Where do you charge it if you live in a terraced house?
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Where do you charge it if you live in a terraced house?
Saw one on Sunday. The owners had the charging point on the outside of the house, cable from the car across a (not at all busy) pavement via a very small front garden. The road was effectively a dead end so hardly any passing pedestrians.Quote:
Originally Posted by az city
charge it at tesco penarth:thumbup:
I've got an EV but have a driveway to charge it on. It's a bit unfair really as those who can park on driveways get a govt grant to install a home charger as well. But it is not impossible and I do have colleagues with EVs who do not have access to home charging who get on fine.Quote:
Originally Posted by az city
Depends what you want it for really: if its your main/only car that does 10k+ miles a year and lots of long journeys then I suspect the lack of a home charger makes it very inconvenient because you'd only be able to charge it at stations/shops and that would take a few hours so you'd have time to kill. Not really a problem at home when you can fully charge any car overnight, but if you have to take the car out to charge it for a few hours ahead of a long journey it will be a bit of a faff in a way that a quick trip to the petrol station won't be. So for those without a private parking space, it is going to be a lot more difficult and I personally wouldn't go for it as we only have the one car so do need to do overnight charging quite a bit.
But if you want a second car to nip around town in, then I suspect that even without easy access to home charging it would be manageable (and this is the case for some of my colleagues). Chargers are in more places than you might thing and certainly more than are advertised on the various apps. I don't go to many places where I park the car that doesn't have chargers, and most of them are free. If you've got a little EV like a Corsa E with a 50kwh battery you would fairly easily keep that topped up as you potter about town. And you can always charge from a 3 pin plug anywhere of course, even at home, in an emergency.
The one in Barry has a free 22kw charger (and a paid 50kw one). That's pretty impressive, but the standard free 7kwh ones which you find everywhere (incl Tesco Penarth) are more than enough really.Quote:
Originally Posted by C1C9F2C7
How do you think they are going to solve the home charging ("terraced house") problem once everyone has an electric car?Quote:
Originally Posted by Optimistic Nick
Any other Tescos' with free chargers?
They're run by Podpoint so download their app or go to their website and you can get locations from there. You're only allowed to park for 3 hours in Tesco though I think so you won't get a full battery from their 7kw chargersQuote:
Originally Posted by Chris Pontprennau Blues
Not really my problem to fix. But a combination ofQuote:
Originally Posted by az city
i) faster charging;
ii) more charging stations; and
would be my guess. Longer ranges would help a bit, but not as much as the others. Although a lot of the current crop already have the ability to charge very quickly anyway.
As I say though- at the moment if I had one car and no easy access to home charging, I'd stick with petrol for now. With access to home charging it's a piece of piss to use EV tho.
But you don't think most people would be able to charge at home?Quote:
Originally Posted by Optimistic Nick
Yes, most of them are (and are generally 7kh). The general rule is that 7kw chargers are free; 50kw you pay for.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Pontprennau Blues
I think this is the only way and it's not exactly different to what happens now. The speed of charge will have to dramatically increase though if it is to workQuote:
Originally Posted by Optimistic Nick
The opposite. I think most people would because I imagine most people have somewhere they can park their car where they could install a charging point (or an outdoor socket). But I could be wrong- it might be that the majority don't have access to a private parking spot.Quote:
Originally Posted by az city
If you've got a drive it is pretty simple: you can buy a 7kw home charger for a few hundred (and is sometimes provided with the car, mine was); or you can simply use a normal socket which will work just fine for many.
How about designing a lamppost with charging sockets?
I don't know the proportion of homes with/without private parking spots in Wales but I'd guess it was significantly lower in towns and cities.Quote:
Originally Posted by Optimistic Nick
I've been intrigued by the "terraced house" issue since I last visited Wales and two of my neighbours here (US) bought electric vehicles and their own distributed solar systems.
I'm curious - what electric vehicle do you have?
Tesco St MellonsQuote:
Originally Posted by Chris Pontprennau Blues
Quote:
Originally Posted by az city
Especially as most people in terraced houses, can’t park directly outside their own house
There's a business idea in that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Porth Pouncer
The intention is to install them in lamp posts. Seriously. Apparently it's not that difficult to install and lampost charging is available in London.Quote:
Originally Posted by az city
https://www.fleeteurope.com/en/new-e...harge%20points.
