The guardian wants you to write about electric & hybrid cars for it..

[Mr Gus]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... c-vehicles

Can't be worse than the ball hooks that Sam Wollaston got published today??, ..Another tired & pointless "can I make it to Lands end" !? scratching.
Naff as we didnt get much salient info as to the starting point, (London or manchester) ..but we did get to hear about the lack of seat recline angle in the borrowed skoda, just enough info to know he was a cack handed first time user of an e.v. ..if not then question his competence.
It would have been better to have a seasoned e.v. driver let him wallow before correcting him / fixing the problem, and answer questions about why folk have "little top ups" rather than simply make it appear that people with bigger batteries than his were hogging chargers

A flawed & pointless piece as a result.

[Oliver90owner]

I found the write-up, eventually. The write-up form is not much use to me.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ectric-car

A bit dim, by the tone of it. Should have used the granny cable instead of just whinging, if that short of battery power?

Forgets that his journey was unnecessary so still used unnecessary resources unnecessarily for his unnecessary journey just to write an unnecessary newspaper column. We already know the journey could be done with a leaf or even one of those ‘whizzy’ things, so a total waste of time, energy and everything else.

[Mr Gus]

There is a lot of dross in the letters section for EV & hybrid today

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ctric-cars

"An EV transport system has to be a complete cycle, including battery, car, auto-routing navigation and charge infrastructure. That is what Tesla has built, and it works. For the rest of us, it is huge range anxiety.
We need to always be within 30 miles of a charge point. Such organisation is completely missing from the DfT today. To cover all our roads with rapid chargers, we need around 15,000 points, costing around £1.5bn. Compare that with the road budget of £27bn or the £170bn latest estimate for HS2."
Antony Watts
Ladbroke, Warwickshire

(forgets that most people do, it's called a 3 pin plug at home & used properly means you hardly ever use a PAYG charger ..there are few where we live anyway, & still we find his comment bloody hilarious)

People complaining that the charger cables are heavy & badly lit open air muggers paradises ..maybe this person ought try it with limited dexterity, or be stuck in a wheelchair? ..i'd be more understanding but this just seems to be 1st world problems, NB a mugger may currently wait a LONG time for an ev driver to use a charger, compared to the throughput of a petrol station.

"Sam Wollaston is so right about the issues facing EV drivers, but he misses one thing – the charging units are not under canopies and many are not lit. So, in the dark and rain, one is fumbling with card or phone and then fighting a heavy unit out of its quite high socket. It’s not the electricity I’m frightened of, it’s the getting wet and possibly mugged. Petrol and diesel drivers have well-lit and covered pumps. Why can’t we" ?
Janice Gupta Gwilliam


"Fast forward to the 21st century, and electric cars have the same problem. They are limited in range. A much better solution to the current waiting, even for a rapid charge, would be simply to change the batteries.

If we purchased the cars but leased the batteries, and manufacturers worked on standard battery packs that could be changed rapidly, it would solve all the myriad problems associated with electric cars: range anxiety, length of time to charge, finding an available charging point, realising that there are different types of charging points for different cars etc.

John Hooley
Nottingham

John clearly hasn't scrutinised the historical attempt by renault to lease batteries & how it screwed up sales, likely also hastened the demise of the twizy too.
Nor does john take into consideration that battery density (energy absorption) changes, & that you may swap out a 55kWh for a 40kWh unit ..or the mere fact that with so few EV's on the road this investment infrastructure isn't viable in the UK as a whole & will cause the same "anxiety" on a different level.

IF this were adopted are we expecting the car companies to pay for loads of batteries & infrastructure, or do we simply pay for a brand new battery which we swap out & never see again having a bunch of older less effective abused batteries by way of replacement?

How do you standardise a battery swap of standard proportions between a fiat 500 EV & a Mercedes SUV for instance? ...does the picture below help visualise the problem? do we all have to drive the equivalent of the "as long as its black" T-ford principal, standardised vehicle sizings (comrade)? cos that's wasteful in terms of materials for starters.

[Oliver90owner]

Also, you have to remember that there are a lot of early leafs etc that only have a range of about 60 miles, so when you’ve gone 30 miles from the last charge you would need another charge in 30 miles time!! Most people, with these low range vehicles, still likely have sufficient range for the car’s daily needs (second cars or transport to work and back, school and shopping runs, for instance).

That makes the report sort of true but, as you say, really a load of codswallop spewed out by some ‘wannabe journalist’ idiot to fool as many of the public that they possibly can. Likely anti-vaxxers, too.

