Will the mass rollout of electric cars impact the housing market?

[mynamehere]

Anyone done hydrogen yet?

[Sour Mash]

16 hours ago, markyh said:

Why dont Vandals let tyres down and plug up exhausts every day of every night in every town city and village?  what's stopping them?

in 35+ years of driving  i have never come out to a car in the morning to find either if these vandalism event's has happened to my cars. and 4 of those years i lived on a council estate with a communal parking area. Why? 

 

I've already seen local public chargers where idiots have disconnected cars left to charge overnight, on a couple of occasions -  presumably 'for kicks' to piss off the people who arrive in the morning expecting their cars to be charged.  Expect that to increase massively if there were ever to be chargers all over the place.  Not going fun to get up for work and find some wee shite has unplugged you and you have hardly any charge.  Hey, maybe some cretins will start a tiktok 'challenge' ... that will be fun.

 

But aside from the 'annoying little chav' factor,

https://www.wsfp.co.uk/news/lifeline-electric-community-car-put-out-of-action-again-by-vandalism-to-charging-point-582729

 

 

there is another motive to mess around with them - the prospect of free electricity:

https://www.oxford.gov.uk/news/article/2012/statement_on_vandalism_to_electric_chargers

 

.. or for stealing expensive metal cables/parts:

https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/crime/electric-charging-points-sheffield-anger-as-cables-are-hacked-off-and-stolen-in-attercliffe-3893886

https://blinkmobility.com/the-impact-of-vandalism-at-charging-stations-across-the-country/

 

It's already a problem with the relatively low number of public chargers - multiply the number of chargers x100s and we can expect it to increase.

[Tom_Herts17]

Whenever I'm berated by an electric car owner telling me how "green" their car is, I merely pull out my phone and show them where their electricity is coming from. Right now, for example, it's mainly from gas (22.6GW) and nuclear (5.9GW). There's even coal in there (1.3GW). Biomass (more polluting than coal) is 2.4GW. "Green" wind is a paltry 5.1GW.

Electricity should, perhaps, be regarded as a scarce resource and used for important things - not lugging around heavy batteries on wheels?

[robmatic]

6 minutes ago, Tom_Herts17 said:

Whenever I'm berated by an electric car owner telling me how "green" their car is, I merely pull out my phone and show them where their electricity is coming from. Right now, for example, it's mainly from gas (22.6GW) and nuclear (5.9GW). There's even coal in there (1.3GW). Biomass (more polluting than coal) is 2.4GW. "Green" wind is a paltry 5.1GW.

Electricity should, perhaps, be regarded as a scarce resource and used for important things - not lugging around heavy batteries on wheels?

Electric cars (generation, transmission and drivetrain) are a much more efficient use of that fossil fuel energy than carting around the fuel and burning it in a little internal combustion engine though, so you are not making a great argument. 

[markyh]

5 hours ago, Tom_Herts17 said:

Whenever I'm berated by an electric car owner telling me how "green" their car is, I merely pull out my phone and show them where their electricity is coming from. Right now, for example, it's mainly from gas (22.6GW) and nuclear (5.9GW). There's even coal in there (1.3GW). Biomass (more polluting than coal) is 2.4GW. "Green" wind is a paltry 5.1GW.

Electricity should, perhaps, be regarded as a scarce resource and used for important things - not lugging around heavy batteries on wheels?

Newsflash. Nuclear is Green electricity.  What Co2 does it generate? 

[bearishonhouses]

On 14/12/2022 at 04:17, PropertyMania said:

"It seems to you" vs $billions in r&d by every major car company. right, ok

Sorry - I do not understand the point of this remark. 

As others have already suggested, a battery replaceable by a robot in a few minutes would mitigate the concern that many drivers have about taking a long trip and having to spend 30 mins every 5 hours recharging. Compared with 5 minutes at a petrol station.  Is this view contentious?

