will dwindle in number as their clientele become an ever decreasing group. We will also see what Labour does with fuel duty.  The fuel price escalator was introduced in 1993 when it was in 1993 when the Uk was again in financial turmoil ....  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_Price_Escalator

Their was a fuel price stabiliser which triggered in when oil dropped below $75 a barrel so now would be a great time to restore the 58p a litre excise duty to add to the Uk coffers. 

https://www.hl.co.uk/shares/trading-commodities/brent-crude-oil

 

 

     

       

1 hour ago, lol-lol said:

as the latest batch of EV releases have 400 mile and more range and there are one due for arrival in the UK in the next few months with 500 and 600 miles of range.  Soon the average battery car being  sold will exceed the range of the average petrol cars either in operation or available.

 

 

 

 

     

       

which is nice but ,leaving aside not everyone is privileged enough to have at home charging   nor (if they do  only do trips of 2-300 miles away from home ) , that they will need to recharge at EV charging stations how long will tose recharges take?

Yes you do occasionally get queues at petrol stations now but they're the exception. If we're in a world where even 50% of the total vehicles on the road will be EVs then will EV charging stations have the capacity to support demand?

There's a thought

Even if the government achieves its target of forcing manufacturers to only sell new ZEVs by 2035 I wonder how many years it will take (without further government intervention to actively ban Petrol & diesel usage) it will take to get to the point that more than 50% of the vehicles on the Road are ZEVs?

These were the numbers from December 2023




My guesstimate is somewhere north of 2055 for 50% of *all* vehicles in use to be ZEV (not just sales of new)

1 hour ago, Winston_Woof said:

which is nice but ,leaving aside not everyone is privileged enough to have at home charging   nor (if they do  only do trips of 2-300 miles away from home ) , that they will need to recharge at EV charging stations how long will tose recharges take?  Yes you do occasionally get queues at petrol stations now but they're the exception. If we're in a world where even 50% of the total vehicles on the road will be EVs then will EV charging stations have the capacity to support demand?

 

The car I am getting in a few week, European CoTY the Scenic, has a variant, which is proving to be the one most go for, not me I am going for the smaller batteried version ie 60 kWh nominal, it has an 87 kWh battery and the WLTP is 387 miles I think the Poohjot 3008 has a WLTP range of over 420 miles, charge at 150 kWh so charging will be rare, except on the super cheap home charging or free or cheap destination charge.

 

Gridserve recently got quarter of a billion investment to increase their charging network it can be very good business.  I would say that in general the current network has sufficient charging and there is a few place where chargers are a bit thin on the ground and still a few trunk road service stations that are still to get their upgrade to dozens of chargers.         

 

Whether its Shell , BP or Gridserve, TESLA etc they know what the demand curve is and they will be there to make a great business of it.  TESLA will be making more for energy than they are from cars, taxis and trucks it is commonly thought.  

 

1 hour ago, Winston_Woof said:

There's a thought

Even if the government achieves its target of forcing manufacturers to only sell new ZEVs by 2035 I wonder how many years it will take (without further government intervention to actively ban Petrol & diesel usage) it will take to get to the point that more than 50% of the vehicles on the Road are ZEVs?

These were the numbers from December 2023

My guesstimate is somewhere north of 2055 for 50% of *all* vehicles in use to be ZEV (not just sales of new)

 

They will not need to ban and economic conditions will get ICE vehicles off the road.  

 

Electricity is and will continue to be so much cheaper as a fuel that ICE vehicles will be staggeringly uneconomic by comparison.  The delivery companies already know this and hence early adopt. I even choose to use my little Zoe EV sometimes as its running costs are so much less that my Arkana Mild Hybrid and thats with me have a fuel card for hydrocarbon fuel as the Arkana will cost be about 4p a mile of fuel where as the BEV is less than 2p a mile.  Add this to the servicing on the BEV being less than half the ICE vehicle it is only tyres that are in ICE cars favour as the BEV does seem to eat tyres with its rapid acceleration off the line and slightly higher weight.   So cheaper running cost is part of it and also many ICE cars will increasingly be made to be ever higher cost on VED, vehicle Excise Duty.  My lovely old Type S Jaaaag was just getting silly at several hundred pounds a year. 

