Perhaps Battery Powered Motorhomes.....

PopesOnTour said:
This is an interesting conversation, but so much of the information provided and examples given are out of date. You need to look at the realities of current EV's and not those that were made 5 or 10 years ago.

Regarding trucks, the Tesla Semi is a Class 8 day-cab semi which meets the weight requirements. It has the same load carrying capacity as other Class 8 diesel semi's. But, can accelerate from 0-60mph in 20 seconds, which aids with roundabouts and getting onto motorways. It will maintain a speed of 60mph up a 5% incline, where diesel trucks only manage 45mph, better for traffic flow. The largest battery version has a range of 600miles, verified in real world conditions hauling batteries from the Giga-factory in Arizona to the car assembly plant in Fremont. When charging it adds 400 miles of range in 30 minutes. This is partly due to the fact that it doesn't use 1 supercharger, but can plug into 4 chargers.

EV batteries are developing faster than mobile phones. The current Nissan Leaf 60kWhr battery pack fits into the first Nissan Leaf built, and gives 4 times the range from a battery only 3 times the power capacity. Replacement battery costs are dropping and will continue to fall. Local garages are starting to offer battery swaps using battery packs from wrecked vehicles. The used battery pack is then being sold on by the garage to be used as storage for renewable installations.

Increasingly the design of batteries is closer to the requirements of EV's. The new tabless design will generate small amounts of heat during charging or discharging, removing the need for battery cooling. It is also largely recyclable. It provides increased storage density (range increase of 16%) and costs 14% less per kWhr. This is bordering on the level required to make EV's the same cost as fossil fuel cars.

Battery life is as yet still unknown. Many manufacturers offer an 8 year/100,000 mile range. Tesla, with a lot more real world experience changed this to 8yrs unlimited mileage.

Charging, Hyundai have launched the Ioniq5 which charges from 10% to 80% in 18 minutes with a 298 mile range. A sub-5 minute charge will give at least 60 miles range. You need to understand that with an EV, you don't discharge the battery fully and don't frequently charge it fully. So whilst a Tesla Model S attached to a supercharger will take 6 hours to charge, I never spent more than 30 minutes at a supercharger. This was at a time that I was doing 27k miles a year for business. Now I have a Nissan Leaf as I rarely drive out of Somerset, so the range of 110 miles (real world range) is fine. I drive about 120 miles a week currently (6-7K a year) and charge the car twice a week. I leave it connected to the charger whenever at home, as the app allows the car to pre-heat before driving. For most people in the UK, an EV with a range of 250+ miles would only need to be charged once a week, not every day. So even people in blocks of flats can own EV's without issue. People who do in excess of 20k miles per year will require a charger at home.

Maybe reading https://electrek.co/ or https://insideevs.com/ would bring you more up to date with current EV status.
Click to expand...
Perhaps it would be better to read what Tesla say: They claim 500 miles for the longest range version of the Semi (not 600 miles). There are 8 charge ports on the Semi, not 4; there are not one but 4 battery packs. Charging the thing requires a staggering 1.6 MW, which exceeds the rating of most substation transformers and hence the grid would not be able to cope without a massive upgrade.

They claim a 0-60 mph time of 20 secs at 80,000 lb (36.287 tonnes). They don't actually say so, but we can assume that's the gross weight -- the "8" of "class 8" means "80,000 lb", which reinforces this. Tesla don't give the tare weight, which would allow the payload to be calculated. However, I found a very pro-Tesla website (clicky link) where they've done some maths and further investigation. They reckon the batteries weight about 6 tonnes but consider Tesla should be able to drop that by 10% to 15% with new battery updates. Even with the reduction, they calculate the truck tare weight at 2 tonnes more than a class 8 diesel (and hence a 2 tonne lower payload). Note that the truck is rated at just over 35 tonnes, not 44 tonnes and so its payload is probably only about half that of a 44 tonne diesel artic, which makes a massive difference for logistics.

