Good Here Init!!!!

[ChrisB]

The Financial Times is reporting this mornimg that new housing development may be halted in the London Boroughs of Ealing, Hounslow and Hillingdon due to the electrical grid reaching capacity. It apparently will take until 2035 to be upgraded.

So a highly polluted area, which would really benefit from greater use of electric vehicles and indeed heating, where their use is much more "every day" practical. Has not got a prayer!

[Regulo]

I'm afraid this is going to be repeated all over the country. It's one thing encouraging people to go electric, but without the capacity to provide the oomph, we can't move on. Even now, users of overnight cheap rate electric for car charging are having their scheduled start times staggered to alleviate the "hit" on supply that would come if all the car chargers turned on at once. All new EV home chargers must now come with a means for the energy supplier to remotely monitor and control them. It's all a stop gap anyway, until hydrogen comes online.

[gancanny]

so,  our grendel has been right all along, 

[Mouldy]

Found this article on FB.  I knew that the process of making batteries was not exactly eco-friendly, but if this is even only half correct, we are being sold some huge lies about the environmental advantages of EV’s.

 

[grendel]

this is what i have been trying to say on all the threads regarding electricity supply for EV's, there are some areas that just dont have the spare capacity, so much for the target of 2025, if they cant upgrade their network before 2035 to supply all thse new cars.

you cna just bolt a 7kw EV charger onto the wall of your house, but if everyone does so, then the supply network will fail, as its not been designed around that additional load, the average house is rated at aboout 1.5kW, and the network is designed to the capacity of every house using 1.5kw, when you put on a larger load (eg cooker) the network can manage this, because not everyone does it at the same time. so when everyone wants to charge their cars at 7kW, the cables supplying their houses will fail, or the fuses will blow at the substation, you may have a 100A supply into your house, but the cables supplying the street are not capable of carrying this load if every house tries using it.

older houses fare worse, for example my house only has a 64A breaker, there are 16 houses fed off a single 35mm 3 phase cable, the cable is rated to take 154A, thats effectively 10A per household - 2.2kW, so if someone puts a 7kw charger on, they are effectively using 3 houses allocation of supply on the mains cable, this idf all 16 houses had a 7kW charger and turned it on at the same time, the poor cable would have in excess of 500A trying to go through it- result - poof, no cable

 

[FairTmiddlin]

And with the price of electricity to rise again in the autumn. How expensive will it be, to charge an electric vehicle anyway!

[grendel]

5 minutes ago, Mouldy said:

Found this article on FB.  I knew that the process of making batteries was not exactly eco-friendly, but if this is even only half correct, we are being sold some huge lies about the environmental advantages of EV’s.

 

facebook as usual is wrong, a sustainability study has been made between lead acid and li-ion batterys by a leading electrical equipment supplier and while battery for battery, lead acid wins (mostly because 98% of lead acid batterys are made from recycled lead, over the lifespan of the equipment, a single li-ion battery can replace 3 lead acid ones, thus comes out slightly ahead

https://www.se.com/eg/en/download/document/SPD_WP71_EN/

[grendel]

that said, saying its slightly better than a lead acid battery isnt saying much considering the toxicity of lead and its recycling, eventually lithium batteries will be recycled as are lead acid, which will gain a small improvement.

the fact is that we have limited resources, and we should be conserving them rather than squandering them.

[Mouldy]

18 minutes ago, grendel said:

facebook as usual is wrong, a sustainability study has been made between lead acid and li-ion batterys by a leading electrical equipment supplier and while battery for battery, lead acid wins (mostly because 98% of lead acid batterys are made from recycled lead, over the lifespan of the equipment, a single li-ion battery can replace 3 lead acid ones, thus comes out slightly ahead

https://www.se.com/eg/en/download/document/SPD_WP71_EN/

So there’s absolutely no truth in the fact that it takes an awful amount of mining and refining to make a lithium battery?  I don’t believe that many manufacturers of EV’s use lead acid batteries now, due to their size, weight and performance.

