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the shizzle => shootin' the shit => Topic started by: Paul B on April 26, 2021, 11:42:27 am
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I thought a new thread was in order given there's a wealth of understanding I simply don't possess when it comes to electric vehicles, what's on offer and what the realities are of living with one (and charging it on longer journeys).
My mother-in-law is no longer in need of two vehicles (sadly as my father-in-law passed away pretty suddenly earlier this year).
As a household they had two cars:
BMW 430i Gran Coupe (auto)
Ford Fiesta 1.0T (manual)
He's always been one for big, thirsty BMWs (7-series, X5 4.4i etc.) and TBH when it came to her cars I think she just indulged him (apart from the Fiesta which was her choice and has been utterly brilliant).
At the end of Jun, the BMW needs an MOT, tax and service, which given it's still picking up the luxury car tax is an eye wateringly expensive month and she's looking to get rid of it and there's the risk of her trading it in for a 1-series (and also getting rid of the Fiesta) as she's had one before and it kinda meets her needs.
She lives pretty close to us (30 mins) and exclusively does short trips although there's mention of wanting to go down south to see the extended family every once in a while (suggesting the train for this will be a hard sell). She's got a new build house (~4 years old) that they had the consumer unit relocated to the garage so I can't see that installing a charging port will be an issue?
She's mid 60s but when she was younger owned, drove and re-built Triumphs. When in the car she brakes so late that you'll have time to warn her of a hazard, have her respond (calmly) and then she'll brake, harshly; this isn't someone who'd be looking at a Honda Jazz with enthusiasm. Although it's incredibly sad that she's lost her husband, looking at my parents and Nat's, she's by far the best placed of the lot of them to cope and since the loss she's a had the attitude of "if I can do it then I bloody well will". This so far has included filling the fiesta with gardening equipment, including a not all that light lawnmower, and taking it over to her allotment. Yesterday she got me to show her how keyless chucks worked etc.
It's worth noting that the majority of her friends are of a similar age and aren't all as capable. She's suggested that a five-door is a must and that as she doesn't intend to be buying another soon the car has "a touch of luxury" (the BMW is really nice inside).
COVID obviously makes browsing a little harder but I was wondering if it's worth looking into some kind of slightly longer test drive as I can't imagine she's the only one needing convincing of the virtues of all-electric.
Any beta? :-\
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Not much beta at the minute, other than we’ve just bought one (or at least the wife has). Test drove a Nissan Leaf and an e-Golf over the last week and went for the Golf. I didn’t get to drive it because of the way the garage did the insurance, but did go out in it. Basically the same as a Golf inside, but exceptionally quiet. Seemed to have a decent amount of power and acceleration was very smooth. It was automatic (I think all electric cars are?) but seemed to have got rid of the old issue that automatics had where they had no power while they changed gear. That said, the last time I drove one was a hire car in the States about 15 years ago, so I’d hope technology has moved on a bit.
Getting delivered in a week or so, but can report back when I’ve had chance to drive it.
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I don't know what the budget is, but if a 1-series is sort of in the ballpark of what she's after, perhaps the two obvious candidates are the Leaf and the ID.3. The Leaf probably (definitely) falls down in the "touch of luxury" department and personally I just find them really dull. The ID.3 maybe closer to the mark? It's basically the replacement for the Golf. Maybe not luxury but the interior looks relatively smart. You'll have to buy it new at the minute. FWIW even run of the mill EVs can be a relatively fun drive because of how fast they are off the line. By the sounds of it both of these should give enough range for what she's after. I also like the look of the e208, a bit smaller but a nice balance of price and range. I haven't been in one but a friend said it felt like the suspension was made of whatever they could find in the local scrapyard.
The higher end candidates are obviously Tesla and then in dreamland the Taycan/E-Tron GT. If you are regularly doing long journeys, Tesla's charging network is years ahead of the rest, but doesn't sound like this is a huge concern.
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If she likes BMW's - i3?
Zoe (latest 135 ones you can get a 1YO one for c.£20k, 250+ mile range....)
but ID3 has to be the sweet spot here...
(eMini supposed to be good fun - but not a massive range - which might not be an issue here..)
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If she likes BMW's - i3?
They're a bit overtly EV but once inside they do look like they fit the bill. I wonder if you can arrange long test drives of such things?
but ID3 has to be the sweet spot here...
There's one of these that lives near me clearly as it overtakes me almost every time I go out on the bike. It looks awesome and I never hear it coming!
(eMini supposed to be good fun - but not a massive range - which might not be an issue here..)
This is where I think the reality of the situation hasn't yet presented itself. Minis are being viewed as too small (even the 5-door) which I'm not sure I agree with. The range likewise, I just don't see it as an issue.
I don't know what the budget is, but if a 1-series is sort of in the ballpark...
I haven't had a quote on trade in value for the 430i (it seemed a bit off without being directly asked) but I'm thinking it's somewhere between 17-20k at a guess. I'm not sure she'd be wanting to put a great deal of cash in but the Fiesta will have a fair amount of residual value given it's done half of FA miles.
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It was automatic (I think all electric cars are?) but seemed to have got rid of the old issue that automatics had where they had no power while they changed gear. That said, the last time I drove one was a hire car in the States about 15 years ago, so I’d hope technology has moved on a bit.
Electric cars typically don't have a way of changing gear at all as electric engines can provide useful power at decent efficiency across a much wider range of RPMs than ICE engines. For example, a random article I just found online suggests that the motors used in electric cars can rev to 20k RPM with no issues. (I guess there's a lot of detail Im glossing over here, but that's the broad strokes).
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Didn't think EVs even had gearboxs.. I think its just linear power output from the motor, 0 to ~20,000 revs.. thus no physical changing of gears.
Highly tempted by an EV at the moment, but having said that, plumped for another Mundano estate as we're fully expecting to be taking off this year with a boot full of camping kit etc, and we normally drive to the alps as a family.
Toying with the idea of leasing a small EV for local running around, which I have to admit is the vast majority of our use, but can't quite justify the 3-400 a month for it.
Leasing might well be a good option though, since the 2nd hand value is going to be pants due to the massive acceleration in tech. Who wants to buy a 3 year old EV.
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Didn't think EVs even had gearboxs.. I think its just linear power output from the motor, 0 to ~20,000 revs.. thus no physical changing of gears.
...
Leasing might well be a good option though, since the 2nd hand value is going to be pants due to the massive acceleration in tech. Who wants to buy a 3 year old EV.
Continuous, not linear. (If only!)
And yes, the depreciation and the unknown of the second hand market is the main reason putting me off.
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Didn't think EVs even had gearboxs.. I think its just linear power output from the motor, 0 to ~20,000 revs.. thus no physical changing of gears.
Pretty sure there'll be some gearing in there somewhere as a wheel with a 25" OD spinning at 20k RPM ~= 1500 MPH ;D
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:lol:
Yeah, but no need to shift between gears.
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Would plug-in hybrid work as the latest generation typically have a longer battery range than a couple of years ago that might cover all local journeys + increasing choice so she could keep with the BMW for example (3 series now available).
Otherwise Volvo XC40 recharge fully electric can be ordered now, I think more or less exclusively through a simple online subscription model, or BMW iX3 and i4 are coming soon but both I would think will be late in the year (& not cheap).
iD3 is from what I read disappointingly cheap feeling inside (the Skoda version is supposed to be nicer!)?
The Taycan has two forward gears though I think the low gear is only used for all-out 'launch-control' starts.
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If your MIL can wait a few months there are lots of options coming out this year from mainstream manufacturers.
Depending on budget, leasing a Skoda Enyaq, VW ID4 or Audi Q4 E-tron might suit her.
I've been in an EV for 2 years now and can't emphasise how easy it is to adapt, once you get over the initial mileage anxiety. 99% of my journeys I just unplug the car and go. For the few round trips >200 miles I do it's really no more than planning where to stop and factoring in 1/2 an hour to get a coffee.
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A colleague of mine has a BMW i3 and absolutely raves about it. He races Lotus's and single seater hill climbers so knows a bit about cars.
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BMW lent is an i3s for 24 hours recently, so it is definitely possible to get longer tests.
We also test drove an iD3, and then ordered one.
The issues with the i3 were the strange door configuration - you have to open the front door to be able to open the rear suicide door, and the range which is realistically not much more than 100 miles.
The iD3 has a real range of about 200 miles, so quite a difference. I’d read a few reviews which loved the iD3 but criticised the interior, but it honestly didn’t strike me as terrible - maybe more ‘appliancey’ than luxury, but perfectly ok (and we currently have an A3 and an A6).
For what it’s worth, the iD3 and i3s both felt pretty similar to me - there is not much interaction with an electric car to differentiate them!
The iD3 will be the first car we’ve ever leased, but it seems make sense given the pace of development, uncertain future value and super cheap salary sacrifice deals (not relevant I guess!).
The VW arrives in a couple of weeks, so we’ll find out more then.
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Good thread. It's interesting to see the electric van market coming on quite fast, seems like tradesmen are catching on quite quick to the long term potential savings for having electric vans around london (congestion charge etc).
It'll be interesting to see how the pace of charging infrastructure development is able to keep up with demand.
https://www.nextgreencar.com/electric-cars/statistics/ (https://www.nextgreencar.com/electric-cars/statistics/)
I'm finding it quite difficult to get a grip on whether or not electric cars are actually better for the environment as there's so many differing opinions. It seems like the more we switch over to electric the better it will be as economies of scale and efficiency improvements during production kick in. Does anyone have any solid non biased info on this?
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From what I've read the carbon benefits are not massive - but the real winner is air pollution.
There are particulates from the tyres and brakes - but no N02 or diesel particulates.
Nothing like pushing a pram around city streets to focus the mind on the issues of cars and cities....
I'm waiting for the right moment to get an EV. I'd love one. The house with a driveway (for charging point) is what needs to come first for me - not enough charging infrastructure in the 'burbs of Manchester at the moment.
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BMW lent is an i3s for 24 hours recently, so it is definitely possible to get longer tests.
We also test drove an iD3, and then ordered one.
Excellent! I've floated the idea (TBH I'd also like to have a drive of one).
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Skoda Enjak (Enyak? Enyaq?) looks like it fits to the bill for many - decent sized boot....
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My folks are very happy with their Zoe, though notably use the other car for longer journeys.
Partly range, partly comfort.
I'm looking at hybrid SUVs at the moment (as hybrid MPVs don't seem to be thing?) - XC60/90 get good reviews; electric for short journeys, combustion for longer.
I mean, if budget isn't an issue - get a Model X...
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I'm finding it quite difficult to get a grip on whether or not electric cars are actually better for the environment as there's so many differing opinions. It seems like the more we switch over to electric the better it will be as economies of scale and efficiency improvements during production kick in. Does anyone have any solid non biased info on this?
There are clearly a lot of 'hidden' emissions in the production process and the mining of rare metals for EV batteries.
My take is this is being overstated though and unfounded claims are being widely reported. For example, the claim that EVs need to be driven 50,000 miles before they are cleaner than ICE vehicles, reported in the UK press last year, was concocted by a motor-industry think tank. (https://twitter.com/AukeHoekstra/status/1332464534930550784?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1332464539342876673%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es2_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Felectrek.co%2F2020%2F11%2F30%2Fdid-aston-martin-publish-fake-emission-numbers-about-evs%2F)
I've seen reference to EVs producing a third of the carbon emissions of an ICE vehicle over their life (eg here (https://www.transportenvironment.org/sites/te/files/downloads/T%26E%E2%80%99s%20EV%20life%20cycle%20analysis%20LCA_0.pdf)). I’m not the man to tell you if these assessments are academically rigorous and impartial though.
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I mean, if budget isn't an issue - get a Model X...
It'll be an issue if it exceeds the value of the two cars combined I should imagine. Looking at BMW's stock online they have two i3s in stock and they're £28k (used approved; 1k miles).
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I'm finding it quite difficult to get a grip on whether or not electric cars are actually better for the environment as there's so many differing opinions. It seems like the more we switch over to electric the better it will be as economies of scale and efficiency improvements during production kick in. Does anyone have any solid non biased info on this?
My take in this is that once the grid is green, and its becoming more so all the time, then the only 'bad' emissions will come from the manufacture and production of the car/batteries, which IMHO, are almost certainly in a par with the environmental impact of the oil industry.
I feel that if(when) I get an EV, I'll be doing my bit and the de-carbonising of the grid is something that isn't my responsibility, its governments responsibility. Which I can only influence through my vote etc.
That, and I'll be pumping less lung damaging particulates into the street outside the primary school.
I think batteries are only a stop gap for a couple of decades till hydrogen fuel cells come on line, which are essentially clean batteries. The electric motor tech in the vehicles will stay the same. Think this topic has been covered elsewhere maybe?
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While we're doing a roundup of the electric whips on the market right now, what about the Honda E, which is (IMO) by far the coolest EV on the market?
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/honda/e/long-term-reviews/honda-e-2021-long-term-review (https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/honda/e/long-term-reviews/honda-e-2021-long-term-review)
Compromised by range (135 miles tops), but I guess if you're mainly doing short journeys...
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You can also edge the market towards green electricity supply by buying through a renewable energy supplier like Octopus.
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Looks like Honda are doing some cool stuff re: charging your car at the most cost-effective time as well:
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/honda-e-owners-offered-new-smart-home-charging-service (https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/honda-e-owners-offered-new-smart-home-charging-service)
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I think batteries are only a stop gap for a couple of decades till hydrogen fuel cells come on line, which are essentially clean batteries. The electric motor tech in the vehicles will stay the same. Think this topic has been covered elsewhere maybe?
I'm not so sure it'll be a stop gap - I suspect when people get used to being able to warm their cars up in winter / demist etc and basically never have to go fill up except on long journies, the through of going back to hydrocarbons hydrogen may feel like a step back. Also, hydrogen can only be produced via electrolysis or processing natural gas which both introduce inefficacies - electric charging I suspect will win out on cost. New battery tech is such a hotbed of activity just now, I suspect a low impact, highly recyclable and more energy dense battery tech is only a few rounds of innovation away.
Add to that contactless charging (sitting at lights, maybe some motorways) and I think hydrogen will be consigned to being a vector for storing / transporting energy for other sources (islands can use it for ferries, household heating).
I may be wrong, as it's basically a tech race so it's always unpredictable.
Back to the cars - the new Hyundai Ioniq 5 sounds pretty good if driving dynamics aren't a high priority (not that it's bad, just not a selling point). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6RsmzCYB3I
I'm itching to go electric, but we're just going to have to nurse our 23yr old VW oil burner van a few more years!
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My take is this is being overstated though and unfounded claims are being widely reported. For example, the claim that EVs need to be driven 50,000 miles before they are cleaner than ICE vehicles, reported in the UK press last year, was concocted by a motor-industry think tank. (https://twitter.com/AukeHoekstra/status/1332464534930550784?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1332464539342876673%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es2_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Felectrek.co%2F2020%2F11%2F30%2Fdid-aston-martin-publish-fake-emission-numbers-about-evs%2F)
Volvo did an assessment last year comparing their electric and petrol versions of their XC40.
https://group.volvocars.com/news/sustainability/2020/~/media/ccs/Volvo_carbonfootprintreport.pdf
The takeaway being that the mix of power generation for the electricity matters immensely - use entirely green electricity and the break even is around 47000km, use the global average carbon footprint for electricity generation and the break even is closer to 150000km.
Initial carbon footprint for manufacturing was around 50% higher for the electric model at ~26 tonnes CO2 vs 17 tonnes CO2 for the petrol car.
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Initial carbon footprint for manufacturing was around 50% higher for the electric model at ~26 tonnes CO2 vs 17 tonnes CO2 for the petrol car.
Interesting. In all the scenarios that Volvo lay out the EV has lower lifetime CO2 emissions, and if only charged with renewable power the total carbon footprint is less than half that of the ICE vehicle.
And this is at an early stage in the development of these vehicles - I'd expect emissions to reduce as manufacturing and material production processes mature.
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Hey Paul I've had a Model S for a couple of years now and have done 30K miles in it. Also have relatives with a Kia Eniro and Model 3 so thought i'd bullet point some key points that might help. Nice to see so many people on here with Ev's already
[url]https://ev-database.uk[url] is a great place to base/ start your searches and to cross compare
A: Depreciation isnt a worry if you dont buy something crap. It was terrible in the Old 60mile leafs but those were first adopters who also got free charging everywhere. Basically if you get something that does 200miles and charges at 50-100kw DC then that'll always be a useful car. If you look at second hand cars that're desirable like the Model S and 3 in the UK they hold their value incredibly well (and thats in spite of shite build quality). more info here: https://www.drive-electric.co.uk/do-electric-cars-depreciate/
Don't buy a model 3 if you want to put anything in the boot ever. General gist for all Teslas upto the Y is crap build quality but amazing tech and charge network.
B: All electric is already a far better option than any hybrid if they can fast charge.
C: Cars with >250miles range just end up not being fully charged 90% of the time and all you ever gain is the home charge advantage as once your on the road its the charge speed that is the real limiting factor.
C: The national grid in the UK is doing really well despite the government policy doing the opposite of incentivising it on a green path, market forces are doing the job well enough. Their ESO app is a great way to quickly check up on how green your charge is: https://www.nationalgrideso.com/news/introducing-our-carbon-intensity-app Basically if you live in the north west or north east england most of your charging will be >80% renewables year round. Yorkshire and the home counties arent great at the moment so Home solar or something would be more of a short term fix for that
D: All good home chargers can be scheduled to charge with green tarriffs off peak so whilst some cars do and dont have the option its not a worry and you can often get paid to charge. Glyn Hudson has done some good info tweets on his Nissan Van on the octopus tarriff.
It really is a case by case basis at the moment for how Green your electric car is based on where you live but the National grid is improving this all the time. One good example is the New connections being planned to bring the hugely renewable scottish grid power down to more of the population: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/16/firms-agree-scotland-to-england-renewable-energy-superhighway
Looking at your description I'd be looking at the BMWs you've mentioned VW ID3/4. Honda E (just cos its cool) Kia eniro and hyundai Kona (most efficient per mile and v reliable) Or Tesla Model 3 or if you can wait the Y Fully Charged on Youtube is a good place to watch reviews and get up to speed.
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Interesting. In all the scenarios that Volvo lay out the EV has lower lifetime CO2 emissions, and if only charged with renewable power the total carbon footprint is less than half that of the ICE vehicle.
Yes, I don't know if they chose the 200,000km overall lifetime because that is a typical lifetime usage for their cars or because at that point all three scenarios were tipped in favour of the electric.
Obviously it depends how long you keep your cars and the mileage you do and if you typically buy new but for my lower than average usage (66000 miles over 10 years in the Skoda) it's finely balanced environmentally whether to carry on my habit of buying 2nd hand petrol vs a new electric. With a higher mileage the balance (& financially the increased savings in fuel cost if you charge at home) would tilt towards electric.
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The compelling reason - especially if you live or drive in a city - is the massive reduction in air pollution from an EV.
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I run a couple of electric vehicles and in the last 7 months have done 220,000 miles. So I have a bit of knowledge about EV technology nowadays although still have plenty of gaps in the consumer space. I don't have much knowledge on specific models and their pros/cons but I do have some ideas on the technology in general.
Hydrogen:
Hydrogen cars - this is already dead in the water. The development has been dropped by major car brands as they plough all of their R&D into battery technology. The only major brand still chasing hydrogen is Toyota and I would happily take a bet that in 5 years Hydrogen in consumer cars will be a footnote. Hydrogen vehicles (not just cars) are still really, really inefficient. Without a green grid, hydrogen vehicles are actually worse than diesel in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. I have some charts on this published by Zemo but can't be arsed to try and post them - sorry. With a green grid (which is happening) then they are better than diesel but still so much worse from an efficiency perspective of total energy in vs total energy out.
The thing to look at when comparing technologies is the well to wheel CO2e emissions. On this basis, EV's are well ahead of the pack. You can look up some charts or I can post some up at some point if people are keen.
Where hydrogen does have a useful part to play is in storage (as mentioned by Fultonius), especially where this is done on site and it's linked to excess grid capacity from green sources. In that case it makes sense to use this rather than massive stockpiles of batteries. I'm also a fan of gravity systems being used in the same way and if you haven't seen them check out: https://energyvault.com/
There is a lot of talk that "long range" vehicles like coach/HGV will switch to Hydrogen but the evidence just isn't there. Scania recently binned plans to develop hydrogen and has gone all in on EV's. Hydrogen vehicle production is currently propped up by massive subsidies in the UK.
Hybrids - same as hydrogen. Now dead in the water imo and I wouldn't go near one as a new car purchase. I think they might have fulfilled a function as a soft way to get people thinking about electric before the technology came onstream, but ultimately Tesla went all in on EV early and got a huge advantage as a result.
Battery technology:
This is improving all the time and there hasn't been much of a discussion on chemistries. The amount of "bad" stuff in a battery does change quite a bit with different chemistries. Tesla recently started using LFP (lithium iron phosphate) in model 3 production instead of Li-ion. It's not as energy dense but does have a longer life and doesn't have nickel or cobalt.
I agree with the person who mentioned that a breakthrough is probably only a few rounds of innovation away. At which point we'll have more density and higher charging speeds.
Charging speeds:
At the moment it's largely limited by physics and battery life. Not the voltage/amp that can go into a battery. As well as running electric vehicles I've also been building charging hubs and installing 300kW chargers. These can deliver 300kW on a single cable although the CCS standard is ever so slightly behind so no vehicles can take it just yet.
Charging curves aren't mentioned that much but most electric cars only have a narrow-ish window where they charge at full speed. They might be generally fast at 20-80% but full speed will usually be a segment of that. However, when you start to talk about 300kW charging, you need to remember that cars generally only have up to 120kWh battery packs. You also need to know that a 120kWh battery pack can get you a long way in an aerodynamic car. So if you can charge from 20-80% in 10min and that 80% will do you 400 miles then I think the problem is getting close to solved. For larger vehicles, like coach/HGV, there is talk about charging faster than 350kW but this is currently limited by standards (CCS theoretically allows 500kW charging) and it's easier to charge bigger batteries very fast.
