"The infrastructure just isn't really there"

[Scratch]

We spent Xmas in a large village (small town) in Northern Leicestershire - 4000 souls. Nearest petrol/diesel retailer now a 13 mile round trip but nearest public charging a similar distance.
Having had our id3 for 16 months we have had no issues with charging and have done long trips from London to West Wales, Scotland, N Yorkshire, Devon with a cumulative wait time for chargers of 5 minutes. Would never buy another ICE.
Sweeping generalisation alert here I suspect my profile is similar to most other forum users; off street parking available, well informed balanced view of climate transition, organised (love a list, planning etc etc). If you meet these criteria I think it's pretty difficult to make a case against EVs (unless you have a rep style driving pattern of routinely travelling hundereds of miles a day).
But:
- if you don't have off street parking/charging available then the economics and time commitment to use a public charger isn't compelling yet; fast charging at c.80p/kwh (inc 20% VAT) is more expensive than petrol/diesel and a totally different economic proposition to 7p/kwh (5% VAT) with Intelligent Go;
- if you don't have a balanced view of climate transition and related infrastructure then you may well be concerned about range anxiety (eg routine "stories" about 5 hour wait for a public charger on the way to Cornwall) and power cuts when everyone has an EV etc etc etc;
- folk still run out of petrol due to lack of planning so will do the same with EV and satnav still occasionally trys to send me to a broken charger or an inaccessible one (eg Tesla or Porsche).
So what to do? Spread the word that many concerns are unfounded, acknowledge for some that concerns are real, lobby your MP re VAT rate on public chargers and local councillors on installing more chargers.

What sort of worries me about pushing the authorities to reduce the VAT on rapid chargers, which they should of course, is that they may be more likely to increase the VAT on home charging. 22 billion black hole anyone?
l

[Midgex]

In the interest of balance I don't think range anxiety is 'nonsensical'. It is probably the main reason for poor adoption. It's great for commuting but long journeys at the weekend or holidays is a different story. I recently embarked on a trip to see relatives in Scotland (331 miles) in my 77kwh Launch Edition 4 and was left traumatised with charge points not working, queuing, car not recognising charger, car diverting miles off the route to charge, really poor motorway range, cost of charging away from home ( more expensive than diesel) etc., so much so that unless battery technology has significantly improved at replacement time I will be going back to diesel, 10 minute fill up and enough range for Scotland and back. That convenience and the confidence it brings is worth every more expensive penny. For sure, people on here have toured Europe with no problem and I'm not attacking EV's but it simply doesn't fit everyone.

There's a tendency to compare the current cost of fast electricity in the UK, which most of us use never, rarely or occasionally, with the cost of Diesel at a pump in town which you'd be using every week or so.
And which you'll find rises and is dispensed in fewer locations as not many years go by. See reference above.

Fast charging in France, with surplus electricity, is 40p per kWh (E0.44) which with some effort I suspect we are heading for.

Diesel at the single fuel station in Death Valley, Nevada, is rather more expensive, but those who need it, need it. The same I think goes for the station in the Nullarbor Desert in the North of Australia.
Electricity OTOH in those locations, is at least in principle relatively cheap to provide and the costs are mostly fixed - container and panels, maintenance.

Finding important equipment in shared use broken is a serious fault in society. At the moment the vandals see themselves annoying a few percent of us, and unlikely to be tackled severely or at all. Each couple of years that proportion is going to be doubling, as are the societal pressures against it. People who cause a petrol station to cease serving OTOH are likely to see themselves as increasingly virtuous.


331 miles is a full charge before departure, another to 50-90% half way taking lunchtime, and a 13 A socket overnight. I think I could bear that if I didn't have to do it every week, and in fact if I had to do it every week it wouldn't be stopping and charging that made me not bear it.
IIRC there are a couple of things worth looking at on the way up there and back.

[Midgex]

There are two real issues...

The second issue is that EVs mean a net increase in inelastic electricity consumption. ...a world of on-street parking and using DC public charging like a petrol station means we need more despatchable electricity supply. We can do that by burning fossil fuels, like the petrol and diesel that previously had to go into cars. That will still be more efficient overall because of how much more efficient EVs and immovable power stations are than ICE vehicles. But it does limit the benefit of an EV compared to what it could be.