I did read a report, written by Volvo, that said that for an EV to become carbon neutral, assuming only one battery set would be used and using electricity generated using fossil fuels, would take well over twenty years.  Not exactly the eco-friendly cure all we are being led to believe.

[grendel]

no, it does take an awful lot of work to produce an ev battery, this was a comparison between ups batteries, which will be a lot smaller, but sustainability wise, lithium wins out over lead acid equivalent, just.

its just that the posts on facebook dont present a balanced argument, and are just posted to generate the reaction they want. 

I am not anti EV, i just look at the impracticality of the current situation.

 

[BroadAmbition]

So our Grendel was right all along?

He was never wrong, not even for a moment 

Griff

[floydraser]

I'm currently working on drawings for a new housing development of "affordable" homes. All of them, even those for social rent, will have EV chargers as standard. Presumably the estate cabling will be up to whatever someone has predicted it would need to be. 

[grendel]

if the new development shows ev chargers, the base load will be increased to account for them, thus where at present we may have 200 houses fed from a single substation (300kW) (we like to allow some spare capacity) we will be able to supply 117 houses from the same 1000kW substation and have no spare capacity due to the ev chargers, (assuming the are the low power 7kW variety)

so I do hope your development has allowed space for enough substations to supply those chargers and properties, or we will be nicking pairs of parking spaces to site them, thats always assuming we can get the capacity for them from the local HV network from the DNO.

now heres the difference, 200 houses could just about be fed from the local LV network, but add the EV chargers and we will need to put in a HV supply and a substation every time.

[PaulN]

Section S of the latest Building regulations say that new domestic dwellings must have EV charging Points equal to the number of off road parking spaces.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1057375/AD_S.pdf 

[Wonderwall]

The fossil fuel combustion engine, is not going anywhere fast 😂

[grendel]

6 hours ago, Regulo said:

I'm afraid this is going to be repeated all over the country. It's one thing encouraging people to go electric, but without the capacity to provide the oomph, we can't move on. Even now, users of overnight cheap rate electric for car charging are having their scheduled start times staggered to alleviate the "hit" on supply that would come if all the car chargers turned on at once. All new EV home chargers must now come with a means for the energy supplier to remotely monitor and control them. It's all a stop gap anyway, until hydrogen comes online.

I will remind you of this post , basically you come home, plug the car in and expect that it will be charged next day, but no, if demand is too high, the energy company may have switched your charger off  some of the night, and you suddenly don't have enough charge to get to work. All facilitated through your smart charger and smart meter.

[floydraser]

29 minutes ago, PaulN said:

Section S of the latest Building regulations say that new domestic dwellings must have EV charging Points equal to the number of off road parking spaces.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1057375/AD_S.pdf 

I thought new dwellings also had to have two off road parking places? Not sure, I only draw building internals but a new development near the office has two each.

[Bikertov]

27 minutes ago, floydraser said:

I thought new dwellings also had to have two off road parking places? Not sure, I only draw building internals but a new development near the office has two each.

Plenty of inner city / suburban development have almost no parking, so not sure that is the case ?

Take Wembley for instance (London borough of Brent), in front of the Stadium. 1000's of new units gone/going up over the last few years, with practically no parking facilities whatsoever. You can hardly even drive a car within 100m of them, let alone park !

[marshman]

Who is surprised at this whole EV issue being one large con? Not me!!! It seems just one more blessed opportunity for car manufacturers to ramp up the price of cars - make them more simple  but hey, lets ramp up the price!!!!

Bit similar to Sadiq Khans ULEZ zone! I read the other day, in a not well publicised report, that many of the so called particulates in  inner city areas did indeed come from cars and other vehicles but not from the engines, but tyres!

You heard from me first, folks - remember that!!! Altogether more plausible given that modern diesel cars are now as clean as petrol cars!