Some Graniud readers are obviously of much reduced intelligence these days, if more of those who are reading this sort of guff are actually believing it.

[Mr Gus]

Hey Oliver, we have a 1st gen leaf, we'd have to be complete tw@ts to get a mere 60 miles range from it, even in winter.

Now if it were winter in the highlands, yes, possible. but regardless of location also idiotic to charge on expensive p.a.y.g. unless really critical.

[Oliver90owner]

Hey Oliver, we have a 1st gen leaf, we'd have to be complete tw@ts to get a mere 60 miles range from it, even in winter.

Now if it were winter in the highlands, yes, possible. but regardless of location also idiotic to charge on expensive p.a.y.g. unless really critical.

That makes Robert Lewellyn one of those? His first gen leaf is down to around 55 miles range after ten years of ownership.

https://insideevs.com/reviews/414593/fu ... -10-years/

OK, he probably was (early in its life) when he kept it charged to near 100% - but nobody really knew what leaf battery degradation was going to be, back then. I expect there are quite a few leafs with severely degraded batteries still running round quite happily for shorter journeys.

My point was that although the reply was rubbish, (s)he could argue that (s)he was correct for some instances. Anyone without a charging point from their home supply (or at work) has no other real option but to go to a high-priced charging station (unless lucky enough for free charge at some places). Even at 30p/kWh I reckon there may be better options. Let alone the cost of fast charging at some of the outlets.

[Mr Gus]

Understood, but had to add the previous regardless.

Robert Llew, was zipping up & down with many fast chademo charges promoting both his channel fully charged & driving folk around & interviewing them by driving them to/ from jobs & the like, + acting jobs himself, campaigning, plus life with kids, so i'm sure that his battery shouldn't really set the standard for all others to be judged by.

That & battery density has changed since then.

[Mr Gus]

If you live in a city that has no off street parking for your vehicle should you really be impeding the movement on the highway many hours, days, nights per week? & ignoring looking for alt travel options, (nowadays e-motorcycles, e-peds & yes the likely to be for a long time "Illegal" e-scooter)

I was looking (skimming) rates for car & van ownership (its old but likely the most current)

https://www.racfoundation.org/assets/ra ... 202012.pdf

&
https://content.tfl.gov.uk/technical-no ... london.pdf

the bit I found funny was "Londoners are more likely to own a car if they live in outer London, live in an area
with poor access to public transport", have a higher income, have a child in the house,
and are of Western European nationality.

..Which considering the amount of public transport choices they have under london transport banner combined services compared to the countryside is laughable, this is why we have to, in the main, pick up & drop off our kid, 2 different buses two different tickets, not a combined service

I'm also aware there is no one solution fits all ..ever, however roads first & foremost for movement not parking, that's how planning should operate & be executed, especially in a prolonged age of ICE where not moving typically involves sitting with an engine running, In clever old scotland, they put COMMUNITY chargers on community buildings, which make up local infrastructure, nothing to stop London doing that at local sports halls, & using it as a passive income stream, ..even TFL could get in on the game & charge less than the big boys as a part of its travel remit.

School sites too, ok it may not be outside your house but lets use both eyes as to where people travel to & from, where might have convenient off peak hours access nearby for folk to utilise for less than big commercial companies, or the 22 ?? big football club stadiums in & around london, each one an opportunity to provide lower rate community charging as part of its outreach, assistance for travelling supporters & opportunity to get whacking great solar arrays in place with less hassle from the local council

https://www.stadiumguide.com/city-guide ... all-guide/

Parks, royal parks, & green spaces
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parks_and ... _in_London
London is made of 40% public green space, including 3,000 parks and totaling 35,000 acres ..a lot of park edges to utilise, lay & support charging infrastructure potentially.

If the dutch can redesign some heavily urbanised areas & provide parking / charging then why can't we?

[spread-tee]

If we seriously want EVs to become a mass transport option though we do need to make re-charging as simple as filling with petrol, with no need to plan the journey with an app, or create accounts, check the type of cable etc, etc.

Anything less will just put people off taking the plunge, especially with regard to the higher cost of purchase, taking the piss and branding people as too dim to cope with a confusing array of charging points isn't a great selling tactic either

trees

[Oliver90owner]

Teaser,

C’mon, Desp, it is a fact that half the poulation is below average.. Even half of brain surgeons are below average?

Plugging in at home is likely the ideal for the majority of users for the majority of the time.