Lexus becoming common.

[dutchie01]

Just for the sake of discussion, suppose you have a BEV with a realistic mileage of 260 from a full Battery and the average total miles you drive is around 300 miles per two weeks is there still need to charge it at home? You just plug it in at a high speed charger wait 20/30 mins while shopping and thatś it done for another week and a half. It seems to me that with increasing charging speeds from both cars and chargers homecharging could well be irrelevant?

[royoftherovers]

8 minutes ago, dutchie01 said:

Just for the sake of discussion, suppose you have a BEV with a realistic mileage of 260 from a full battery and the average total miles you drive is around 300 miles per two weeks is there still need to charge it at home? You just plug it in at a high speed charger wait 20/30 mins while shopping and thatś it done for another week and a half. It seems to me that with increasing charging speeds from both cars and chargers homecharging could well be irrelevant?

If one can find a high speed charger that is available to use Bernard.

[MartinH]

Indeed this is the future, but for the time being 'range anxiety' inhibits drivers from utilizing anything like the full potential range. Rich Londoners tend to have a second car (diesel Merc typically) for longer journeys, while the BEV is employed in town. Unfortunately we're also starting to see people rigging mains cables out across the pavement from their home, with an obstructive safety cover to trip pedestrians. More public charger points are appearing, and these, annoyingly, often rob space from the footway. In my opinion such chargers should be located in the roadway.

[dutchie01]

1 hour ago, royoftherovers said:

If one can find a high speed charger that is available to use Bernard.

Shell is rolling out 175kw chargers in all petrolstations also in innercities in Holland. I guess it will be a matter of time..

[Linas.P]

2 hours ago, dutchie01 said:

Just for the sake of discussion, suppose you have a BEV with a realistic mileage of 260 from a full battery and the average total miles you drive is around 300 miles per two weeks is there still need to charge it at home? You just plug it in at a high speed charger wait 20/30 mins while shopping and thatś it done for another week and a half. It seems to me that with increasing charging speeds from both cars and chargers homecharging could well be irrelevant?

I think this is oversimplification. If we look at average mileage of British driver ~10000 miles/year, that makes it ~45miles day. Secondly, not every BEV has realistic range of 260 miles (https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/electric-cars-best-real-world-range_). So average driver most likely going to need to charge their car every other day.

Charge points are not available at my work, nor at most railway station car parks, most supermarkets don't have fast charging points (with exception of Tesla superchargers). So this means every other day you will have to waste 30 minutes of your life, spending time in the supermarket buying stuff you don't need whilst waiting for your car to charge.

I agree that in future when technology improves (especially charging speed and not so much the range), this may not be an issue, but curranty this is absolutely an issue and owning BEV without ability of charging at home makes no sense.

Further, charging in the public charge points although cheaper than petrol still works out 10 times more expensive than doing it at home, so by not having facilities at home one would loose any economical benefit of having BEV.

1 hour ago, MartinH said:

Rich Londoners tend to have a second car (diesel Merc typically) for longer journeys, while the BEV is employed in town. 

But you know what is funny... that is actually the most environmentally friendly way. Yes diesel sucks in the city, but for long journeys, high and consistent speed on motorway, they are still the way to go.

[royoftherovers]

Each time I drive to/from Spain I`m in the Diesel Merc. 700 miles on each tank, 53/54 mpg and each full tank gives almost 2 days continuous  driving.

Edited May 13, 2021 by royoftherovers
typo

[LenT]

On 5/13/2021 at 6:53 PM, Linas.P said:

Charge points are not available at my work, nor at most railway station car parks, most supermarkets don't have fast charging points (with exception of Tesla superchargers). So this means every other day you will have to waste 30 minutes of your life, spending time in the supermarket buying stuff you don't need whilst waiting for your car to charge.

I agree that in future when technology improves (especially charging speed and not so much the range), this may not be an issue, but curranty this is absolutely an issue and owning BEV without ability of charging at home makes no sense.

Further, charging in the public charge points although cheaper than petrol still works out 10 times more expensive than doing it at home, so by not having facilities at home one would loose any economical benefit of having BEV.

I think these are very good points that you - and others - have made.  Namely, compared to the throughput of a conventional pump, a charging point is miserably inefficient.  As I suspect that it's a small minority that have access to their own personal charging points, then EV owners are relying on ones that are publicly accessible - a situation which is surely only going to get worse.