Battery life isn't a concern for car users imo. There were loads of problems with early nissan leafs which was largely due to a lack of cooling and gen 1 tech. Things have moved on. We're looking at getting 800,000 miles from one set of batteries and after that we'll repurpose them into storage - they won't be anywhere near dead. I expect battery recycling will also come on a lot in the next 10 years, the big challenge now is lack of batteries to do it with.
If you're wondering how the above is at all possible then it's all based on my business www.ember.to ;D Not easy to do >200,000 miles per year per vehicle unless you have a team of drivers!
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Great info, cheers.
And yes, 400 mile range from a 10 minute, 80% charge would be fantastic. TBH, 200 miles from 10 minutes would do me.
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Hey Paul I've had a Model S for a couple of years now
Wow, that's some change from coasting a Corsa!
I run a couple of electric vehicles and...
Thanks Uncle, I'll read and digest that post fully when work is slightly less hectic.
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If you're wondering how the above is at all possible then it's all based on my business www.ember.to ;D Not easy to do >200,000 miles per year per vehicle unless you have a team of drivers!
How come you started up in Scotland? Are you living up his way now? Great to know there's an e-bus. I'm originally from just outside Perth but live in Glasgow, so could use it for going up to see her. Edited due to actually reading it the second time and seeing Glasgow wasn't on the list! Great venture anyway :beer2:
@Dan - how do you afford to run a Model S? Is that just from BM, or do you have other business interests?
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How come you started up in Scotland? Are you living up his way now? Great to know there's an e-bus. I'm originally from just outside Perth but live in Glasgow, so could use it for going up to see her. Edited due to actually reading it the second time and seeing Glasgow wasn't on the list! Great venture anyway :beer2:
A few reasons for Scotland but mainly because it's ahead of the rest of the UK in terms of climate goals wrt public transport.
We're launching more routes later in the year which will probably include Glasgow - Fort William. Will be nice to take bikes and people up there.
I'm up near Edinburgh now, mainly heading South to Northumberland for climbing. But it's all esoteric choss so I don't recommend it.
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Would be amazing to see some of the MTB trial centres linked up by E-Bus. Seem mad in this day and age that we all rock up to venues in our own vehicles.
Great respect in getting something like this started.
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@Fultonius. Basically i work a lot more than i climb nowadays but am still a dirtbag at heart in a cheap part of the country Running costs are actually lower than any car i've ever had as we're saving £2-3000 per year on fuel and much of the expensive stuff on the car has warranties on. In fact if buying out right i dont know why anyone who could afford one would buy a new 3 over a pre 2018 second hand S unless they specifically wanted a small car and dont need boot space. As with the 8 year unlimited mileage warranty on the major parts, free premium connection and free supercharging for life the year on year benefits are formidable regardless of the size and spec difference (supercharging anywhere isn't cheap)
Some things to note when buying Ev's second hand are that battery degradation isnt a huge worry and actually cars with lower mileage might be in a worse degradation state if they've sat a few winters without frequent charging. Autotrader is still set up for ICE engines so EVs with higher milages still depreciate faster on there but you can play that curve and set money aside from the saving. Provided you do all the relevant history checks it might work out much better buying a car thats done 10K per year since it was made than one thats done 2-5K unless its been in a heated garage. Electric motors are one of humanitys more reliable inventions so trusting the lack of parts + 8year warranty on that does present a pretty unique opportunity to travel round the country for free for the life of the vehicle, as well as a strong incentive to keep it on the road (https://electrek.co/2020/06/12/tesla-data-battery-degradation-limited-mileage-packs-equal/)
In Cumbria its easy to overnight charge at <100gm CO2 per Kw so it is a really green option and so was compelling to save up and make the switch (sellafield + lots of offshore wind)
I've got some funny stories from the past couple of years. As every other person i've seen with one is has been an over 50 beardy elderly Uni professor type, and all the model 3 chaps that appeared last year are young cool hipsters or nice families so we've been getting properly stared at with a big organic pad stuffed in the boot dressed in scruffy climbing togs. That and taking it off road upto some random forest crags and accomodation about the place, i like to think its a happy car for being saved a life of slow drives to posho restaurants and ritual weekend washes.
I still use all my Corsa coasting skills but its even more fun now as you get realtime energy use. 0.24 drag coefficient!
To add to Uncles quality info, Hydrogen is deemed as green, blue and grey in terms of source, whether green hydrogen kills flexible tariff charging from windfarms remains to be seen but it's likely to play a role only as a spare capacity producer, it's 4X more efficient to charge electric cars with that energy if the demands there. most current hydrogen is blue (eg. methane landfill) or grey (fossil) but it seems most likely to go into large transport (ferries, planes) at this time as well as >battery < pumped oxygen or hydro in terms of grid storage.
If you watched the market moving last year you could see all the legacy carmakers finally u turning their approaches and getting on board for fear of death by Tesla and there are now fantastic options appearing monthly. When i bought my car my only option for an EV that would fit a large pad in the boot (seats up) was literally an S or X!
If all else fails Paul just quietly mention your mother in laws generation will have overseen the greatest carbon use per person of any generation in the history of the planet, and thats why all those smirky "woke" kids have fallen out with the boomers https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-why-children-must-emit-eight-times-less-co2-than-their-grandparents
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We're launching more routes later in the year which will probably include Glasgow - Fort William. Will be nice to take bikes and people up there.
Extend to Aberdeen (or even just Stonehaven) and I'll be up for this. Well done for getting this up and running.
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@Fultonius. Basically i work a lot more than i climb nowadays but am still a dirtbag at heart in a cheap part of the country Running costs are actually lower than any car i've ever had as we're saving £2-3000 per year on fuel and much of the expensive stuff on the car has warranties on. In fact if buying out right i dont know why anyone who could afford one would buy a new 3 over a pre 2018 second hand S unless they specifically wanted a small car and dont need boot space. As with the 8 year unlimited mileage warranty on the major parts, free premium connection and free supercharging for life the year on year benefits are formidable regardless of the size and spec difference (supercharging anywhere isn't cheap)
Some things to note when buying Ev's second hand are that battery degradation isnt a huge worry and actually cars with lower mileage might be in a worse degradation state if they've sat a few winters without frequent charging. Autotrader is still set up for ICE engines so EVs with higher milages still depreciate faster on there but you can play that curve and set money aside from the saving. Provided you do all the relevant history checks it might work out much better buying a car thats done 10K per year since it was made than one thats done 2-5K unless its been in a heated garage. Electric motors are one of humanitys more reliable inventions so trusting the lack of parts + 8year warranty on that does present a pretty unique opportunity to travel round the country for free for the life of the vehicle, as well as a strong incentive to keep it on the road (https://electrek.co/2020/06/12/tesla-data-battery-degradation-limited-mileage-packs-equal/)
In Cumbria its easy to overnight charge at <100gm CO2 per Kw so it is a really green option and so was compelling to save up and make the switch (sellafield + lots of offshore wind)
I've got some funny stories from the past couple of years. As every other person i've seen with one is has been an over 50 beardy elderly Uni professor type, and all the model 3 chaps that appeared last year are young cool hipsters or nice families so we've been getting properly stared at with a big organic pad stuffed in the boot dressed in scruffy climbing togs. That and taking it off road upto some random forest crags and accomodation about the place, i like to think its a happy car for being saved a life of slow drives to posho restaurants and ritual weekend washes.
I still use all my Corsa coasting skills but its even more fun now as you get realtime energy use. 0.24 drag coefficient!
To add to Uncles quality info, Hydrogen is deemed as green, blue and grey in terms of source, whether green hydrogen kills flexible tariff charging from windfarms remains to be seen but it's likely to play a role only as a spare capacity producer, it's 4X more efficient to charge electric cars with that energy if the demands there. most current hydrogen is blue (eg. methane landfill) or grey (fossil) but it seems most likely to go into large transport (ferries, planes) at this time as well as >battery < pumped oxygen or hydro in terms of grid storage.
If you watched the market moving last year you could see all the legacy carmakers finally u turning their approaches and getting on board for fear of death by Tesla and there are now fantastic options appearing monthly. When i bought my car my only option for an EV that would fit a large pad in the boot (seats up) was literally an S or X!
If all else fails Paul just quietly mention your mother in laws generation will have overseen the greatest carbon use per person of any generation in the history of the planet, and thats why all those smirky "woke" kids have fallen out with the boomers https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-why-children-must-emit-eight-times-less-co2-than-their-grandparents
I suspect the smirky millennials you mention would look a lot less smug if they had the raw figures on the resource and energy requirements, plus associated CO2 production, for comparison between the old world of ICE and the new world of EVs. Yes, EV's are a great step in the right direction but lets try to understand and acknowledge the actual relative impacts of driving around in an EV instead of a diesel. The extractive industries required to build out the mass-scale transition into electrification are highly energy intensive, as well as being currently somewhat questionable in terms of ESG.
Copper, nickel, lithium, cobalt, tin and aluminium are required in far greater quantities over the next 10 years then have historically been or are currently being mined. It's estimated by some analysts that at the predicted demand annual compound growth rate of 2.5 -3% we need a new Bise tin mine (in the DRC, in which I'm invested..) every year for the next 5 -10 years to meet demand from the electronics and automotive industries. The demand for copper required by electrification over the next 15 years is eye-watering, and will be met by many, many massive new mines opening in South America - some of which I'm again invested in! Various estimates exist but a typical EV requires 3.5 times as much copper as an ICE vehicle. That's just one metal. Consider the 30 kilograms of Nickel required in each battery of a Tesla model S long-range battery. Then there's the tin, the cobalt, the lithium, graphite etc etc. Roughly 4 times the cobalt and double the nickel (and likely to increase in next-gen batteries) required in an EV compared to an ICE vehicle. https://www.woodmac.com/news/opinion/copper-powering-up-the-electric-vehicle/
Some people claim that the extractive industries will clean up their act, and no doubt they will, but the fact remains that the Nickel, Tin and other metals required for the estimated 30 million EVs destined for European roads in the next 10 years will mostly originate from countries such as Brazil, the DRC, Indonesia, China. Tesla has agreed terms with a Nickel mine in the south Pacific for sole supply. The same supply chain issues that were found when people started looking behind the curtains of the explosion in use of mobile phones and PCs/laptops will likely be present behind the mass adoption of EVs. Regulations are being put in place now to guarantee origin of materials and prevent use of 'conflict metals', hopefully that will help prevent highly-polluting artisan mines in the Congo and the alluvial plains of Myanmar from being exploited by local warlords for profit.. but you know what people are like with regulations.. the good people of VW for example..
And the fact those regulations are required gives you a clue about the nature of some of the suppliers to the EV batteries industry.
This is a necessary step to get away from the old oil and gas paradigm, and no doubt the extractive and manufacturing industries will clean up and become a virtuous circle as their power generation turns to less carbon-intensive methods and recycling of battery metals - currently minuscule - starts to play a larger part. But we aren't at that place yet. I'd be willing to bet that your Tesla will probably not break even versus a typical Euro6 internal combustion engine car in terms of the total energy and resources required to build it. Unless you're willing to still be driving it into the ground many years from now. I suspect most people won't do that if history is a guide, disposability is the strong precedent here for vehicles and battery-powered devices.
On the subject of Tesla, they've done great things as a company to push along adoption of EVs, but as is often the case the reality is a bit different behind the green image portrayed. It should be noted that Tesla don't make any profit from their car sales.. It should also be noted that they just invested $1.5 billion into bitcoin mining in order to turn a profit - you know, that digital store of wealth (digital gold) that requires massively energy-intensive mining by Chinese bitcoin mining centres, which is responsible for as much CO2 annually as 'a medium sized country' according to some sources. And the other way Tesla don't go broke.. is by selling State of California carbon offset credits to polluting industries.
Roskill produces good sustainability reports on the battery metals extractive industries, and market outlook research for the range of battery metals. https://roskill.com/sustainability-cost-analysis/
I'm entirely optimistic about transport turning electric for the long-term good of the high atmosphere and of people's lungs; but I think as a society, including climbers who green-brag about their choice of vehicle, we'd be better off being realistic and open-eyed about the near-term impacts of our choices instead of feeling smug because our car's electric instead of diesel.
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Good resource post Pete but one which is essentially already covered from a carbon perspective in the above links to when new Ev's pass ICE. Millennials/ Gen Z arent smug more bitter i'd say at being handed worse cards than their parents. Indeed Ev cars don't appear out of thin air. You forgot to mention Aluminium too depending on where in the world thats made it can be carbon neutral (iceland) or massively energy intensive. Everything has a cost but if you can be arsed to sit down and do the math it quickly becomes apparent that In areas of the UK with a green grid Ev's can pass keeping your current ICE car in sub 30K miles in terms of carbon cost. diesel can never be clean and that in fact regardless of CO2 its been doing nasty things in our cities in terms of heavy metals and nitrates for many years now.
I'd be wary of extrapolating current battery solutions to world scale as with the steps on the way current resource calcs will vary wildly as the tech improves.
A good example is that if solid state comes in, its 50% smaller volumetric density+ much faster charging capacity will mean tiny 100 mile packs are possible as a realistic solution for city cars as well as less overall lithium use. Lithium required per mile has already dropped a huge amount in the last 5 years (hence the general decrese in wh per mile towards 250 from 300 due to the weight savings). Uncle already mentioned the switch to Lithium Iron phosphate in China.
Now i'm not going to say that disproves the case for nickel and cobalt use but it shows signs of change. Market forces will still just move the next contract into those areas and someone elses cars might have dirtier batteries, if consumers care they'll vote with their wallets. The Lithium mining in Bolivia involves sweating it off the salt pans in one of the most arid parts of the planet which is knacking the water table. Thankfully it looks like this will get phased out as new mines open up in different locations and extraction techniques change (covered in Teslas battery day)
The point here is that much of this is all a transition phase where people are proving the concept on the front end with the vehicles whilst trying to tackle the whole assembly/ resource gathering process to make it more efficient for both cost and carbon.
This is one of the best literature reviews in the area put into an article. https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-electric-vehicles-help-to-tackle-climate-change It shows in the USA how crucial area is both for EV manufacturing and PEV vs hybrid use.
The fact is that if these vehicles are made to last then almost your entire point seems to be around battery resource use, The rest of the vehicle can be completely interchanged with new battery tech so their green shelf life is much longer than an ICE car which has a lot more moving parts and less weatherproofing (hence how Ev's can drive through floods for a short time) due to the need for heat shedding whilst constantly burning fossil fuels. The question of what to do with old batteries is also beginning to be answered with start up companies repairing or rehoming them. It also seems a relatively unfounded worry as most Teslas (bar the 90) are showing only 5% degradation per 100,000km driven. My cars actually doing better than that so far and i have chatted to owners who are 150K miles + and doing great, average first brake pad change on a model S is >80K miles due to the Regen. If you link back to the carbon brief article local case studies up here really do royally shit on any ICE argument with a clean national grid in the area
Having sat down and actually done the stats along with based on my own driving and where i live(as Uncle does for his buses) its pretty bloody obvious that my purchase decision massively helps reduce emissions from my own selfish life choices.
Ultimately the whole "yeah but things use resources" point boils down to, dont own a car and dont go anywhere or use anything you dont grow yourself. EV's are just one small part of the carbon chain but they're a good flagship and change instigator as cars are something people pay attention to more than most belongings. All vehicles drive along roads paved with Oil so i'm well aware of the hypocrisy of poking the progress of past generations whilst using all that infrastructure to live. However i dont see that as a reason not to try and make positive changes where financially possible.
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On the solid state battery, yep I'm invested in Ilika who have their Goliath SS battery at the point of tooling up a production line in partnership with a manufacturing partner, via the BIC which has been part funded by government as part of the Faraday challenge. Also Quantumscape are being funded by VW, for their SS battery. Both Ilika and Quatumscape have working designs requiring upscaling. Supposedly also Samsung are well advanced. I fully agree that ss batteries will be the big game-changer for EVs, that's why my money's in them! (there's a theme here..)
On recycling. To balance out my above view of the growth in mining of battery and infrastructure metals required for the electrification of transport and other transformative technology, here's a more positive view on the potential for recycling. https://www.mining.com/recycled-metals-could-meet-a-significant-part-of-the-rising-demand-from-evs-report/
However note that its estimates for recycling reducing new demand for cobalt and nickel by 35% and of copper by 55% are for the year 2040. The early decades of this transformation into electric are still going to be extremely reliant on a large scale growth in the mining of metals.
The talk of emissions is only part of the point of EVs but I fully agree its great to reduce emissions from diesels. Lung health will improve. My point is more that there are increased unseen costs associated with EVs then perhaps there are with ICE vehicles. The mining goes on in places over the horizon from most consumers, like for your mobile phone and laptop. And a lot of people won't be aware of the CO2 footprint of the various mines and manufacturers on the other side of the world required to supply the relatively large quantities of metals for their battery and for all the electrical infrastructure surrounding EV use. Hence it's easy not to consider them when people think they're 'being green'. It's very easy for companies to gloss over with a green banner, like Tesla do, when in reality they're not really particularly virtuous in their choices.
Nonetheless, once past the first 10-15 years growing pains the issues will hopefully have improved to the point of EVs being genuinely low impact.
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Now i'm not going to say that disproves the case for nickel and cobalt use but it shows signs of change. Market forces will still just move the next contract into those areas and someone elses cars might have dirtier batteries, if consumers care they'll vote with their wallets. The Lithium mining in Bolivia involves sweating it off the salt pans in one of the most arid parts of the planet which is knacking the water table. Thankfully it looks like this will get phased out as new mines open up in different locations and extraction techniques change (covered in Teslas battery day)
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Interesting discussion. Note, there is no production of lithium from Bolivia - there is a small pilot facility and nothing else. I would also wager that there will be no meaningful production from the Uyuni salt flats within 1-2 decades. Not a great resource and a terrible ( I mean, absolutely awful) country to try and do business in. You are probably thinking of Chile and Argentina.
For what it’s worth I’ve been in the energy metals world since 2014, so have seen these discussions come and go, and get to talk with cathode/battery/car manufacturers all the time. It is a rapidly changing world and money is piling in at the moment. Almost everyone we talk to is trying to eliminate cobalt from their cathode, and actually, every OEM we talk to (inc. Tesla) does care where they source raw materials from.
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A lot of these arguments fall under the "don't let perfect be the enemy of good" category.
I'm currently working and bidding on green hydrogen projects in the north west. The end game isn't hydrogen cars, though it is being tied into the Liverpool Hydrogen Bus scheme, but industrial users, blended into domestic gas as a stop gap, working with the industries that can't electrify, that 15% often talked about who are hard to de carbonise. It's a complex picture.
EVs aren't a golden bullet to end climate change. I don't think anyone believes that and until we move away from the fetishization of the private car and we are still stuffed. The "youth" seem to understand, especially a lot of those who live in cities, but the city leaders are still a long way behind the curve.
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We have literally pretty much just impulse bought an ID.4!
Went for a test drive and thought it was great, we’d kinda made the decision a while ago to go electric once the ranges became more practical.
Need to geek up on it all now (maybe should’ve geeked up before buying) what’s the home charger knowledge? Fast charge obvs, I’m aware of the govt grant. Any particular company’s/brands to avoid.
How are electric vehicles in snow? We normally have 4x4 as our road is fairly spicy and we get a fair bit of snow usually. Slightly worried about the amount of torque. It’s rear wheel drive with good clearance and the batteries in the back so I’m hoping it’ll be ok? We couldn’t bring ourselves to wait for the 4x4 version to come out. Hopefully we won’t regret that.....
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How are electric vehicles in snow? We normally have 4x4 as our road is fairly spicy and we get a fair bit of snow usually. Slightly worried about the amount of torque. It’s rear wheel drive with good clearance and the batteries in the back so I’m hoping it’ll be ok? We couldn’t bring ourselves to wait for the 4x4 version to come out. Hopefully we won’t regret that.....
You're not doing regular trips over past Widdop are you in a blue/green one (although I'd have expected more shit when passing if so)?
I'll make sure to have some :popcorn: for next winter.
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How are electric vehicles in snow? We normally have 4x4 as our road is fairly spicy and we get a fair bit of snow usually. Slightly worried about the amount of torque. It’s rear wheel drive with good clearance and the batteries in the back so I’m hoping it’ll be ok? We couldn’t bring ourselves to wait for the 4x4 version to come out. Hopefully we won’t regret that.....
You're not doing regular trips over past Widdop are you in a blue/green one (although I'd have expected more shit when passing if so)?
I'll make sure to have some :popcorn: for next winter.
Nah not got it yet, we pick up next week. I’d defo be giving you shit! Maybe even a little nudge....
Yeah who knows in winter.... chains might be in order for our road.
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NYob, perhaps Check whether it’s got a heat pump as standard. Might be worth getting one (1k extra on id3) as it’s more efficient for the cabin heater - and is also used to heat the battery pack in winter - to give more range (use energy to get more from the battery paradox!)
I’m seriously tempted by a Skoda Enjaq (Skoda badged id4)
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TT it’s a first edition (hence the good deal) so I’m pretty sure the heat pump isn’t an option. I don’t think it’s an option on the 2nd edition ones either in Europe, despite it being an option for the Id3 it has something they compare to a toaster element which heats it when driving. Electric resistance heater, which gets up to speed quicker. I’m not too worried about the range as a whole so hoping it won’t effect it too much, the reviews seem to be a bit split on this though....