The peak demand for electricity in Great Britain is 61.1 gigawatts (GW).
The UK's electricity consumption has been declining since 2005, when it peaked at 357.2 terawatt hours. In 2023, the UK's electricity consumption was 266 terawatt-hours, the lowest level this century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in ... ed_Kingdom
https://www.nationalgrid.com/electricit ... 6/download

The total amount of supply, and the timing of supply, are not a problem.

The total generation - well, the London supply is more likely to be from Kent, Sussex, Suffolk and perhaps the tops of the Downs than from Caithness, but that's in hand despite the efforts of the Russians and the Committee for the Prevention of Rural Electricity to interfere with it.

[Midgex]

Either are the cars had my id3 family pro 2 years now and is ok currently can charge at home but am moving into a retirement village so got to public charge so will be going back to petrol so much easier than the hassle of finding a charger that actually works so this country no where near and why should we net zero is so false our tiny little country will make no difference at all when you look at the real super powers who don’t really care or bother unfortunately

I'm pleased to hear you are retiring. Do enjoy it. I gather that is often impossible in mobile home parks - check your landlords.

That grammar is too bad for the Daily Mail, was it translated from Russki?

China is at or over peak coal, there's a way to go yet, but they are rolling out renewables hugely, and exponentially.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/11/01/ch ... ssil-fuel/
So far as coal goes, I think we started it, and it is nice we have now stopped it, so far as energy or electricity goes.

Petrol is a burning platform, particularly in the country. That was one of the points in the first post in this thread, perhaps put too whimsically.

[sidehaas]

In the interest of balance I don't think range anxiety is 'nonsensical'. It is probably the main reason for poor adoption. It's great for commuting but long journeys at the weekend or holidays is a different story. I recently embarked on a trip to see relatives in Scotland (331 miles) in my 77kwh Launch Edition 4 and was left traumatised with charge points not working, queuing, car not recognising charger, car diverting miles off the route to charge, really poor motorway range, cost of charging away from home ( more expensive than diesel) etc., so much so that unless battery technology has significantly improved at replacement time I will be going back to diesel, 10 minute fill up and enough range for Scotland and back. That convenience and the confidence it brings is worth every more expensive penny. For sure, people on here have toured Europe with no problem and I'm not attacking EV's but it simply doesn't fit everyone.

There is absolutely no reason that a 330 mile trip to Scotland should be traumatising or even stressful. Don't switch your car, just do a bit more research and learning. There is certainly stuff to learn when doing your first few long trips in an EV, we shouldn't be shy about that. But it won't change, everyone will eventually have to learn it. In part this is because even as people build more and more good charging sites (of which there are now many), the few bad ones will still exist too. As a starting point, plan the route beforehand using zapmap, wattsup or abrp, only pick charging sites with a minimum of six high power chargers from a reputable CPO that takes contactless payment, and give yourself a bit of extra margin the first few times until you know the car well. If you do this, none of the issues you identify should be a problem. Occasionally you might get a charger fault but can just move one space over to the next one.

[Batterdry500]

Fast charging in France, with surplus electricity, is 40p per kWh (E0.44) which with some effort I suspect we are heading for.

What's the basis for expecting 40p per KWh in the UK....I mean is it based on some specialist insight you have or just wishful thinking like the rest of us ?

[Crishev]

Sidehaas, to be fair there was no journey planning involved
as the original plan was to go by train, which I missed. I left home with approximately 160 miles range entered my destination into the cars sat nav, and left the charging stops to be determined by the car. That was the problem. And you are right, with planning it would have been far less stressful. The journey took over 8 hours with all the issues I encountered ( including a diversion for M80 closure)
The motorway range was not good and the car was frequently 'adding an additional charging stop due to the current level of consumption' and diverting me to who knows where miles off my course. And then there was the car refusing to charge once, broken chargers once and queuing.
Hence my probable over reaction to finding a 10 minute fill up of diesel and no need to stop there and back most appealing. It's a learning curve. Pretty steep in my case but I will try again using all the things I have learned from this forum ( zapmap etc)

[Batterdry500]

