When are you going fully electric?

[Journey]

The best way is what we already have so some way of turning up at a station, spending 5-10 mins there and being good for many days or even weeks

The best way for some not all though, right?

I for one much prefer the ability to just plug the car in once or twice a week on my drive. If you happen to not have the 'luxury' of having a drive or garage then I am sure driving to a specific refuelling station, as that for me is out of the way, and actually costs me time that I don't have to waste now.

You've still got the issue of not everyone having access to a recharge point easily without huge investment (flats, on-street parking etc and sheer number of recharge points and cables we're gonna need).

This seems to crop up all of the time, and like any infrastructure challenge is hardly insurmountable. Imagine when the telephone was invented, or grid based electricity (street lights), or sewers, or gas distribution. All of these things took time, but once in place last decades without much change other than maintenance, relatively speaking.

No need for many to go home and remembering to recharge, cables dangling, potential of failures, people removing charge cables on purpose (drunks leaving the local boozer - on road parkng).

Do you often drive your car so empty that you must remember to fill it up? Remembering to charge, I am sorry but it's a 30 second job when you leave your car once you are home, and you look at the GOM, and you decide do I need to plug in or not? Anything can fail, we waited 30 minutes at Morrison's the other day as two of their pumps had failed. and you can't remove the cables when they are in the car, as they are locked in place, but you'd know that if you had tried an EV, right?

 

[DarrenM343]

The best way for some not all though, right?

I for one much prefer the ability to just plug the car in once or twice a week on my drive. If you happen to not have the 'luxury' of having a drive or garage then I am sure driving to a specific refuelling station, as that for me is out of the way, and actually costs me time that I don't have to waste now.

Of course and I'm not saying it HAS to be one or the other. There are pros and cons to each, and, suitability based on use case. It's going to be good seeing different technologies developed and evolved.
Fair other points by the way and was sharing thoughts. If I had use case for BEV I'd probably be interested, if for example I knew I'd never need to charge away from home. For the motoring I do, I'd prefer to refuel as I do now though, 5 mins a week and able to dart into another refuelling station for 5 mins in case I need a top-up. When retired, I'd likely have a different requirement but by then maybe hydrogen or other technologies will be the best option depending how they evolve

 

[McPhee]

You've still got the issue of not everyone having access to a recharge point easily without huge investment (flats, on-street parking etc and sheer number of recharge points and cables we're gonna need).

Do you think transitioning to hydrogen fuel cells will be cheap?

Ignoring the infrastructure for a moment (production, transportation, and filling stations), the energy cost of Hydrogen really needs to be understood.

There are 45.5 million people with driving licenses in the UK, with the average driver covering 7,900 miles. That's a total of 35.55 billion miles driven annually.

The Toyota Mirai covers 57 miles per kg of Hydrogen. So based on that efficiency, the UK would need 624,000 tonnes of Hydrogen to meet annual demand. Using electrolysis at 100% efficiency, 39kWh of electricity is needed to produce 1kg of Hydrogen. So we'd need 24TWh of electricity to meet demand (as a minimum; electrolysis won't be 100% efficient, and transportation and storage energy costs need to be added).

By comparison, if the average EV had a "grid to wheel" efficiency of 3.5 miles per kWh, we'd need 10TWh to fuel our cars.

That's a big jump. It's difficult to see how that'll be easy or cheap when there's already some debate over whether we can generate enough power to meet the demand of BEVs.

Infrastructure costs are a little more difficult to compare given the immaturity of the HFCV sector. The largest electrolysis plant in the world is set to open this year in the US. It's expected to produce 3,000 tons (~2,700 tonnes) of Hydrogen per year. So the UK would need 230+ plants that size. New vehicles would be needed to transport the fuel to filling stations, as the fuel needs to be kept under really high pressure. And the 8,400 fuel stations in the UK would need to be retrofitted or replaced entirely.

It won't be cheap to adapt the UK for HFCVs. The idea that there's existing, useful infrastructure is inaccurate; there will be very little carry-over. Realistically it's going to eat tens of billions of pounds, minimum, to provide the infrastructure to move the UK away from petrol and diesel. And that will be true regardless of how the market transitions. BEVs and HFCVs both have significant drawbacks in different areas.

 

[smilertoo]

electrics wont truly take off until the battery is easily replaced without taking bits of the car apart.

 

[Skully]

electrics wont truly take off until the battery is easily replaced without taking bits of the car apart.

How easy is it to get the fuel tank out of your current car?

 

[Russinating]

How easy is it to get the fuel tank out of your current car?

Not quite a fair comparison since an ICE's fuel tank doesn't reduce in capacity over time. Replacing an EV's battery would be (sort of) akin to replacing an ICE's engine.

 

[mikeyw85]

Been thinking increasingly of going hybrid. Something with a 30+ mile range like a Merc A250e. It's enough to get me to work and back on a charge, but obviously doesnt have any range issues if you use the 1.33T petrol engine if required. On an 'electric car drivers' electricity tarrif it would work out quite well.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Not quite a fair comparison since an ICE's fuel tank doesn't reduce in capacity over time. Replacing an EV's battery would be (sort of) akin to replacing an ICE's engine.

Fair point, and when you think about it, the vast vast majority would never attempt this, taking an engine out of an ICE car. Even if they did manage to get it out, the more difficult bit would be fixing it.