Dramatically? you can already stick hundreds of miles in something like a tesla 3 in 20 mins and that charges at 250kw - and we already have 350kw chargers. It is never going to be a 2 minute job to fill it from empty in the way you can with your petrol car, but then rarely would you need/want to charge an EV from empty to full in a way you might normally with an ICE car.Quote:
Originally Posted by Punxsutawney Phil
And with access to home charge, it is really simple. I spend no more than a few seconds to charge my car each month, far less than I spent at petrol stations with my diesel.
In order for it to work for the masses as planned post 2030 then we'll need a system just like petrol stations I think, I'm not au fait with the science behind batteries but why will it never be a 2 minute charge?Quote:
Originally Posted by Optimistic Nick
I've got an audi Etron 55. Stated range of 240ish miles, real life its more like 210. It is an absolute monster and weighs over 2.5 tonnes it is one of the least efficient EVs out there and that is reflected in the charging times - mine is about as bad as it gets really, but it is still easily manageable to use this as our only family car which does travel across the country frequently. It can charge at 150kw but I've never charged it at anything more than 50kw, and generally make do with 7kw (I have a 7kw home charger as well as the ones you find everywhere in car parks).Quote:
Originally Posted by az city
One thing I would say is that of the people I know who have taken a company car in the last 6 months or so, all of them have taken an EV. And we are in London. This is in part because of the huge tax benefit i.e. the lease cost is pretty much deducted from gross pay so is (almost) a tax free benefit in a way that a petrol or diesel is not. To give you an idea: the list price of my car is £75k, but the after-tax cost to me is less than it would be to have say a £20k Ssangyong Tivoli. (I could never afford a £75k new car to buy and even if I could I would'nt spend that sort of money on a car, but the taxation of benefits in kind makes it almost impossible to opt for ICE at the moment).
No idea - I could be wrong but I suspect repeated rapid charging is a Bad Thing for batteries and therefore I sort-of assume that that speed of charge to go from say 10% to 80% charge would be challenging, in particular when the batteries themselves will be presumably getting bigger to offer longer ranges.Quote:
Originally Posted by Punxsutawney Phil
As regards petrol stations: not really. I think something like 90%+ of EV charging is done at home and there is no equivalent option for petrol. Obviously for many that is going to be a challenge and so yes the number of charging stations will have to increase, but that is inevitable - but a material amount of refuelling (presumably well over half) will be done at home. You cannot build petrol stations any more and the number of EV charging points is only going to increase. I suspect by the mid 2030s the bigger issue will be - can you find a petrol station to fuel your ICE car if you still have one?
I'm getting a Tesla 3 in 2 weeks.. handy for Pontprennau :yikes:
No chance up the Rhondda!
Shoulda got a Tesla truck.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Pontprennau Blues
https://www.tesla.com/cybertruck
My neighbour thinks it's awesome, I think it may be the ugliest vehicle ever.
On reflection, won't people swap the cables to pinch leccy off others or cheat/interfere with the system?Quote:
Originally Posted by Vindec
The cable is locked to the car. You can't just remove it , you'd have to unlock the car firstQuote:
Originally Posted by az city
Think there may be free charging at Tesco’s Aberdare.Quote:
Originally Posted by Porth Pouncer
Definitely charging points. Dont know if free.Quote:
Originally Posted by the other bob wilson
Why don’t they put cables overhead on every road and have a long pole from the car to the cable. They could call them “trolley cars/buses”
Or go the other way and lay tracks on the roads. They could call them “tramcars”
It’s the future :hehe:
Been on a new build site that has them built in on the drives. Whole site is electric only, heating comes from underground and they have solar panels for electricity. This may become more popular as time goes on.
As for terraced, imagine its a nightmare, park outside my house probably 30 percent of the time so even if I had the means I doubt I'd be able to put them to use if I had an EV. Parking is manic round here!!
I drove an EV here in China for about a year. As you can imagine, most people (myself included) who live in Chinese cities, live in high-rise apartments. We have underground parking in my complex, however, the electric supply in the parking area was from extension leads and not suitable for charging an EV.