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Saw this the other day and thought it was interesting (don't know the original source). US states that charge an additional annual fee for owning an EV. Supposed to make up for lost tax revenue from declining sales of fuel.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/tgPajPFBTViNMQM1x6ZM3CwQ9RJNzrsrXJVMCZ8LGy4x6LzLfjkThhQY0GKDiVTla-3-0-HTW-htI4LFk-uMEEtjV2b_XVJwrejK28mfSepbWau8NBGlPK_TEGNqlullpA2wdBIj6TT-zbwkvCd91JFzB3BojXmSE54vZLx7Gn27UwXXf_J_RIkjT3GVbM_XpTrcaOomlvheU2bqrKgsc7Mv_R6Swqyh1Ta3OIDT-YwyVmzCJIBXqivRdoz3nEtbZNKAC3vivvpY2_6nNyBXOBUwpD9O1FZ93U0ty5cX48TWZrDBnGiCJoi_QKDju71U1seTleEL4eeQ6Cu2ETqAJ4D7Ay7ZhooP73a4ttfDiK-tdxedwptAT_0JmE6lGMC5nGZz_Iy6NyArR6rG6mzWvRcpt6wZnlvsWBVDj_FDyIQQI8pldXca-xWQ7LPye0Bl5sx4smm4KoIqZS8uumZmn9ghiW14bTWn9xNFDZnzLio3s3yrZ5toSXI3EDLGXwku6HfnEOsM_f_RYemwZRxHxgbQVgHdeiCNigZjm0aEvZen9L3xRE2e0OAUDYdwXoaNNHkA94x6Ts04IadC2jrxamFlM8UnQFovptkEuWwTOTuBMPulY8yjqQF1aDgLEOsGE72xj-WtBV4IjkwwjxSIEP0rod0dElgGCaMfVSaWp_tuno_SBKnpP9ISY758CcarjgdOtoCmxVtcfKi5Zhvcess=w903-h572-no?authuser=0)
It got me interested in looking into how the UK will cover the gap in revenue from lost sales of fuel. Do people think a tax per mile the most likely outcome? As per this report: https://thenextweb.com/news/mandatory-road-pricing-to-plug-uks-40bn-tax-gap-after-shift-to-evs
For EV owners the next few years before any new regs come in could be the cheapest window of opportunity for driving costs.
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Saw this the other day and thought it was interesting (don't know the original source). US states that charge an additional annual fee for owning an EV. Supposed to make up for lost tax revenue from declining sales of fuel.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/tgPajPFBTViNMQM1x6ZM3CwQ9RJNzrsrXJVMCZ8LGy4x6LzLfjkThhQY0GKDiVTla-3-0-HTW-htI4LFk-uMEEtjV2b_XVJwrejK28mfSepbWau8NBGlPK_TEGNqlullpA2wdBIj6TT-zbwkvCd91JFzB3BojXmSE54vZLx7Gn27UwXXf_J_RIkjT3GVbM_XpTrcaOomlvheU2bqrKgsc7Mv_R6Swqyh1Ta3OIDT-YwyVmzCJIBXqivRdoz3nEtbZNKAC3vivvpY2_6nNyBXOBUwpD9O1FZ93U0ty5cX48TWZrDBnGiCJoi_QKDju71U1seTleEL4eeQ6Cu2ETqAJ4D7Ay7ZhooP73a4ttfDiK-tdxedwptAT_0JmE6lGMC5nGZz_Iy6NyArR6rG6mzWvRcpt6wZnlvsWBVDj_FDyIQQI8pldXca-xWQ7LPye0Bl5sx4smm4KoIqZS8uumZmn9ghiW14bTWn9xNFDZnzLio3s3yrZ5toSXI3EDLGXwku6HfnEOsM_f_RYemwZRxHxgbQVgHdeiCNigZjm0aEvZen9L3xRE2e0OAUDYdwXoaNNHkA94x6Ts04IadC2jrxamFlM8UnQFovptkEuWwTOTuBMPulY8yjqQF1aDgLEOsGE72xj-WtBV4IjkwwjxSIEP0rod0dElgGCaMfVSaWp_tuno_SBKnpP9ISY758CcarjgdOtoCmxVtcfKi5Zhvcess=w903-h572-no?authuser=0)
It got me interested in looking into how the UK will cover the gap in revenue from lost sales of fuel. Do people think a tax per mile the most likely outcome? As per this report: https://thenextweb.com/news/mandatory-road-pricing-to-plug-uks-40bn-tax-gap-after-shift-to-evs
For EV owners the next few years before any new regs come in could be the cheapest window of opportunity for driving costs.
Tax at charging source - that's what the smart meter is all about isn't it?
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EVs aren't a golden bullet to end climate change. I don't think anyone believes that and until we move away from the fetishization of the private car and we are still stuffed. The "youth" seem to understand, especially a lot of those who live in cities, but the city leaders are still a long way behind the curve.
This is very true. Scotland is going to be rolling out free bus travel for everyone under 22 and some of the mandate was driven by behaviour change in the next generation. If you can solve their travel habits and get people out of the idea of "needing" a car then you can make some real emissions savings from transport. The problem is that the government doesn't quite understand what "good" public transport looks like yet.
In my head it's something like an uber-pool (or Moia) which takes you to a seamless interchange in an efficient location onto a bigger vehicle (like a coach) which runs quite frequently on trunk roads and connects with another uber-pool like service on the other end. In essence you can get from pretty much anywhere to pretty much anywhere on a single ticket, with zero emissions, and without an insane time penalty vs a car. The actual customer experience also needs elevated so you're not squished into an uncomfy seat. I guess this is why I'm doing what I'm doing... :lol: Invest now! :greed:
Back in the real world, I want to get to the south of France for 2 weeks in the summer with my bike. Eurostar aren't accepting bikes "because of Covid" so my only option is to fly or drive. Which is rubbish for multiple reasons.
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Are they also not accepting bike bags*?
I was looking to take mine a few places in the NW and found a first come first serve basis for the three spaces allowed on our local trains.
I found on a forum someone that had the problem a lot and would just whip the wheels off into bin bags* and then one for the frame.
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EVs aren't a golden bullet to end climate change. I don't think anyone believes that and until we move away from the fetishization of the private car and we are still stuffed. The "youth" seem to understand, especially a lot of those who live in cities, but the city leaders are still a long way behind the curve.
This is very true. Scotland is going to be rolling out free bus travel for everyone under 22 and some of the mandate was driven by behaviour change in the next generation. If you can solve their travel habits and get people out of the idea of "needing" a car then you can make some real emissions savings from transport. The problem is that the government doesn't quite understand what "good" public transport looks like yet.
In my head it's something like an uber-pool (or Moia) which takes you to a seamless interchange in an efficient location onto a bigger vehicle (like a coach) which runs quite frequently on trunk roads and connects with another uber-pool like service on the other end. In essence you can get from pretty much anywhere to pretty much anywhere on a single ticket, with zero emissions, and without an insane time penalty vs a car. The actual customer experience also needs elevated so you're not squished into an uncomfy seat. I guess this is why I'm doing what I'm doing... :lol: Invest now! :greed:
Back in the real world, I want to get to the south of France for 2 weeks in the summer with my bike. Eurostar aren't accepting bikes "because of Covid" so my only option is to fly or drive. Which is rubbish for multiple reasons.
In this future of low emissions public transport how do you stop the pleasure of traveling abroad in comfort and with the freedom to explore on a whim becoming once again something only the wealthy can enjoy? Because that's what's likely to happen once you price out the masses from owning private cars/vans, and expect public transport to take precedence. If every popular destination is to have sufficient pools of individual hire vehicles - presumably with the much reduced lifespan typical of current hire vehicles (who wants to hire a 10-year old vehicle) - then how is this really any better than individual ownership of the same vehicles? If reduced private ownership is really going to be pushed as a serious policy then the most likely outcome I can see is reduced freedom for all but the wealthy, who'll continue to do whatever they please.
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I seem to be losing a little (on the original topic). I nearly had her with a Mini EV but the lack of a five door option is a deal breaker; other options appear to be more than she's wanting to spend.
The BMW is now on Autotrader if anyone is after a 430i Gran Coupe (a very nice example if I do say so myself :tumble: )
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In this future of low emissions public transport how do you stop the pleasure of traveling abroad in comfort and with the freedom to explore on a whim becoming once again something only the wealthy can enjoy? Because that's what's likely to happen once you price out the masses from owning private cars/vans, and expect public transport to take precedence. If every popular destination is to have sufficient pools of individual hire vehicles - presumably with the much reduced lifespan typical of current hire vehicles (who wants to hire a 10-year old vehicle) - then how is this really any better than individual ownership of the same vehicles? If reduced private ownership is really going to be pushed as a serious policy then the most likely outcome I can see is reduced freedom for all but the wealthy, who'll continue to do whatever they please.
Surely private vehicle ownership and hiring of a vehicle on holiday are two different things. I think the habit that is trying to be broken is the default of car use for the majority of journeys; commuting to workplace, shopping and urban recreation. For "rural recreation" not serviced by regular routes, there would be co-operative vehicle use.
When on holiday you would like to think people would adopt the same familiar pattern. Use public transport when you can, hire an EV on the days needed.
We went on holiday to Jersey a few years back for a week, and got a family bus pass for the week. Price was negligible, service was reliable, routes were clear and easy to follow, and it was fun chilling with the kids, chatting with locals and the driver and watching the world go by rather than coping with driving, parking etc etc. Dare say apparently at peak holiday you can be left waiting by the roadside sometimes.
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I think the habit that is trying to be broken is the default of car use for the majority of journeys; commuting to workplace, shopping and urban recreation. For "rural recreation" not serviced by regular routes, there would be co-operative vehicle use.
When on holiday you would like to think people would adopt the same familiar pattern. Use public transport when you can, hire an EV on the days needed.
My point was more that the environmental benefit of switching to EVs comes from their lack of tailpipe emissions from burning fossil fuels, while their biggest impact comes from production of the vehicles - which as said requires a massive increase over the next 10-20 years in the mining and smelting of various metals required for batteries and the electrical infrastructure surrounding the electrification of transport.
It stands to reason then that if the environmental benefit of EVs is the lack of tailpipe emissions then how much or little people drive will make *very little difference to damaging emissions. What will make the biggest difference is how many EVs are produced, as this is where most of an EV's environmental impact comes from. So from an atmospheric emissions point of view it appears to make little sense to reduce people's private ownership of cars, as the cars would still need to be produced for people to be able to rent. You could argue a policy of dissuading private ownership might actually *increase*, not decrease, the total number of cars needed to be produced (and thus total carbon emissions), due to people not wanting to pay good money to rent old cars. While they'd be happy enough to privately own and drive an older EV car to get value for money.
It's all conjecture as we don't know what the future holds, just pointing out a policy of reducing private vehicle ownership mightn't necessarily be the panacea some people would like to think. Unless the policy is to reduce us all to caged blobs prohibited from travelling freely...
*There are other smaller scale benefits to driving less - such as less particulate emissions from rubber and brake pads, less maintenance of roads etc. But CO2 equivalent from tailpipes is the big one.
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From what I’ve seen from Tesla previously I think the idea is that you reduce the overall amount of cars by people only having them when they need them. So for example if you needed a car from the airport to your digs, then the next day to take you to Ceuse in the morning and take you back to your digs in the evening, you’d get this, but the rest of the day that car would be off ferrying other people about.
Obviously there’s a lot to work out in the detail and a lot of this will come down to the legality of cars driving themselves around, but such a system could reduce the amount of cars required massively.
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From what I’ve seen from Tesla previously I think the idea is that you reduce the overall amount of cars by people only having them when they need them. So for example if you needed a car from the airport to your digs, then the next day to take you to Ceuse in the morning and take you back to your digs in the evening, you’d get this, but the rest of the day that car would be off ferrying other people about.
Obviously there’s a lot to work out in the detail and a lot of this will come down to the legality of cars driving themselves around, but such a system could reduce the amount of cars required massively.
This ^^
As a friend of mine (who's friends with head of Tesla UK) said, simply too much has now been invested in self driving cars for them not to happen. All the main manufacturers (as well as Uber, Apple etc..) are billions deep in investment in this.
Car ownership will fade in the future. After all, whats the point in owning £30k's worth of steel and Li-ion battery that spends 95% (or more) of its time sat doing nothing. You'll sign up to a club/service and a car will appear and take you to where you want to go - and disappear....
Johnny cab anyone?
(https://www.sfexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/sf.IDriveSF.0923.jpg)
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It'll certainly be interesting to watch it all unfold, whatever it ends up looking like. I can imagine the concept working well enough in cities/towns, I find it more difficult to imagine it working as well as the current system in rural areas. Maybe some hybrid of long-term lease for people in rural communities (long term being more than a day!).
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From what I’ve seen from Tesla previously I think the idea is that you reduce the overall amount of cars by people only having them when they need them. So for example if you needed a car from the airport to your digs, then the next day to take you to Ceuse in the morning and take you back to your digs in the evening, you’d get this, but the rest of the day that car would be off ferrying other people about.
Obviously there’s a lot to work out in the detail and a lot of this will come down to the legality of cars driving themselves around, but such a system could reduce the amount of cars required massively.
Yeah, most cars are used about 90% of the time, max. Typically less.
Most cars die from old age, not mileage. And they're built to last about as long mechanically as they do structurally. The whole design ethos could shift to having cars that could easily do a million miles*, but be used (collectively) for a much higher proportion of the time.
Ideally they'd be parked out of town, underground, charged and auto-driven on demand to your door. That way city parking is freed up for bike lanes.
Very easy for EVs so long as batteries can be replaced....economically and environmentally.
You're right though, EVs (under current grid, mining, production etc.) are just offshoring emissions and other environmental impacts. So we'll need to deal with that along the way.
Small busses with an uber style pickup with multiple drop-offs (shared flex route rides) would revolutionise city transport.
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It'll certainly be interesting to watch it all unfold, whatever it ends up looking like. I can imagine the concept working well enough in cities/towns, I find it more difficult to imagine it working as well as the current system in rural areas. Maybe some hybrid of long-term lease for people in rural communities (long term being more than a day!).
Yeah I think there’s always going to be outlying cases like holidaying in remote locales (where ICE may still be needed for some time?) and people who live in remote rural areas. But when you take the UK for example and see that the average annual mileage is <10k and average journeys are <10 miles there’s a lot of cars currently sat around they would come into play.
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From what I’ve seen from Tesla previously I think the idea is that you reduce the overall amount of cars by people only having them when they need them.
This +1. I haven't owned a car in 18 months and hope never to again. I will acknowledge three things immediately. A. I live in a city and one that is incredibly cycle friendly, and B. has great public transport (there has to be a bus or metro stop with 500m of every residence) and C. it's in a country with no climbing, so I'm not looking driving to climb all the time. So it's easy for me to be smug.
I've hired a car for a total of 12 days in that time, all for exactly the issue Pete identifies, rural trips (though one of them was possible by train). I used conventional car hire firms because, at the moment, they are still cheaper than car share schemes for multi-day periods. But there are lots of alternatives for shorter term needs. There are firms with their own fleets that can be picked up and dropped off anywhere in the city. I just went on a 20 minute walk and passed a couple, all electric, parked up. With the app I could have hired any of them on the spot and driven off. There also seems to be schemes where people hire out their private vehicles when they know are going to be idle, again via an app (not saying any of this is specific to Denmark, I'm sure there are similar all over UK cities). But all of it seems predicated on minimizing the time a car is not in use, combined with a set-up that makes it easy not to use a car for short journeys (and sky high taxes on new vehicles).
Personally I am very happy not owning a car.
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Unfortunately street car hire seems a way from seamless here.
We’ve good friends who live right in town and haven’t had a car for years. They use the Enterprise car club (there’s a spot for a couple of cars near them) and it’s sadly quite unreliable. Booked cars not being there - the keyless starting not working etc…
“Teething troubles” possibly and if the marketplace were bigger these issues would disappear as people would simply use another firm…
I expect in 10-20 years time we’ll all be wondering why we ever bothered to actually drive ourselves somewhere!
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Unfortunately street car hire seems a way from seamless here.
I've not tried it so maybe there are similar problems, but my vague impression is that it functions - and I'm sure you're right that time, and markets, will bring improvements. At the very least, being without a car begins to look viable.
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I expect in 10-20 years time we’ll all be wondering why we ever bothered to actually drive ourselves somewhere!
While I would love to be proven wrong I think this is very optimistic.
Waymo is the one of the most advanced companies doing self driving cars, yet despite 12 years of work, plenty of very clever people and billions in capital they're still only offering a very limited service in a single city in the US. Expanding that out to the point where no one drives themselves any more is a huge leap (culturally, legally and technologically).
From my outside perspective, it seems like the issue is that current self driving cars work extremely well 95% of the time, but that last 5% (driving in a snowstorm being a good example of a pathological case) is proving very stubborn, and for widespread adoption to become a reality you need to nail down that last 5% otherwise robot cars will start killing people which is always a bad look! Having said that, driving is already relatively dangerous, so maybe it's just a PR problem, and if self driving cars do work out as significantly safer on average then maybe adoption isn't so far off after all.
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Hi Remus - yes it’s interesting too that we’ve not heard much about the whole driverless car shebang for a while. Possibly EV’s and COVID are more in the limelight.
For me it’s basically a data and software problem. We’ve got the cars - got the sensors - so it’s about getting enough data to represent what dumbasses humans are to cover 99.99% (or a suitable number) of all driving eventualities. Then writing software to cope/cover that.
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From my outside perspective, it seems like the issue is that current self driving cars work extremely well 95% of the time, but that last 5% (driving in a snowstorm being a good example of a pathological case) is proving very stubborn, and for widespread adoption to become a reality you need to nail down that last 5% otherwise robot cars will start killing people which is always a bad look! Having said that, driving is already relatively dangerous, so maybe it's just a PR problem, and if self driving cars do work out as significantly safer on average then maybe adoption isn't so far off after all.
I think this is it, I bet that driverless cars are already way safer than someone driving and texting, but there’s always going to be a PR issue around a robot killing someone rather than another person, so the safety level is going to have to be magnitudes higher than human controlled driving before it’s accepted.
I’ve also read some articles previously about the sort of ‘trolley problem’ situations that having two or more self driving vehicles heading into a dangerous situation throw up. I’m sure the late stage capitalism solution will be that you’ll be able to pay more to make sure it’s the other car that gets in trouble!
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Plus if it disobeys the first law things get messy. I've seen I, Robot.
https://xkcd.com/1613/
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I think this is it, I bet that driverless cars are already way safer than someone driving and texting, but there’s always going to be a PR issue around a robot killing someone rather than another person, so the safety level is going to have to be magnitudes higher than human controlled driving before it’s accepted.
They are already statistically safer, though obviously the sample size and scenario variation for driverless are tiny compared to human driven vehicles. As said above, human error is tolerated, machine not so much. In the UK, breaking traffic laws is generally accepted. Though drink driving seems to have been reduced (though my mum's social circle still seem pretty fuzzy on what is legal), speeding, jumping red lights, driving along pavements etc is all tolerated.
Also in the UK, you have to get past the culture:
1. Cars are freedom - they allow people to go where they want, when they want. As our culture trends more and more to the "I want this now" side of the spectrum this is a very tough habit to break. Driverless pool cars won't provide you with this freedom.
2. Desire - they have been sold as an aspirational purchase for a long time. We are taught to aspire to owning a premium brand car, despite the fact it's on a deal that costs you more than your rent and sits outside your shitty apartment for 95% of it's life. If you've got a BMW/Audi etc, you've made it. This will slowly change to owning (well leasing) a Tesla/Polestar/eTron but the issue will be the same.
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Attitudes will slowly change. Remember back in the 60s and 70 smoking was cool and everyone did it, it was portrayed as aspirational (Peter Stuyvesant ads were the first time I ever saw skiing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nqdI1XJYXA).
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Attitudes will slowly change.
Time is not something we have a lot of.
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Calm down Captain Mainwaring :)
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Timely opinion piece in the telegraph today. I don't agree with the negativity of the tone or some of his details - prices of the cheaper shorter range EVs will likely be manageable for most people; and mining can also transition in part to lower carbon energy; and the comparisons of wind farms/gas-fired power stations etc. don't necessarily add up. But I do agree with the message that society should be more honest about the details behind the new infrastructure and tech we're transitioning to, which the early-adopters it appears to me often fail to acknowledge. Also agree that the transition risks pricing a lot of people out of travelling with the same freedom they've enjoyed for the last few decades (current travel restrictions excepted!). That there's a commodity supercycle is now beyond doubt and personally I'm doing extremely well out of it, some of my commodities investments are now up hundreds of percent - I doubt I'll be one of those priced out of travelling :)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/05/14/electric-cars-onwards-green-transition-will-unleash-monster/
''Green transition will unleash monster price rises and do nothing to save the planet
The mining capacity needed for the world to achieve net zero simply doesn't exist
It has become something of a cliche, but it also happens to be true. If you want to do your bit for the planet, forget Tesla and other super expensive electric vehicles; just carry on driving the same old gas-guzzling banger you’ve always had.
As much if not more carbon tends to be expended producing a new car as actually driving it. You are going to have to do an awful lot of miles in the old one before you match the carbon costs of buying a newer version.
It was a slightly different, but similar point that Carlos Tavares, chief executive of the world’s fifth-biggest car maker, Stellantis, was making this week when he said that “green inflation” could soon make owning a vehicle the preserve of the rich.
The prevailing narrative – both in the motor industry and among political leaders sold on the idea that the transition to an emission-free world can be accomplished without significant damage to lifestyles – is that as demand grows, the price of EVs will steadily come down until they are eventually accessible to all.
Not so, argues Tavares; the coming energy transition is going to be hugely resource intensive, driving up costs across the board. He didn’t quite spell it out, though he hinted at it, so let me do so instead; it is entirely plausible that the monumental carbon costs of establishing the new infrastructure needed for a net zero world, nevermind its physical cost, could itself trigger the very same environmental catastrophe it is supposed to forestall.
Green lobbyists vehemently dispute such claims, pointing out that though the transition will burn a lot of carbon initially, this will progressively decrease, eventually disappearing entirely.
Yet whatever the modelling used, it is pretty much unarguable that going green will, to begin with, create a huge surge in global emissions. The transition will also result in myriad other forms of environmental and biodiversity destruction.
Reducing our emissions here in Britain isn’t going to be of much use if all we are in fact doing is exporting them. A large part of that reduction stems from the decline in old, energy intensive smokestack industries, priced out of the market in part by rising energy costs.
The solar panels that litter the landscape allow our own coal powered stations to be switched off, but are likely to have been manufactured in China using the very same as the main energy source. By reducing our own emissions, we are paradoxically only increasing them at a global level.
