Electric vehicles

[Droogs]

I've never met anyone with a daily commute of Manchester to Edinburgh and no one is daft enough to do so. Common sense would be applied. Go there stay in digs and go back at the end of the week or the job.

 

[Spectric]

Another point is that the actual grid is being stretched to it's limits by all these housing developments, it is like pluging many extension leads and adaptors into one socket and eventually something has to give. The whole topic of electric vehicles, addressing greenhouse gas emissions and enviromental pollution requires some very radical decisions and massive changes in society, one of which is choice. We do not need loads of vehicle manufacturers, these need to be cut down to a basic few all using common modular power packs and then reduce the use of single occupancy private vehicles for getting to work, yes we need a huge investment in basic public transport and not getting up and down the country faster in HS2. Then what about all the power hungry data centres, as our fanatical obsession with data gets more out of control then more of these are needed consuming huge levels of power. The US data centres apparently consume 90 Billion Kwh a year, that is about 40% more power than the entire UK.

 

[JobandKnock]

There are over 400 chargers on that route so not a problem really.

I can tell you are not in trade. The need to get there and get the job done means you have to get in the vehicle and do the haul in one. How long does it take to charge a vehicle? And when you get there and there is no place at site to charge your EV, what then?

Looks like there is going to need to be a major sea change in the way contractors approach the job then as it's the direction we are headed

Not just contractors. One of the issues is that the infrastructure isn't there and probably won't be for several decades without major government investment. Secondly, if we have to change to a less efficient (in terms if time utilisation) way of working it will have a knock on effect in terms of costs passed on to you, the end customer. Thirdly, the current range and load capacity of commercial EVs is frankly risible. For example, there is no such thing as a HGV EV, despite Musk's attempts, and without those we won't be able to get the heavy, bulky materials we use onto site. At present rate of progress that all looks to be more than a decade away

Don't get me wrong, I would like to see a cleaner environment - in fact I would like to see almost all commuting in private cars banned, especially long distance commuting - but I am highly sceptical of the state of play after some 30 odd years of development of modern EVs (taking the GM EV1 as my example)

And lest I am accused of hypocrisy, I commute by train to most jobs and have done for nearly a decade. The van only comes out if strictly necessary. In addition I haven't flown in nearly decades on environmental grounds

 

[Spectric]

The need to get there and get the job done means you have to get in the vehicle and do the haul in one.

There are only so many hours in a day, I think the customer would not be happy if you were charging day rates and part of that was sitting in a service station waiting for the battery to charge. Imagine if your heating was down and you were freezing but the guy apologises for the delay as he is waiting for his van to recharge, no they have a way to go before these vehicles are fit for anything other than social and pleasure use.

 

[Sachakins]

There are over 400 chargers on that route so not a problem really.

But not all of them can be used by all vehicles, there is still no real standardisation in plugs are charge methods.
Also, that ignores the obvious issue that, if they are in use, you can't drive to next one if its too far, so you have to sit and wait around.
I am sure you would soon lose work if you keep being late?
Contractors don't have that luxury of time to waste.

 

[Spectric]

There are many trades which have to cover the miles, field service engineers and specialist electricians amongst them, you need a vehicle that you can jump into that will get you to that customer and either home or onto the next customer.

I needed a new gas meter here in cumbria, the guy turned up at ten at nite from Liverpool, then he had his next job in Hexham before heading back, he would have loved the extra time sitting at a charging point. There are also companies across the Uk that use a particular contractor for maintenance and refits, the post office is one of them and there guys travel a lot.

 

[JobandKnock]

I've never met anyone with a daily commute of Manchester to Edinburgh and no one is daft enough to do so. Common sense would be applied. Go there stay in digs and go back at the end of the week or the job.

Where did I say daily commute? I did have one week when I spent a day in Edinburgh, two in Manchester and two in London. Not uncommon in certain trades, e.g. shopfitters, plant service engineers, etc

It is a common misconception amongst some of the "green" people I know that you can get someone local to do the job. In reality you cannot guarantee the level of experience, training, certification, competence, etc of a "local" when trying to find bodies to staff a job

 

[Sachakins]

I've never met anyone with a daily commute of Manchester to Edinburgh and no one is daft enough to do so. Common sense would be applied. Go there stay in digs and go back at the end of the week or the job.

Sometimes the job is only a day.

 

[Droogs]

and perfectly possible to do in an EV van. The argument was that it was not possible to do the journey, the provision of chargers is high enough that you can, just requires you the driver to plan a bit and include a stop to charge while you have breakfast etc. After all if you choose to travel to a job that far away on the same day that you are meant to start then that shows a lack of forethought by you. I used to cover 3k a week as a contractor working in data centres and would always plan to be where i was needed at the normally accepted start of the working day even if it meant traveling there the day before. i would never set out to travel 250 miles on the day I needed to be at a job by 9 am. The recently launched Citreon EV van (transit size) is based on the new mpv and was used to go from Yorkshire, cover the whole north coast 500 and back in a weekend. no problems, watch out for the video from EVM on the tube.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

I suspect there will always be jobs where high mileage needs to be covered and it is not realistic to expect a tradesman to wait a few hours while the van recharges. Time is money!