 

There will be ICE cars still on the roads at the end of century but they will just be enthusiasts cars popping to car meets, shows etc as a labour of love as EVs will be the choice for those who want transport and ICE cars will cost a fortune to run, maybe having revent to buying the fuel at a few specialist outlets.

 

It is also a better stat as to how many miles are being done on EVs compared to ICE as Reps etc are generally going for EVs due to salary sacrifice or super low BIK, as well as delivery companies and this would give a very different story as to what is registered ie you can register a car, drive it a thousand miles a year or like I do tens of thousands of miles a year.

 

   

 

32 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

 

The car I am getting in a few week, European CoTY the Scenic, has a variant, which is proving to be the one most go for, not me I am going for the smaller batteried version ie 60 kWh nominal, it has an 87 kWh battery and the WLTP is 387 miles I think the Poohjot 3008 has a WLTP range of over 420 miles, charge at 150 kWh so charging will be rare, except on the super cheap home charging or free or cheap destination charge.

 

Gridserve recently got quarter of a billion investment to increase their charging network it can be very good business.  I would say that in general the current network has sufficient charging and there is a few place where chargers are a bit thin on the ground and still a few trunk road service stations that are still to get their upgrade to dozens of chargers.         

 

Whether its Shell , BP or Gridserve, TESLA etc they know what the demand curve is and they will be there to make a great business of it.  TESLA will be making more for energy than they are from cars, taxis and trucks it is commonly thought.  

 

again though , as of the end of 2023 only just under 3 % of vehicles on the road were ZEVs (presumably the majority of those being EVs) and already the charging infrastructure is creaking as can be see not just on various YT videos but comments on here from some users of EVs highlighting real world issues.

 

27 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

 

They will not need to ban and economic conditions will get ICE vehicles off the road.  

 

Electricity is and will continue to be so much cheaper as a fuel that ICE vehicles will be staggeringly uneconomic by comparison.  The delivery companies already know this and hence early adopt. I even choose to use my little Zoe EV sometimes as its running costs are so much less that my Arkana Mild Hybrid and thats with me have a fuel card for hydrocarbon fuel as the Arkana will cost be about 4p a mile of fuel where as the BEV is less than 2p a mile.  Add this to the servicing on the BEV being less than half the ICE vehicle it is only tyres that are in ICE cars favour as the BEV does seem to eat tyres with its rapid acceleration off the line and slightly higher weight.   So cheaper running cost is part of it and also many ICE cars will increasingly be made to be ever higher cost on VED, vehicle Excise Duty.  My lovely old Type S Jaaaag was just getting silly at several hundred pounds a year. 

 

There will be ICE cars still on the roads at the end of century but they will just be enthusiasts cars popping to car meets, shows etc as a labour of love as EVs will be the choice for those who want transport and ICE cars will cost a fortune to run, maybe having revent to buying the fuel at a few specialist outlets.

 

It is also a better stat as to how many miles are being done on EVs compared to ICE as Reps etc are generally going for EVs due to salary sacrifice or super low BIK, as well as delivery companies and this would give a very different story as to what is registered ie you can register a car, drive it a thousand miles a year or like I do tens of thousands of miles a year.

 

   

 

 and of course the government would never increase the VED on ZEVs to rates equal to or higher than ICE in order to recoup money lost by less ICE being on the road...............................would they ?

Anyways as you say come the end of the century (which by my reckoning is still 976 odd years away and by which time we'll all be dead) then it may well be that EVs are the primary mode of transport)

Edited 4 August, 20241 yr by Winston_Woof

1 hour ago, lol-lol said:

My lovely old Type S Jaaaag was just getting silly at several hundred pounds a year. 