Ministers worry about how to save the sad remnants of Britain’s once mighty steel industry, but for PR purposes refuse to sanction a new mine in Cumbria that would provide the relatively low cost coking coal that might help, preferring instead a long winded public inquiry and in the meantime the much higher carbon footprint of importing the stuff from Russia and beyond.
Already the coming energy transition is driving a quite considerable jump in inflation. One of the big stories of the week has been a surge in US consumer price inflation to more than 4 per cent, the highest level in more than 10 years. The US Federal Reserve insists that the increase is only temporary. Believe it if you will; not many people at the coal face of rising prices do.
Nor does Ivan Glasenberg, boss of one of the world’s largest mining finance houses, Glencore, who this week pointed out that the Chinese were progressively “tying up” great swathes of the world supply of cobalt, the metal needed for the lithium ion batteries used in longer range EVs.
In a report published last week, the International Energy Agency found that an energy transition such as the one planned by President Biden in the US, if applied globally, would cause demand for key minerals such as lithium, graphite, nickel and rare-earth metals to explode, rising by 4,200 per cent, 2,500 per cent, 1,900 per cent and 700 per cent respectively by 2040.
As things stand, the capacity needed to bring about such a transformation simply doesn’t exist. Massive, emission inducing investment in new sources of supply is required to meet the likely demand.
“The mineral requirements of an energy system powered by clean energy technologies differ profoundly from one that runs on fossil fuels”, explains Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA. “A typical electric car requires six times the mineral inputs of a conventional car, and an onshore wind plant requires nine times more mineral resources than a similarly sized gas-fired power plant. The energy sector’s overall needs for critical minerals could increase by as much as six times by 2040 [on current plans for reducing emissions]”.
Another commodities super-cycle, similar to ones driven, first, by industrial renewal after the second world war and later by Chinese industrialisation beckons, powering a seminal shift into a new inflationary age. None of this to argue that we shouldn’t even be trying. It’s just that the politicians need to be a bit more honest about the consequences, as well as less starry eyed about the prospects of success.''
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The surge in carbon usage that you assert will happen makes plenty of assumptions based on previous industrial practices on maximising profit and short termism. This is the age of climate change and there are many people out there going about this change with genuine foresight.
I encourage you to watch this Pete https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOHjIav97HM&t=1173s
All of these' statistics' quoted by lobby groups (of which the IEA is one https://johnmenadue.com/fossil-fuel-lobbyists-modus-operandi-impact-solutions/) are hilarious. “The mineral requirements of an energy system powered by clean energy technologies differ profoundly from one that runs on fossil fuels”, explains Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA. “A typical electric car requires six times the mineral inputs of a conventional car, and an onshore wind plant requires nine times more mineral resources than a similarly sized gas-fired power plant. The energy sector’s overall needs for critical minerals could increase by as much as six times by 2040 [on current plans for reducing emissions]”
you are quoting fossil fuel lobbyists
"Nine times", this "six times" that. No mention of that once operational the carbon production of a wind farm is near zero. Conveniently omitting the fact that the operational cost of a gas plant are not really the issue. The issue being that all the gas is SET ON FIRE after.
The similarly amazing argument as 'So much energy is needed to make a battery compared to a fuel tank'... yes, which you then fill with fuel over and over again and SET It ON FIRE.
In many of these arguments against electric vehicles the arguments of initial carbon outlay are overhyped. Yep, you have to build new infrastructure which requires carbon outlay, but that doesn't mean we should all just say 'fuck it' lets carry on the same and hope for the best.
Burning fuels as a way of life, and a way of some people getting rich is on the way out. I don't really think the opinions of Ivan Glasberg ( or to give him his full title; Multi billionaire Coal Magnate Ivan Glasberg) are going to be particularly even handed.
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Classic Telegraph. As Scouse says, light on any detail, just hand-waving about things needing energy to be made. The lifetime energy budgets are easily available, but not quoted. Takeaway is you might as well carry on as you were, which is exactly what their readership want to hear.
None of this to argue that we shouldn’t even be trying.
HA!
[/quote] It’s just that the politicians need to be a bit more honest about the consequences, as well as less starry eyed about the prospects of success.''[/quote]
Perhaps spelling out the prospects of failure might have been a better use of his time.
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Pretty certain I’m not asserting anything mr scouse d. I’m not interested in taking at face value lobbyists from any walk of life. I’m just interested in details. Find the defensive tone of your response just as off-putting as mr coal’s (inaccurate) assertions tbh.
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Apologies if you weren't asserting. It's difficult to see from your post which parts are you and which are the quotes you've used.
"As things stand, the capacity needed to bring about such a transformation simply doesn’t exist. Massive, emission inducing investment in new sources of supply is required to meet the likely demand."
or
"Yet whatever the modelling used, it is pretty much unarguable that going green will, to begin with, create a huge surge in global emissions. The transition will also result in myriad other forms of environmental and biodiversity destruction."
If it was a quote then the person you are quoting is asserting, with my point being that this is a totally flawed assertion. I originally read these as being your words not the words of the telegraph journalist.
By posting the telegraph article I (perhaps incorrectly) assume that you agree with the general sentiment in which case I still recommend the viewing of the video.
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Ahem..
I don't agree with the negativity of the tone or some of his details - prices of the cheaper shorter range EVs will likely be manageable for most people; and mining can also transition in part to lower carbon energy; and the comparisons of wind farms/gas-fired power stations etc. don't necessarily add up.
However..
if you believe that the quotes in the article, about there not being the mining capacity to bring about the electrification required to achieve global net zero, are untrue then it’s you who is deeply mistaken. This is absolutely the case and I could send you study after study that shows this - not written by old-world energy sector lobbyists but by EV industry analysts.
It’s the reason why I’ve been heavily invested in the mining of nickel, tin and copper (and doing massively well out of it) for the last few years. The picture for those three metalsespecially are excellent from an investor’s POV.. or worrying, depending which angle you look at it from.
The environmental impact about to be unleashed by the massive investment into new mines required by the transition to electric is going to be on a scale not seen since post WW2 rebuilding. People who aren’t invested in the mining industry appear to have their heads in the sand about the required scale of the coming development.
I’m also heavily invested in EV battery r&d companies.. solid state will be a game changer for resource use but it’s not going to happen overnight.
That article has many faults, but it’s likely correct that the next ten years will see a short term carbon increase, or at least not much of any decrease, while the world mines and builds out this new industry. I’m of the opinion it’s far better to know the details about the relative impacts of things. Not because I think the way we do things shouldn’t change but because we can make informed choices rather than get led down paths by zealots of any cause.
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I keep in contact with my erstwhile colleagues in Italy and Electric motors are their “thing”.
They’re raving about this, today, by coincidence. I’m not able to tell if it’s as revolutionary as they seem to think, but I’ve read four or five different write ups on it this afternoon and it seems quite promising:
https://www.motor1.com/news/507298/mahle-magnet-free-electric-motor/ (https://www.motor1.com/news/507298/mahle-magnet-free-electric-motor/)
Sorry, meant to say, so copper probably a good investment, rare earth metals, not so much.
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We still don't know which car Paul's mother-in-law should buy, proving our utter uselessness.
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Great video that Scouse, good find. It seems like as the economies of scale kick in the increase in efficiency should massively offset the potential environmental impact.
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Great video that Scouse, good find. It seems like as the economies of scale kick in the increase in efficiency should massively offset the potential environmental impact.
Yes, we might only need 14 major new copper mines within the next ten years instead of 15 new mines. Oh hang on - copper has nothing much to do with the batteries in an EV, it's needed to roll out the new low-carbon energy infrastructure. Scrap that, 15 new copper mines it is. :)
Did I mention the new tin mine the size of Alphamin's Bisie resource in the DRC required every year for the next ten years required for the solder in circuit boards among other energy infrastructure uses?
*numbers made up entirely for purposes of illustration, and as a counter to wind up the 'EVs are flowers and unicorns' people. There are plenty of industry reports available giving estimates and insight. Here for e.g.
https://roskill.com/market-reports/
https://roskill.com/sustainability-cost-analysis/
http://info.gorozen.com/2021-q1-market-commentary-problems-with-copper
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/
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Cant seem to get past a paywall on any of those links. From the abstracts they all seem to be links saying that we need to mine lots of metals for batteries or am I missing something?
The key for me is that as EVs and the green economy take off there will be less and less burning of fossil fuels. I don't see any reason not to be optimistic about a future where the human race doesn't rely of the unsustainable act of burning said fuels.
Seems a little unnecessarily antagonistic to try to bait by saying 'EVs are flowers and Unicorns' but maybe I'm just a sensitive flower.
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Yep, you're missing a lot. And yes I'm being antagonistic, my bad.
To state it simply: there's probably not enough copper to achieve the greenhouse emissions goals that governments worldwide have stated they want to achieve. And there isn't enough investment in new copper supply to meet the future demand. The same for tin. Plus maybe some other essential metals. This is likely to lead to volatile side effects.
The stated goal of governments globally is to meet the climate change goal of limiting global temperature increase to 2 degrees above 1990 levels. What matters for greenhouse gas emissions is massive global change not what happens in the UK or Norway. Important to have countries leading the way and developing the tech etc. but there's a bigger story developing in the background about the lack of resources to make the transition.
You can have a transport system of EVs powered by electricity generated by fossil fuels, or you can run EVs on electricity generated by low-carbon and carbon-free sources.
Copper is fundamental to the new electrical infrastructure required for the transition of the worlds' electricity generation to low-carbon sources - new power stations, wind farms, solar farms, tidal generation, hydro power, battery storage, distribution cables, sub-stations, charging infrastructure and a thousand other new moving parts in the new system. All this new electrical infrastructure is required in every developing and developed country globally, hence it requires a shit load of copper over the next 30 years. It's not much use for global emissions for middle class people in the UK (which has done quite well decarbonising its electricity grid) virtue signalling about their Tesla charging on a green tariff if the rest of the world can't achieve the same thing due to the lack of the basic resources required. As things stand there probably isn't going to be enough to make the plan work.
There are loads of factors in the background, if you read into why supply is insufficient to meet demand you'll read a story of factors all happening around the time we need more, not less, supply. investment has been lacking, but also factors such as the risky jurisdictions where new copper mines are located, the nationalising of resources (Chile, Peru notable e.g's), one being inflation - the price of copper ( and tin) is barnstorming now and within 2-5 years risks being high enough that it damages demand due to being unaffordable for use in the construction of the new infrastructure. The circle is vicious.
Aluminium can substitute the copper in many cases but it comes with it's own carbon footprint problems. Price of aluminium is also likely to see strong growth from higher demand. We're entering an inflationary period, for all sorts of commodities, not just the metals. Copper is one but the story is similar for other metals needed to achieve the stated goal of accelerated energy transition required to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Bear in mind this increased demand is required alongside the normal growth of consumer demand as population increases. Tin is the stand out - required in everything to do with automation and anything with a circuit board. But also required in parts of the battery tech in EVs. Your consumer electronics are likely about to become a lot more expensive, people are already hoarding laptops now because they expect the prices to rocket in the next few years due to circuit board shortages. The shortage of circuit boards is, like copper, a demand and supply problem - demand is increasing from various new tech some linked to decarbonisation of the power supply grid but many other uses too. Picture for tin supply is tight and not expected to grow in line with demand, due to various factors including smelter closures in China, Myanmar conflict, historical lack of investment in new mines, and the poor ESG of much tin mining - 'conflict tin' and environmental damage from alluvial tin mining. As per copper, this story has created massive inflation of tin prices which in turn risks overheating to the point of demand destruction as it becomes unaffordable. Demand destruction leads to supply reduction. Vicious circle.
None of the issues are insurmountable, recycling will make a bit of impact, scrap used to power electric arc furnaces for steelmaking for e.g. is a growing technology, substitution to cheaper materials will probably have to happen, new tech will be developed in all sorts of areas required for efficiency gains. But I think there's an increased likelihood we see mass civil unrest linked to this supply shortage narrative, and a high likelihood of resource conflicts between the major powers within the next 10 years in proxy conflicts with the root cause being the supply of basic resources such as tin, copper and other commodities required for the manufacture of advanced civil and military technologies. The US has got itself into a vulnerable position by not securing the supply of essential resources it requires while China has prepared well by hoarding resources or monopolising the metals processing industry.
In such an inflationary and supply shortage picture, an obvious alternative path is that some governments choose to regress to the obvious relatively cheap and plentiful alternative - fossil fuels - and slow their transition over to low carbon electricity. Mass-scale affordable carbon capture and storage technology could encourage this, and there are interesting investment stories in that area emerging right now.
I think the transition to low carbon electricity generation is inspiring and exciting and I'm looking forward to changing over to an EV. But I like to know the details, I think most people considering EVs in the UK haven't got a clue what's really going on with the supply of natural resources required for the electricity supply of the whole world to transition from fossil fuels - not just for the middle-class virtue-signallers of the lake districts of this world to make the transition. Or what's likely to play out politically over the next 10-30 years as a result of the resource demands caused by this change. So I tend to view early adopters' signalling about their green credentials as vapid and meaningless gesturing; far better for a global problem like climate change would be to try to understand the bigger picture and address the problems. Of course it would all have been better if governments had been braver and started the transition in the early 90s, but we all like low prices and low taxes..
If you want to understand more here's a non-paywalled 2 part series on the problem of copper supply for the global energy transition, with various links to go off into:
https://www.woodmac.com/news/opinion/will-a-lack-of-supply-growth-come-back-to-bite-the-copper-industry/
https://www.woodmac.com/news/opinion/build-or-buy-are-the-copper-majors-rising-to-the-growth-challenge/
Substitution copper/aluminium, high price of copper etc:
https://www.woodmac.com/news/opinion/could-soaring-prices-see-copper-fly-too-close-to-the-sun/
Here's a link to a report on the role of scrap recycling:
https://www.woodmac.com/news/opinion/is-the-energy-transition-road-paved-with-scrap-metal/
Here's something on the current moves by countries towards resource nationalism:
https://www.maplecroft.com/insights/analysis/resource-nationalism-surges-in-2020-covid-19-worsens-outlook/
Future copper supply versus demand:
(https://www.woodmac.com/siteassets/article-images/2021/q1/mm/chart---copper-demand-versus-mine-supply-.png?width=1800&height=0&mode=crop¢er=0.5,0.5)
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Thanks Pete, I will read those later.
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Hold on.
So, not only is there not a magic money tree; there isn't a magic copper tree either?
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Hold on.
So, not only is there not a magic money tree; there isn't a magic copper tree either?
Yes there is. It’s next to the magic 8A tree!
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Had a read Pete and they are interesting pieces but not surprising. For the entirety of my lifetime the petroleum industry has found ways around the finite nature of their raw material of choice, plumbing greater depths and coming up with ingenious solutions to suck every drop of oil from the earth. That there are not enough known sources of copper on earth comes as no surprise and even with the potential unknown reserves that they have factored in to their analysis there is still a shortfall also comes as no surprise. My prediction is that the copper will be found because where there is copper there is money. You clearly have your finger on the pulse when it comes to investing so it will be interesting to see how it pans out.
The marvellous thing from all of this is that the world is moving away from oil. I am under no illusions that this transition is not going to be without vast logistical challenges and potentially some short term environmental issues (we seem to agree on this point) but this is a paradigm shift and a lot of industries and investors are going to have to adapt quickly to avoid being left behind.
I feel that we agree on many issues Pete, maybe I am slightly more optimistic about the future than you?
I am not an early adopter just so you know. I drive a dirty diesel but will never buy another ICE vehicle. I've not met anyone who drives an EV who I would consider to be virtue signalling, just nice people who didnt want to put petrol in their cars anymore. I love seeing more and more EVs on the roads as they signify a global shift in attitudes and an increasingly significant shift away from burning fuels.
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EV’s are the only ‘acceptable*’ way to tackle urban air pollution over generational time scales.
*(As in something I could envisage happening given our societal love of the car…)
Scouse has some good points. I fully expect there to be enough copper - raise the price enough and you shift the scope of prospection further - underwater mining for example. The same argument was raised about Oil 30-40 years ago, and we still seem to find remote untouched parts of the planet where there is enough…
By then I expect we may have found an alternative…
I find it odd hearing about your copper investments in seemingly every other post Pete. Maybe keep them to your investment thread? :)
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Talking about EVs without talking about copper and the other metals required to build the low-carbon electricity supply is like talking about internal combustion engines without talking about fossil fuels. I'll keep talking about it. :)
You're also probably incorrect about plentiful copper and raising prices. Raise prices enough and you destroy demand and price out the average consumer. Substitutions then apply, but only if the substitution is cheap enough - aluminium estimated to also become expensive.
As for plentiful copper - if you'd read the literature you'd know the copper mining industry can't lower their cut-off grades much more than they have. The industry has been lowering the economic cut-off grade for years to increase their resources without spending capex on exploration. The limit has been reached - see the log curve distribution of a typical porphyry deposit for the reason why (it drops off sharply at the left tail).
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Less exciting than underwater mining, it is just the cost of recovery. E.g., for oil, $150 a barrel would let you drill much deeper, to a smaller amount of poor quality oil, in a more logistically difficult area and use enhanced recovery methods, than $30 a barrel. When people talk of oil reserves take into account the oil price, whereas resource does not.
For metals this will mean that significantly lower grade deposits, previously written off because production costs much more than the value of the the metal. Seafloor mining is one extreme end of this, sure, but the main realistic impact would be on those low grade deposits.
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The industry has been lowering the economic cut-off grade for years to increase their resources without spending capex on exploration. .
Shouldn't they just spend capex on exploration? Genuine question.
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Seems the concept of 'Peak Copper' is even more widely discounted than that of Peak Oil...
This is old - but an interesting read... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_copper
I fully expect Pete to come back with a rebuttal, but
The US Geological Survey estimated that, as of 2013, there remained 3.5 billion metric tons of undiscovered copper resources worldwide in porphyry and sediment-hosted type deposits, two types which currently provide 80% of mined copper production. This was in addition to 2.1 billion metric tons of identified resources. Combined identified and estimated undiscovered copper resources were 5.6 billion metric tons,[34] 306 times the 2013 global production of newly mined copper of 18.3 million metric tons.
(global production about 20 mill tons now..)
The last section (criticisms) is quite an interesting rebuke of the whole Peak commodity argument...
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Yes, it's easy to rebut your - unresearched - assertion that there's plenty of copper at affordable prices.
Read this, it mentions your US Geological Survey and explains the depletion problem and why the copper industry can't continue to lower cut-off grades any further.
https://f.hubspotusercontent40.net/hubfs/4043042/Commentaries/2021.Q1%20Commentary/2021.Q1%20Goehring%20%26%20Rozencwajg%20Market%20Commentary.pdf
Copper mining companies aren't charities - the economic cut-off grade is everything in mining, go below it and you spend money to extract uneconomic waste rock. Prices can go to the moon but the log curve of a porphyry deposit means that below a certain cut-off the economics will never work out.
Also this blog gives you some similar pointers, and mentions the problems with your US Geological survey - one problem being jurisdiction risk (remember Chile and Peru from my post higher up..). https://aheadoftheherd.com/copper-con/
Or, just use your eyes TT. The copper price isn't a flash in the pan. You could accept evidence from people who've spent careers analysing commodities industries or you could believe a wikipedia page. I get the impression you'd rather believe what you want to hear rather than what the evidence suggests. If you think there's no shortage of economic copper to meet current and future demand then you'll need to refute the current market conditions using something a bit more credible than a wikipedia page.
None of which is meant to imply that I'm a ramping 'peak copper' zealot - I'm doing very well out of it thanks but I'd rather there were plenty of cheap resources for a seamless global clean energy transition. I find it weird that no-one is talking about what's going on in front of their eyes. And when it's pointed out, people want to go lalala.
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The industry has been lowering the economic cut-off grade for years to increase their resources without spending capex on exploration. .
Shouldn't they just spend capex on exploration? Genuine question.
Capex is increasing this year, but there are problems (remember jurisdiction risk - why on earth would any company now invest capex in mining exploration in Chile - world's largest producer of copper, or Peru, to have 75% of their margin taken by the government when they could have 40% taken off elsewhere).
https://www.bnamericas.com/en/news/mining-capex-set-to-rise-as-greener-economy-boosts-copper-deficit
Easier to just quote one of the Wood Mac reports (https://www.woodmac.com/news/opinion/build-or-buy-are-the-copper-majors-rising-to-the-growth-challenge/):
Grade decline and depletions: a never-ending story
As anyone familiar with copper mining knows, grade decline and attrition is a constant issue. The industry has to continually replenish supply just to maintain output. Add to that the impact of increased demand and the need for investment quickly accumulates.
To meet our base case demand and counter grade decline and depletions over the next ten years, we estimate the industry will need to commit around an additional US$130 bn to deliver a further 6.5 million tonnes of copper supply per year (Mt/a). Adopting a two-degree climate change pathway — our Accelerated Energy Transition Scenario -2 (AET-2) — would add around a further 9 Mt/a by 2030, taking the total investment requirement to an eye-watering US$325 bn.
Is this achievable? Clearly it would stretch investor appetite and corporate financing capability, potentially to breaking point. Given lead times, investment needs to be mobilised in the next two to three years – and even this won't prevent market shortages mid-decade, which are essentially 'baked in’ due to insufficient elasticity of supply.
Is there a shortage of copper projects?
The 17 Mt of identified projects available to be green-lighted may seem more than enough to meet demand. However, many projects are in risky jurisdictions, with complicated geology and construction, ever-more-stringent ESG requirements and lower than ideal internal rates of return: not the usual hunting grounds of the copper Majors, who tend to prefer the richer pickings of low-risk jurisdictions and long-life, low-cost assets.
These issues notwithstanding, the challenge of meeting demand largely comes down to timing. The market and the wider industry looks to the major copper miners to take the lead in sanctioning projects and the expression of confidence in new markets that this projects. That they have been in no rush to develop projects is perhaps surprising, given their own assertions that the energy transition is a one-way ticket to the stars.
How are the copper Majors performing on market share?