Sidehaas, to be fair there was no journey planning involved
as the original plan was to go by train, which I missed. I left home with approximately 160 miles range entered my destination into the cars sat nav, and left the charging stops to be determined by the car. That was the problem. And you are right, with planning it would have been far less stressful. The journey took over 8 hours with all the issues I encountered ( including a diversion for M80 closure)
The motorway range was not good and the car was frequently 'adding an additional charging stop due to the current level of consumption' and diverting me to who knows where miles off my course. And then there was the car refusing to charge once, broken chargers once and queuing.
Hence my probable over reaction to finding a 10 minute fill up of diesel and no need to stop there and back most appealing. It's a learning curve. Pretty steep in my case but I will try again using all the things I have learned from this forum ( zapmap etc)

Everybody has a different experience and opinion.

I enjoy the challenge of planning routes and charging....fun for me yes ...but can totally see it might be less good for those who just reasonably need it to 'work' with minimal agro.

To me....if the 'infrastructure was really there' we wouldn't even be discussing it....just like there would be no need to discuss whether the petrol/diesel network is adequate. There's a difference between what IS the case and what people might want the case to be.

[Crishev]

Batterdry500, I agree. I do fall in the 'just work' catagory, but accept a large part of the problem was me, not the car. However, as you rightly suggest, the need to discuss has arisen which does hint that maybe we aren't quite there yet...

[sidehaas]

Sidehaas, to be fair there was no journey planning involved
as the original plan was to go by train, which I missed. I left home with approximately 160 miles range entered my destination into the cars sat nav, and left the charging stops to be determined by the car. That was the problem. And you are right, with planning it would have been far less stressful. The journey took over 8 hours with all the issues I encountered ( including a diversion for M80 closure)
The motorway range was not good and the car was frequently 'adding an additional charging stop due to the current level of consumption' and diverting me to who knows where miles off my course. And then there was the car refusing to charge once, broken chargers once and queuing.
Hence my probable over reaction to finding a 10 minute fill up of diesel and no need to stop there and back most appealing. It's a learning curve. Pretty steep in my case but I will try again using all the things I have learned from this forum ( zapmap etc)

Yes, unfortunately it sounds like you fell foul of both the remaining two weaknesses of the satnav for proper route planning with chargers. One is that it doesn't favour or allow you to filter on sites with lots of chargers, where you can rely on getting a charge. It will often unnecessarily include sites with only a couple of chargers in the route. Two is that if you are the type of person that does short journeys in the week with an occasional longer trip, the car will significantly over estimate your range at the start because it isn't basing it's consumption on motorway driving. As soon as you've been on the motorway for a while it starts to refine its estimate and gradually become more accurate, but the nav often needs to revise it's planned charging stops as a result.
For these reasons it's not a good idea to allow the car to plan the trip for you. It's just good enough now to use to find a stop in a pinch if you get your planning wrong.

[Repfigit]

On the subject of route planning, I was pleasantly surprised by ABRP after I connected it to Tronity. My first experience of ABRP on a long drive had it significantly over-estimate my consumption - the car was showing 30-odd percent remaining when the ABRP screen on Android Auto was saying I only had 17%. The Tronity connection means now though that ABRP can get a near-real-time reading on my state of charge, so it never went more than a few % out of sync.

ABRP is the sort of tool designed for EVs that car makers really need to replicate. Tesla did it from scratch, as they had little choice. I think VW and others might have done something far too basic, to the point of it just not working. If the routing algorithm doesn't take into account factors like charger availability and speeds, it'll end up choosing bad chargers for no good reason. The problem is just a bit harder to model than refuelling an ICE car. For instance, at a given place there may be multiple competing similar quality charge operators in close proximity (which doesn't make as much sense with petrol stations) and the decision of which specific one to pick is probably best done just before you arrive.

[sidehaas]

On the subject of route planning, I was pleasantly surprised by ABRP after I connected it to Tronity. My first experience of ABRP on a long drive had it significantly over-estimate my consumption - the car was showing 30-odd percent remaining when the ABRP screen on Android Auto was saying I only had 17%. The Tronity connection means now though that ABRP can get a near-real-time reading on my state of charge, so it never went more than a few % out of sync.