 

The reason the beautiful Jaaaag was getting silly at several hundred pounds a year for VED has everything to do with the high levels of CO2 and other toxins emitted at the tailpipe. Something I repeatedly say that we don't actually need to have that much power on tap as the speed limits and roads conditions mean that we cannot safely use that power anyway, so why have it in everyday street legal cars? It is a recipe for all kinds of bad things.

 

1 hour ago, lol-lol said:

There will be ICE cars still on the roads at the end of century but they will just be enthusiasts cars popping to car meets, shows etc as a labour of love as EVs will be the choice for those who want transport and ICE cars will cost a fortune to run, maybe having revent to buying the fuel at a few specialist outlets.

Really, you know for sure that EV will be the choice for those that want transport? You mean like bikes, horses, steam, petrol, electric (yes electric has been tried before), diesel and then electric again. Only the bike has been present throughout the whole time, horses and steam are now confined to the history books and enthusiasts popping to dedicated shows. Old style electrics died out with the milk floats, leaving petrol and diesel and now the re-emergent electric vehicles.

 

Governments around the world once heralded diesel as the wonder fuel and actively encouraged its adoption until further research discovered that it is potentially more dirty than petrol and they dropped the active support for it like a hot potato. Hence all the law firms now seeking claims for diesel owners who were mis-sold a diesel and now paying for the government's advice to go diesel. Truth is that petrol and diesel engines are far cleaner today then they were just 20 years ago and still have more to give up in that area, I feel.

 

In truth, there is nothing like the fulness of time to discover which will prevail, in the meantime I think it is far more sensible to continue with all three means of power and continue to develop them and conduct more research into them and their side effects so that we don't end down yet another blind alley and have sealed our own fates.

1 hour ago, lol-lol said:

It is also a better stat as to how many miles are being done on EVs compared to ICE as Reps etc are generally going for EVs due to salary sacrifice or super low BIK, as well as delivery companies and this would give a very different story as to what is registered ie you can register a car, drive it a thousand miles a year or like I do tens of thousands of miles a year.

 Not quite as clear-cut as you might think, many reps and other company car users are not actually choosing an EV due to salary sacrifice schemes as a preference or super low BIK, instead many are being driven down that path because of their company policies and tax concessions provided to businesses to go down that route.

Edited 4 August, 20241 yr by Graham Butcher

This has just come to light and please, I beg you, kindly do watch it to the end, it is not as I can hear many of you already saying clickbait and just EV bashing from an anti EV person, which is not the case as those who do watch it will discover.

 

 

28 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

In truth, there is nothing like the fulness of time to discover which will prevail

Bikes!

 

I'm putting my money on bikes, because looking back it's the only one that prevails throughout history. We can only learn from history right?

34 minutes ago, wyx087 said:

Bikes!

 

I'm putting my money on bikes, because looking back it's the only one that prevails throughout history. We can only learn from history right?

Shanks's pony

Bike doing over 140 mph.....  

Did need the dragster in front though

1 hour ago, Graham Butcher said:

This has just come to light and please, I beg you, kindly do watch it to the end, it is not as I can hear many of you already saying clickbait and just EV bashing from an anti EV person, which is not the case as those who do watch it will discover.

 

In transportation we already have extensive rules of carrying lithium batteries which are classified as dangerous good with quite some small amount of lithium battery  time.

they are only allow air transport under very strict rules and same for sea transport, land moving is oft the option that is used to avoid the restrictive rules ie the silk road or the very strict carriage rules.

No sure what this video has to do with a how vehicles with lithium ion batteries, compared to a cheap SE asia e-bike where most people know that quality can be somewhat variable with goods from this area. Who knows what had happened before.  He may have accidently dropped the battery down a concrete stairway before and the case may have been in a very damaged state, we just do not know but we do know the spontaneous fires of EVs are rarer than petrol cars.