But what has puzzled me is the potential for 'Charging Point Wars'.  While one is, say, pleasantly occupied in supermarket shopping for 30 minutes, what is to stop an opportunist from disconnecting your cable and substituting theirs - albeit with some kind of extension, if necessary?  Is it that once disconnected the supply has to be reaffirmed before it is re-established?  Even if that was the case, it wouldn't stop another motorist from effectively 'queue-jumping'!

It would surely take the gloss off my exhilarating shopping experience, to find some tow rag has ignored the principle of 'first come, first charged'.  I see enormous potential for heated debate.

Or have I missed something very obvious?

PS.  Just to add that our shiny, new local Supermarket has a row of very attractive Charging Points to offer EV owners.  Unfortunately, when I visited a couple of days ago, they were all fenced off!  Bit of a blow if you were hoping to combine a charging event with a shopping experience.

[Linas.P]

1 hour ago, LenT said:

PS.  Just to add that our shiny, new local Supermarket has a row of very attractive Charging Points to offer EV owners.  Unfortunately, when I visited a couple of days ago, they were all fenced off!  Bit of a blow if you were hoping to combine a charging event with a shopping experience.

Yes, charging point are often not working or not compatible or 100 other reason why even if you get there you may not be able to charge. I am sure when EVs becomes more popular this may improve, but currently relying on public charging in non starter.

As I said another big issue is the cost... chargers do not works like petrol pumps - i.e. you came plugged it in and you pay whatever electricity you have used (some do)... Usually, you have to be subscribed to the service of certain network and there are literally 100s of them and they all have different charge structures - some charge say £20 monthly fee and then very little for electricity, some other charge £5 monthly and more for electricity, some don't charge monthly, but charge a lot for electricity, some other work as pre-paid vouchers i.e. you pay £30 a month, but you can use that money to charge etc. It is like gym membership in a way - you cannot expect to use Virgin if you have Fitness First membership.

The problem is - you can't be subscribed to all of them at the same time because that would cost like £1000 a month just to have subscriptions, so you need to selected few which you use commonly, but that will likely cause the issue, that when you decide to charge one day you will realise that chargers which are available are not from the same network... so you either need to subscribe again for yet another network or look for another charger.  It is super confusing!

Now yes... there are apps which will show you all the charging points and you can filter based on what subscriptions you have, and there are slit some free charging points where you either don't need to be subscribed and just pay for KW or it is totally free (mostly supermarkets), but those are the ones which are most often broken. 

I mean I am sure when this is going to mature, maybe goverment will enforce it like other utilities i.e. that you can always charge no matter what network it is (so that chargers will be universal), but you pay the fee based on your service provider ... and then providers figure out by themselves who pays whom and what. But again - having EV today without being able to charge at home in non-starter. 

Finally, don't know the answer to "queue-jumping" question ... I guess for the moment all EV owners are either rich, posh or both... so it just does not happen... but once EVs are common I can see possibility of that, perhaps they will figure out the way when it happens. I am thinking probably similar as parking on disabled bay or not paying/displaying a ticket  - there could be camera (there are cameras already) and unplugging charging cable would result in PCN for £100. Still does not mean it won't happen, but I guess they figure the way to deter people from doing it.

[Malc]

On 5/5/2021 at 8:44 AM, flookyk said:

Maybe I need to buy something rare now,

an old fashioned petrol V8 ......  Ls400 maybe 

with amazingly low maintenance and running costs apart from the petrol which you can purchase almost anywhere in the country and abroad without any specific range problem well, apart from maybe 500 miles before easy refuelling

Malc

[Barry14UK]

As manufacturers stop making ICE powered cars, it will be interesting to see how this affects the used price of the diminishing number of good used ones which may also be impacted by existing and proposed ultra low emission zones. 

[Linas.P]

24 minutes ago, Malc said:

an old fashioned petrol V8 ......  Ls400 maybe 

with amazingly low maintenance and running costs apart from the petrol which you can purchase almost anywhere in the country and abroad without any specific range problem well, apart from maybe 500 miles before easy refuelling

As well car reliability is often overlooked when considering life-time emissions. 

And so what that Tesla claims to have 30% lower emissions than normal car, when they need to be fixed and parts replaced 20 times in first 2 years and entire car probably becomes uneconomical repair after 10... just the emissions from making replacement parts and disposal of broken stuff is probably more than whole saving it creates. 

Even my old IS all things considered (not even most reliable Lexus) have almost no faults over 200k miles. Yes the A/C pump was replaced, but apart of that all the rest were wear and tear items - pads, disks, oils, filters. Compared to similar cars entire suspension would have been replaced 3 times, gearbox once and half of interior electronic - with added shipping and disposal that creates as much waste as making half of new car.

