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Electric Car Range Anxiety

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BobbyD
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Re: Electric Car Range Anxiety

#265003

Postby BobbyD » November 17th, 2019, 6:20 pm

bungeejumper wrote:So let's see. That one-day journey south would probably look more like three days by the time we'd found the necessary recharging stations and waited our turn in the ever-lengthening queues along the autoroute in the holiday season. (Four hours waiting time? Six? Eight? Plus the overnight stops? Naaah, it ain't ever going to happen.)


That's why petrol cars never took off. Can you imagine spending your life queuing for petrol at one of the few available outlets? Naaah, it weren't ever going to happen. Good old horse and carriage all the way, there are stables and farriers everywhere. They'll never be supplanted.

richlist wrote:Rapid 50kW chargers can already provide a full charge in 40 minutes or less.

The problem is having a car that will accommodate a 50kW charge........very expensive cars, lots of current EVs are not up to it.


VW id.3, currently in production, delivery starts next year, direct Golf equivalent so the very definition of mainstream, available in 3 versions the 'pure' version has 50kW as standard with 100kW as an option, the 'Pro' version has 100kW charging as standard, and the 'Pro S' has 125 kW as standard...

jackdaww wrote:maybe a compromise answer - to have a small efficient petrol or LPG engine that simply charges the battery on long runs .


Means increasing cost and complexity, and reducing the range and efficiency on all other journeys though, as you have to carry the petrol engine around for no benefit 95% of the time.

Neither for that matter is buying a BEV with a 400 mile range to drive a mile to the shops and back, lugging a ton of battery unnecessarily on every trip and adding thousands to the cost of the car just on the off chance you might one day decide to tour the highlands really a sensible solution.

sunnyjoe
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Re: Electric Car Range Anxiety

#275953

Postby sunnyjoe » January 8th, 2020, 1:30 pm

scotia wrote:I have been reading with interest, on other boards , experience with Electric Cars. Inevitably it brought back my thoughts about range anxiety. I suppose in my case it is magnified by the remote places in Scotland where I visit.


This chap drove up to Scotland from Yorkshire, completed the North Coast 500 and returned to Tykeland (1400 miles total) all in 48 hours driving a BMW i3.
https://youtu.be/qt0PwtUD0MA

It seems that chargers are out there

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Re: Electric Car Range Anxiety

#275997

Postby scotia » January 8th, 2020, 5:54 pm

sunnyjoe wrote:
scotia wrote:I have been reading with interest, on other boards , experience with Electric Cars. Inevitably it brought back my thoughts about range anxiety. I suppose in my case it is magnified by the remote places in Scotland where I visit.


This chap drove up to Scotland from Yorkshire, completed the North Coast 500 and returned to Tykeland (1400 miles total) all in 48 hours driving a BMW i3.
https://youtu.be/qt0PwtUD0MA

It seems that chargers are out there

Thanks for the link - I'm familiar with those roads, and it was interesting to watch their journey, although I'm not entirely sure it was shown in the correct order.
Many years ago, there was little traffic on these roads, and along the north coast it was mainly foreigners - who having come to the UK, were determined to see the outer limits. As years passed, the traffic did build up, but with the advent of the North 500, there was a step change, and now in the summer months the single track roads are frankly overloaded. If only a few percent of these travellers were to use all-electric cars, I'm afraid there would be long queues at chargers. And this, I think, is a major problem. I can see a solution for busy motorways. At the service stations currently there are large numbers of (mainly unused - due to price) petrol pumps. Replace them with lots of high capacity chargers - and get a Grid Connection! But putting lots of (50kW) chargers on the North 500, with its weak electrical distribution network is a much more difficult challenge. I can remember when substantial sections of the North Coast (around Loch Eriboll) had no mains electrical supply. Then one year a string of wooden distribution poles appeared - and were baptised by a heather burning!

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Re: Electric Car Range Anxiety

#276362

Postby wheypat » January 10th, 2020, 10:18 am

I am an electric car driver and have been now since 2015. Eeeeek, 5 years!

Range anxiety is real and undeniable. But, you learn to live with it and within it. My first electric car was a leaf (1st gen), total range about 70 miles on a warm summer day, more like 40 in the middle of winter. Longest drive ever undertaken was Cheshire to Fife when we moved house, a one way trip of 300 miles. Petrol car, takes about 5 hours, electric car took me almost 12. Would I do this again? Nope.

End of last year I traded in the leaf and replaced it with a Tesla Model 3 (review coming soon). Weekend after we bought it did Fife back to Cheshire and back in a weekend. Stopped to charge 3 times at Teebay South, Manchester Tesla showroom and Gretna on the way back. These were 120kwh chargers and a 20 minute stop put on 120ish miles each time (as an example the Teebay stop was 17 minutes, I put in 30kwh dead which corresponded to 102 miles and cost me £6.90. Charging at home is, of course, much cheaper (again, more on that story later).

The change to electric is coming, and it will be faster than most people expect. I envisage that supermarkets will have chargers, motoway service stations will be all charging bays, lampposts will have them built in. It will take 20 years but this is the future.

Well, that or Hydrogen!