Your claim that "people in blocks of flats can own BEVs without issue" doesn't ring true to me. They'd have to find an vacant charger and then sit around for up to an hour most weeks while the car charges. While this could be done during the weekly shop, I doubt that supermarkets could provide sufficient charge points and the lack of dependably available charging seems a rather large issue to me!

Of course, all the LiBEV enthusiasm in the world isn't going to get around the two elephants in the room: that the grid can't cope and that there aren't enough mineral reserves in the World to convert entirely to these things.

(Edited to correct a typo)
 
Last edited:
PopesOnTour said:
This is an interesting conversation, but so much of the information provided and examples given are out of date. You need to look at the realities of current EV's and not those that were made 5 or 10 years ago.

Regarding trucks, the Tesla Semi is a Class 8 day-cab semi which meets the weight requirements. It has the same load carrying capacity as other Class 8 diesel semi's. But, can accelerate from 0-60mph in 20 seconds, which aids with roundabouts and getting onto motorways. It will maintain a speed of 60mph up a 5% incline, where diesel trucks only manage 45mph, better for traffic flow. The largest battery version has a range of 600miles, verified in real world conditions hauling batteries from the Giga-factory in Arizona to the car assembly plant in Fremont. When charging it adds 400 miles of range in 30 minutes. This is partly due to the fact that it doesn't use 1 supercharger, but can plug into 4 chargers.

EV batteries are developing faster than mobile phones. The current Nissan Leaf 60kWhr battery pack fits into the first Nissan Leaf built, and gives 4 times the range from a battery only 3 times the power capacity. Replacement battery costs are dropping and will continue to fall. Local garages are starting to offer battery swaps using battery packs from wrecked vehicles. The used battery pack is then being sold on by the garage to be used as storage for renewable installations.

Increasingly the design of batteries is closer to the requirements of EV's. The new tabless design will generate small amounts of heat during charging or discharging, removing the need for battery cooling. It is also largely recyclable. It provides increased storage density (range increase of 16%) and costs 14% less per kWhr. This is bordering on the level required to make EV's the same cost as fossil fuel cars.

Battery life is as yet still unknown. Many manufacturers offer an 8 year/100,000 mile range. Tesla, with a lot more real world experience changed this to 8yrs unlimited mileage.

Charging, Hyundai have launched the Ioniq5 which charges from 10% to 80% in 18 minutes with a 298 mile range. A sub-5 minute charge will give at least 60 miles range. You need to understand that with an EV, you don't discharge the battery fully and don't frequently charge it fully. So whilst a Tesla Model S attached to a supercharger will take 6 hours to charge, I never spent more than 30 minutes at a supercharger. This was at a time that I was doing 27k miles a year for business. Now I have a Nissan Leaf as I rarely drive out of Somerset, so the range of 110 miles (real world range) is fine. I drive about 120 miles a week currently (6-7K a year) and charge the car twice a week. I leave it connected to the charger whenever at home, as the app allows the car to pre-heat before driving. For most people in the UK, an EV with a range of 250+ miles would only need to be charged once a week, not every day. So even people in blocks of flats can own EV's without issue. People who do in excess of 20k miles per year will require a charger at home.

Maybe reading https://electrek.co/ or https://insideevs.com/ would bring you more up to date with current EV status.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your input, PopesOnTour, it's very much appreciated. It's really interesting to have comment from someone with first-hand experience of EV's as opposed to information gleaned from around the internet.
You put considerable effort into your piece and I enjoyed reading it.

Colin 🙂🙂🙂
 
Hi GeoffL,

the range I quoted for the Semi is from Elon Musk in Q1 2018 Tesla conference call, and then repeated in Q3 2020. although the official published Tesla data still states 500.
Load and weight details for the semi are still shrouded in smoke and mirrors, but following private demonstrations several large US corporations including Anheuser-Busch, DHL Group, PepsiCo, and Walmart have put down hard cash to reserve them. From what I can gather primarily to use them between distribution hubs. This doesn't seem likely if the actual load capacity is half of the equivalent diesel.
Yes, the semi does have 4 batteries and 8 charge ports, but as far as I'm aware, the only pictures of them being charged show the use of 4 superchargers, even those taken at the Freemont factory. I would be interested in any evidence of all 8 ports being used.