Basically, the copper Majors are not even treading water in terms of market share. We classify a Major as an entity that owns at least 500 kilotonnes per year (kt/a), or could produce in excess of 500 kt/a of mined copper through base case and potential expansions, whether committed or not. There are 13 entities that meet these criteria and collectively they accounted for nearly 10 Mt/a of copper production in 2020, for a global market share of 47%.
However, the major copper producers will collectively experience a net decline in output of 800 kt/a by 2030, without further project development. Set against an increase in market demand of around 6 Mt/a, this means the Majors’ collective market share will decline to just 34% (assuming no further projects are sanctioned). The situation will become acute by 2040 when, without further investment, the ‘Big 13’ copper Majors’ output will decline to 7 Mt/a, or less than 25% of global output.
Can the copper Majors arrest the decline in their output?
Collectively, the Majors own equity in as-yet-unsanctioned projects with an attributable output of 7 Mt/a that could potentially be brought online by 2030. Enough in theory to cover booming energy transition demand and raise market share – but only under a 3-degree base case outlook. And many projects will fall by the wayside, while others will be delayed or deferred.
We believe it is highly unlikely that a significant proportion will be green-lighted to come on stream in the second half of the decade. Those that are will almost certainly take longer than estimated to deliver, given there will be myriad mine projects for energy transition commodities competing for project delivery resources.
Winners and losers in the growth race
Assuming all the probable and possible projects in their portfolios are sanctioned, Freeport-McMoRan Inc. and Anglo American plc stand out as having the largest net growth potential at around 1 Mt/a and 0.8 Mt/a respectively, with each company increasing their market share by 2.5 percentage points by 2030.
Grupo México (including SPCC) claims ownership of the largest reserves in the industry, and also has the potential to raise its production by around 0.8 Mt/a, equivalent to an increase in market share of just over 1.7 percentage points.
Glencore plc has the largest potential project-based growth of around 1.1 Mt/a but will suffer from a significant drop-off in base supply of -0.5 Mt/a over the period: as a result its potential market share only rises by one percentage point.
Other major producers’ increases in market share will each be less than one percentage point — hardly a land grab. This begs the question: where is the growth to match the ambitious increase in demand projected by many of the same producers? With one or two exceptions, there is a mismatch between copper’s green growth story and actual ’boots on the ground’ project development.
Could boards become heroes by doing nothing?
Of course, the cynic might argue that it’s in producers’ interests to hold off developing supply. As demand rises inexorably, and absent project development, shortages increase and prices continue to rise.
For miners that means greater free cashflow and profit generation. With capital expenditure constrained, dividends remain high or even increase and company valuations rise, heralding the return of miners as growth stocks.
For an investor, what’s not to like? So long as the capital destruction of the last super-cycle remains a dim, distant memory, the party begins in earnest and boards become the life and soul simply by sitting on their hands.
Should the Majors buy their way out of trouble?
However, that’s a pretty shortsighted view. Without the music of project development to keep things moving the party will eventually grind to a halt. Investors will seek growth in copper supply to cash in on demand and may look elsewhere if it is not apparent. Worse than that, unreasonably high prices combined with a lack of visibility on reliable, ESG-compliant supply could bring forth the spectre of substitution as consumers look to alternatives.
The question then becomes whether to build or buy? While it leaves the fundamental issue of a lack of overall project development unresolved, companies may choose to buy their growth. With borrowing costs low, equity valuation not yet at its peak now may well be the time to consider this option. Acquisition could offer an attractive opportunity to take a bigger bite out of the copper pie, attaching lower and known risks, and a guaranteed production stream. It could become a feeding frenzy.
Whichever way investors tilt the activity of their boards, action is needed and that is what is missing. To quote Sir Winston Churchill, “I never worry about action, but only inaction,” and it is inaction on project development that has to be a concern.
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Yes, it's easy to rebut your - unresearched - assertion that there's plenty of copper at affordable prices.
I never mentioned price. I never suggested that it was cheap, expensive or affordable (BTW - I'd avoid affordable as it is a very elastic term - as the affordability depends on how important it is balanced with how much money you have) simply that there are loads and loads of copper resources - many of which are not economic to exploit at the moment - but that may well change. Not being facetious - just its important to the above point!
FWIW, I've worked with the Uranium mining industry for nearly 20 years now - and one thing I've learnt about the big mining corps is that they're in this for the long term. They'll happily dig something out and leave it in a big pile for tens of years until the price is right to process and sell it. I've seen mines mothballed, reopened, thrive, threat with closure (and repeat) during this period as the price waxes and wanes.
Theres a classic case of the long game where they found a red hot uranium deposit in Arnhem land (Traditional Owners land) and with little permission dug it out (long incline shaft) found out how much it was worth (A LOT) then put it all back again and filled up the hole. Knowing the present political situation (1980's) meant they were unable to extract it - but legally had a 'claim' to when the owners of the land changed (the ruling councils change from time to time). Its still there - but when the price is right....
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Raise prices enough and you destroy demand and price out the average consumer.
What's copper/tin as a % of final system price for most of these things? I have no idea for most stuff.. for solar it's certainly small enough that its v v unlikely to drive demand elasticity. The biggest driver in a panel (polysilicon) has gone up 3x recently with limited impact on demand (will come down again, that's just a fluctuation). if EV is cheaper than ICE even with high copper price you might find demand "surprisingly" resilient to price (if EV is a key driver of demand).
There's no doubt we're moving to a hugely more electrified world so questions around resources for this are definitely key questions...
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I never mentioned price. I never suggested that it was cheap, expensive or affordable (BTW - I'd avoid affordable as it is a very elastic term - as the affordability depends on how important it is balanced with how much money you have) simply that there are loads and loads of copper resources - many of which are not economic to exploit at the moment - but that may well change. Not being facetious - just its important to the above point!
Not having you get away with that caveat TT - you can't say you 'fully expect there to be enough copper', have me point out to you that actually no - there isn't enough copper for the expected demand from the coming energy transition to reduce emissions in line with 2% above 1990s, alongside general GDP growth - and then claim 'ah.. what I meant was there's loads but it's uneconomic to mine'. :lol:
I've already pointed out to you that much of the copper is uneconomic to mine. I've pointed out the reason why it's uneconomic to mine, and I've also posted why this isn't gong to change - the point you're missing is the economics aren't elastic beyond a point and the industry is v.near that point.
As I said but will say again.. copper mining majors have been working down the cut-off grades of their resources to the bare minimum since around 2013 (to around 0.20 - 0.25%) in order to increase or maintain their reserves/resources while skimping on exploration capex. Problem being, the grade distribution curve of typical copper porphyries means that the low grade on left tail of the curve drops off so sharply that below this cut-off grade the price of copper could go to the moon on a stick but the exponential decline in grade would still make that copper uneconomic to dig out, due to the massive amount of waste needing to be shifted to extract the ore. That's the stage the copper industry is now at according to many analysts. Without massive capex for exploration there isn't the supply. And its compounded by pressures of ESG and some S.American states wanting 75% tax take.
Yes there are plenty of 'new' old resources that used to be uneconomic which are being developed with new eyes and new tech (and new copper prices) - I'm invested in one prime example (Meridian Minming), which is an old BP Minerals/ Rio Tinto gold-copper deposit that was abandoned after the gold price tanked in the late 80s. They didn't touch the copper back then because it wasn't economic; it's now worth a fortune. They also left behind any gold below their 3 g/t cut-off grade. Today that cut-off for gold is highly profitable. The industry is full of such investment narratives.. it doesn't alter the picture that the world is very likely going to experience a short and medium term copper supply deficit (already in one some would say).
Uranium apparently set to do very well out of Biden's green policies.. Haven't taken much interest in the state of play but keep reading snippets. Happy to focus on copper tin and nickel for now!
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Raise prices enough and you destroy demand and price out the average consumer.
What's copper/tin as a % of final system price for most of these things? I have no idea for most stuff.. for solar it's certainly small enough that its v v unlikely to drive demand elasticity. The biggest driver in a panel (polysilicon) has gone up 3x recently with limited impact on demand (will come down again, that's just a fluctuation). if EV is cheaper than ICE even with high copper price you might find demand "surprisingly" resilient to price (if EV is a key driver of demand).
There's no doubt we're moving to a hugely more electrified world so questions around resources for this are definitely key questions...
I should have been clearer, by 'consumer' I meant the consumer of the copper materials needed to construct the electrical infrastructure required for a low-carbon electrified world. So the governments, private companies and end users of that infrastructure. Rather than individual car purchasers. It all comes down to the consumer eventually though, either through tax rises or higher unit prices.
As for individual EVs versus ICE vehicles, I don't know the % of price attributable to the copper components. A very quick search suggest EV's use 3 -4 times more copper than an ICE but I don't know the overall price breakdown.
https://www.woodmac.com/news/opinion/copper-powering-up-the-electric-vehicle/
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Maybe this is part of Elon’s Space X long plan!
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032063320303056
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Maybe this is part of Elon’s Space X long plan!
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032063320303056
Oi belta! Someones been inspired to do some science after watching the Expanse :D
(though asteroid mining has been around for ages as an idea... is it another one of Arthur C. Clarkes ones?)
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Test drove an iD3 this morning.
Very pleasant - just super easy to drive/use. Felt a bit spartan, but I quite liked that.
It (EV's) did feel like the future when I got back into my oil burner...
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Test drove an iD3 this morning.
Very pleasant - just super easy to drive/use. Felt a bit spartan, but I quite liked that.
It (EV's) did feel like the future when I got back into my oil burner...
Anecdotal, but when we had our eGolf delivered, the delivery guy was saying how great they were and how he would avoid the iD3 and 4 for a while as they had a few teething problems. The examples he gave were around central locking and alarms (I’d say the electrics if it was a petrol car, but that wouldn’t convey the right story in this case!).
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Anecdotal, but when we had our eGolf delivered, the delivery guy was saying how great they were and how he would avoid the iD3 and 4 for a while as they had a few teething problems. The examples he gave were around central locking and alarms (I’d say the electrics if it was a petrol car, but that wouldn’t convey the right story in this case!).
Cheers - yes - lots of issues with the software looking at the forums. Leading to central control modules needing to be replaced - that can now be fixed with a software update... Apparently. Its about a year on since they were launched so think much (maybe not all?) of these have been fixed by now... The one I drove didnt seem laggy or slow with the screen/software... Bit of wind noise - but could have just been louder due to a lack of any engine noise.
It was very competitively priced - especially when they offered me £6k for my existing car when the We Buy any Car / Online trade in value is £3-3.5k.... effectively giving a 2-3k dealer discount on top of the govts £2.5 and another £1k from some other offer...
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Our iD3 arrived last week, not driven it loads yet but so far so good. Actual driving is super simple and drama free, plenty of space in the cabin and a pleasant enough place to be.
Controls via the touchscreen will take some getting used to, but I'd imagine that is probably the same with most new cars ICE or electric as touchscreens now rule the world it seems. The stereo / speakers certainly aren't great and the interior isn't 'luxurious', but I'd say it's really a £20k car that happens to cost closer to £40k due to the battery tech, so fine when considered in those terms. And the app is woeful - so bad that so far we haven't actually managed to connect to the car, but as it barely does anything anyway that is no biggy at the moment.
It is primarily for my wife's commute and general errands and will be brilliant for that, I think for now we will still use my A6 for longer trips but that might change as we get used to it.
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👏👏
I put down a deposit on one (iD3) yesterday! Couple of weeks until delivery. Loved it on the test drives… bit excited - bit nervous!
Wangled a bit more discount and the numbers seemed to stack up so…..
Looking forward to losing the diesel….
id3forums.co.uk seems to have a healthy number of posts - they might be able to help?
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Just for completeness, we sold the BMW via We Buy Any Car for a very good price (better than any trade in we've been offered). We had no private interest (literally not a single phonecall).
I believe Nat may have been tough during negotiations: "what, have you not heard of T-cut?" :tumble:
My MiL is going to consider her options further, sticking with the 1.0 Fiesta for now.
Personally I've just read about the Renault 5 electric :-*
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Does anyone out there know the sketch re leasing an electric car through a business. I've done a fair bit of googling and keep getting conflicting info about whether its worth it or not, and what the tax breaks are etc.
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has anyone tried the Kia Niro EV? Looking to replace a VW Tiguan and this seems one of the closer models out there.
Key requirements for me will be ability to fit a couple of organic pads in the boot (seems a bunch of the EVs out there have quite small boots due to the batteries?) as well as the ability to stuff a few surfboards across the middle of the interior too.
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Had a hybrid niro, so not a direct comparison. Drove OK, could hustle at reasonable speeds along country roads but it felt quite vague and unengaging.
I had to take off the parcel shelf to fit an Ocun Paddy and my shitty old thin BD pad.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Vg5NWbvmBo6jtVoZ8
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Hyundai Ioniq 5 is a bit bigger but looks like a great choice.
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Controls via the touchscreen will take some getting used to, but I'd imagine that is probably the same with most new cars ICE or electric as touchscreens now rule the world it seems. The stereo / speakers certainly aren't great and the interior isn't 'luxurious', but I'd say it's really a £20k car that happens to cost closer to £40k due to the battery tech, so fine when considered in those terms. And the app is woeful - so bad that so far we haven't actually managed to connect to the car, but as it barely does anything anyway that is no biggy at the moment.
Sounds absolutely shit
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A cost compassion between EV and ICE, for a nissan leaf versus ford focus.
https://monevator.com/comparing-the-cost-of-electric-car-ownership/
Quite good I thought for a basic template which you can apply to any vehicle comparison (the comments are worth reading for more info). What it doesn't include though is the proposed (I think, maybe it's still secret?..) road tax changes as the UK pivots out of ICE into EV. We're undoubtedly imo heading for widespread toll roads to replace lost fuel tax revenue. So you won't be saving money on road tax.
DIY electricity gen is going to explode in popularity over next 20 years..
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Some background info on the (solid) state of play in battery tech, from a recent news release by one of the battery companies I'm invested in. Solid state batteries 'to reach energy densities that will exceed li-ion cells by end of next year'.
https://www.lse.co.uk/rns/IKA/proposed-placing-open-offer-and-retail-offer-864ismq99acompl.html
''Designs of conventional large format lithium ion cells are reaching their maximum theoretical energy density of 300-350 Wh/kg. Solid state cell designs offer the promise of theoretical energy densities of 475-525 Wh/kg depending on the choice of architecture and materials. Developers around the world are designing and making prototype solid state cells that are gradually increasing in energy density. These new designs are expected to yield energy densities that will exceed conventional lithium ion cells in 2022 and move towards the theoretical limit of such designs over the next five years.''
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Came across this website, it lists companies worldwide that carry out battery pack replacements and range extenders for Nissan EVs.
https://nissanleafbatteryreplacement.com/?fbclid=IwAR1Jk6ttjGU_IePs-5h_B65msddz2BkXf1KeB1qTHVBTvgq-uKzVVocVbmg
Pricey though! From one of the UK companies:
8.8kWh extender in boot. The 8.8kWh extender will add 30+ miles of range to your Leaf. The kit costs £5,000* inc VAT and fitting.
17.6kWh extender in boot. The 17.6kWh extender will add 60+ miles of range to your Leaf. The kit costs £6,250* inc VAT and fitting.
17.6kWh extender UBEX for an eNV200 van. These fit underneath the van. The kit costs £7,600* inc VAT and fitting.
40kWh battery upgrades. Prices start from £8,500* inc VAT and fitting.
24kWh battery replacement. Approx £5,500* depending on supply cost of a battery, if one can be found in good condition.
30kWh battery replacement. These are harder to price as good 30kWh batteries are hard to find. If a battery can be found the installation is £1,500* (inc VAT) plus battery cost.
62kWh battery replacement. We have one available, priced at £13,500 inc VAT and fitting.
Big savings to be made when replacing battery packs becomes a DIY job. Can't be that difficult to do, but would need access to a car lift.
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Bargain prices for the Nissan! I can't find the link but recall a story where the price to replace a Jaguar i Pace battery was more than £30k!
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The way of things to come:
''Electric car charging points in people’s homes will be preset to switch off for nine hours each weekday at times of peak demand because ministers fear blackouts on the National Grid.
Under regulations that will come into force in May, new chargers in the home and workplace will be automatically set not to function from 8am to 11am and 4pm to 10pm. Public chargers and rapid chargers, on motorways and A-roads, will be exempt.''
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/4ef85eba-133f-11ec-a8a6-db0b408d06d6
Note how the public charging companies supplying at a high cost won't be restricted however... Classic creation of a market.
Consequences - night time charging. But night time charging relies on the balance shifting towards electricity generated using fossil fuels (wind ok, but no solar).
Solution - batteries. To buffer spikes in demand by storing electricity from renewable sources. Also gravity storage systems in mine shafts, hydro etc.
Consequences - batteries don't grow on trees. Increase in supply of batteries demands a significant increase in natural resources of copper, lithium, tin and especially nickel sulphate.
Also better batteries are on the way.. solid state will change the game.
I think you can see where this is going.
Alternatively, everyone has to stay local or get the tram/train/bus but fuck that.
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Solution in countries with good solar resource = daytime charging (e.g. in work carparks), with vehicle-to-grid to use car battery to supply grid in peak hours.... but yeah, more stationary storage too of course.
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Yeah could all move to hot sunny southern European countries I suppose.. that would work. And good for their house prices too.
Remind me again how that vehicle to grid charging works.. because we all love having a vehicle with an empty fuel tank* when we need it in a hurry right? (I'm jesting obv.. I'm v.much into EVs and the electricity transition. I'm just enjoying watching the process).
* Instinctive answer would be a 10-15% of full charge automatic cut-off. Cut-offs can work both ways right.
And I'm pretty confident a new generation of EV 'enhancement hackers' will emerge - kid with a laptop. Growing into a profitable niche industry in hacking these things.
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* Instinctive answer would be a 10-15% of full charge automatic cut-off. Cut-offs can work both ways right.
Yeah, I would expect us to have apps where we can choose what % of charge we're prepared to go to on different days, times etc, plus more variable tariffs for buying/selling elec to the grid (possibly push notifications of price spikes to let you adjust on the fly?), options to set a "needs to be fully charged by this time in the morning" etc... not as fun as moving to Southern France though.
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A good overview article from today's FT on the nickel story as it relates to EVs. Basically - currently most nickel used in lithium-ion batteries comes from Indonesia and is processed in China at v.high carbon cost due to China's coal-powered industry. EU/US provenance policies along with consumer choices will increasingly from 2024 demand to know provenance of nickel with low carbon footprint, coming from outside China/Indonesia - short-term opportunities (ahem..centuaras metals.. ahem) - longer term, Indonesia and China lower their carbon emissions, western nickel mining companies go under and and we all, except western nickel investors holding the bag too long, live happily ever after.
(should be free to view).
https://www.ft.com/content/165d6ba8-f044-4601-9caf-1d1369ec4c09?commentID=85c83524-4ebc-4f11-9ae7-a164c3ab5b48#comments-anchor
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Consequences - night time charging. But night time charging relies on the balance shifting towards electricity generated using fossil fuels (wind ok, but no solar).
any source to back this up? I work in the industry and am pretty sure it's not the case.
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To back up that the sun goes down at night? ...
No. But if you work in the industry then you're the person to ask. Please let us know what the balance is currently for night-time charging. 3 figures - for 'average' nights, on good windy nights, and on nights with no wind. And then another 3 figures based on same, forecasted for the massive increase in overnight energy demand from the number of EV's forecasted to be on the roads by mid-late 2020s requiring overnight charging.
This isn't some bs ukb 'trying to make a point' btw. I'm genuinely interested in the subject, am a big fan of EVs, and keen to understand as much as poss.
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Ignoring the entitled and patronising tone of your first 2 paragraphs, and in the spirit of your third:
Somewhat depends on how you class nukes - between the domestic and the interconnector imports (mostly french nukes) that's a fair chunk of overnight generation.
This page has a graph (generation by fuel type) that shows what you're after I think:
https://www.bmreports.com/bmrs/?q=eds/main
(Solar is embedded into the demand side so not visible on that graph)
You can see how the demand shape is accommodated by CCGTs (i.e. FF). On a high wind night the only CCGT's running would be to provide frequency support.
Last night was a low wind night btw - typically sept would have about 5GW (lowball as historical averages and more getting commissioned all the time), a high wind night would have over 10GW - i.e. ~50% of overnight demand
I don't know anything about future EV demand projections, but any such analysis would need to take into account the expected wind capacity growth and projects like the (currently commissioning) North sea link (1.4GW UK-Norway interconnector which will give us loads of hydro power overnight)
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Entitled..? Not sure what your problem is with being asked to provide details about a topic that you suggested you know about but hadn't given any details. :shrug: Whatever your problem, apologies for asking you for any details. And thanks for the details!