I had a kind neighbour who lived in a ground-floor apartment, she would kindly allow me to pass the charging cable through her window and charge the car that way. It wasn't really a suitable long-term solution though and the car would take about 9 hours to fully charge from about 10%.
So I found myself looking for a public charging point, the nearest I could find was about a mile and a half away from where I lived - so, not really that convenient. It was also frustrating to find cars that were fully charged but the owners had just left them there and so I couldn't access the charger.
I got rid of the car (this was about 5 years ago) it was, for me, a somewhat frustrating experience. In fairness, the situation has improved greatly and there are far more places to charge an EV now.
I was there last week and it was one of those moments when you see something out of the corner of your eye as you're driving past it that you cannot be 100 per cent sure about, but I thought it was something I would check next time because the notion that it would be free was a surprise to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hilts
I have sold EV’s pretty much from their mainstream inception on 2011.
One of the first qualifying questions is and still is “do you have off road parking?”
“How many miles do you drive a day/week?”
This is meant to rule you in or out.
If you live in a terrace or block of flats then this isn’t for you and I used to more than emphasis this.
If you visit aunt ness in Scotland once a week then again this isn’t for you.
Fast forward to 2021 and the range is getting bigger across the board and more and more charging stations with rapid charging means that the frequency of charging is reducing. So in theory it’s now becoming more viable and less inconvenient for you to drive an EV.
Free chargers are everywhere Bob. I took the kids to some national trust place in the middle of nowhere recently and they had a free charger there. What I do find a bit frustrating is that they are normally in premium locations ie right by the front door of the supermarket. There is no need for this and I suspect it leads to people in ice cars parking in those spaces which does happen (and can lead to their cars getting damaged). I’d rather they were at the back of the car park to be honest where nobody else would want to park anyway. Although personally I have no real need to use supermarket chargers- I can charge at home at the same speed.Quote:
Originally Posted by the other bob wilson
The places that should have them but don’t always are theme parks etc where you might well drive 100+miles to visit. Thinking of my recent trips like that: bluestone has 3 or 4 chargers and asks people to use them for no more than 4 hours at a time which is fine, but folly farm did not have any at all and nor does peppa pig world. My car can quite easily do that round trip to Pembrokeshire from Cardiff on a single charge but for anyone coming from a bit further afield or with a smaller range, it means you have to factor in a stop at a charging point somewhere on the way home which is a bit of a faff (but then on a lengthy journey you’d want to stop anyway). Nobody drives more than a few miles to the supermarket and while it’s great that there are so many chargers out there in places like that, I’d much rather see them in the sorts of places you might go to for a day out.
Interesting points you make about the etron, we've got one on order and should be taking delivery at the start of August. Currently have a Mini Electric and is intended as our 2nd car but has been difficult to manage with the 145 (real life 105) mile range so looking forward to utilising that extra 100 miles! Both are company cars and combined value is over £100k but our monthly cost has dropped to something like 5% of what it was with cheaper ICE cars.Quote:
Originally Posted by Optimistic Nick
I love mine. I took it during peak lockdown so hadn’t ever seen one in real life before mine arrived. It’s not really an suv shape, more of a blown-up hatchback. But it’s a very nice place to spend your time. It’s my first EV and the one thing that has taken us by surprise is the acceleration/speed. In 40 years of combined driving my wife and i had a single speeding ticket and that was a dodgy one issued abroad. In the first 3 months of driving the EV we picked up 3 more- it just accelerates so quickly and goes so fast without you noticing it due to to the lack of noise.Quote:
Originally Posted by Punxsutawney Phil
And it is genuinely easier to live with than an ice car. For us.
Couple of years too late sorry... Already being introduced into Middle East and India.Quote:
Originally Posted by az city
yeah my last place was terraced and it was a total nightmare to park, sometimes I'd end up 3 streets away.Quote:
Originally Posted by dembethewarrior
I grew up on a terrraced street as well, but I can't ever remember my dad having to park anywhere other than directly outside the house. Going down that old street now it is utter chaos - cars everywhere.
A lot of companies are putting a lot of money into self driving electric cars - and the business model that many people think will evntually win out will be pay as you go car usage. Summon a car when you need it, it does the journey and then ****s off to do someone else's trip while you're in asda or whatever. Actual car ownership may one day be greatly reduced - and these old victorian streets that weren't built with parking in mind may become a lot more open.