If you were replacing cells in a BEV for sure the hard bit would be getting the old cells out, adding the new ones would be easy if you had got to the point you had got the old ones out.

 

[Russinating]

It'll certainly be interesting in 5-10 years time how old batteries are approached. I'm going to assume it's not feasible, cost effective or productive to replace individual cells as opposed to the whole battery, but it'll be interesting to see:

a) if replacing an EV's battery is even needed - some people have done over 100,000 miles in a Model 3 already and seen only very minor range loss - so other parts may be more of a problem than the battery itself, as per ICEs
b) if replacing an EV's battery in its entireity is even possible/cost effective vs the price of a brand new car
c) how old batteries are recycled, and how "valuable" used batteries are (I don't necessarily mean re-sale cost, but perhaps part-ex for a new battery) if they can salvage the most valuable materials.

 

[Journey]

They've already shown that

Been thinking increasingly of going hybrid. Something with a 30+ mile range like a Merc A250e. It's enough to get me to work and back on a charge, but obviously doesnt have any range issues if you use the 1.33T petrol engine if required. On an 'electric car drivers' electricity tarrif it would work out quite well.

Not much point in a specific tariff for such a small battery, as you'd end up paying more for the rest of your usage.

15kWh of energy per day, might work out better if you have a dynamic to tarrif like Octopus Agile.

 

[Nasher]

It'll certainly be interesting in 5-10 years time how old batteries are approached. I'm going to assume it's not feasible, cost effective or productive to replace individual cells as opposed to the whole battery, but it'll be interesting to see:

a) if replacing an EV's battery is even needed - some people have done over 100,000 miles in a Model 3 already and seen only very minor range loss - so other parts may be more of a problem than the battery itself, as per ICEs
b) if replacing an EV's battery in its entireity is even possible/cost effective vs the price of a brand new car
c) how old batteries are recycled, and how "valuable" used batteries are (I don't necessarily mean re-sale cost, but perhaps part-ex for a new battery) if they can salvage the most valuable materials.

Its not just the batteries. At some point the motors and high circuitry will need replacing. Its more of an age thing than miliage.

 

[Russinating]

Its not just the batteries. At some point the motors and high circuitry will need replacing.

Yeah of course, no different to an ICE. But they're a bit more of a 'standard' replacement, or at least not as much of a primary/costly piece of the car.

 

[Nasher]

Yeah of course, no different to an ICE. But they're a bit more of a 'standard' replacement, or at least not as much of a primary/costly piece of the car.

The parts and labour will be far more expensive than restoring an ICE car. Automotive electrician hours cost **** loads. Plus the motors alone cost as much as an engine, each.

Once they drop to a few £1000 its scrap if something major breaks.

 

[Russinating]

The parts and labour will be far more expensive than restoring an ICE car. Automotive electrician hours cost **** loads.

So did mechanics when everyone rode horses.

Not saying it'll be like-for-like but the market isn't going to be the same in 10 years time.

 

[Journey]

Not saying it'll be like-for-like but the market isn't going to be the same in 10 years time.

Yep, you'll have people who are well trained and competent electricians/mechanics who know there is money to be made fixing these newfangled 'motor' cars, instead of trying to compete with 100 other garages doing cheap MOT's and services.

Garages will end up being much nicer, cleaner, tidier places to be as well. Less oil, and petroleum stench, less harmful waste products, no huge extractors making a racket to take away the disgusting fumes, and no need to wear ear defenders unless beating panels etc. Basically much more pleasant for the employees and the customers if being forced to visit there.

I love the expert advice given in here though about how things 'will' fail and that everything will need replacing, clearly someone has a time machine and is an expert in electronics and BEV's, no prizes for guessing who that might be.

 

[McPhee]

Not much point in a specific tariff for such a small battery, as you'd end up paying more for the rest of your usage.

Not necessarily.

Octopus Go has a day rate that's 1p cheaper for me than the tariff I was on with them. So I'm paying less both day and night.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

The parts and labour will be far more expensive than restoring an ICE car. Automotive electrician hours cost **** loads. Plus the motors alone cost as much as an engine, each.

Once they drop to a few £1000 its scrap if something major breaks.

Can you pop over and check out my 280k 18year old Honda electric traction system. It seems to be working fine but clearly I do need an expert to validate my suspicion.

 

[Journey]

Not necessarily.

Octopus Go has a day rate that's 1p cheaper for me than the tariff I was on with them. So I'm paying less both day and night.

Surely that just means you were in between 'good' tariffs though? Since if you weren't getting the best price per kWh for your normal electricity you were tied in, or didn't shop around?

 

[mikeyw85]

Not much point in a specific tariff for such a small battery, as you'd end up paying more for the rest of your usage.

15kWh of energy per day, might work out better if you have a dynamic to tarrif like Octopus Agile.

I've only roughly done the maths, and it is very close as to whether it's worth it. We aren't talking large sums of money saved. I'll check out the Octopus thing though, thanks.

 

[Fusion]

The parts and labour will be far more expensive than restoring an ICE car. Automotive electrician hours cost **** loads. Plus the motors alone cost as much as an engine, each.

Once they drop to a few £1000 its scrap if something major breaks.

Sigh. Do you think a large electric motor is going to cost a manufacturer the same in 10 or 15 years time? If so, you know nothing about economies of scale.