I don't understand why you think people would have to sit round for an hour most weeks. In my experience and talking to other long term EV owners they don't charge for this length of time. New EV owners do, but talking to existing owners soon helps them learn the best strategies to reduce charging time. It requires thinking differently about your 'tank of fuel' and not trying to replicate the non-EV experience ( running the tank empty and filling to the brim). A bit like how I've learn a lot of the tips and tricks of maximising motorhome enjoyment from more experienced MH'ers on these forums.

Regarding the 2 elephants in the room. I don't have a lot of info on either. I would add that at the Tesla battery day event in 2020 they stated that they had purchased lithium mud flats in the US that would supply their battery manufacturing requirements for the foreseeable future. That was without allowing for recycling batteries back into the production process.

I always find the grid question an interesting one. I haven't done a lot of research on this but have found the few reports I've read look at the load from EV's and don't assume any savings from the reduction in fossil fuel use, whether that is production, distribution or associated activities. My assumption is that this issue is over stated (just a gut feeling, no evidence), improvements in battery energy storage and efficiency will reduce the size of the problem. Add to this that the energy requirements from the grid have been historically inaccurate and over estimated for decades. I can remember when studying at Plymouth Poly analysing the then latest grid forecast and seeing that without a massive power station building program the grid will fall over within 10 years. I've seen forecast repeated in Engineering industry magazines over the years and it hasn't happened yet.

A lot of research is/has been undertaken on how EV's can best be handled with the grid. I got the use of a Tesla model S for 3 years as part of one trial with Western Power, where after a period of monitoring charging use and habits they then started paying participants to charge during certain hours, and then remotely managing the chargers to turn them off during periods of high grid load. Another study with Nissan (I wasn't involved) actually took power from EV batteries to power the grid in the evenings and charged them again overnight.

I think the reality going forward is that although only EV's can be sold from 2030, it will then take a further 10 to 20 years for the majority of cars on the road to be electric, so the grid doesn't require a step change, but a 20 to 30 year update.

On a slightly different tack, have you seen that Good Energy in partnership with Zap-map are offering free charging during hours when the UK is generating more renewable energy (11am-3pm April to September and 11pm to 3am the rest of the year). A lot of research is/has been undertaken on how EV's can best be handled with the grid. I got the use of a Tesla model S for 3 years as part of one trial with Western Power, where after a period of monitoring charging use and habits they then started paying participants to charge during certain hours, and then remotely managing the chargers to turn them off during periods of high grid load.
 
PopesOnTour said:
Hi GeoffL,

the range I quoted for the Semi is from Elon Musk in Q1 2018 Tesla conference call, and then repeated in Q3 2020. although the official published Tesla data still states 500.
Load and weight details for the semi are still shrouded in smoke and mirrors, but following private demonstrations several large US corporations including Anheuser-Busch, DHL Group, PepsiCo, and Walmart have put down hard cash to reserve them. From what I can gather primarily to use them between distribution hubs. This doesn't seem likely if the actual load capacity is half of the equivalent diesel.
Yes, the semi does have 4 batteries and 8 charge ports, but as far as I'm aware, the only pictures of them being charged show the use of 4 superchargers, even those taken at the Freemont factory. I would be interested in any evidence of all 8 ports being used.

I don't understand why you think people would have to sit round for an hour most weeks. In my experience and talking to other long term EV owners they don't charge for this length of time. New EV owners do, but talking to existing owners soon helps them learn the best strategies to reduce charging time. It requires thinking differently about your 'tank of fuel' and not trying to replicate the non-EV experience ( running the tank empty and filling to the brim). A bit like how I've learn a lot of the tips and tricks of maximising motorhome enjoyment from more experienced MH'ers on these forums.