[PaulN]

2 minutes ago, marshman said:

Who is surprised at this whole EV issue being one large con? Not me!!! It seems just one more blessed opportunity for car manufacturers to ramp up the price of cars - make them more simple  but hey, lets ramp up the price!!!!

Bit similar to Sadiq Khans ULEZ zone! I read the other day, in a not well publicised report, that many of the so called particulates in  inner city areas did indeed come from cars and other vehicles but not from the engines, but tyres!

You heard from me first, folks - remember that!!! Altogether more plausible given that modern diesel cars are now as clean as petrol cars!

Yes Marshman. We bought a new car this year, we need an SUV type, with all the kit we take to the boat when we go there. We considered an EV but opted for a diesel again, which as you says is 'clean' and is exempt from any payment in ULEZ zones. 

Our journey to the boat is 117 miles, which in an average family SUV EV is fine if driven at a max of 60 mph and the ambient temperature outside is 21 deg C. However if the car is fully loaded and in the summer it's 30 deg C or Winter 0 deg C, then with the climate control switched on the range comes tumbling down and we couldn't get there on one charge, which is just not on. (I'm not talking about the mega expensive Tesla's and Jaguar's etc).

My diesel does about 65mpg on the boat run, so that's what I will be sticking to for now. The government have set legislation that by 2035 all new cars will be electric, but the technology is not there yet for a decent range, so let's just hope it will be by then.

[oldgregg]

I think for the moment the best option is a good hybrid (and I don't mean 'mild' hybrids) such as the Toyota system.

People moan about the whole 'self-charging' strapline but it's just highlighting the fact that you're recovering the energy that would otherwise be lost as heat and brake dust under braking.

Some silly MPG figures have been quoted in the past, but the reality is that they're a good 20-30% more efficient and thankfully they've also now fixed the issue of all the cars looking dull and driving with the flair of a shopping trolley.

As for electric cars, the biggest problem at the moment is weight and charging infrastructure. I've driven a fair few different electric cars and I've yet to try one that's a proper driver's car and under £50K. Everything under that price either handles like a hippo or has a tiny range.

If we do go hydrogen, it has to be fuel cell electric and not combustion engine otherwise you have the same problem of chucking away 70% of the energy from the fuel as current vehicles do. Toyota Mirai tech, basically. They've been remarkably on the money where other manufacturers have been totally asleep.

[Heron]

With reference back to Marshmans post 3 hours ago, the particulates from tyres are a much greater problem than from petrol or diesel engines and guess what, because of the extra weight load of EV transport from batteries etc. the tyre particulate problem becomes even greater. Yes the public is being conned worldwide but there is loads of money to be made in the meantime, but not by the likes of you and me!

[floydraser]

16 hours ago, Bikertov said:

Plenty of inner city / suburban development have almost no parking, so not sure that is the case ?

Take Wembley for instance (London borough of Brent), in front of the Stadium. 1000's of new units gone/going up over the last few years, with practically no parking facilities whatsoever. You can hardly even drive a car within 100m of them, let alone park !

I'm not sure myself but the development I refer to is near the centre of Northampton. It's probably down to where it is and the number of bedrooms etc. 

 

[floydraser]

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that when electric vehicles started to be sold in numbers, there has never been a stripped down, basic version of anything available; they're all bling machines.

Years ago, I noticed that electric scooters designed for city use were decorated with brightly coloured Brembo brake calipers.

Can you buy an electric car without electric windows, electric closing boot, electric folding mirrors? My favourite waste of power is cameras in place of mirrors. Lifesavers on a lorry but pure bling on a car.

[OldBerkshireBoy]

16 hours ago, Bikertov said:

Plenty of inner city / suburban development have almost no parking, so not sure that is the case ?

Take Wembley for instance (London borough of Brent), in front of the Stadium. 1000's of new units gone/going up over the last few years, with practically no parking facilities whatsoever. You can hardly even drive a car within 100m of them, let alone park !

Parking is one thing I look at when asked to attend and quote for a job so good luck getting a plumber or any trade to visit there.