ABRP is the sort of tool designed for EVs that car makers really need to replicate. Tesla did it from scratch, as they had little choice. I think VW and others might have done something far too basic, to the point of it just not working. If the routing algorithm doesn't take into account factors like charger availability and speeds, it'll end up choosing bad chargers for no good reason. The problem is just a bit harder to model than refuelling an ICE car. For instance, at a given place there may be multiple competing similar quality charge operators in close proximity (which doesn't make as much sense with petrol stations) and the decision of which specific one to pick is probably best done just before you arrive.

The routing algorithm does account for speed, and does allow you to filter on certain sites (Ionity, or all wecharge compatible sites). It has all the data in the system that it needs (number of chargers, availability). It's not far off, just needs developing a bit more to remove the remaining problems. Apparently with cars on software 4+ the range estimate is also modified when navigating to fit the actual route you have chosen, for example accounting for altitude changes, so should be much better.

[Midgex]

Fast charging in France, with surplus electricity, is 40p per kWh (E0.44) which with some effort I suspect we are heading for.

What's the basis for expecting 40p per KWh in the UK....I mean is it based on some specialist insight you have or just wishful thinking like the rest of us ?

We are heading for surplus electricity, with some effort. (I'm making a tiny tiny bit of that effort with panels on the house, a small investment in a panel farm cooperative, and contemplating a similar small investment in a wind farm. We have the new fission plant being built to our North a well. So far I've had no luck with the Archimedes inclined screw (or similar) turbine that should be in the weirs a few hundred meters away, but that may also come. These are of course hints that other people here might pick up on.

You might think that once the obvious places for charging points are occupied there will be a market of sorts for adjacent groups of points that have better or cheaper food, playgrounds, interesting walks, points of interest, whatever and as that grows one of the points of differentiation would be price of electricity.

I'd also note that for fleets and people doing serious regular long mileage, the charging networks sell it at substantially less than the rest of us and sticker price, and that GridServe, Ionity etc have aperiodic reductions toward zero cost when I suppose forward contracts and generating conditions collide interestingly.

The power itself is costing somewhere between 8p and 30p(?) if it is bought from the Grid, so there are a lot of capital, semi-fixed, and optimisable expenses involved which is far too complicated for me to bloviate about.

Gripping hand: I reasonably expect retail cost to decline at least relatively.

[Batterdry500]

Thanks.

I'm asking how you arrive at 40p.

....as opposed to 20p, 30p, 70p, etc.

[steve]

In the interest of balance I don't think range anxiety is 'nonsensical'. It is probably the main reason for poor adoption. It's great for commuting but long journeys at the weekend or holidays is a different story. I recently embarked on a trip to see relatives in Scotland (331 miles) in my 77kwh Launch Edition 4 and was left traumatised with charge points not working, queuing, car not recognising charger, car diverting miles off the route to charge, really poor motorway range, cost of charging away from home ( more expensive than diesel) etc., so much so that unless battery technology has significantly improved at replacement time I will be going back to diesel, 10 minute fill up and enough range for Scotland and back. That convenience and the confidence it brings is worth every more expensive penny. For sure, people on here have toured Europe with no problem and I'm not attacking EV's but it simply doesn't fit everyone.

I returned from a 670 mile overnight round trip yesterday, with no problems charging and no queueing. On some previous peak day journeys over the past 4 years, we have sometimes had problems with queueing for chargers, which led to rather extended journey times, but it didn't happen this time. Perhaps we have learned to not use Applegreen chargers (they don't seem to work) and to try to charge other than at peak lunchtime (we had lunch while we charged at 2pm both directions). It would help if people would follow what used to be the etiquette - charge to 80% rather than 100%, so that they spend less time on the charger - and it's quicker in the end.

[Midgex]

Thanks.

I'm asking how you arrive at 40p.

....as opposed to 20p, 30p, 70p, etc.

"Fast charging in France, with surplus electricity, is 40p per kWh (E0.44) which with some effort I suspect we are heading for. "

Perhaps phrasing it as

Fast charging in France, with surplus electricity, which with some effort I suspect we are heading for, is 40p per kWh (E0.44)

would be less unclear. The 40p in France is a given, as part of a comparator. It is less than eg 78p, which we see in the UK. Our direction of movement seems to me to be likely to be convergence, rather than divergence, provided the efforts of the Campaign for the Prevention of Rural Electricity and other suspiciously Astroturf-like groups are effectively overcome, and we end up with a surplus of electricity.

