Mini

Stumpy1 said:

The lack of infrastructure, every major city have a huge area of houses that don’t have drives to park on to charge the car up, who will pay to install tens of thousands of charging point on pavements.

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You can now charge 80% of the battery in half an hour which will give you 200 miles and as battery technology gets better that will increase.
Our local supermarket has just installed chargers and we also have two in the main car park (this is a small market town) so charging is becoming easier and remember most of us don't fill our petrol/diesel cars every day so charging isn't going to be a major inconvenience, anyone that does a high mileage who would be inconvenienced by daily charging isn't going to be looking to buy an Electric Vehicle any time soon.



See post 31 above -

There isn’t a good enough infrastructure.
Again, this is changing. Most major cities now have more charging points than demand for them, so finding somewhere to plug in and get some juice isn’t the challenge it used to be. Plus, many local authorities allow EV users to park in their charging bays for free.



First InstaVolt chargers go live at Booths
14th June 2019




InstaVolt celebrated the first of its chargers for Booths going live this week.

Booths, which is celebrated for its local sourcing and strong links to the local community, is working with InstaVolt to install electric car chargers at many of its sites across the North of England. The first four went live at its Kirkby Lonsdale store this week and a further 38 are due to be switched on over coming weeks and months.

InstaVolt is one of the UK’s leading providers of rapid electric car chargers. All of its charging stations are available for EV drivers to use on a pay-as-you-go basis with no subscription, card or membership needed. Drivers simply tap their contactless credit or debit card to pay.

Booths has identified a number of sites where it plans to install InstaVolt chargers. A total of 40 chargers are already installed at locations including:

• Kirkby Lonsdale
• Penwortham
• Longton
• Ulverston
• Ilkley
• Lytham
• Barrowford
• Hesketh Bank
• Garstang
• Keswick
• Carnforth
• Windemere
• Scotforth

Further installations are also expected to commence shortly at Booth’s Kendal store and planning on the remainder of the Booths estate is well underway.

Chairman and CEO Edwin Booth said: “At Booths we take a pride in providing the best possible service to customers both old and new. With the increase in electric and hybrid car ownership we are working with InstaVolt to offer a new and important facility which is part of the journey towards a more sustainable future for personal transport.”

Tim Payne, CEO of InstaVolt, added: “As sales of electric cars rise it’s becoming increasingly important to create a public network of rapid chargers in places that fit into people’s lives and allow them to charge their EVs just like they’d top up with petrol or diesel. Places such as supermarkets are a perfect example and we’re pleased to be working with Booths. This move to install InstaVolt chargers will see the chain become a significant part of the UK’s public charging infrastructure.”

it will be interesting to see charging cables hanging out of 10+ storey flat windows.

i was told that if all 8 houses in my close tried to charge at the same time it would trip out at the substation.

imagine the disruption installing the massive infrastructure cables everywhere to serve this amount of Juice required.

my village would require 28,880 kilowatts just for charging alone!!

I have a plug in hybrid and my next door neighbour is a bit of a save the planet type and prised me for buying a plug in hybrid. i replied with:
yes i have lowered my local emmissions but increased them at the power station elsewhere!!

its never going to happen as full electric
maybe high mileage hybrids
my mini takes 4 hours to charge and it gives me 16 miles in the summer and 13 in the winter. completely pointless except it lowered my Benefit in kind on the company car.

Rant over.

"I was told if all 8 houses in my close tried to charge at the same time it would trip out at the substation`


This is the problem there is a lot of negative speculation out there your avarage terraced street is not going to have a charging point outside every house charging will be done at work, supermarket or car park and I imagine most owners will choose the 30 minute 80% charge.

agreed there will be charging at work etc, but the 80% 30min charge will be at a much higher wattage than the standard 3.6kw available in most homes.
3.6kw charger takes 2 hours to give me 13-16 miles.
if you look at the blurb from Nissan you will need to charge overnight from a home charge of 3.6kw

Also high, fast charge rates will shorten the battery life compared with slow charge. "quoted by an ex Tesla salesman who was instructed never to let this on to prospective purchasers."

i just think that it will take better battery technology, better infrastructre planning and a much longer period of transition.

just my thoughts

I have a plug in hybrid
my mini takes 4 hours to charge and it gives me 16 miles in the summer and 13 in the winter. completely pointless except it lowered my Benefit in kind on the company car.