[bearishonhouses]

On 14/12/2022 at 07:08, Tom_Herts17 said:

Whenever I'm berated by an electric car owner telling me how "green" their car is, I merely pull out my phone and show them where their electricity is coming from. Right now, for example, it's mainly from gas (22.6GW) and nuclear (5.9GW). There's even coal in there (1.3GW). Biomass (more polluting than coal) is 2.4GW. "Green" wind is a paltry 5.1GW.

Electricity should, perhaps, be regarded as a scarce resource and used for important things - not lugging around heavy batteries on wheels?

FYI, this site is really cool (I think) for showing where electricity is being generated at any time.  https://grid.iamkate.com/   

It is neither very windy nor sunny at the moment, so wind/solar account for only 15% of supply, but according to that site, fossil fuels account for only 44% of UK electricity supplied over the past year. 

Carrying a battery around is indeed wasteful. If/when green hydrogen becomes available, that will be a better solution. Hydrogen fueled electric planes are already at the prototype stage.   

[markyh]

37 minutes ago, bearishonhouses said:

Sorry - I do not understand the point of this remark. 

As others have already suggested, a battery replaceable by a robot in a few minutes would mitigate the concern that many drivers have about taking a long trip and having to spend 30 mins every 5 hours recharging. Compared with 5 minutes at a petrol station.  Is this view contentious?

Here is a puzzler for you. How do charge all the swapped out empty battery packs at the charging stations?  What happens if you arrive for a battery pack swap last and all the allocation of full batteries are gone? 

[kzb]

On 14/12/2022 at 12:19, robmatic said:

Electric cars (generation, transmission and drivetrain) are a much more efficient use of that fossil fuel energy than carting around the fuel and burning it in a little internal combustion engine though, so you are not making a great argument. 

Nevertheless, any EV being charged on the mains supply right now is 100% coal powered.

That is because it is an additional device, something we did not used to have.  Renewables are always being run at 100% of their current capability.

[kzb]

On 14/12/2022 at 11:01, mynamehere said:

Anyone done hydrogen yet?

They seemed to have pulled out.  Don't think it will be an option in the UK going forward.  Very unfortunate IMHO.

[Confusion of VIs]

32 minutes ago, bearishonhouses said:

Sorry - I do not understand the point of this remark. 

As others have already suggested, a battery replaceable by a robot in a few minutes would mitigate the concern that many drivers have about taking a long trip and having to spend 30 mins every 5 hours recharging. Compared with 5 minutes at a petrol station.  Is this view contentious?

Yes, because this is the sort of thing only ICE drivers worry about.  I 

The important thing to do is to buy a car that suits your use case. If you are doing a lot of long distance driving get a Tesla. If it is a city/commuter car almost anything will do.

I regularly drive 300m to Blackpool to see my parents. Its a six hour drive and I stop once for a coffee, in the time it takes to get the coffee the car fully recharges. Same for my occasional trips to Edinburgh.

There is no requirement for installing a hugely expensive battery swap infrastructure, especially when charing speed will soon reach IMw

[Confusion of VIs]

13 minutes ago, kzb said:

Nevertheless, any EV being charged on the mains supply right now is 100% coal powered.

That is because it is an additional device, something we did not used to have.  Renewables are always being run at 100% of their current capability.

No you luddites like can have first dibs on the coal. 

11 minutes ago, kzb said:

They seemed to have pulled out.  Don't think it will be an option in the UK going forward.  Very unfortunate IMHO.

It failed because it was very energy inefficient and you still needed to carry a lot of batteries to make it work. 

 

[kzb]

22 minutes ago, Confusion of VIs said:

No you luddites like can have first dibs on the coal. 

I'm sorry but it is a fact.  A new EV plugged in for the first time now, can only be charged by ramping up the coal generation.

It can't be charged by ramping up the windmills, because they were already at full stretch before the EV was bought.

[Confusion of VIs]

43 minutes ago, kzb said:

I'm sorry but it is a fact.  A new EV plugged in for the first time now, can only be charged by ramping up the coal generation.

It can't be charged by ramping up the windmills, because they were already at full stretch before the EV was bought.

This is an obtuse point of view.