 

“The overall arching takeaway (from the data) is that the rate of fires happening is less for EVs than petrol or diesel cars, and quite substantially,” said James Edmondson, Research Director at Cambridge, England-based independent researcher IDTechEx in an interview. Edmondson said various surveys showed EVs represented far less of the reported fires than might be expected given their market share. Estimates by the Phosphorous, Inorganic & Nitrogen Flame Retardants Association reported 55 fires per billion miles travelled in ICE vehicles and five fires per billion for EVs. A report from AutoinsuranceEX said EVs exhibited 61 times fewer fires per 100,000 sales than ICE vehicles.  

 

3 hours ago, Winston_Woof said:

 and of course the government would never increase the VED on ZEVs to rates equal to or higher than ICE in order to recoup money lost by less ICE being on the road...............................would they ?

Anyways as you say come the end of the century (which by my reckoning is still 976 odd years away and by which time we'll all be dead) then it may well be that EVs are the primary mode of transport)

 

Century is a hundred year, millennium is a thousand.  I think we are due to see a rise from zero for EVs, is it £10 its going up to in the first year and I would have thought it would be £20 in the second year rather than £190 as that would be more than some ICE cars. Hopefully Labour will clarify.  

 

Some talk that some EV owners will take their car off the road in Feb 2026, the re register in March 2026 and pay the £10 but then the will have March registrations rather April to December or so which could save then a bit of money.

 

UK Treasury will need to up the 45p and 25p per mile rates to compensate users or I can see even more people withdrawing their car for work use and especially after the 10 miles when the rate drops.  We would do this within HMRC / HMCE when te dreaded 10k mileage threshold hit and wait for it to restart on April 6th and the full rate return.

God I miss the 63p per mile rate there was for cars over 2 litres.

 

14 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

Some talk that some EV owners will take their car off the road in Feb 2026, the re register in March 2026 and pay the £10 but then the will have March registrations rather April to December or so which could save then a bit of money.

Already done it back in March for my Sep 2022 car. Now renew date is March 2025 for £0 instead of Sep 2025, saving 6 months of VED.

 

It's as simple as going on to gov VED webpage and taxing the vehicle for £0. No need to SORN it.

3 hours ago, Winston_Woof said:

again though , as of the end of 2023 only just under 3 % of vehicles on the road were ZEVs (presumably the majority of those being EVs) and already the charging infrastructure is creaking as can be see not just on various YT videos but comments on here from some users of EVs highlighting real world issues.

 

On the road ? You mean on people's drive mostly and driving less than 5k miles a year in many cases.  

 

I just do not see this creaking infrastructure which is mainly me driving through the service station as I do not need to charge put I do need a comfort break.

 

Most place now I see most of the chargers not occupied and IO am wondering if I should support them by just charge up a few kilowatts hours, using up the free ones Octopus energy, cannot remember a time I got free fuel, even the fuel card fuel as I have to pay about 50p per litre of each litre that goes in, nowhere near as good as the home lecky at 8.5p a kWh or free destination charging ie clients or at work.

 

In nearly 20k miles charged up twice when I sort of needed to. Could have driven home at 50 mph but that is boring so use an Ionity charger nest, never seen any more tan tree of the six charge bays being used, never seen on out of action and always get as much as the little Zoe will take.  I am sure the Scenic which charges at 3 times the rate will sup it up as those chargers are beasts. Subway 100m away which will probably cost similar to the lecky I put in. 

 

The really Ev experience is not the Youtube world of click bait the anti EV fraternity like to view to 99.9% of the time a serene experience driving and charging and good on the pocket too most of the time.   

 

1 minute ago, wyx087 said:

Already done it back in March for my Sep 2022 car. Now renew date is March 2025 for £0 instead of Sep 2025, saving 6 months of VED.

 

It's as simple as going on to gov VED webpage and taxing the vehicle for £0. No need to SORN it.

 

Good to know. Will do that in March 2025 to maximise the benefit.

I think Labour will be sensible about this to keep the transformation from ICE to EV moving and to keep the VED in favour of EVs. Do not paying something for the roads of course.