I looked up the national grid's site earlier, it gives a similar overview of the same thing as your link. Including the interconnectors with Ireland and France. grid.iamkate.com (http://grid.iamkate.com)
Yesterday's real time electricity demand versus generation for the UK grid.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/VVakV6GdGdjrFMy_dMM8kbWvj0H415ICVFpVggZ7ttlifwpyAjp2dwbxM_d4GkR9oEzIndoZa96UhQKCfX434SuGyNNrMHhxgrAzFC15N_UHPKKGKLZSZXcnpTArsf06Zf8HzLaE-eGZQZvvw-1KselN9Pk7NNRYLbPLlLG1IqE-D86didMIiUXbWmMDUul2ratijZr6PPmzS1XfLFj7ZWxsAL2jY3_mQ-7WJO95C5WHaGaqGw-yo4gBPlZonNE5nZSeHXk4Aq8bk3GFoKXtma1-jjyNe2DWyx5xsWnQU6NN6MxhH5GXuggZxCgiu0dieBJJ18ruq7laVduWoKovE5yos2sfB8QsCuMeVmNKNBbqSXnCgTNLdOMl5ZaNo6l1IjxUVd9VqESP5suvJ7a-HXzhIq8zb6Y7hJ_fr0gKa8gE8dB-RX9NiXqf7jf7uivw2HDXy_ocQ6LdJbZI_gDFEZw4_Dm7vy8kjTlUXFFrI0nG6Aiy1s1HvXzJMXBLj1zyINlSKgcnwaSE_1WHeNyDnuefg4UypVkAo4GDoRqBSk9VfdS7bJg0-paaWi0vbZYAKLyOC4PeGivwYuIhuSVYUXs6p3E02DZR9ZY8b5eXEk2tXVk4geUj9VY-2_NlTRY7g9kGxpasDoCdLmJwjnASAcqqyJjpgRaWHvwPyFg9gkNSfrfxAVG4pb74D0FdBwz-shOQpGl6pTOuWU3Xxb6H-0UF=w1629-h894-no?authuser=0)
Plus historical averages that show difference between day/night. That big U-shaped dip in night time demand on the half-hourly chart will be flattening out when the whole country are required to charge their EVs overnight between 10pm - 8am.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/8DRkm60CqLCbuACAOzlKOSuLp9XLqHrB7adYT_oRy2xxbSk4L4im0W3uZkVtlG-U66EOsgkJ6bbzC7JlVYz5A0fLyBrJfLAsQMrYv83W_DrEQ6nKLzulRsCwktIBlZv8YBDemgkvoIao_tz3xXvStH_5Kv63ryJdPfKqrENatbYQyCeULsMTq4KmEuj0E1FJtwiUIcS-IBxqwbp3g2cpZ5fzGq2DeDqMogSYMclRiosKllCGWN-0EhmRYMTXIg8GhxSoSksV7fui2-Bt28pcVgQ60VjXFDV0Tw0qB13hLiMJuF2Dj3YJDCHQpxUdtkL_IdYOmj9WBgPNTZ1j4HXUofgEVcfkFo4SHG4VZINwCc8T1mpY7lfMyrohCPwKbtikyksxhsxFwEal06IenujLJVx6qPH8-oQtgusaOrH0mRmM6MmEBsx1Dw2HCI9abn4IdcaFNPnwGQ92c7JZ_4T98q14fEdMp3A4uagbX4hipE51t8SLtWXMO5ru6NM6r1pcdBjRhBM9F2dqVFe-1gaPoLGJkz_aqoPctgO-b7oocsoJzGttE-HlPfn-7MK9u_3Btan_i2984bPTsX5q_F5X1KN7U0ZuOGEE3iH9c2stbkufN6KEJvuPnirs1qIEhxjQ-IRVivWYpxdSirvcDvqmmJZLeJ1IcPxSvzbIUdSG72lgtpNr9eIrcp9loPQhznEpRlBni-6Vnte4ONGe3zmhDNnZ=w1642-h929-no?authuser=0)
For UK solar, you can see on average over the past month it made up 5% of supply. Over the past 12 months solar made up 4% of UK supply. Coal 1.8% and Biomass 4% of average annual UK supply.
If overnight demand is going to increase significantly - which must be true if EVs are to be rolled out in scale and charging them has to take place overnight to avoid the grid falling over during the day - and at least 5% of average UK supply isn't available overnight, then it stands to reason something will need to take up the slack. Increased windfarm roll-out as you say. But on those nights when the wind doesn't blow it might need to be gas, biomass, might be some coal, or might be nuclear. Just something interesting to think about.
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Yeah, I would expect us to have apps where we can choose what % of charge we're prepared to go to on different days, times etc, plus more variable tariffs for buying/selling elec to the grid (possibly push notifications of price spikes to let you adjust on the fly?), options to set a "needs to be fully charged by this time in the morning" etc... not as fun as moving to Southern France though.
I'm with Bulb and am trialling their beta EV charging app, it lets you do just that.. state you want an x% charge by say 8am and it delivers that, theoretically as cheaply as possible as they can turn it on/off throughout the night to suit them
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Pete, iirc the average UK daily drive is 20 miles. Let's take an estimate of 0.24kwh per mile, that means each EV needs 4.8kwh.
Say there are 30m EVs, that's 144MWh (jumped to mega there). Or, 14MW for 10 hours. I.e. 2 big wind turbines. *its early, I've not yet had coffee and something seems instinctively wrong about this... I'll double check later.
An average household uses about 4-6kwh per day.
I was at a talk 2 years ago with the head of future strategy at national grid. She was veery positive about the benefit of EVs for the grid.
Think of it another way, imagine you're off grid. Of course you would use your EV to supply your peak demand. Basically the grid will be getting around 40-50kwh of free battery storage on every household!
It's the long windless cold winter weeks that are the biggest challenge for renewables and storage.
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Why have you jumped to Mega Watt Hours??
0.25 kWh * 20 miles * 30 cars = 150 kWh non?
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Just to be confusing....
Using 0.25 kwh/m was a nice touch - I like that, makes the sums easier...
Ok, so 30 million cars = 150,000,000 kwh or 150 Mwh.
Let's assume for the sake of argument each car would need fully charged in 4 hours, and eveyione has a bi (70kwh) battery):
Each Car requires 70kwh per day.
Assmuning 30m million EVs, Total UK 2100000000 kwh (or 2100MWH per day)
Assume 4 hr charging 525 MW generation required (ignoring losses etc.)
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Say there are 30m EVs, that's 144MWh (jumped to mega there). Or, 14MW for 10 hours. I.e. 2 big wind turbines. *its early, I've not yet had coffee and something seems instinctively wrong about this... I'll double check later.
Off by 1000x I think!
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=20+miles+*+0.24+kWh%2Fmile+*+30000000 (https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=20+miles+*+0.24+kWh%2Fmile+*+30000000)
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Ahh - 30 million cars - sorry missed that. :oops:
(did wonder why you'd chosen 30 cars - 1 street maybe :-\ )
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I think the whole decentralised battery storage network for peak lopping via charging cars is actually a goer. Heard it talked about in lectures 10 years ago, way before anyone imagined so many EV's would be on the road.
The numbers of cars that are actually on the road at anyone time, compared to those parked up are small, and you only need to borrow a small amount of energy from each parked/charging car to cumulatively provide a large amount of energy for peak lopping.
Same sort of thing can be achieved by turning everyones freezers off for 15 minutes during a peak event. Nobodies really going to notice but the cumulative effect can be huge.
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Say there are 30m EVs, that's 144MWh (jumped to mega there). Or, 14MW for 10 hours. I.e. 2 big wind turbines. *its early, I've not yet had coffee and something seems instinctively wrong about this... I'll double check later.
Off by 1000x I think!
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=20+miles+*+0.24+kWh%2Fmile+*+30000000 (https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=20+miles+*+0.24+kWh%2Fmile+*+30000000)
:slap: doing maths pre :coffee: yes, that's why my "that doesn't seem right" alarm bells were running. It was my jump from KWH to MWH where I divided by 1E6 instead of 1E3.
So..... aye.... quite a bit more haha! 14.4GW required.
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Say there are 30m EVs, that's 144MWh (jumped to mega there). Or, 14MW for 10 hours. I.e. 2 big wind turbines. *its early, I've not yet had coffee and something seems instinctively wrong about this... I'll double check later.
Off by 1000x I think!
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=20+miles+*+0.24+kWh%2Fmile+*+30000000 (https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=20+miles+*+0.24+kWh%2Fmile+*+30000000)
Come on a sense check would show a couple of turbines are not going to be able to charge 30 million EVs overnight! But that's what this is useful for right, to get a feel for what's lacking and what's going to need to happen about it.
Also.. The concept of an average drive only being 20 miles is just that - a concept, not a useful baseline to plan generation capacity for dealing with real life EV-recharging behaviour. Ask yourself if you'd happily always drive around in your car with only 20 miles in the tank? That's on the light. Hardly anyone is happy doing that all the time, people like to feel they have some buffer for the unexpected.
The same attitude to refuelling can be seen with batteries. Look to your phone or laptop - the reality is that when people's phone battery gets a bit low they put it on charge. When the laptop isn't in use it's often plugged in. It's also also why people buy groceries for more than the next 4 hours consumption. Just one toilet roll..?
Clearly behaviours and attitudes to personal transport are going to have to change. I love the ideas and possibilities the transition opens up - decentralised battery storage feeding back to grid for one. But refuelling of cars/vans/trucks via electricity generation shouldn't be based on theoretical minimums that will never be the case in reality. What happened to over-engineering?!
Perhaps if you doubled the theoretical minimum required charge to 40 miles that would reflect something closer to the reality of people's charging behaviour. Lots of overnight generation required...
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Not sure I follow you there Pete. If the average distance a vehicle travels per day is 20 miles then it make no odds whether that 20 miles is charging the battery from 0 mile range to 20 miles range or from max range minus 20 miles to max range? Once the “buffer” is loaded in (I.e. the first full charge) then all subsequent charges will be simply replacing what was used the previous day, which on average will be 20 miles per EV (I’m assuming that the 20 miles figure has a reasonable basis, and accept your point re: a bit of over engineering). Have I misunderstood your point?
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Also Pete.. any networked storage type system is not going to borrow or discharge your batteries below a certain point.. say 80% full. So nobody is going to wake up in the morning to a flat car battery/low range.
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* Instinctive answer would be a 10-15% of full charge automatic cut-off. Cut-offs can work both ways right.
Exactly. I already said this ^
Nik, yeah that would seem to make sense. It's still currently a huge overnight energy demand just at 20 miles worth of charge, as shown.
Also the generation requirement might/probably will drop with battery tech improving for EVs and for other large-scale battery storage schemes.
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I wrote out a long post about energy transition technologies, energy storage etc., but it didn't seem to actually post, so I'll precis it again here...
Renewables isn't just solar and wind, which have intermittent supply, but also emerging technologies like tidal current power. Excess energy generated during sunny or windy periods also has huge potential for storage that is not yet being realised, as compressed air, green hydrogen, pumped hydro, mineshaft gravitational, and others I forget. District heating schemes storing excess energy as heat in shallow geothermal and abandoned mines will also reduce the electricity demanded for heating. Even ignoring nuclear, interconnectors provide potential to boost renewables supply by connecting grids that experience different weather patterns, so if the UK or Irish offshore wind is having a bad night, then perhaps the Baltic offshore wind may be generating an excess that we can buy. So the whole problem of "it's not sunny at night" isn't really a problem from a supply point of view.
However, the energy transition and technology isn't going to solve the climate crisis without societal change as well. The point about people travelling less and or taking public transport, which was dismissed in a privileged manner, is actually important. The ludicrous situation in the UK is that public transport is overpriced and inefficient. It should not be cheaper and faster to drive somewhere than take the train or bus. Things are slightly better in mainland Europe, where train travel is largely quick, comfortable, and an absolute joy. Public transport is just one of the myriad ways that more efficient transit networks and a reduced reliance on EVs will reduce the electricity demand that the projected numbers on this thread are based on. There also needs to be a shift in attitudes towards active and assisted active transport. E-Scooters, E-bikes and the like are going to be hugely important in travel within cities (e.g. commuting), and place a far lower demand on electricity supply and, importantly, pollutnats from tyres, space taken by parking, and congestion, within city centres.
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While I agree with your overall point I think it's worth noting that the below all come with big caveats. Tidal power has proven to be very hard to do on any sort of scale and large scale energy storage has also proven to be very tricky so far (e.g. green hydrogen has huge energy losses, pumped hydro is too dependant on geography, mineshaft gravitational storage is a complete non-starter when you do the energy density sums).
Renewables isn't just solar and wind, which have intermittent supply, but also emerging technologies like tidal current power. Excess energy generated during sunny or windy periods also has huge potential for storage that is not yet being realised, as compressed air, green hydrogen, pumped hydro, mineshaft gravitational, and others I forget. District heating schemes storing excess energy as heat in shallow geothermal and abandoned mines will also reduce the electricity demanded for heating.
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Yep, fair enough, but like all emergent technologies things will improve. Hydrogen is an interesting point as it depends entirely on its use as to how efficient it is as an energy store/fuel. Using hydrogen for heating/cooking/vehicle fuel is not good at all, but using stored hydrogen in industrial applications, especially close to the point of storage, gives far better returns.
Pumped hydro is far less dependent on location than you may think, as pumped hydro within abandoned mine infrastructure is simple and relatively cheap, and calculations that were done as part of a postdoc I was involved in shows significant potential capacity in the UK in areas like South Wales, east of the Peak, Yorkshire, Tyne-Tees, and the Central Belt. Pumped hydro can also be combined with minewater thermal energy storage, which is nice! Pumped hydro is also possible in specially-created caverns, but this proves far more expensive.
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The whole mineshaft thing comes up regularly on UKcaving and is always debunked dispelled.
Always looks like a potential on paper, but the realities of finding viable shafts/sites rules the vast majority out.
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Interesting, debunked/dispelled by whom? There are proven schemes in the Netherlands, Glasgow, and the National Coal Mining Museum.
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The whole mineshaft thing comes up regularly on UKcaving and is always debunked dispelled.
Always looks like a potential on paper, but the realities of finding viable shafts/sites rules the vast majority out.
The gravity storage in mineshafts idea was covered in one of the episodes on the 39 ways to save the planet programme, here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000z1k0
It sounded like the UK would be minor local-scale stuff. They were talking about schemes under construction in Poland on a much larger scale.
Gravitricity (the company on the 39 ways programme) website mentions them scoping out S.African mines: https://gravitricity.com/
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The whole mineshaft thing comes up regularly on UKcaving and is always debunked dispelled.
Always looks like a potential on paper, but the realities of finding viable shafts/sites rules the vast majority out.
The gravity storage in mineshafts idea was covered in one of the episodes on the 39 ways to save the planet programme, here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000z1k0
It sounded like the UK would be minor local-scale stuff. They were talking about schemes under construction in Poland on a much larger scale.
Gravitricity (the company on the 39 ways programme) website mentions them scoping out S.African mines: https://gravitricity.com/
I haven't listened to the podcast, but the numbers on their website are pretty unconvincing. They mention
"A wider portfolio of future commercial sites has also been developed, which confirms significant potential for over 10,000MWh of energy storage capacity to be deployed globally in existing shafts alone." https://gravitricity.com/projects/
Which means they're predicting a total global capacity of 10GWh...which is about the same as Dinorwig. Maybe there's some niche use cases but it's not gonna solve energy storage on the kind of scale that's required.
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Yep the podcast said pretty much the same, local small scale use. Interesting idea though, and might lead to other interesting ideas.
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Interesting, debunked/dispelled by whom? There are proven schemes in the Netherlands, Glasgow, and the National Coal Mining Museum.
That's heat pump tech using warm water from flooded mines, which is ace.. I was referring to the whole dropping heavy weights down shafts at peak grid events.
Basic fag packet calcs plus a knowledge of 'actually suitable' sites usually concludes that the potential is minuscule. Mainly because a lot of the mines are now flooded.. which is where the heat pumps come in!!
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Ah! Fair enough. At scale as a single solution then yes they're not great. but as part of a wider energy storage network then they can be valuable local assets. Gravitricity are at some stage of connstructing one in Leith, which will be interesting to see how it goes.
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Was interested to see that the demand for electricity in the country had reduced substantially over the last decade, as another factor to throw into the generation requirement calcs. I’d never really considered this with growing population etc.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/323381/total-demand-for-electricity-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/
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Say there are 30m EVs, that's 144MWh (jumped to mega there). Or, 14MW for 10 hours. I.e. 2 big wind turbines. *its early, I've not yet had coffee and something seems instinctively wrong about this... I'll double check later.
Off by 1000x I think!
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=20+miles+*+0.24+kWh%2Fmile+*+30000000 (https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=20+miles+*+0.24+kWh%2Fmile+*+30000000)
Come on a sense check would show a couple of turbines are not going to be able to charge 30 million EVs overnight! But that's what this is useful for right, to get a feel for what's lacking and what's going to need to happen about it.
I know, I know. I was busy walking to the shop to pick up stuff for breakfast, typing on my phone and doing it in my head pre-coffee. Notwithstanding....I can't believe I actually typed that. :-[ If you ask my other half I'm very smart:stupid!
The little bit of my brain say "wait a fuckin minute here" was evidently still asleep.
Also.. The concept of an average drive only being 20 miles is just that - a concept, not a useful baseline to plan generation capacity for dealing with real life EV-recharging behaviour
Others have already commented, but this wasn't what I was intending to mean. 20 miles a day is the current average, not a concept. So that's still the average amount needing topped up per day. We currently have way more capacity than we would need if our demand was better spread. Yes, making use of the solar by charging during the day is ideal, but 2-way charging and shaving the peaks is clearly the way to go.
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Yep, fair enough, but like all emergent technologies things will improve. Hydrogen is an interesting point as it depends entirely on its use as to how efficient it is as an energy store/fuel. Using hydrogen for heating/cooking/vehicle fuel is not good at all, but using stored hydrogen in industrial applications, especially close to the point of storage, gives far better returns.
Not really, It's massively inefficient to "make" hydrogen. It makes sense when we have an over production of electricity as storage, but is only really ideal for niche applications.
(I say this as someone who has just finished working on a Green Hydrogen Pilot Cell Room and am currently working on an EV battery plant)
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Off topic, but since theres been some grid discussion. This is a big deal: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/15/fire-shuts-one-of-uk-most-important-power-cables-in-midst-of-supply-crunch
A few little suppliers have gone bust already with the gas price so strong, and this is going to send a few more to the wall. If the interconnector isnt back for winter it will be an interesting ride at work.
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Is there anyone particularly to blame for our grid being so shit, or is it just short termism from successive governments, and hoping the ‘market will sort it out’?
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(... and am currently working on an EV battery plant)
Nissan, or BritishVolt?
Off topic, but since theres been some grid discussion. This is a big deal: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/15/fire-shuts-one-of-uk-most-important-power-cables-in-midst-of-supply-crunch
As soon as I heard about this my bullshit detector sparked up.
How many fires like this have there been at the IFA since 1986? And how many gas supply squeezes have there been of the magnitude of the current one? (answer none). How many fires/shutdowns have occurred concurrent with supply squeezes in times of fears over inflation..? Hostile state interference?
Is there anyone particularly to blame for our grid being so shit, or is it just short termism from successive governments, and hoping the ‘market will sort it out’?
From the telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/09/15/europes-energy-crisis-queers-pitch-horribly-cop26/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr):
The right conclusion to draw from spiralling gas, coal, and electricity prices in Europe is that fossil fuels are dangerously volatile. Supply can be manipulated at critical moments by hostile powers playing geostrategic games.
The wrong conclusion is that this month’s energy shock is an indictment of renewable power, or chiefly caused by carbon prices, or that it is the first cruel taste of what awaits us as net-zero tightens, and therefore that decarbonisation should be abandoned.
This is not to deny that the green switch will cause plenty of headaches before we get over the hump and reap the runaway benefits of better technology and the much cheaper energy than fossil combustion could ever achieve - and in Britain’s case, before this country again becomes a net exporter of North Sea energy.
The UK’s energy deficit is 2pc of GDP - or nearer 5pc annualised, this quarter - and is the core component of our chronic structural trade gap. It is beyond me why anybody thinks that transferring so much national income to despotic foreign states is acceptable.We are living through the gas equivalent of the Opec oil shock of 1973, when the cartel restricted crude supplies to punish America over the Yom Kippur War. The Saudis choose their moment well. Oil prices were already stretched by inflationary monetary policy in the US.
This time the manipulator is Vladimir Putin, the target is Europe, and the pressure tool is pipeline gas. The Kremlin is limiting the normal top-up flows through Ukrainian and Polish pipelines needed to replenish European inventories before winter.
It is not the only reason why UK natural gas prices have risen five-fold in a year, this week hitting an outlandish 192 pence per therm for October contracts. But it is the crucial element that has turned shortage into panic. Goldman Sachs says the futures market is pricing in a “growing winter risk premium” as people brace for potential blackouts and power rationing for European industry.
Mr Putin’s objective is no secret. It is openly discussed in the Moscow media citing official sources. He aims to force Europe to certify the Nord Stream 2 pipeline on his abusive terms - in violation of EU energy law - giving him a greater stranglehold over Eastern Europe.
Britain is a collateral casualty but is nevertheless acutely vulnerable because it closed the Rough gas storage cavern, breaking the unwritten rule that every country must have reserve capacity to cover 20pc of annual demand. It would struggle to cover 4pc.
We rely on Dutch and German storage, at 52pc and 63pc capacity respectively, when they should be nearer 90pc as we approach the Equinox.
Nor can the cross-channel interconnectors be entirely relied on when push comes to shove. Ireland’s operator has cut off the Moyle electricity interconnector across the Irish Sea twice over the last week to avert blackouts at home, invoking “operational security”. Who in their right mind thinks that Germany would allow its precious gas stocks to reach Britain this winter if the industries of the Ruhr are facing blackouts?
Spain is also in the eye of the storm because it relies heavily on imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG), which would have been available in normal times but this year the pandemic has played havoc with the market.
It has to compete with China, Japan, and Korea for scarce global supply. Europe’s LNG spot price has tripled since April to a record $22 (MMBtu) - if you can get it - with a rise in Spanish power prices to match.
The Socialist government and its neo-Marxist allies in Podemos have responded in character, raiding utilities to pay for subsidised home electricity bills. The nuclear industry said the extortionary terms could lead to the “total closure of the Spanish nuclear park”.
Economy minister Nadia Calviño has warned that fuel poverty could trigger “social unrest” and undermine democratic consent for the Green Deal. In that she is right, whether in Europe, or the UK, or the US.
The gilets jaunes spectre haunts each of our countries, which is why free marketeers advocate a "carbon tax and dividend" (such as HR 763 in the US Congress) that redistributes the revenue to households, with a progressive bias towards the poorest. The higher the carbon price money the fatter the dividend. That would end the fuel poverty debate at a stroke.
Mrs Calviño blamed Spain’s travails on the parabolic rise in EU carbon prices this year to €60 a tonne as well as gas costs, a way of lobbying the Commission to relax its emissions trading scheme.
Frans Timmermans, the EU’s climate chief, says rising carbon prices accounts for a fifth of Europe’s electricity price spike this year and is being falsely fingered, but he also acknowledged the political perils of this episode. “One thing we cannot afford is for the social side to be opposed to the climate side: I see this threat very clearly now,” he told MEPs.