[royoftherovers]

2 hours ago, Barry14UK said:

As manufacturers stop making ICE powered cars, it will be interesting to see how this affects the used price of the diminishing number of good used ones which may also be impacted by existing and proposed ultra low emission zones. 

One person on here has been claiming several times that the value of all Lexus vehicles will climb well ahead of the rest of vehicles generally.😉

[Linas.P]

3 hours ago, Barry14UK said:

As manufacturers stop making ICE powered cars, it will be interesting to see how this affects the used price of the diminishing number of good used ones which may also be impacted by existing and proposed ultra low emission zones. 

If they really going to follow through with complete band of ICE cars (which I do not believe will happen), then there could be the case that used ICE cars will increase in value significantly.

The reason why I don't think they will be able to stop selling them as currently projected is because there is no infrastructure to support BEVs. Infrastructure takes long time to build-up and I see no progress whatsoever. I mean sure they build charging point here and there, but there is no national focus on it. I would expect that for it to happen goverment would have to change building regulation now (probably should have done 10 years ago) i.e. that every new building should have mandatory number of chargers and they have to be at minimum certain power level, not just simple 220V sockets. 

In short I think one of 2 things will happen - comes 2030 and government either:

1. will delay or relax the rules for ICE, maybe they just going to start taxing them much higher. In which case not much will change, just poorer people who can't afford charging at home will pay more tax.

2. they will enforce the rules, meaning that 50% of population and like 70% of city residents will be instantly out of the options - either they get used ICE or they don't drive at all... in which case used ICE prices may increase significantly and stay high for much longer, until car really becomes unserviceable. 

Sure - improvements in technology will help, but I doubt technology will improve so much in 8.5 years that studently we can all drive BEV without having to charge them at home. As I said - it would be enough if BEV could be made to charge for say 50-100 miles in 15 or 30 seconds... that is much more important than massive range. And that would allow to have BEV without home charging. I may be wrong and maybe there is technological breakthrough around the corner, but until that is done I can't see goverment plans to ban ICE feasible at all.

[dutchie01]

The used price of EVś can be a surprise as well. Currently very very strong but Unlike a fossil car an EV is basically a driving computer with Battery. And i see comparisons between these products. Remember the first 64mb desktops? everybody bought one until.. the 128mb came out making the 64 basically worthless.

2 things in EV land at the moment. Battery capacity ( and range) and charging capacity. Both are improved with every model hitting the market. Charging currently possible with 800 volts and avarage batterycapacity sits around 80kw. Next up will be 100kw and 1000 km range and so on. Just look at the BMW i3 and compare this with the latest competitors from korea etc. China is also entering the market so the challenge will be to keep "old" models up to date. If this fails i am not so sure of second hand values.

 

[MartinH]

EV aftermarket values will eventually follow the same trajectory as those of phones. So yes, it's likely that really top-quality ICE cars will eventually hold their value well, but only for an enthusiast sector of the overall market.

[LenT]

16 hours ago, Barry14UK said:

As manufacturers stop making ICE powered cars…

Interesting report in today’s paper concerning Bamford. In 2019, apparently, they launched an example of a hydrogen fuel cell plant.  Last week they demonstrated a hydrogen powered JCB digger, based on their impressive Diesel engine experience.

They believe that eliminating the cost, complexity and weight of the fuel cell Battery component could make this a particularly attractive technology.  Maybe reports of the death of the ICE are a little premature?

Of course that also relies on the development of hydrogen pumps, either in gas or liquid form!

[Las Palmas]

The Lexus cars I see most here are old IS diesels. Also IS gasoline. Hybrids are mostly RX here and on the lisence plates you can directly see when they were registered. first.

Few UX with the funny rubber plastic around the wheels.

Do not know if Lexus will stay on here as price is not the big problem for many here as I see far more new Ferraris than the expensive Lexus models.

[Malc]

15 hours ago, Linas.P said:

BEV without having to charge them at home.

charging at home, well, it would be very very useful if in Govt statistics there was some definitive thought on the percentage of the population owning cars that had zero facility for charging at home  ( like me )

EV owners live in terraced homes in areas without off road parking

Apartments ..  similarly

and the like ........  flats above shops etc

This might give some sense to the credibility in the  banning of the sale of brand new non EVs

Any useful thoughts anyone ?

Malc

[Linas.P]

56 minutes ago, Malc said:

charging at home, well, it would be very very useful if in Govt statistics there was some definitive thought on the percentage of the population owning cars that had zero facility for charging at home  ( like me )

EV owners live in terraced homes in areas without off road parking

Apartments ..  similarly

and the like ........  flats above shops etc

This might give some sense to the credibility in the  banning of the sale of brand new non EVs

Any useful thoughts anyone ?

