Long range EVs

Latest Articles

Long range EVs
Page Previous 1, 2, 3 ... 6, 7, 8 ... 85, 86, 87 Next

Downsizer Forum Index -> Energy Efficiency and Construction/Major Projects

Author

Message

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Sun Jan 08, 23 8:09 am Post subject:

jema wrote:

Pretty much

I always come back to the street I am on has been dug up at least three times for internet things let alone it has electric, phone, water, sewage, gas.
So we have 6 utilities going to the house, but all of a sudden a bit more electric is an impossible problem? no it isn't.

For want of a better word that's a bit of a 'townie' answer. Where I live we don't have mains water or sewage, no gas, phone is still the old copper wire, electric supply often fluctuates above and below the legal limits.

You could argue we're unique but actually hardly anyone in the country has mains gas, large areas down here don't have mains water and drainage, phone is very poor and from what I've learnt the electric isn't great.

Edit to add, we also don't have a mobile phone signal so no option of a smart meter (how many decades have mobile phones been around for?) We also just lost the broadband for several minutes because it dared to rain. Again, all fairly common to many people who don't live in towns and cities.

Last edited by Treacodactyl on Sun Jan 08, 23 8:41 am; edited 1 time in total

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15863

Posted: Sun Jan 08, 23 8:14 am Post subject:

If they have to upgrade everyone from a 30 or 60 supply, yes it could be. They have to get more supply from somewhere, upgrade the wires the full length of the supply, not just to the individual houses. This is what I have been saying all the time. Hence, the local port having to bid to have an upgraded supply to serve their ships. Think if all the 70-80,000 dwellings there also needed upgrading; it would need massive cables to supply and a reliable supply as well.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46089
Location: yes

Posted: Sun Jan 08, 23 11:35 am Post subject:

Treacodactyl wrote:

Looking on UK power networks in seems 30 amp and 60 amp main fuses are common. I didn't know about the 30 amp ones but know lots of 60 amp installations. Interestingly they list car chargers as their first reason for upgrades so I'm not inventing problems.

Our electric is a little unique but hopefully a 100 amp fuse will not cause any trouble. I would have thought though that some houses may struggle with that though, if they have multiple EVs.

i will try to be helpful, if a bit rough

there are 2 sets of numbers, up to the company head and those on the consumer unit/load circuits

the head numbers should exceed the load numbers by at least 20%

next , no matter what you do to the load side of the system, the numbers on the head side are what matters if you need to "modernise" the load side
IE will the big wire coming into your premises supply the loads listed on your consumer unit +20%

never seen a 30A head and i am familiar with naked domestic wires in wooden trunking from the 1890s and many abominations installed since then
some early wire fuse type consumer units can be fused at quite low capacity, if the head has been changed since the premises first got leccy it will probably be in the 60/80A bracket
if it was done at 60A in the last 50 yrs or so there was a supply side issue with capacity

60A is low for the 20th c and if that was the supply design capacity even a modern domestic rewire without car charger would be challenging to get within load by using low energy kit
80A would be a challenge to do a retrofit with a car charger that was reasonably rapid

are you sure you have head supply and individual circuit loads clear in the 30A thing? a ring main, cooker or immersion heater is 30A max on the fuse or breaker
the total if everything was at full capacity on the consumer unit can exceed the supply number as it is unlikely to be at capacity in practical terms

if i had to pick a number, at least 80A for domestic and another 80A for a car and the future(be that as the consumer and/or consumer/microgenerator)

"put me a safe-ish temp supply on that head if it is live, and we can take it from there" is usually what i say to ubersparks if the system is old and needs more than very minor changes or remedies

perhaps the best thing i can ask is do the premises have a current electrical safety certificate from a reputable spark company?

yes is a place to start, no is a different place to start

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28212
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 23 6:09 am Post subject:

Treacodactyl wrote:

jema wrote:

Pretty much

For want of a better word that's a bit of a 'townie' answer.

change is driven by what works for 95% of people though. It's not a matter of right or wrong fair on unfair.

