Electric cars

This week the government announced a £20 million cash injection to boost the number of electric vehicle chargepoints in towns and cities across the UK, helping to create healthier neighbourhoods and clean up our air as Britain builds back greener. 

  • The Prime Minister’s Ten Point Plan sets out proposals to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles, ending the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030, which could create 40,000 extra jobs by 2030 – transforming our national infrastructure to better support electric vehicles, backed by £2.8 billion. 
     
  • To support this transition, the government  yesterday confirmed an additional £20 million funding for the On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme in 2021-22, to allow people without private parking to also make the switch to electric vehicles. This funding could add nearly 4,000 more chargepoints in our towns and cities. 
     
  • The electric vehicle revolution will help in tackling poor air quality and supporting economic growth as we build back greener from the pandemic.

Comments

Jim said…
Its quite welcome, I have had an electric car for about a year. Though why does it need government interference? The ecotricity network on the motorways is pretty good to be honest, some of the higher end hotels have destination chargers as do a lot of tesco supermarkets. The tesla network is also fantastic.

I understand the BEV model works for me because i have my zappi at home (thats a home charger), and that the model isnt so great for people with no driveway or those who live in flats. Though its not the only model available, hyrodgen is another model.

Since the announcment a classic example is that premier inn have teamed up with Genie to provide rapid charging at all their hotels. This is a clear example of an unthought through plan on the back of a government announcement to ban the sale of petrol cars. See at a rapid charger it takes about 30mins to charge to 80%, the charge rate slows down considerably the further you go from 50% and after 80 its slow after 90 its painfully slow, but it still transfers a lot of heat to the battery. Basically its a great way of charging quickly when you want to charge and go, like at a motorway service station. At a hotel that is primarily used for overnight stays its next to useless, a "fast" charger would be the clear answer. Though Genie the network seen a change to cash in, and got there, installed rapids and prevented the use of destination chargers (same thing at morrisons whitehaven, see most tesco (though not in cumbria) have complimentary destination chargers on site (when they are not ICEd that is) however, morisons in whitehaven have a Genie rapid charger (if you have never noticed it, its down the bottom of the car park beside the road that seperates morrisons from the council car park. This is a rapid charger, which again is a rapid in the wrong place so is very rarely used. the range of my car is about 150miles, there are few people live more than lets say 50 miles from morrisons in whitehaven that would use morrisons and need a rapid. the customer base lives in whitehaven, so a top up on a 7kw unit may be a nice get you home, when you are just back from a trip away are at 10% battery and have called in on your way home to buy some milk.

If they just left things alone then the swich will happen on its own given time, and pressure from EV drivers will ensure that the correct chargers are installed in the right places.

Some terms if you didnt know them
Rapid - this is a very quick 50kw (some are more) charger that charges a car to 80% in about 30 mins.
Fast - this is the general charger people have fitted at home, it takes about 4-5 hours to fully charge a car, its 7kw
Slow - this is usual mains power, there are leads that plug directly into a standard 230v 3 pin mains socket (usually ev drivers call them granny leads) they are very slow 2.5kw or so but will charge a car in about 12-14 hours.

ICEd - this is the most annoying, its when drivers of petrol or diesel (Internal Combusion Engine) cars park in an EV charging bay. It happens a lot, really a lot. It costs money to run cables to ev chargers, so they are usually close to the entrance to buildings, thus they become "prime" parking spaces for the type of people who do that sort of thing. Not as bad as parking in a disabled bay, but close. It also includes EVs parked there but not charging, these types get really hammered by other EV drivers, its just not done, its worse than leaving gear out at the gym when you are done with it.
6:41 am
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

Image
I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more