Regarding the 2 elephants in the room. I don't have a lot of info on either. I would add that at the Tesla battery day event in 2020 they stated that they had purchased lithium mud flats in the US that would supply their battery manufacturing requirements for the foreseeable future. That was without allowing for recycling batteries back into the production process.

I always find the grid question an interesting one. I haven't done a lot of research on this but have found the few reports I've read look at the load from EV's and don't assume any savings from the reduction in fossil fuel use, whether that is production, distribution or associated activities. My assumption is that this issue is over stated (just a gut feeling, no evidence), improvements in battery energy storage and efficiency will reduce the size of the problem. Add to this that the energy requirements from the grid have been historically inaccurate and over estimated for decades. I can remember when studying at Plymouth Poly analysing the then latest grid forecast and seeing that without a massive power station building program the grid will fall over within 10 years. I've seen forecast repeated in Engineering industry magazines over the years and it hasn't happened yet.

A lot of research is/has been undertaken on how EV's can best be handled with the grid. I got the use of a Tesla model S for 3 years as part of one trial with Western Power, where after a period of monitoring charging use and habits they then started paying participants to charge during certain hours, and then remotely managing the chargers to turn them off during periods of high grid load. Another study with Nissan (I wasn't involved) actually took power from EV batteries to power the grid in the evenings and charged them again overnight.

I think the reality going forward is that although only EV's can be sold from 2030, it will then take a further 10 to 20 years for the majority of cars on the road to be electric, so the grid doesn't require a step change, but a 20 to 30 year update.

On a slightly different tack, have you seen that Good Energy in partnership with Zap-map are offering free charging during hours when the UK is generating more renewable energy (11am-3pm April to September and 11pm to 3am the rest of the year). A lot of research is/has been undertaken on how EV's can best be handled with the grid. I got the use of a Tesla model S for 3 years as part of one trial with Western Power, where after a period of monitoring charging use and habits they then started paying participants to charge during certain hours, and then remotely managing the chargers to turn them off during periods of high grid load.
Click to expand...
Very quick answers:
  1. Flat-dwelling EV owners: if they can't charge at home they must charge at least when remaining range is low. It was you who suggested once per week. With no dedicated charger available to them they must take 'pot luck' with the public system. I suggest that if you don't know for sure when you'll next be able to recharge then you're going to maximise the time before you run out of charge, which implies charging fully and not just a quick top up such as you'd be able to get away with if you had your own charger. Once everyone has an EV, I suspect that those living in EV-unfriendly areas (e.g. flats and terraces) will be fighting for somewhere to charge because charge points will be in shorter supply than parking places.
  2. Grid Capacity: Capacity of the National Grid has recently been reduced from circa 80GW to circa 73GW because of the reduction in fossil-fuelled stations, and there isn't a huge overhead. There are currently over 35 million cars on the road. If they were all electric and charged once per week on 7kW chargers, there would be a potential draw on the grid of 35GW just to charge cars and that's without the normal commercial, industrial and domestic demand and without the draw from charging trucks, busses etc. Also consider whether the grid could cope with (say) one in five properties served by a typical sub-station drawing 7kW + domestic load simultaneously.
  3. Lack of Mineral Resources: I covered this in post #44, where I cited Prof Michael Kelly, Emeritus Prince Philip Professor of Technology at the University of Cambridge. "According to Professor Kelly, if we replace all of the UK vehicle fleet with EVs, assuming they use the most resource-frugal next-generation batteries, we would need the following materials: about twice the annual global production of cobalt; three quarters of the world’s production lithium carbonate; nearly the entire world production of neodymium; and more than half the world’s production of copper in 2018. And this is just for the UK. Professor Kelly estimates that if we want the whole world to be transported by electric vehicles, the vast increases in the supply of the raw materials listed above would go far beyond known reserves."
  4. When Will ICEVs Become Non-Viable: You wrote, "I think the reality going forward is that although only EV's can be sold from 2030, it will then take a further 10 to 20 years for the majority of cars on the road to be electric, so the grid doesn't require a step change, but a 20 to 30 year update." However, the closing down of filling stations and conversion to EV charging has already begun. By 2030, petroleum fuels will be a lot harder to obtain and I suspect exceedingly expensive. I also suspect that by 2035 it will be harder to refuel an ICEV than it is today to fuel classic cars that can't run on B7 unleaded, at which point only very specialised ICEVs (such as motorhomes) will be in regular use. Also, a significant number of people are already switching to EVs -- increasing the load. If the grid isn't upgraded soon, I suspect we'll have regular brownouts and blackouts before the 2030 deadline...
 