Makes about as much sense as arguing that as a single EV deciding to charge will make no discernible difference to the output of any particular power station, the power comes for free.

[btd1981]

On 14/12/2022 at 12:08, Sour Mash said:

I've already seen local public chargers where idiots have disconnected cars left to charge overnight,

My Leaf has the option to lock the connector...

[kzb]

2 hours ago, Confusion of VIs said:

This is an obtuse point of view.

Makes about as much sense as arguing that as a single EV deciding to charge will make no discernible difference to the output of any particular power station, the power comes for free.

OK make it 100,000 new EVs.  It's the same reasoning.

[PropertyMania]

14 hours ago, bearishonhouses said:

Sorry - I do not understand the point of this remark. 

As others have already suggested, a battery replaceable by a robot in a few minutes would mitigate the concern that many drivers have about taking a long trip and having to spend 30 mins every 5 hours recharging. Compared with 5 minutes at a petrol station.  Is this view contentious?

Zero of the major car companies are going down the battery swap route. Doesn't that tell you something? It's not just like a 12V battery in a granny scooter

[bearishonhouses]

On 15/12/2022 at 16:27, markyh said:

Here is a puzzler for you. How do charge all the swapped out empty battery packs at the charging stations?  What happens if you arrive for a battery pack swap last and all the allocation of full batteries are gone? 

Agreed - not easy. Batteries could be transported between the vehicle-swap station to charging station- needs fewer charging stations - but they would have to be huge - maybe attached to a power plant. And transport would not be energy free.

The issue of course is the difference in energy  density between batteries and petrol. "the Tesla Model S (85 kWh) requires a battery pack weighing about 540 kg to achieve a 400 km range, but a similarly sized gasoline vehicle achieves the same range with 25 kg of petrol," and a fuel cell electric vehicle requires 5 kg of hydrogen.

see: https://georgejetson.org/why-is-the-energy-density-of-hydrogen-so-much-higher-than-batteries/ 

But, it looks to me as if the figures for hydrogen and petrol exclude the mass of the containment vessel - significant for hydrogen, very small for petrol. Taking that into account, hydrogen and petrol are the same order of magnitude.

https://www.batterypowertips.com/comparing-ev-battery-and-fuel-cell-energy-density-faq/

 

[mynamehere]

More chance of Betamax breaking out

[bearishonhouses]

On 15/12/2022 at 16:44, Confusion of VIs said:

<snip>

There is no requirement for installing a hugely expensive battery swap infrastructure, especially when charing speed will soon reach IMw

Is that really feasible? Aren't car batteries approximately 400 volts? If so, a 1 MW charger would require a current of 2,500 amps. Which seems quite a lot to me. Am I missing something? If you have further details of this possibility, I would be interested to read more.

[bearishonhouses]

On 14/12/2022 at 05:09, Confusion of VIs said:

 

Early Tesla's had this facility, it was never actually rolled out as customers were not interested in it. 

Nio is trying it in China but it's going nowhere and looking like it might bankrupt the company. Which would be a pity as otherwise Nio's cars are pretty good.

maybe coming to the UK in 2023 - apparently already in Norway.

https://www.drivingelectric.com/your-questions-answered/41384/electric-car-battery-swap-nio-network-explained

 

[Confusion of VIs]

6 minutes ago, bearishonhouses said:

Is that really feasible? Aren't car batteries approximately 400 volts? If so, a 1 MW charger would require a current of 2,500 amps. Which seems quite a lot to me. Am I missing something? If you have further details of this possibility, I would be interested to read more.

Tesla are releasing the V4 charger next year, today's cars won't be able to take 1 MW but their next generation large cars and the Cybertruck will be 1,000V with the Cybertruck at least capable of charging at 1,000 Amp.

 

[bearishonhouses]

18 minutes ago, Confusion of VIs said:

Tesla are releasing the V4 charger next year, today's cars won't be able to take 1 MW but their next generation large cars and the Cybertruck will be 1,000V with the Cybertruck at least capable of charging at 1,000 Amp.

 

wow - that still seems a lot of current!