The protests are getting louder. Poland’s premier Mateusz Morawiecki says Europe’s green deal is out of control and has ordered Polish utilities to itemise the exact cost of EU climate policies in household energy bills.
Lawson Steele from Berenberg Bank says there is no obvious legal way for Brussels to relax the emissions trading scheme, and it would be fatal to try: “If they panic at the first real test they will destroy their credibility and kill the green deal instantly.”
It would not solve the core problem in any case, and would play to the perversely-false narrative that green policies are at the root of the current crunch. Logic compels to the opposite conclusion: the answer to spiralling gas and coal prices is to use less of the stuff.
In the case of Britain, where frequency problems caused baseload electricity prices to go berserk this week, the authorities are clearly struggling to manage renewable power in an old-fashioned grid built for a former world. What is not true, and cannot be true, is that a lull in offshore wind is today’s culprit.
The energy nexus ought to cover UK power needs in the depths of winter during a doldrum, let alone in September when daily demand is peaking at barely 36 gigawatts, and gas home heating is minimal. What is missing is contingency back-up.
“The capacity mechanisms should have been able to deliver but there are no penalties to enforce it and the system only exists in theory. Now we’ve been hit with a perfect storm,” said Adam Lewis from energy traders Hartree Solutions.
The assumption that LNG gas would always be there at tolerable prices was wishful-thinking. Planners neglected to keep enough coal capacity in reserve, and nuclear output is down to five gigawatts.
It is a sorry state of affairs where the nation cannot endure a few days of calm in the North Sea at a time of low seasonal demand. The roots of this debacle go back a decade or more but the consequences have fallen to this Government. By twist of timing it could reach a crescendo just as the COP26 delegates arrive in Glasgow, and become conflated in the British public mind with net zero.
But let us not muddle matters. This is a fossil fuel shock. Net zero is the solution and not the problem. It will happen because brown energy cannot compete with the rapidly descending cost-curve of green tech.
The process is by now unstoppable for pure cost reasons regardless of climate change imperatives. Any major country that resists this will play itself out of the global economic game. The Government must hold its nerve.
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(... and am currently working on an EV battery plant)
Nissan, or BritishVolt?
Northvolt Ett (https://northvolt.com/manufacturing/ett/). It quite a big one.......
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Ah yeah I've been hearing about Northvolt. Cool project! They'll be supplying underground mining plant with batteries to transition to EV. Their idea pretty much is my investment thesis for battery metals - transparent provenance of raw materials, excluding China from supply chain.
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Ah yeah I've been hearing about Northvolt. Cool project! They'll be supplying underground mining plant with batteries to transition to EV. Their idea pretty much is my investment thesis for battery metals - transparent provenance of raw materials, excluding China from supply chain.
Yep, very cool, chuffed to be working on it but currently a pretty unachievable schedule, the race to market is bonkers on the battery plant jobs. Interesting as they have a very "new tech" vibe with lots of young clever people which has been a bit of a wake up to some of the old dinosaurs in my firm. Quite refreshing. I think my working life will be hydrogen and batteries till retirement.
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(... and am currently working on an EV battery plant)
Nissan, or BritishVolt?
Northvolt Ett (https://northvolt.com/manufacturing/ett/). It quite a big one.......
Have they confirmed where/who they are sourcing their lithium chemicals from? They’ve been conspicuously quiet on that front.
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has anyone tried the Kia Niro EV? Looking to replace a VW Tiguan and this seems one of the closer models out there.
Can confirm the e-niro fits an Organic Full pad, two halves and a slider perfectly in the boot, with just enough space to get you bag down the side of them too. Had it a couple of weeks now and pretty happy so far (yes its not as snazzy looking as some others on the market but it was reasonably priced, fits my pads nicely and gets me to the crag, job done)
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(... and am currently working on an EV battery plant)
Nissan, or BritishVolt?
Northvolt Ett (https://northvolt.com/manufacturing/ett/). It quite a big one.......
Have they confirmed where/who they are sourcing their lithium chemicals from? They’ve been conspicuously quiet on that front.
That's a long way upstream from me. I'm snowed under trying to get a plant design sorted so haven't really had time to enquire/do the research so not sure.
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In the T4 we swapped ECU has we had no boost (looked like baro sensor was gone according to the diagnostics).
On installing, couldn't get started - just clicked and all power went off. Dash lights etc. all came on, but when I turned it just clicked and all the power went off. Checked the battery and it seems OK, but we were only getting 2v elsewhere. Assumed bad battery connection, remade that and it start OK. Went for a test drive, turbo boost a bit improved so one thing fixed! (though not 100%, still work to do there)
Drove for 20 mins, all seems OK except a faint whiff of hot/melting.. Came back to the van 3 hours later. (after cinema...) and the same thing happened, except this time battery was down to 11.5v. Tried connecting up our leisure battery via jump leads but no luck.
Breakdown truck came, tried a booster pack, failed (although I suspect his booster was drained, said 11.7v on the display, at first I thought that was MY voltage, but actually it was probably his).
Towed to the usually garage (been happy with them in the past). They were sure, so re-charged the battery and it started ok. Next day was down to 4v. They put in a new battery and it started ok, no parasitic drain and held charge fine.
Drove away today and the battery light was on. At first I thought "is that how it usually is?" but no, 12.3v at home with the engine on. So, I suspect it's a dead alternator and the battery just failed due to not getting charged.
Garage were a bit unhelpful "we can have a look at it". Hmm, no. It's a bitch of a job in the T4, so it's going to be a couple hundred on labour.
Phone a local old skool electrical repair shop near us, he reckoned it's failed and he can have it repaired in 20 minutes while I wait. So all I need to do now is get the blooming thing off!
Edit : woops wrong thread :chair:
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Well it is an electrical issue, so close enough I reckon!
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(... and am currently working on an EV battery plant)
Nissan, or BritishVolt?
Northvolt Ett (https://northvolt.com/manufacturing/ett/). It quite a big one.......
I grew up in Skellefteå.
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Right - collective mind hive..
Home Charging.
Got a Kia e-Niro recently and am dead chuffed with it (mainly for bipping around town with a weekly trip to the peak two).
However, still to get a charger installed at home.
Been quoted about a grand for the a Zappi by a local sheffield company (Homeco Energy) as they say its 'Smart' and will potentially work out if we're exporting from the solar panels and divert to the car if we are etc. We'd then get the 350 OLEV grant back, (deadline in March I think).
However, they're being a bit tardy at getting back to me and dont want to miss any deadlines.
So what are folks experience.
Podpoint? Zappi? Others? Tethered? Non Tethered?
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We have just recently got an electric vehicle and it has been great.
Got a Hypervolt unit installed and it has been excellent. Had a slight issue on set up and was easily able to get through to their customer service and the guy sorted it quickly. Emailed once and had a quick response as well. Cost was about the same as you have been quoted. Went for a tethered one as I didn’t want to be getting the cables in and out of the car and am pleased with this.
Dave
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Thanks Dave, Just booked with someone how installs both but recommended the Hypervolt one over the Zappi, and its cheaper!!
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My only concern with all of this is the number of Apps.. I now have about 6 apps on my phone all related to the new car.
What happens when I lose my phone/the internet/server/app is down. When the app is no longer supported and the company disappears off the face of the earth.
Definite weak spot in the whole EV car industry is the total reliance on 'apps' for practiacally every aspect. from opening the bloody door to charging the thing.
Mind you, was satisfying to open the door to a warm defrosted car, having turned the heater on from the breakfast table as I finished my brew. :devangel:
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The S in IoT stands for security...
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Definite weak spot in the whole EV car industry is the total reliance on 'apps' for practiacally every aspect. from opening the bloody door to charging the thing.
Is there an emergency option to get in if the electrics short/the app goes down/ there’s an EMP etc.?
I’m enough of a Luddite to be concerned about cars with keyless entry and no key back up!
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Definite weak spot in the whole EV car industry is the total reliance on 'apps' for practiacally every aspect. from opening the bloody door to charging the thing.
Is there an emergency option to get in if the electrics short/the app goes down/ there’s an EMP etc.?
I’m enough of a Luddite to be concerned about cars with keyless entry and no key back up!
If they are anything like mine, and battery fails there is a key built inside the fob that gets you in the door. Then if its the battery you hold the fob against sensor and car starts. No biggie.
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There is a key fob actually, with a physical key insert too on the Kia actually. I'm not overly worried about that, but a recent software glitch prevented some Tesla owners being unable to open their cars non?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-59357306
Its more all the charging options. i.e. turn up at a charger, be it tescos, or ikea or where ever, and you need to install a damned app relevant to that particular provider.
And the charger I've just bought, is 100% controlled by an App and Wifi. Any issue with either of those things and I strongly suspect it becomes a worthless lump of plastic bolted to my wall.
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I started installing apps but soon got bored, now a waft of a contactless card covers most charging eventualities in my life. They seem to work a bit like when you hire a car in that they “block” £20, but it never disappears from you account and then a couple of days later the few quid the charge costs gets taken.
Our house charger is just a dumb box with a fat wire going to it, just-works TM
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There is a key fob actually, with a physical key insert too on the Kia actually. I'm not overly worried about that, but a recent software glitch prevented some Tesla owners being unable to open their cars non?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-59357306
Its more all the charging options. i.e. turn up at a charger, be it tescos, or ikea or where ever, and you need to install a damned app relevant to that particular provider.
And the charger I've just bought, is 100% controlled by an App and Wifi. Any issue with either of those things and I strongly suspect it becomes a worthless lump of plastic bolted to my wall.
I believe the Tesla issue was that the people didn’t have the back up key card with them and instead were just relying on their phone as a key. To be fair to Tesla they tell you to always have the key card with you in case the app or your phone fails.
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Right - collective mind hive..
Home Charging.
Got a Kia e-Niro recently and am dead chuffed with it (mainly for bipping around town with a weekly trip to the peak two).
However, still to get a charger installed at home.
Been quoted about a grand for the a Zappi by a local sheffield company (Homeco Energy) as they say its 'Smart' and will potentially work out if we're exporting from the solar panels and divert to the car if we are etc. We'd then get the 350 OLEV grant back, (deadline in March I think).
However, they're being a bit tardy at getting back to me and dont want to miss any deadlines.
So what are folks experience.
Podpoint? Zappi? Others? Tethered? Non Tethered?
Home chargers = hard to find the right answer. Its a bit like physio's - ask ten people get ten different answers.
Chargers have to be SMART in order to qualify for the £350 grant (there is a feeling this is so the government can at some point manage the charging if there is too much load on the grid via the smart chargers. But this may be tin foil hat stuff as there is no apparent standard within how smart chargers are implemented etc..). A non-smart charger is typically £250-30 less than a smart charger - so if you roll in the grant its near enough the same (if not a bit cheaper) to get a smart one. When they are opened up some appear well built - some less so. Lots of people like Ohme, Podpoint are popular but our installer didnt like them. Also check how the timing works with your car if you are on Octopus Go etc... mostly it seems the charger timer is more reliable than a car one.
Your installer should sort out the grant for you - and their price should include the grant reduction. Shop around if they are not doing that. The RRP of the zappi is about £700-750 and a basic install will require about 2 hours labour and need c.£200 of parts/wires/second board.
For linking to solar panels, Zappi seem to have the best reputation - hypervolt is a new ish player though their CEO is happy to get on forums to sort things out. Lots of happy zappi's out there it would seem :)
Check your electricity feed - if its old and your main board is old many installers won't go near it and this may need to be done first (if you have grid tie solar this has probably been done etc..). Also check the fuse on the main supply coming in (first point after the wires come into the house). if this is 100A then you're fine. If its 60A then you may have problems. Also if you are on a looped supply (wires then go out to next door) at this point - then that can cause problems too. This will/should all be checked by the installer.
Tethered/untethered depends on what you prefer. We went untethered with the smallest box size charger available as we didnt want it to look ugly on our house. If its in a garage/tucked away then it matters less. Some/many chargers are really ugly - and huge. Some people seem to want a box the size of a carry on bag bolted to their house - that glows different colours 24/7 (maybe its a look at me thing?) but not for us.
Enjoy - its the future! :)
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Good Knowledge TT :thumbsup:
Definitely need to check the main fuse to see if its 100A or not*. Its bakerlite and def old. However the consumer unit etc etc is all new (c 10yr old).
I've been dithering about the need for a solar connected one. We've got a 1.5 kW peak array - which in reality, probably only chucks out 1.2 kW on a good day - for a short period at 2pm, on a very clear sunny day. you catch my drift. Chances of us charging the car, at those peak times etc is probably very slim. (I can imagine charging it once a week, over night in all honesty).
Hadn't appreciated that they light up. (though just checked and you can turn the leds off via the app
We're going for black, rather than bright white so shouldn't jump out too much.
*(just read that the Hypervolt one is set on installation to either 60 or a 100 and monitors your home usage, i.e. if you have a 60 amp fuse, and are using 20A, it'll only stick out 40A to prevent main fuse failure.)
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I think you are both much more technical than me. I just got a local electrical firm to install it and they sorted everything. Asked me to take a load of pics of the fuse box and the area and then a quick phone call to check everything. Made sure they were OLEV registered and they sorted the grant etc. personally I plug the thing in and it works.
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I think you are both much more technical than me. I just got a local electrical firm to install it and they sorted everything. Asked me to take a load of pics of the fuse box and the area and then a quick phone call to check everything. Made sure they were OLEV registered and they sorted the grant etc. personally I plug the thing in and it works.
Haha was just thinking if it's this complex I can imagine there being quite a bit of resistance from people to switch to electric cars! Certainly compared to the time efficiency and simplicity of going to a petrol station.
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Most places (including my installer) did what happened to Davo. Found out about most of this stuff after.
We were fortunate that ours was fitted during a house refurb - so we’d had the main consumer unit replaced - and when fitting a smart meter Ovo said ‘we’re not touching that’ when they saw the baker lite fuse - and Nw Electricity had to come and change all that (for free..). Unlooping the supply also is done FOC but can take a while and involve diggers etc.. 😁 our neighbours had to have three phase installed (at quite some expense - £2k) but that was partly as they also wanted to have 30-40a for a heat pump too…
Sam - get a few quotes - most installers will need pics of your consumer unit (fuse box) and elec supply etc.. before giving a quote. Most will fit a range of units (they can get most of them from trade suppliers).
For anyone in the NW wanting a recommendation we used Evolution Solutions based in Haslingden - who were and have been great.
The home charger market is interesting - a lot of small Uk based companies making their own boxes (some with their own boards - some with a raspberry pi inside!) - no major global player or clear market leader yet… everyone seems to have their favourite and typically that’s the one they bought! 😁
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Signed up with Evolution Solution yesterday :lol: :2thumbsup:
Partly cause they had a free slot in January, that I knew about from someone who was unable to have that day, thus I knew they had availability.
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Signed up with Evolution Solution yesterday :lol: :2thumbsup:
Partly cause they had a free slot in January, that I knew about from someone who was unable to have that day, thus I knew they had availability.
Ace. Michelle was good to deal with there. I had 2 of their fitters come over and they were both great.
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I think you are both much more technical than me. I just got a local electrical firm to install it and they sorted everything. Asked me to take a load of pics of the fuse box and the area and then a quick phone call to check everything. Made sure they were OLEV registered and they sorted the grant etc. personally I plug the thing in and it works.
Haha was just thinking if it's this complex I can imagine there being quite a bit of resistance from people to switch to electric cars! Certainly compared to the time efficiency and simplicity of going to a petrol station.
Good point! However now we have a charger and a car I find just plugging in at home and not worrying about getting to a petrol station much easier and less time consuming.
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Yeah - its really not that complex, we're just doing a good nerdy job of making it sound complex. :-[
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Update.
Evolution solutions have been back and have spotted an issue with the main incoming supply fuse - old bakerlite jobbie, so it doesn't surprise me.
Which means we have to get Northern Power grid folk in to replace that first, which means a delay to the install date, :wall:
Wish I'd got all this in place before actually getting hold of the car.
Still - left it on charge using the 3 pin supply for 24h the other day as we're just holed up isolating at the moment and not going anywhere, so back up to a full charge.
BTW - EV solutions have been brilliant at communicating this and are arranging things with Northern Power grid.
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Just thought I'd put my experience in. I've had a Tesla model 3 for 2 years and have charged on a 3pin plug the whole time.
Have been trying to get a charger but covid and time have got in the way.
My wife has bought a Zoe so we now need a charger, however the 3 pin plug is doing fine with 2 cars!(not at the same time)
We have 3 phase to the house so I'm going to install a 21kw charger, I know lots of cars will not use the full 21kw ac but I'm future proofing
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Also I would not go back to an ICE car......the hassle of petrol stations is just too much
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Just thought I'd put my experience in. I've had a Tesla model 3 for 2 years and have charged on a 3pin plug the whole time.
Have been trying to get a charger but covid and time have got in the way.
My wife has bought a Zoe so we now need a charger, however the 3 pin plug is doing fine with 2 cars!(not at the same time)
We have 3 phase to the house so I'm going to install a 21kw charger, I know lots of cars will not use the full 21kw ac but I'm future proofing
Would you mind me asking you your opinion on the model 3?
We have just bought one and so far it’s great. Just wondering how it is a few years down the line?
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Definitely need to check the main fuse to see if its 100A or not*. Its bakerlite and def old. However the consumer unit etc etc is all new (c 10yr old).
...
Hadn't appreciated that they light up. (though just checked and you can turn the leds off via the app
We're going for black, rather than bright white so shouldn't jump out too much.
Just came across this thread and thought it might be worth adding my recent experience. We have a VW ID3 on order, should be picking it up in January but already have the charger installed. We got an Ohme through their recommended people, who were called 'The Car Charge People' and apart from a boring name were pretty good. However it's worth noting the Ohme Home Pro has fairly bright LEDs that *do not* turn off, at least unless they update the software in future. Otherwise it looks fairly smart. We had an ancient 80A fuse but the installers contacted the DNO (SP Energy Networks in Merseyside) and they came and upgraded it for free inside a week.
I had expected the installation to be a quick job but the leccy took a full 7 hour day.
There are one or two people (electricians I think) on the 'speakev' forum who seem very knowledgeable and happy to critique a before/after photo of an installation if you're unsure about anything.
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@sam we got ours fixed on the same day 😱 by NW electricity (or whoever the DNO are in Manchester). The Ovo guy trying to fit the smart meter spent 30 min on the phone to them and said we were a priority case (children in house) and it needed to be repaired urgently. It only took them 30 min to fix - but required three vans and two visits (first from an old timer who basically looked at our fuse and said it’s shite and gave them the nod to get it done).
@sidehaas had an id3 since July. It’s ace - it’ll be worth the wait 👍👍 I was fortunate to get one already ordered by the dealer so only a 3-4 week wait. It’s 9-12 months at the moment. Good to get the charger in before the grants end in March.
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We test drove an ID3 and really liked it. Was just the long wait that put me off. Plus the Tesla drove better.
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@sidehaas had an id3 since July. It’s ace - it’ll be worth the wait 👍👍 I was fortunate to get one already ordered by the dealer so only a 3-4 week wait. It’s 9-12 months at the moment. Good to get the charger in before the grants end in March.
We ordered ours in summer - we were told by the dealer a couple of weeks ago that it was built and on it's way :) So I've been checking out the charging options on the A55 on the way back from Snowdonia this afternoon!
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Can confirm the e-niro fits an Organic Full pad, two halves and a slider perfectly in the boot, with just enough space to get you bag down the side of them too. Had it a couple of weeks now and pretty happy so far (yes its not as snazzy looking as some others on the market but it was reasonably priced, fits my pads nicely and gets me to the crag, job done)
I assume that's with the back seats folded.
My moon Warrior fits in the bottom of the boot perfectly, but with no space at the edges, and just about enough space on top for a bag, or two, but no extra pads. :-\
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Skoda Enyaq - how is everyone finding them?
Finally considering selling on our old 1998 T4 Diesel and catching up with the latest tech.
Few Qs: Can you sleep in the back?
Would it be insane to lease one, and then (if possible under the agreement) sub-lease it via Hiyacar or Similar? Just wondering if it would be feasible to just about cover the cost of owning without it getting trashed?
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Availability seems to be the main issue with all EV's at the moment. Apart from the Stellantis group* (Peugeot, Vauxhall) and for Tesla's**, everything else seems to have a 9-18 month wait at the moment. Many people who ordered ID3's and ID4's in October 2021 (and after) are being told they are unlikely to see them until 2023.
*because they are not as popular as other brands
**because they have far greater production capacity - and their own/different supply chains
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Can confirm the e-niro fits an Organic Full pad, two halves and a slider perfectly in the boot, with just enough space to get you bag down the side of them too. Had it a couple of weeks now and pretty happy so far (yes its not as snazzy looking as some others on the market but it was reasonably priced, fits my pads nicely and gets me to the crag, job done)
I assume that's with the back seats folded.
nope - this is with back seats still in place. it's a tight fit but it does fit.
However, i went and added a Blubber to the mix too now, which means at least one pad has to go on the back seat
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And the charger I've just bought, is 100% controlled by an App and Wifi. Any issue with either of those things and I strongly suspect it becomes a worthless lump of plastic bolted to my wall.
Can I get my car to charge ... can I buggery.
Not sure why, but the phone app will just not talk to the charger. Wont seem to connect to "Hypervolt" servers, and theres some other message about a firmware update needed to charger, which is being rolled out and may take "a few days".
Luckily, I don't have to be anywhere today, but I feel for anyone caught in a situation where they needed to charge their car overnight for an important meeting in the morning type sceanario. :furious:
I knew it would happen. >:(
I've turned everything off and on again, wifi router, phone, even the charger itself by tripping the fuse and reconnecting.
No joy. Hypervolts offices are shut, please leave a message..
I've flipping well done with all this reliance on apps and internet. Its basically always going to let you down at some point.
What happens when Hypervolt goes bust, or they stop supporting their app, or their app needs a newer version of android to run on... FFS.
Should have just installed a dumb box like Nik.
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The S in IoT stands for security
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Should have just installed a dumb box like Nik.