GeoffL said:
Very quick answers:
  1. Flat-dwelling EV owners: if they can't charge at home they must charge at least when remaining range is low. It was you who suggested once per week. With no dedicated charger available to them they must take 'pot luck' with the public system. I suggest that if you don't know for sure when you'll next be able to recharge then you're going to maximise the time before you run out of charge, which implies charging fully and not just a quick top up such as you'd be able to get away with if you had your own charger. Once everyone has an EV, I suspect that those living in EV-unfriendly areas (e.g. flats and terraces) will be fighting for somewhere to charge because charge points will be in shorter supply than parking places.
  2. Grid Capacity: Capacity of the National Grid has recently been reduced from circa 80GW to circa 73GW because of the reduction in fossil-fuelled stations, and there isn't a huge overhead. There are currently over 35 million cars on the road. If they were all electric and charged once per week on 7kW chargers, there would be a potential draw on the grid of 35GW just to charge cars and that's without the normal commercial, industrial and domestic demand and without the draw from charging trucks, busses etc. Also consider whether the grid could cope with (say) one in five properties served by a typical sub-station drawing 7kW + domestic load simultaneously.
  3. Lack of Mineral Resources: I covered this in post #44, where I cited Prof Michael Kelly, Emeritus Prince Philip Professor of Technology at the University of Cambridge. "According to Professor Kelly, if we replace all of the UK vehicle fleet with EVs, assuming they use the most resource-frugal next-generation batteries, we would need the following materials: about twice the annual global production of cobalt; three quarters of the world’s production lithium carbonate; nearly the entire world production of neodymium; and more than half the world’s production of copper in 2018. And this is just for the UK. Professor Kelly estimates that if we want the whole world to be transported by electric vehicles, the vast increases in the supply of the raw materials listed above would go far beyond known reserves."
  4. When Will ICEVs Become Non-Viable: You wrote, "I think the reality going forward is that although only EV's can be sold from 2030, it will then take a further 10 to 20 years for the majority of cars on the road to be electric, so the grid doesn't require a step change, but a 20 to 30 year update." However, the closing down of filling stations and conversion to EV charging has already begun. By 2030, petroleum fuels will be a lot harder to obtain and I suspect exceedingly expensive. I also suspect that by 2035 it will be harder to refuel an ICEV than it is today to fuel classic cars that can't run on B7 unleaded, at which point only very specialised ICEVs (such as motorhomes) will be in regular use. Also, a significant number of people are already switching to EVs -- increasing the load. If the grid isn't upgraded soon, I suspect we'll have regular brownouts and blackouts before the 2030 deadline...
Click to expand...
my local Asda has 12 pumps, and as an average of 3 minutes per fill, can refill 240 cars per hour! It's going to need some special sort of ev charging system to get anywhere near that, even if a high percentage recharge at home I currently do about 1000 miles a month, I fill up just over twice a month on average, i.e. 10 minutes a month!
 