Malc

I agree with you here... but I don't think this statistics will be available because it would be massively embarrassing for government, it would basically show how impossible the task is and how little government does about it... that is why as always they trying to brush it under the carpet, for next goverment to worry about, and next government will do the same until the date of the ban comes and everyone will freak out and just handle this over for public and motorists.

And this is not simple problem to solve - most of apartments were built and still being built without not only charging facilities, but without even parking facilities at all. It is not uncommon for block of flats only having 20 or 40 parking spaces for 100 flats, nowadays quite popular office conversions only have like 2 parking spaces for 100 flats. With ICE cars that is already big enough issue as the cars are being thrown around surrounding roads, but on BEV is non-starter. Basically it is not simple as installing charging points - there are no parking spaces to begin with. 

So what is the solution? In other countries, for example, it is mandatory for any development to have 80/90 parking spaces per 100 households and it was happening for many years, so majority of the households already has place and it "merely" need to be electrified. In Germany every new development since like 2012 had to have 1 charging point per household (not sure if it is federal or local regulations). In UK opposite was happening for many many years - not only there was no mandatory national minimum parking spaces (leading into greedy developers not providing any), but as well local goverment actually pushed developers into reducing the parking spaces. So in UK we have situation where we simply don't have parking spaces to begin with, so nothing to electrify.

Secondly, even for people who have spaces the electrification is not as simple. For example I have space, but I can't just simply install the charger - I need permission from building management and freeholder to do that... and they simply not interested. This will be the case for most people in apartments. And even those who will get permission still going to be stuck - sure simple 220V socket could be installed, but that may take 3 days to charged BEV and there are no infrastructure to install multiple fast chargers.

So here are few considerations:

• BEVs are most beneficial in the cities, where most people live in apartments and have no parking and as you said even those living in terraced homes most likely not to have no off-road parking. Range of BEVs is not issue here, rather charging speed. At the same time the fast chargers are the most complex tin install in this setting.
• Most people in country side will have off-road parking, but unlikely to have sufficient electrical installation to charge BEV at home, further BEVs lack range required for country side.

So in summary, people who will have facility to charge won't really benefit from BEV and those who would benefit most won't be able to charge it.

Now what government is doing about it ... nothing... they just hoping scientists will invent miracle Battery which can be charged in 1s and have 1000 miles range. Same as they do with climate change, congestion, cancer or any other major issue - they shout about them to win votes and then ignore them. Necessary rules, regulations, legislation and funding never comes.

What rules and regulations... Probably mandating certain number of parking spaces, chargers and fast chargers for new developments (it is too late to meet 2030 deadline, but better than nothing), force freeholder/building manager to allow installation of the chargers or better - make it their responsibility to provide charging facilities. Instruct local councils to build public charging facilities based on the number of household they have (after all that is why council tax is paid - for public facilities maintenance). But as we all know this won't happen. 

Now in terms of Battery development... I have opinion as well, but this post is already getting long....

[Las Palmas]

18 hours ago, royoftherovers said:

 

 

42 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

Now what government is doing about it ... nothing... they just hoping scientists will invent miracle battery which can be charged in 1s and have 1000 miles range. Same as they do with climate change, congestion, cancer or any other major issue - they shout about them to win votes and then ignore them. Necessary rules, regulations, legislation and funding never comes.

We have same opinion about politicians. All they care about is getting money for nothing and being re-elected.

[Mincey]

Every time I see a Gen 2 IS, I check to see whether it runs on petrol or the Devil's fuel. I'm surprised at how many 55-07 220d's are still going given the known issues.

[ALAW]

On 5/13/2021 at 6:37 PM, dutchie01 said:

Shell is rolling out 175kw chargers in all petrolstations also in innercities in Holland. I guess it will be a matter of time..

What is high speed time wise.

[Linas.P]

It is still going to be like 50% in 20 min or something, but there is another issue - fast charging degrades batteries far quicker. 

[Malc]

5 hours ago, Linas.P said:

It is still going to be like 50% in 20 min or something, but there is another issue

and that also being the fact that like with BP, it's forecourt sales are exponentially exploding with longer re-fuelling times enabling customers to lounge around more at the station and SPEND .....  I was reading somewhere, possibly on some BP advice to shareholders, that some 50% of UK forecourt profits emanate from this otherwise passive customer spend .......  that's maybe one reason one's seeing a significant UK and worldwide growth in the BP re-fuelling station estate

Malc