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I agree plug in hybrids are pointless for the reasons you have given and now they have changed the car tax banding dealers will struggle to sell them.

Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs)
PHEVs are now likely to cost between £10 and £100 for the first year depending on CO2 emissions – and then £140 each year thereafter.

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agreed there will be charging at work etc, but the 80% 30min charge will be at a much higher wattage than the standard 3.6kw available in most homes.
3.6kw charger takes 2 hours to give me 13-16 miles.

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According to the RAC article below Slow charging Units (the ones used at home) are rated at 3kW, and a full charge could take as long as 12 hours, but most likely 6-7 hours and but that is a worst case scenario how many owners will run their cars flat before charging if you top up every night or when its needed its not going to be a problem

Workplace chargers are likely to be the 7KW type and the Rapid chargers that "may" cause battery longevity issues are to be found at motorway services where they need a fast turnaround to make money.

f you look at the blurb from Nissan you will need to charge overnight from a home charge of 3.6kw

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I don't see this as huge issue my car sits outside from finishing time until the next morning most days and as i said in an earlier post you will not be charging them from empty to full every day.

Also high, fast charge rates will shorten the battery life compared with slow charge. "quoted by an ex Tesla salesman who was instructed never to let this on to prospective purchasers."

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Sounds like sour grapes to me if it was such a big issue i am sure more than one "ex employee" would have worked this out and made the information widely known.

i just think that it will take better battery technology, better infrastructre planning and a much longer period of transition.

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I agree range is still the biggest issue but as they have now reached over 200 miles from a charge people are going to see them as i proper alternative to a petrol/diesel car especially if they only do a few miles every day.



Slow charging
The clue is in the name: these are the slowest chargers available to the EV owner. Units are rated at 3kW, and a full charge could take as long as 12 hours, but most likely 6-7 hours.

By their very nature, slow chargers are unsuitable for public use and tend to be found at home or in the workplace. While an electric car can be charged using a domestic plug socket, a dedicated wall box is recommended (see the previous section).

Fast charging
You will find fast chargers in supermarket car parks, shopping centres or anywhere an electric car can be left for an extended period. A 7kW charger will recharge an EV in 3-5 hours, while a 22kW unit could complete the task in a couple of hours.

Rapid charging
A rapid charger can provide up to 80% of charge in as little as 20 minutes, making them the quickest means of charging in the UK. They are commonly found at motorway service stations and close to major roads.

Rapid DC chargers provide up to 50kW of power, while rapid AC units are rated up to 43kW. Meanwhile, the Tesla Supercharger network uses the company's proprietary plug, making the rapid chargers unsuitable for other makes and models. They deliver power at a rate of 120kW.

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/know-how/electric-car-charging-why-is-it-so-complicated/

Aha! I've just sussed this out...the powers that be will activate their network to harvest electro magnetic energy from the atmosphere as discovered by Nikola Tesla ...at very little expense as much power as we need will be produced...as long as we pay for it.

Chippy_Tea said:

To be honest few modern cars have character they are all designed in a wind tunnel what I do not get about electric is are trucks and busses etc going to have to go electric as they pollute far more than your average old diesel car and what about planes they are are massive polluters and yet people use them just to get to a place where they can get a tan so totally unnecessary imho.

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I won't buy a car unless it has some charisma/character. (I'm not talking about the mitsubishi charisma which was an oxymoron)

My mazda cx-5 diesel & mrs DOJ's Suzuki swift sport (1.4 turbo) both bring a smile to our face for different reasons. I'd argue that electric cars do a lot of damage to the environment with regards to the battery production. There's no easy answer...this is the closest i've seen.

We drive an electric van at work, I love driving it, however , the range is ****, it’s dropped from 95 miles to 68 miles max after 1 year ,an overnight charge is a ball ache compared to a 2 minute fill up.
I did worry about the heater also, that’s why I drove about frozen for the first week in the winter until the garage informed me the heater was fed from a small internal diesel tank?????
It’s a freebie from Peugeot to our company but it will be returned if the range drops any lower, also I work at a Castle so the approach Road /hill/Volcano really takes it out of it

Oh, I drive a 3.2 Wildtrack and absolutely love it, no guilt