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 23 9:03 am Post subject:

jema wrote:

change is driven by what works for 95% of people though. It's not a matter of right or wrong fair on unfair.

It's not 95% though is it? It'll be the wealthy 50% if it's anything like fast broadband. A vague goal of 85% coverage but a long way off from helping those most in need.

Any suggestion what the minorities should do?

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45628
Location: Essex

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 23 9:23 am Post subject:
I'd imagine the transition from horse to the internal combustion engine was in some ways similar, cars were much more expensive than horses and there can't have been that many petrol stations. This is kind of how progress works, within a few years for the bulk of people EVs will work. The future will be electric, it's been 4 years since we installed gas hobs or boilers in our builds.

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 23 11:09 am Post subject:

tahir wrote:

I'd imagine the transition from horse to the internal combustion engine was in some ways similar, cars were much more expensive than horses and there can't have been that many petrol stations.

I'm not convinced moving away from horses was the right thing to do.

I understand what you say but in the past we've not had to replace so much infrastructure. I know it will eventually happen but not as quick as some think.

A bit more digging shows up far more placing stating that realistically many people will need to go 3 phase due to electric demands for heating and EVs. At least that gives me something to ask next time I see the power network guys. That'll be several thousand if the power cables are suitable. At least that makes an off-grid solution sound less expensive.

If we had Â£200k to spare the sensible thing would have been to rebuild our house, but we dont.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46089
Location: yes

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 23 2:33 pm Post subject:

car culture i will just leave that bit there

re the transition from horse to ICE, there was a brief period of a decade or more when electric cars outsold ICE ones
battery/motor tech vs engine tech soon gave ICE major advantages apart from milk floats and fixed route stuff like trams, trollybusses and some trains

when ICE vehicles were first trialled there was no fuel infrastructure, fuelling with pet ether which chemist shops used in making formulations was the first stage, followed by car specific fuellers(often as a sideline to a grocers or blacksmiths(some of them were converting to garages as cars became more common

when ice vehicles were introduced most roads would have shamed a war torn rural country, the early mass market ice car, the model t, was as good off road as it was on blacktop(ie pretty crap but it was affordable and easier than horses)
as numbers of vehicles and petrol sales rose, the oil producers and henry bribed public money into surfacing and creating roads thereby promoting massive sales and car numbers to match the system
that strategy is still being applied as it still creates massive profits(and destruction) we have now

at the mo we are at the early horse vs model t stage, it wont last long* however things develop

last time it was driven :lol:by the desire to sell fuel (the leftovers of lamp oil paraffin) and vehicles (henry and his production line)
the vehicle numbers forcing is still a factor as the big makers are converting to leccy for a mass market and the smart energy money is going into producing renewable harvest energy
if it follows the first model of buggy to car the infrastructure will quickly catch up and exceed the rate of conversion over a decade or so

re the horse thing, same as the bike thing, i rather like it for shortish distance personal transport
the big problem is the number of huge metal poison carts folk use as individual transport filling the available routes with deadly perils.

*there are several interpretations of that

as electric sales are taking an ever-increasing percentage of new vehicle sales infrastructure for them becomes a better investment

ice vehicles are being phased out by statute, but that alone only creates infrastructure demand over 3 decades or so, which may be irrelevant by then

other factors may make the concept irrelevant

enough history and things back to the practicalities of leccy

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46089
Location: yes

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 23 4:33 pm Post subject:

the issues for powering a leccy vehicle are twofold

at home and on a journey

second first, modern ones seem to have a 200M or more real range, that is a far as i would want to go without a break
modern ones can fast charge another 150M or so in half an hour or less if there are fast chargers, so 350M is a plausible day journey, further if you like pushing beyond safe driving times or have a co-driver

infrastructure and vehicle sales investment are linked and at the mo are taking turns to get ahead

home charging depends upon what and where home is and how often charging is needed
"home"might be at the place people go to once a week for an hour or so if they do not do much mileage

it is irrelevant to many who cannot afford a bus fare if there is one and certainly cannot afford a car