If we were currently paying 30p I'd not suggest we were heading for 40p because the French have reached there, so there's the direction, and given that, 40p is not suggested as an immutable terminus.

It is one of those sentences which avoids a paragraph of breakdown, sometimes. I hope this helps.


From the top of the original posting though, the key change is no more likely to be that than to be the increases in combustible prices due to commercial factors and taxation. As Petrol tends toward £5 per litre, the fuss over 40p or 80p charging is likely to diminish or at least be a less good excuse for not buying a newer car.

[sidehaas]

Thanks.

I'm asking how you arrive at 40p.

....as opposed to 20p, 30p, 70p, etc.

"Fast charging in France, with surplus electricity, is 40p per kWh (E0.44) which with some effort I suspect we are heading for. "

Perhaps phrasing it as

Fast charging in France, with surplus electricity, which with some effort I suspect we are heading for, is 40p per kWh (E0.44)

would be less unclear. The 40p in France is a given, as part of a comparator. It is less than eg 78p, which we see in the UK. Our direction of movement seems to me to be likely to be convergence, rather than divergence, provided the efforts of the Campaign for the Prevention of Rural Electricity and other suspiciously Astroturf-like groups are effectively overcome, and we end up with a surplus of electricity.

If we were currently paying 30p I'd not suggest we were heading for 40p because the French have reached there, so there's the direction, and given that, 40p is not suggested as an immutable terminus.

It is one of those sentences which avoids a paragraph of breakdown, sometimes. I hope this helps.


From the top of the original posting though, the key change is no more likely to be that than to be the increases in combustible prices due to commercial factors and taxation. As Petrol tends toward £5 per litre, the fuss over 40p or 80p charging is likely to diminish or at least be a less good excuse for not buying a newer car.

Without wanting to get off topic I don't think we should expect our prices to fall jn line with France's, for two reasons. Firstly, as I understand it the French charge point rol,out and energy prices have been subsidised more than in the UK. Secondly a large portion of the cost to CPOs in the UK is building the site, getting planning permission and installing a new grid connection. These costs should be lower in most of France as it's a much less densely populated country than the UK. I should emphasise I'm not an expert on this though.
If you look at Ionity pricing France (@59 c/kwh) is an outlier. It's cheaper than everywhere else in the Eurozone by about 10 c/kwh. Italy is 20 c/kwh more expensive and costs similar to the UK (79c vs 74p/kwh).
I'd hope rapid charging prices here will come down eventually but I think we'll have to accept higher utilisation of chargers so that CPOs can make a profit. That'll mean more queuing etc, not less, as EV rollout increases. I could be wrong of course!

[vanb]

I’ve enjoyed using Apple Maps over the past few days. As I was following its route on the motorway to my destination, I realised that the car might not have been able to reach my chosen charging site. I therefore decided to find a nearer charger by pressing ‘Add stops’ and then ‘Charging locations’ or ‘EV Charging’-or words to that effect-on the bottom right of the infotainment screen. A list popped up in distance order with the charging operator name, number of chargers at each site and availability. By scrolling down, the list continued with charging sites further away. By selecting a charging operator I trusted with many chargers, I was able to add it to my route. I found it a bit tricky to do on the move but with a passenger it would have been easier with their help.

[Batterdry500]

Thanks Midgex.

Understood. I think the majority would agree on the likelihood of a downward direction of travel, at least.

I was rather hoping your ascertion of a very specific 40p per kwh was based on specific insight had you....something concrete to hang it on rather than the usual shooting of the breeze here. But hope you turn out to be right in any case.

I agree with others that comparison to other countries might be no more than indicative given the whole host of variables at play. And while logically we might expect convergance that has not been the case with regard to many other consumer items where from time to time the UK seemed to lag behind other similar countries (and vice versa too).

[Sherlock]

Re the discussion on price per kwh and comparison with other countries its important to remember the UK has I believe the highest electricity prices in Europe. Until that changes (I can hope/dream) its always going to be relatively expensive here I think.