I thought all electric chargers were dumb boxes. I guess thats not always the case. I thought charging your car was a matter of plugging it in and the cost of the electricity would be added to your household bill, as if I was charging my phone.
Why does it rely on an app? For a timer or somesuch?
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Run a 13A standard extension out a window? I guess that’s no help now… hope you get the charger sorted soon.
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Run a 13A standard extension out a window? I guess that’s no help now… hope you get the charger sorted soon.
There's a house in Slaidburn on the front by the cafe that I'm assuming is listed; it always makes me chuckle when I go past that the Tesla is being charge by a 13A lead draped out of a sash window that's partially open!
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The S in IoT stands for security
Exactly what you replied last year when I first raised my concern :lol:
I thought all electric chargers were dumb boxes. I guess thats not always the case. I thought charging your car was a matter of plugging it in and the cost of the electricity would be added to your household bill, as if I was charging my phone.
Why does it rely on an app? For a timer or somesuch?
Everyting relies on an App now, Toasters, kettles, central heating. Wouldn't surprise me if my next toothbrush comes with an App. :wank:
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We needed a new toothbrush as the old one broke, new one has Bluetooth... Why oh why... Luckily it works fine "dumb".
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Bluetooth? It’ll take more than an electric toothbrush to fix that.
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:clap2:
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Bought an IR heating panel yesterday which has app connectivity but can still operate it manually, wouldn't like to be constrained by app only. It's good being able to adjust my heating from my phone on the other side of the world to annoy whoever's in at the time.
Just pulled the trigger on an 8.3kwp solar install. Will probably add an additional small ground mount at a later date to up it to over 10kwp. When I finally get around to an EV I should have free charging.
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I am going round in circles on car choices at the moment and would appreciate some advice from the cognoscenti here.
In principle I would love to move to an EV. But I live in a terraced house in London and cannot guarantee I can park in front of it. So would be somewhat reliant on public charging I expect.
I don't use my car much - more for weekend trips out of London to climb or bike or go on holiday, visit my parents etc than commuting.
I want big practical boot space for boulder pad plus all the stuff that travelling around with 2 young kids entails. Think family holiday to Font with boulder pad, bikes, clothes etc. Currently starting to become impossible in my Focus hatchback.
I don't want something that is massive and impossible to park on my little street.
I am oscillating between something like a petrol BMW 3 series, a plug in hybrid Volvo V60 (which has the biggest boot I can see in a hybrid plus pretty decent performance), or a full EV like a Kia EV6 (not sure about boot space) or a Tesla Model Y.
On the petrol or hybrid I worry a lot about depreciation. On the EV I worry about practicality of charging. Any advice or views to help me come to a decision would be welcome!
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Are you not worried about the depreciation of an electric car? From what I have read it's been greater than ICE cars recently although I suspect in part because Tesla reduced prices. It sounds like a Skoda Octavia would be a good choice or enyaq I'd you go electric. If you are using it for mainly longer journeys I'd question whether a hybrid is worth it. Surely the battery will run out pretty quickly on a long journey and then it's just extra weight and no environmental benefit. I got a Tiguan allspace fairly recently mainly because can get a big mat in the back without removing child seats. Pain in the arse to park though so will try to change as soon as I don't need child seats and will hopefully get electric.
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Are you not worried about the depreciation of an electric car?
I guess I'm looking 5 or 7 years into the future - what will prices of petrol/diesel cars be doing then when they are being phased out (for new buys) in 2030? Will it increase scarcity and therefore hold price? Or will people just not want one?
If you are using it for mainly longer journeys I'd question whether a hybrid is worth it. Surely the battery will run out pretty quickly on a long journey and then it's just extra weight and no environmental benefit.
Yeah I don't like the idea of lugging a massive dead weight battery around on longer journeys.
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I want big practical boot space for boulder pad plus all the stuff that travelling around with 2 young kids entails. Think family holiday to Font with boulder pad, bikes, clothes etc. Currently starting to become impossible in my Focus hatchback.
I don't want something that is massive and impossible to park on my little street.
I fear the above two requirements are mutually exclusive! We've had an e2008 for three years which has been great but a struggle for family trips away due to the size & range. Just ordered a Skoda Enyaq (longer range model) for when the lease ends later this year. I drove a colleagues Enyaq recently and the boot is massive + proper room for adults in the back seats (or kids + STUFF)
I'd agree with the others, if most of your driving is going to be longer distances and not 'around town', then you either bite the bullet and go full EV or stick to a really efficient ICE for now, not sure of the point of hybrid for your usecase
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talking of EVs and Font.. am going for a week in summer half term and it will be the first time have taken the EV abroad. Any advice/tips/feedback on public charging in northern France ? (not a tesla, normal CCS)
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I want big practical boot space for boulder pad plus all the stuff that travelling around with 2 young kids entails. Think family holiday to Font with boulder pad, bikes, clothes etc. Currently starting to become impossible in my Focus hatchback.
I don't want something that is massive and impossible to park on my little street.
No idea on what they are like, but the Berlingo now has an EV version. Giant Boot space in their ICE versions so I’d assume that it’s the same in the EV?
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Tesla Model Y has an enormous boot. And they've just cut the price. I dislike Tesla's but its an attractive proposition compared to the competition.
RE: EV depreciation. Values have dropped alot in the last 3-4 months - but dropped to something vaguely normal. To put it in perspective, I bought one in June 2021 for £23.5k. Sold it in June 2022 (+14000 miles) for £31.5k. Now the same model is on Autotrader for £24-25k... so a correction.
However - Tesla dropped the price of M3 and MY but c.£5k a month ago - and literally overnight the used values dropped by c.20%. Partly this is due to the price cut - but also there being a raft of 2 and 3 year old Tesla's now coming to the end of their leases and coming on to the market. Tesla Model 3's are the Mondeo of the EV market right now...
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We needed a new toothbrush as the old one broke, new one has Bluetooth... Why oh why... Luckily it works fine "dumb".
My electric toothbrush must be about 15 years old and it has Bluetooth. It was the only model at the time that worked with the brush heads that my dentist recommended I used.
It's so old that it couldn't even connect to a phone app. It had a separate Bluetooth receiver that could store a few weeks worth of data, then you were supposed to plug the receiver into your phone or a computer via USB.
I never even put batteries in the receiver before throwing it away. There's no way to tell the toothbrush to turn off Bluetooth so I wonder how much energy has been wasted over the years trying to connect to a non-existent device.
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if most of your driving is going to be longer distances and not 'around town', then you either bite the bullet and go full EV or stick to a really efficient ICE for now, not sure of the point of hybrid for your usecase
:agree: This comment a thousand times over!!! I’m currently driving a hybrid as a company car and I’d be bankrupt if I didn’t also have a fuel card. Battery lasts about 15-20 miles at a push and the fuel efficiency for motorway driving is utterly abysmal.
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Agree re unsuitability of hybrids for intermittent longish trips - my work often involves 100-250 mile round trips for site visits. One of my colleagues had a hybrid and his average economy was around 35-39 mpg - which was barely covered by the mileage allowance (he was sometimes out of pocket). I'd go full electric but my house only has street parking, so I'm selfishly sticking with diesel estates for now, until they become unavailable or the charging infrastructure gets a lot better (55-60 mpg, plus the occasional Ad-Blu top up).
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talking of EVs and Font.. am going for a week in summer half term and it will be the first time have taken the EV abroad. Any advice/tips/feedback on public charging in northern France ? (not a tesla, normal CCS)
Loads and loads of EVs making the trip to the Alps this half term so definitely doable.. most Aires had charging stations.
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talking of EVs and Font.. am going for a week in summer half term and it will be the first time have taken the EV abroad. Any advice/tips/feedback on public charging in northern France ? (not a tesla, normal CCS)
Loads and loads of EVs making the trip to the Alps this half term so definitely doable.. most Aires had charging stations.
great - thanks Sam
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talking of EVs and Font.. am going for a week in summer half term and it will be the first time have taken the EV abroad. Any advice/tips/feedback on public charging in northern France ? (not a tesla, normal CCS)
Loads and loads of EVs making the trip to the Alps this half term so definitely doable.. most Aires had charging stations.
great - thanks Sam
Driving in France is such a pleasure I think* - the 'aire' system is great, there are less cars on the road, people seem to have more lane discipline.
*Except around Paris. But even that isn't that bad compared to parts of London. Or [shudder] Naples. Where I was overtaken on the right by a motorbike while I was indicating and turning right...
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Are you not worried about the depreciation of an electric car?
I guess I'm looking 5 or 7 years into the future - what will prices of petrol/diesel cars be doing then when they are being phased out (for new buys) in 2030? Will it increase scarcity and therefore hold price? Or will people just not want one?
There's a reasonable possibility that sale of new ICE won't be outlawed by 2030. It'll depend on the supply of battery materials being sufficient to make EVs affordable for the masses. Many analysts are currently predicting this affordability won't happen by 2030 due to shortage of battery materials. A lot can change between now and then though. The economist ran a series of good articles on the EV transition, free for a month if you cancel subscription: https://www.economist.com/business/2022/08/14/could-the-ev-boom-run-out-of-juice-before-it-really-gets-going?utm_campaign=a.coronavirus-special-edition&utm_medium=email.internal-newsletter.np&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=20230225&utm_content=ed-picks-article-link-4&etear=nl_special_4&utm_campaign=a.coronavirus-special-edition&utm_medium=email.internal-newsletter.np&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=2/25/2023&utm_id=1501831
I wouldn't be shocked to see a niche market for good quality ICE in 2030. I reckon a few people with access to capital and storage will be hoarding some ICE in the late 2020s in case of a run. But then I also wouldn't be shocked to see ICE disappear almost overnight in Europe from 2030, say in the space of 5 years, if progression of technology and supply of raw materials ramps up sufficiently to meet demand.
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Anyone rented one / used one in Provence?
Getting the TGV to Avignon and a rental Fiat 500 electric is an option for the same or less than the petrol version. Used the latter earlier this year in Spain which was perfectly adequate for our needs.
It's unclear but I'm presuming it will be the 24kW version with a range of ~120 miles - a shopping trolly - not far enough to get us to La Palud.
Thoughts?
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I’d be very (VERY) suprised if you get 120miles out of a 24kWh battery (unless you’re quoting the power of the motor 24kW). We have a 30kWh Leaf (admittedly a 2016 model) and we might just scrape 80miles if we’re lucky I think.
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and how would you charge it in la palud? La france profonde is not well equiped with charging stations.
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https://map.electromaps.com/en/
Shows a charging station in La Palud, and ones en-route Avignon-La Palud. No idea of cost or which ones are operational, appears you have to sign up to see details.
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We rented a Zoe for a trip in Spain 2 years ago. Obvs that has a lot more range (50 kwh?) other than the charger in Margalef being flakey and the one in the next two down the hill being out of service, we had a great time and would do it again.
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https://map.electromaps.com/en/
Shows a charging station in La Palud, and ones en-route Avignon-La Palud. No idea of cost or which ones are operational, appears you have to sign up to see details.
There seems to be a charging station in La Palud now, near the gas station & cornershop (8 a huit). At least that's what google tells me when I search for "borne de recharge voiture la palud sur verdon"
https://fr.chargemap.com/le-vignaou.html
In my defence, it wasn't there in April
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There's a reasonable possibility that sale of new ICE won't be outlawed by 2030. It'll depend on the supply of battery materials being sufficient to make EVs affordable for the masses. Many analysts are currently predicting this affordability won't happen by 2030 due to shortage of battery materials.
It doesn't just depend on battery materials. Decent, affordable/free public transport (and 20min neighbourhoods etc) could mean fewer people want/need personal cars. If we/the_powers_that_be choose not to set that up, then we should at least admit that we had such a choice and didn't take it.
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Anyone rented one / used one in Provence?
Getting the TGV to Avignon and a rental Fiat 500 electric is an option for the same or less than the petrol version. Used the latter earlier this year in Spain which was perfectly adequate for our needs.
It's unclear but I'm presuming it will be the 24kW version with a range of ~120 miles - a shopping trolly - not far enough to get us to La Palud.
Thoughts?
No, but charging infrastructure has developed massively in France in the last year. Have a look on the chargemap app, that's the most comprehensive over there. You need to make sure you have the right payment method as most French chargers don't take contactless, an RFID card is often easiest.
I thought a new 500e was 42kwh? Worth checking anyway. It's obviously pretty small for climbing kit etc.
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Thanks everyone. We've used a petrol 500 earlier this year in Siurana. Small and cheap-feeling but adequate for two people.
There are two electric versions available and I've assumed it will be the smaller capacity one on the principle that hire car fleets are made up of the runts of the litter that are not selling to private buyers. The Hyundai Kona is also available for not much more and has a much more reassuring range so might go for that.
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If you're towards the smaller end of the hire car fleet then a Panda can fit a hell of a lot more than most would suspect (as it's essentially a box on wheels).
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I'd second the chargemap app for France, plus we used the chargemap RFID card which worked seamlessly
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Heading to Font in Oct in an EV. Car has decent range (70+kwh) - so won't need many stops and I'm not overly concerned, but wondering if there were any recommendations for
(a) charging places around the forest (inc ones to avoid!)
(b) for the Calais > Font leg where I might need a top up (and coffee).. both there and back, it would be good not to arrive back in the UK searching for a charge.
I've checked the usual aggregator/charger map sites so have some idea, but suggestions welcome.
Cheers.
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(a) charging places around the forest (inc ones to avoid!)
(b) for the Calais > Font leg where I might need a top up (and coffee).. both there and back, it would be good not to arrive back in the UK searching for a charge.
We drove from St. Malo so not the same route but just used motorway aire + supermarche chargers enroute which were fine with a chargemap pass (card). We also got plugsurfing and fulli cards but didn't use them
Around the forest, we were staying in Acheres and just used the Tesla chargers at the Novotel in Ury which were reliable (non-tesla owner but you can charge via their app)
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Thanks Ben - I'd got my eye on the Tesla chargers there..
I've an electroverse card which seems to have quite a lot of networks covered (inc Ionity) so hoping that helps. I'll investigate the chargemap pass.
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Anyone any experience with bike racks affecting range of vehicles? I'm getting an MG5 and wondering what type of bike rack to get (for big bouncy mountain bikes). I'm guessing the roof rack type will be way worse for range than boot door mounted ones?
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You'd be best off with a tow bar mounted rack IMO. Most tip forward so you can still open the boot.
We have the front wheel off type (https://www.yakima.eu/highspeed) that I bought for a few reasons including security but in reality, it wouldn't take much to get our bikes off the roof (although the armoured cable that's integral through the stays and roof rails are hopefully enough of a deterrent).
The one benefit of ours is that their low footprint when they're fitted during the summer but without the bikes doesn't seem to make too much difference to my MPG and doesn't create too much wind noise. I have Yakima aero bars too (bought secondhand from eBay).
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Yeah, what's security like on tow-bar mounted ones too? My feeling is that roof is more secure but canes the range. Security is not the biggest issue up here but I still don't want to invite an opportunistic holidaymaker if I'm parked up in Torridon kipping in the back of my car...
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Can't comment as with our dog I couldn't rely on her being able to jump into the boot past bikes mounted that way successfully (so it just wasn't an option), likewise the A6 has a tailgate that isn't rated for rear racks (it's electric so I'm guessing one false press of the key fob and something expensive would happen).
I used the Roof Box Company:
https://www.roofbox.co.uk/bike-carriers/bike-carriers-racks-range-towbar-mounting.php
They're based in Sedbergh and were really helpful when I had a few queries.
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I was just about to buy one of them there Thule 591 roof racks. What’s the advantage of the Yakima where you take the front wheel off Paul? Is that security or a fuel economy thang?
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I was just about to buy one of them there Thule 591 roof racks. What’s the advantage of the Yakima where you take the front wheel off Paul? Is that security or a fuel economy thang?
I bought it for the added security that with the cable that comes out of the back of it you can go through your stay and the fixed roof rails of my vehicle. Likewise, the front wheel is then inside the vehicle and the front axle is locked to the car too (I'd imagine you can get this out fairly easily on a thru axle and on QR you'd just open the lever). If anyone is buying this kind of system I'd recommend Thule instead as they supply a 'packer' for thru axles whereas Yakima clamp the axle and there's quite a bit of flex in your forks.
To put this all into perspective the keys they use are readily available from Amazon and the whole rack itself could be removed with a bit of force to remove the plastic covers and then a 5mm allen key!
The Yakima system is VERY quiet when it doesn't have bikes on it which was another reason.
In your instance T_B I'd imagine you'll likely need to fit people/mini people into your car? Wheels still take up quite a lot of room. Three UKBers with two bikes on the roof, the wheels and a bike in an A6 and we didn't have much space on a recent day trip to the Lakes.
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OK good to know. I’m less worried about security as I’d mainly be driving from home to somewhere that I could store it securely (though there’s always service stations I guess). Yeah having the wheel inside would be a PITA. Should have got a tow bar fitted when we bought the car, but it’s a bit old now to maybe bother.
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I'd like to say it means I worry about them less when they're left on the car and we go and grab some food etc. but in reality it doesn't work that way; people are brazen and at a nearby festival (Beatherder) people's roof tents were being stolen by someone with an angle grinder in the car park.
The other issue we had was Nat's previous frame had externally routed cables that ran underneath the down tube. The traditional racks simply mashed these into the paint which didn't seem ideal.
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I see you got a full page spread on Road cc Paul. Not a good way to make the headlines, I hope it hasn’t put you and Natalie off riding.
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Indeed. It seemed the only way to actually get a response. The article is here if anyone else is interested:
https://road.cc/content/news/motorist-escapes-punishment-swerving-female-cyclist-305757
The main thing it's put me off is the Police and the Lancs. Police and Crime Commissioner (and given my Dad was a PC for years I perhaps started with more sympathy for their job than most).
What I've seen is that instead of dealing with a mistake and learning from it they just close up entirely and the PCC is too busy chasing positive headlines about crime falling to actually fulfil his role. I can't get beyond the fact the office think asking 'why' breaches their impartiality.
She now has a Cyliq Fly 12 as it's one of the only cameras to record for a decent length of time but TBH I was hoping that if either of us bought a camera it'd be for Safa Brian (https://www.instagram.com/safabrian/?hl=en) type descents (although with a little more care for our own safety in traffic) than recording motorists.
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Well thanks for reporting it and pursuing it Paul. Important to shout about these things.
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Anyone any experience with bike racks affecting range of vehicles? I'm getting an MG5 and wondering what type of bike rack to get (for big bouncy mountain bikes). I'm guessing the roof rack type will be way worse for range than boot door mounted ones?
I'd be interested to hear how you get on the with this (plus bike rack). Our elderly Touran is on its last legs and I can't summon up any enthusiasm for getting another diesel shed, so considering going electric and the MG5 looks like it might do the job. Range looks reasonable as does price (although still spendy for a previously committed shed buyer ;)).
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Yeah I'll report back! Was actually thinking about blogging the experiences of being an electric boulderer in the Highlands. If you're in Scotland you can apply for an interest-free loan for used EVs through the Energy Saving Trust, which is how I'm funding mine.
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I have a Kia niro EV which we get 205 miles out of with roof box on, 2 adults 3 kids.(64kwh battery) The boot is pretty big as you can strip out the space where the spare tyre would go. Think there are plenty around 2nd hand
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Anyone any experience with bike racks affecting range of vehicles? I'm getting an MG5 and wondering what type of bike rack to get (for big bouncy mountain bikes). I'm guessing the roof rack type will be way worse for range than boot door mounted ones?
I've got a roofbox - and that increases motorway consumption by about 30% (ie commensurate drop in range etc..). I imagine bars and bikes will be similar. Mounting at the rear can make a big difference I've heard..
On smaller roads/lower speeds it makes far less of a difference.
Aero efficiency makes a huge difference to EV's (hence their quest for ever lower CD's) - same as driving an EV into a strong headwind kills range/efficiency.
One final thing to consider, IIRC the first batch of MG5's had roof bars - but the roofs were not strong enough to hold more than about 20kg - so they were effectively just for decoration.. It has now been sorted, but if you are buying an early one then bear that in mind. MG5/EV forums will give you a more definitive answer on that.
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Ah I hadn't realised that! Yeah i'm getting the Exclusive model, which has those roof bars. Sounds like rear mount is the way to go, but for the amjority of the time the bike can just get bunged in the boot.
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The Mg5’s have a good rep. Cleevely EV garage have three of them for mobile servicing. One over 100k now with no issues. Taxi drivers favourite too..
https://x.com/katefantom/status/1698329302566076499?s=46&t=IZ3oEhAJLTR1G-A78VKqww
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I was looking at the mg5 but went with the mg4.
2 main reasons:
1) the mg5 is a converted ic engine base which means the rear seats have terrible leg height space as the battery sits underneath. So adults sitting at the back have their knees quite high and found that really uncomfortable.
2) even though it's an estate its still quite small, boot space is closer to a hatchback than to an octavia / superb estate. So decided if we needed more space we'd have to go suv / petrol / diesel.
It's been great to drive, steering is super light and ev acceleration is amazing.
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I was reading the comments on Jim’s question and wanted to ask about the 30 day refund thing.
My parents just got a car from a dealer and it is having various issues. Nothing serious so far, but the sunroof has started leaking now we’ve had some prolonged rain.
The dealer (2 hours away) said to take it to their recommended garage, but they have refused to fix it having done similar jobs in past and it always ending up being a mammoth job to fix. A few other local garages have said the same too.
The dealer has asked them to bring it back in the new year and they will give a courtesy car whilst they try to get it sorted. They got it on 8th December, so well within the 30 days.
I said that I would ask about the rules around returning, as I had never realised it was even possible. They are okay with keeping it at the moment but as the dealer is a 2 hour drive away they are reluctant to keep taking it back there if it is a pain to fix.
They part exchanged an old car (£500) if that makes any difference. Not sure on the dealer either but it will likely have been a decent sized one rather than a small outfit.
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Might be worth looking at what Citizen’s Advice guidance can offer?
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/buying-or-repairing-a-car/problems-with-a-used-car/