Just skimmed through that BBC "report". It is a biased load of codswallop that dismisses all the logistics and difficulties in producing an adequate charging network. Look how long it has taken for virgin to cable the country, and they are still nowhere near at capacity. I think I will still be driving my wonderfully simple reliable convenient diesel car til I pass to the other side !:)
 
johnjjl said:
Just skimmed through that BBC "report". It is a biased load of codswallop that dismisses all the logistics and difficulties in producing an adequate charging network. Look how long it has taken for virgin to cable the country, and they are still nowhere near at capacity. I think I will still be driving my wonderfully simple reliable convenient diesel car til I pass to the other side !:)
Click to expand...

I'm not so sure the BBC article is '.....a load of biased codswallop.....' John. Neither am I so sure that the country needs re-cabling, as indicated by the National Grid.
I guess time will tell if humans have the determination and wherewithal to implement what is needed to correct the damage we are inflicting on the planet - and therefore ourselves.
Me? I'm an optimist and desperately want to do my bit for my grandkids and their grandkids.

Colin 🙂🙂🙂
 
To be honest, I wasn't impressed by Justin's article either.

I thought his description of a current PFS to be childish and elements of his article on the future are inevitably vague, probably because he is guessing, just like the rest of us.
 
johnjjl said:
Just skimmed through that BBC "report". It is a biased load of codswallop that dismisses all the logistics and difficulties in producing an adequate charging network. Look how long it has taken for virgin to cable the country, and they are still nowhere near at capacity. I think I will still be driving my wonderfully simple reliable convenient diesel car til I pass to the other side !:)
Click to expand...
It might be junk journalism. However, the gist is true. With ICEV sales banned and more urbanisations becoming CAZs, it will be unprofitable to run a conventional filling station since there won't be enough customers. The same happened with the (technically superior) Betamax as VHS gained more traction and both tape manufacturers and movie publishers stopped selling Betamax because of the dwindling customer base.

It won't matter that the grid can't cope as the public are being forced to adopt EVs. FWIW, I suspect that the move to 'smart meters' is part of the strategy not so much to cope but to mitigate the utter disaster that's on the horizon. The grid can only just cope with the rush to put on kettles after a soap opera cliff-hanger or end of a football match, so they have no chance meeting demand when everyone plugs in their EVs on Friday night to ensure they have enough range for the weekend! The plan is to install remote switches for every high-power electrical device (e.g. car chargers and heating systems) and for power companies to have the power to declare emergencies and, having done so, switch off those devices remotely. Those who haven't got the 'right' type of smart meter will be cut off completely and without compensation. (Click link to "This is Money" article from last September)
 
"Government mulls emergency measures that would enable networks to SWITCH OFF your electricity without warning or compensation"
is the eye catching headline and is so obviously wrong.

Just imagine the outrage if anyone ever had their power cut off and died as a result. Just imagine the media frenzy, and the immediate U-Turn.
 
HurricaneSmith said:
"Government mulls emergency measures that would enable networks to SWITCH OFF your electricity without warning or compensation"
is the eye catching headline and is so obviously wrong.

Just imagine the outrage if anyone ever had their power cut off and died as a result. Just imagine the media frenzy, and the immediate U-Turn.
Click to expand...
This has been in the pipeline for some time. I first heard about it over a year ago. There will no doubt be outrage but it will be too late for a U-Turn since the public will have been forced down the 'all electric' route and there won't be enough power for all. Here's a couple more reports. A quick search will turn up even more...

https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/energy-firms-able-turn-your-22703216
https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/1270...er-switch-off-household-heating-smart-meters/
 
FWIW, I've just seen something on the news about modular swappable batteries; something that might just save the grid from the onslaught of EVs. The biggest gotchas as far as I can see are that a battery swap would probably be more expensive than charging at home and it would need standardised batteries -- something that I suspect Tesla will not get on board with. One drawback for us is it looks like the swap stations will have fairly low roofs -- but I suspect there will be swap stations for trucks that we could use.

See what you think: https://ample.com/how-it-works/
 
Funnily enough, I floated exactly that idea some years ago. Drive in, crane out old battery, and crane in new pack.