Improvements are clearly in the pipeline - faster charging, more charging points installed at hotels, supermarkets, possibly even standardised connectors. More a case of when not if.

For those who can't or won't adapt there is 15-20 years to go before electric becomes unavoidable - a lot can happen in the interim.

On large sites it may increasingly be the case that a generator for EV charging is routinely installed on site at the start of the job, I assume in much the same way as portaloos appear!

 

[Droogs]

Sometimes the job is only a day.

And Edinburgh has 83 rapid chargers, so will take max an hour to charge a vehicle. so you go to one and plug in and get your tea before you sod off home. I'm sure most UK cities will have a similar number. Yes you pay for them but then you pay for dinojuice too. Your arguments are spurious and show a lack of knowledge on what is actually available and possible. Perhaps you should do a bit of actual research about the subject from sources that will give you accurate and up to date information before using unfounded and clearly out of date knowledge in a discussion about a subject. But then going by your avatar's tag you probably wont.

 

[Sachakins]

And Edinburgh has 83 rapid chargers, so will take max an hour to charge a vehicle. so you go to one and plug in and get your tea before you sod off home. I'm sure most UK cities will have a similar number. Yes you pay for them but then you pay for dinojuice too. Your arguments are spurious and show a lack of knowledge on what is actually available and possible. Perhaps you should do a bit of actual research about the subject from sources that will give you accurate and up to date information before using unfounded and clearly out of date knowledge in a discussion about a subject. But then going by your avatar's tag you probably wont.

83 rapid chargers! Wow, how will that cope with a day
So rapid charge is about 20 mins not an hour, so 3 cars per hour, so a maximum of 249 per hour, that's 5976 a 24 hour day.
Given the distribution curve for traffic use, the curve is actual spread around 12 hours, so that means only about 3000 vehicl
The average wet fuel forecourt can handle 12 to 15 cars per hour per pump, say 10 pumps, that's upto 150 cars per hour. That's 1800 per 12 hours and that's only one petrol station.

Proves that the infrastructure is decades away.

Oh and how many others at the same timd will also be "having their tea and sod off home" as you put it.?

 

[Droogs]

But not that your example journey is impossible

 

[Sachakins]

But not that your example journey is impossible

No it doesn't, for one or two contractors, but for any more than about a dozen it does, as the local EV users will overload that level of charging points anyway. So given that there could be 1000s of contractors, reps etc every day then it proves my case clearly.

 

[Droogs]

no they wont the average daily distance travel by a non HGV vehicles in the UK is 23 miles and only whole only 14% do more than 42, so no need to charge every day. Most will charge at home as cheaper and easier than going to a rapid charger. If you have an EV you can join CoCharge, which is an app to link EV drivers with home charger owners who will allow you to use their chargers for a small aditional fee on top of the electricity you take from their house and still cheaper than a rapid charger. As you will be on site all day, find someone close and leave the van there once you unload (just takes a litlle planning). This is the way its going and no matter how much people bleat about it they will still have to change their way of doing things. Just as with the use of language and with what is socially acceptable.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

The simplest solution would be to have an electric vehicle, but hire an old fashioned evilcar for long journeys. If the carbon fuel is banned, then don't make the journey. The interesting thing in all of this is the acceptance, and in some quarters apparent relish, that everyone is going to be materially poorer, with fewer choices and higher costs.

That is not how progress is supposed to work.

 

[Rorschach]

But not that your example journey is impossible

Just because something isn't impossible, doesn't mean that it isn't impractical.

 

[Rorschach]

The simplest solution would be to have an electric vehicle, but hire an old fashioned evilcar for long journeys. If the carbon fuel is banned, then don't make the journey. The interesting thing in all of this is the acceptance, and in some quarters apparent relish, that everyone is going to be materially poorer, with fewer choices and higher costs.

That is not how progress is supposed to work.

A proposition usually put forward by people who are jealous of others.

 

[John Brown]

The simplest solution would be to have an electric vehicle, but hire an old fashioned evilcar for long journeys. If the carbon fuel is banned, then don't make the journey. The interesting thing in all of this is the acceptance, and in some quarters apparent relish, that everyone is going to be materially poorer, with fewer choices and higher costs.

That is not how progress is supposed to work.

I take your point, but I was alive to see the last of the really bad smog. The introduction of smokeless zones cost money, and gave people less choice, but many would consider it progress.

 

[Amateur]

All these comments are fine as we wave the green flag. However like covid, unless the whole world moves in the same direction at the same time, it's all pointless.
What exactly are we trying to achieve alone here?
Let's Go metric they said? Get the whole world on a standard....no more of that whitworth rubbish either.
That was a good idea too until the US decided they were staying in feet and inches And we were already up to our necks in the brown stuff pushing forward.
And what of China? Taking away their coal fired industries. Stopping buying cast iron products?
Good lord!
And those rockets now being sent up by the thousand......
is it not more important just to leave this dying world behind, because there's more investment going into that than white elephant batteries?
Carbon footprint my a#####s.