enough folk can afford poison carts to make full electrification very appealing to someone who has lived beside and does live near an A road and rather resents their fumes, and the obvious existing and future planet changing forcing from fossil fuels

at the mo, at home depends on home, elsewhere depends on elsewhere being somewhere and somewhere easy to use

to use a different analogy to ICE vehicles, have a look at domestic and industrial electrification(family trade, i have an 1892 lightbulb from the borough wide project that still works)

that started as proof of concept, teething troubles, and then fairly decent coverage in a couple of decades including tram and trolly mass transport

fair bit of digging and investment in plant etc (and it was coal powered) but the time scale was the point

the family were early adopters of leccy, ggdad would have been full on for leccy cars if they had been more practical at the time, ps gdad retro fitted a mid victorian mangle to electric drive, terrifying thing

mostly covered including most of the semi-remote moorland edge places took about 4 decades

ed for a PS it seems unlikely the boiler folk or line shaft folk were happy at being replaced by electric motors but it worked much better

Last edited by dpack on Mon Jan 09, 23 6:01 pm; edited 1 time in total

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46089
Location: yes

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 23 5:57 pm Post subject:

re cars and planning etc in general wtaf? pmuol but who could suggest that, what planning officer would fail to go"just no" or who would live there unless they had no choice???

an ultimate example of car arrogance on multiple metrics, those who live there do not even have parking spaces which adds another dimension

a different undocumented one(it is true, and the cup man would be horrified if he was capable of that) a roundabout, went, it would seem by assumption, from an "artists impression" created with a coffee mug and two plates to a real world road junction that is a blackspot for fatal car vs cycle collisions, although it was promoted as a "junction of the future for our vision of the area" which was intended for both

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28212
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 23 5:22 am Post subject:

Treacodactyl wrote:

jema wrote:

change is driven by what works for 95% of people though. It's not a matter of right or wrong fair on unfair.

The idea that a car with half the parts of an ICE car that is inherently easier to design, where the batteries have come down and will continue to come down in price.
Cars where there are already $10,000 models with decent range in India etc is all about the wealthy 50% is just massively ill conceived.
It's going to be a few years before they are affordable to me, but every market trend, every history of tech says it will happen.
For the really off grid, it looks like sodium batteries have huge potential.
[/code]

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15863

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 23 8:58 am Post subject:

Yes, EVs will become more affordable and people will get used to slower long distance travel, or some way will be found to change to a fully charged battery en route.

It worries me though that there is little alternative for journeys where it is too far to walk conveniently. Bikes of any type have disadvantages; for instance today here is wet and windy, and I wouldn't want to ride any sort of bike in this. E bikes do have an advantage on hills. Too many places aren't served by public transport.

E-vehicles of any sort need to have a mandatory noise system too. E-scooters, bikes of any sort and EVs on silent are a menace if you can't hear them coming up behind you while walking.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45628
Location: Essex

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 23 12:28 pm Post subject:

Treacodactyl wrote:

A bit more digging shows up far more placing stating that realistically many people will need to go 3 phase due to electric demands for heating and EVs.

Not sure why that would be, we have 2 EVs and no issues.

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28212
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 23 2:37 pm Post subject:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63wCfqSQp8c

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46089
Location: yes

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 23 5:15 pm Post subject:

jema wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63wCfqSQp8c

that was interesting, if that is the production line model now it is a splendid way to gain and develop a mass market.
it does what most need from a car
if it has the fiesta vibe, it is probably ok if the road is not or there is no road

the range claimed and the leccy numbers they put on the battery and motors suggests it makes a small car as efficient as my bike in energy terms, it goes faster, carries far more and nobody adds a bit of peddling
i might take a bit off their performance numbers but that is still rather impressive in less than a decade

even if we halve the range estimate, it would be fine for most folk for more than a few days until there was a convenient couple of hours to charge it

ps if anyone is in a position to make an EV "model t" china seems a good place to do it

	Downsizer Forum Index -> Energy Efficiency and Construction/Major Projects	All times are GMT Page Previous 1, 2, 3 ... 6, 7, 8 ... 85, 86, 87 Next
Page 7 of 87

View Latest Posts