The "Experts" on that place were derisory, telling me that it was a daft idea and that the future was hydrogen. I guess I've had the last laugh. 😊

I think it's still a possibility, although I accept that the Juries out.

One of my sons recently had a test drive in a Tesla 3, and couldn't stop talking about it. 😕
 
Shape of things to come? "Carbon Battle Bus stranded in Cornwall at the "Eden Project" unable to find a suitable charging point"

A fully-electric coach has found itself stranded in Cornwall after being unable to charge at five different locations across the Duchy. The Carbon Battle Bus is on a tour of the UK and this week travelled from London to Cornwall but was unable to complete its tour after finding charging points did not work. It came to Cornwall to tie in with the G7 Summit in Carbis Bay where world leaders have been discussing climate change and the need to reach targets for zero carbon.​
​
Planet Mark, the organisers of the Zero Carbon Tour, successfully travelled from London to the Eden Project, a distance of 263 miles with one recharge, in the electrically-powered Yutong coach. However, in order to make the return leg through the South West of England the coach needs a recharge. But with 60 to 70 miles it has found that there are no serviceable chargers left on the network and the five that they attempted to use in Cornwall were unable to charge the bus.​

I would have thought that if anywhere was likely to be able to sort out charging of an EV to make an environmental point, it would be the Eden Project!
 
Tesco is now fitting recharge points in all their carparks, this is backed up by VW.
New carbon fast charge batteries are just round the corner, 80% in 6/8 mins and full in 15, 5 times more power and 5 times lighter, toyota and other engine makers say thay cannot build an engine after 2017 to comply with euro 7 regs, say by by to pistons
 
Chinese firm NIO are planning on selling EV's in the UK within the next 2 years. They have already started in Norway. https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/nio/354921/chinese-ev-brand-nio-enters-european-market
Interestingly, they are planning on building their battery swap stations as well as adding to the charging network. The battery swap station is like a drive through garage (house not petrol) where the battery is unbolted from below, dropped out the car and a new battery bolted back in. They have lots of these in China and it takes less than 5 minutes, including the time for the car to park itself in the station. https://insideevs.com/news/501249/nio-20-battery-swap-station/
 
GeoffL said:
Thanks Colin. This move towards EVs no matter what the consequences just seems insane to me. I can show mathematically that anthropogenic CO2 does not significantly affect global temperatures with nothing more than A-level maths applied to IPCC/NOAA fundamental values. Studies at Bristol University et al. have shown local pollution from EVs to be at least as bad, and sometimes worse, than for equivalent Euro 6 vehicles -- and that's without the pollution created remotely while generating the electricity to recharge them. Also, there are safety concerns over EVs as they can spontaneously burst into flames hours and/or days after being involved in an RTC and there have been several instances where EVs have ignited in towing companies' pounds. Special, often vehicle-specific, procedures are required to deal with fires in these vehicles -- procedures that manufacturers have been slow to produce.

So, AFAICT, there is nothing to be gained, and much to lose, from a premature move to EVs, which appears to me to be change for change's sake rather than something that might actually be of benefit. There might be upcoming technology (e.g. metal/air batteries) to challenge petroleum in the future and sufficient petroleum reserves to have the time to permit development of those technologies rather than rush into something that is worse than the status quo
Click to expand...
 
PopesOnTour said:
Chinese firm NIO are planning on selling EV's in the UK within the next 2 years. They have already started in Norway. https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/nio/354921/chinese-ev-brand-nio-enters-european-market
Interestingly, they are planning on building their battery swap stations as well as adding to the charging network. The battery swap station is like a drive through garage (house not petrol) where the battery is unbolted from below, dropped out the car and a new battery bolted back in. They have lots of these in China and it takes less than 5 minutes, including the time for the car to park itself in the station. https://insideevs.com/news/501249/nio-20-battery-swap-station/
Click to expand...
 
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