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Re: Electric Car Range Anxiety

#276374

Postby swill453 » January 10th, 2020, 10:40 am

wheypat wrote:These were 120kwh chargers and a 20 minute stop put on 120ish miles each time (as an example the Teebay stop was 17 minutes, I put in 30kwh dead which corresponded to 102 miles and cost me £6.90.

That's surprisingly (to me) expensive. I'd expect a modern petrol car could do 102 motorway miles cheaper.

Scott.

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Re: Electric Car Range Anxiety

#276379

Postby wheypat » January 10th, 2020, 11:00 am

swill453 wrote:
wheypat wrote:These were 120kwh chargers and a 20 minute stop put on 120ish miles each time (as an example the Teebay stop was 17 minutes, I put in 30kwh dead which corresponded to 102 miles and cost me £6.90.

That's surprisingly (to me) expensive. I'd expect a modern petrol car could do 102 motorway miles cheaper.

Scott.


I guess you've got to pay for the infrastructure. it was 30kwh at 23p/kwh. Usual rating is 4 miles per kwh, but motorway driving is faster than normal. And if you charge at home it's more like 14p/kwh.

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Re: Electric Car Range Anxiety

#276406

Postby JohnB » January 10th, 2020, 1:04 pm

I'd guess at least 10p mile for petrol at motorway speeds. And if their service stations can sell petrol at over the odds, they will do the same for electricity. They do have the space for charging points in their car parks, ordinary filling stations that don't have attached catering will struggle.

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Re: Electric Car Range Anxiety

#276471

Postby DrFfybes » January 10th, 2020, 4:18 pm

swill453 wrote:
wheypat wrote:These were 120kwh chargers and a 20 minute stop put on 120ish miles each time (as an example the Teebay stop was 17 minutes, I put in 30kwh dead which corresponded to 102 miles and cost me £6.90.

That's surprisingly (to me) expensive. I'd expect a modern petrol car could do 102 motorway miles cheaper.

Scott.


Motoway fuel is IIRC about 145p/litre, so £6.90 would get you less than a gallon. Even on supermarket fuel and 50mpg you'd be paying double for 100 miles.

Paul

swill453
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Re: Electric Car Range Anxiety

#276479

Postby swill453 » January 10th, 2020, 4:42 pm

DrFfybes wrote:
swill453 wrote:
wheypat wrote:These were 120kwh chargers and a 20 minute stop put on 120ish miles each time (as an example the Teebay stop was 17 minutes, I put in 30kwh dead which corresponded to 102 miles and cost me £6.90.

That's surprisingly (to me) expensive. I'd expect a modern petrol car could do 102 motorway miles cheaper.


Motoway fuel is IIRC about 145p/litre, so £6.90 would get you less than a gallon. Even on supermarket fuel and 50mpg you'd be paying double for 100 miles.

OK maybe I'm a bit off, but it'd be a good bit less than double (I make it less than £11.50, more than £2 less than double), assuming 50mpg and supermarket fuel.

I'm still surprised it's even near the ballpark.

Scott.

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Re: Electric Car Range Anxiety

#277026

Postby wheypat » January 13th, 2020, 11:51 am

I was thinking about this and doing the maths at the weekend.

102 miles for £6.90 is 6.7p a mile.

Home charging is 13.5p kwh. My car is averaging .295kwh/mile over the 3000 miles I've driven. That's just under 4p a mile.

My other car averages around 50mpg, a combination of motorway/round town (same as the Tesla). Say £1.25/litre. 50mpg = 11 miles/litre or about 11.4p / mile.

Some suppliers are now doing cheap overnight tariffs, I'm not yet on one. Octopus for example do a variable tariff that works out at 5p / kwh overnight. That would bring your p/mile down to 1.5p/mile

Now for the real cost

I live in Scotland. Apart from the £36 I've paid Tesla my total cost to date, for charging, is nothing, zero, nada. I can (and do) drop the car off a 5 minute walk from a charge place Scotland charger, which costs me zip all (after the annual £20 membership). So, I've spent £36 on electricity for 3000 miles, or 1.2p/mile. Add in the £20 membership and those 3000 miles have cost me around 1.8p a mile. I expect to drive 20,000 a year and will probably spend in the region of £150 on supercharging. .75p a mile. True you have the 50K outlay in the first place!

This free charging will come to an end (I'm sure) but then I can swap tariffs and charge at home for around 1.5p a mile.

The supercharger network isn't cheap, but it's not intended to be your primary means of charging the car.

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Re: Electric Car Range Anxiety

#277033

Postby JohnB » January 13th, 2020, 12:27 pm

I think its much too soon to estimate see how these costs will pan out. Clearly buyers are paying a premium to buy the car, as the technology is so new, and lots of the charging technology is running at a loss, either because of attempts to attract a customer base, or as subsidy from government. The times for cheap rate electricity will shift from overnight to windy or sunny days, and the government will be looking to claw back fuel duty, probably with road charging as it gives Big Brother control the police would love. No-one really knows the lifetime Total Cost of Ownership for electric cars, as no-one has owned one long enough.

But if you are nimble, you can get lots of good deals at the moment.

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Re: Electric Car Range Anxiety

#277139

Postby redsturgeon » January 13th, 2020, 6:13 pm

With Octopus in England you can charge overnight at 5p per kwh.

And I believe there was one night when it was so windy and there was a surplus that Octopus was paying you to take electricity off them.

John


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