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Nightmare! (Supercharger queues)
- Thread starter Cilonen
- Start date
People have before, while I'm sure it's annoying I'm not really sure what you think Tesla will do about it. You should contact Welcome Break as that's who the parking company is working for, I believe they have helped cancel fines in the past.
There's absolutely no point appealing to the common sense of the parking company, they have none.
Utumno
2 x Model Y LR (2022 Q2 & 2023 Q3)
It is physical space and grid capacity restraining stall rollout in the UK, not regional favouritism.
GDW1986
Member
Presumably this could be overcome by only showing when there are, say, 10 or more Teslas in any given area.
MrBadger
Badger out
Had to wait 10 mins at Fosset Park today but not a problem as had built in time for our trip. Newport Pagnell was close to limit too. I've only once previously had to wait to charge at a supercharger (been close a couple of times), and that was when a group of touring cars all turned up just ahead of me.
Have to say this all is kind of why as a household it's one electric car and one ICE at the moment. Don't feel like I'd be happy having 2 EV's just yet.
I actually think it's a shame they want to ban PHEV's in 2035. Sure some have a pathetic range but some newer ones are claimed 60 - 70 miles. Realistic at 40 - 50 but for most of my journeys that's all I need. Burning some fossil fuels on a longer trip isn't ideal but it wouldn't be often and gives time for the charging network to finally get there.
As an aside on this. The whole EV plus full ICE drivetrain with gearbox and all seems inefficient. Surely a full EV with a small range extender makes more sense but they just didn't seem to take off.
Finally see Scotland has pushed the ICE ban back from 2030 to 2032 because they don't think the charging network will be there in time. Have a feeling 2 extra years sadly won't be enough either but first admission that 2030 is too tight.
I actually think it's a shame they want to ban PHEV's in 2035. Sure some have a pathetic range but some newer ones are claimed 60 - 70 miles. Realistic at 40 - 50 but for most of my journeys that's all I need. Burning some fossil fuels on a longer trip isn't ideal but it wouldn't be often and gives time for the charging network to finally get there.
As an aside on this. The whole EV plus full ICE drivetrain with gearbox and all seems inefficient. Surely a full EV with a small range extender makes more sense but they just didn't seem to take off.
Finally see Scotland has pushed the ICE ban back from 2030 to 2032 because they don't think the charging network will be there in time. Have a feeling 2 extra years sadly won't be enough either but first admission that 2030 is too tight.
interbear
Active Member
I agree with pretty much all points you’ve made here. I was a PHEV sceptic but after my long wait at Gretna on a recent trip was actually pondering whether or not one would be a better option for us than the full EV. A 50 mile electric range would cover the vast majority of our daily driving needs, but having the petrol for longer trips may make sense time wise. I can see the UK government following suit in terms of extending the time before ICE vehicles are banned, it’s an easy “political win” for the government given the high price of EVs and I also think the charging infrastructure will take longer to build up.
Right now I’m sticking with the Model Y but I may end up using the VW diesel for trips to Scotland as they are long enough drives without having to sit and wait until a charger becomes available. Gretna or Tebay are regular and essential stops for me. And, with the price of electricity, the diesel is no more expensive these days. So 1 EV and 1 ICE is making sense for this family at the moment but I am no longer discounting PHEV as an option. As recently as a few months ago I was adamant I’ve never consider one.
Looks like it was a typo. The typo came about because Scotland had previously brought FORWARD the date from 2032 to 2030 ... the old date was still in there:
Errata
Some of the text of the (draft ESJTP) contained an incorrect reference to phase out dates for petrol and diesel cars and vans. This error affected the Ministerial Foreword page 3, bullet point 6, and Figure 9 on Page 21. The wording has been reviewed and revised as necessary to reflect the correct commitment to phase out the need for new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030, rather than 2032.
I'd got it from this Autocar article.
Autocar - Scotland 2032
If it's inaccurate they've not updated it yet.
As a thought though. If it's only Scotland is that enough new car sales for car manufacturers to keep their RHD efforts going for 2 more years? Almost can see them saying it's not cost effective and forcing EV's on you anyway from 2030. Think it needs a joint up UK approach on this one.
Not sure where they build cars for the few other RHD markets in the world but might be a bit of a shipping distance. You'd also get your Australian cars delivered on their roofs
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Was also a PHEV sceptic. Some had like ranges of 15 miles or such which seemed stupid considering the extra cost. I think those early ones literally only existed for company car drives to basically get an ICE car with a much lower BIK than a fully ICE car.
However at the ranges they are starting to get, they seem far more useful and giving you cheap home charging for most journeys and the ease of using fuel for long trips. Not only that but some newer ones the platform is now designed for this properly so you don't have to give up boot space for the battery.
These can be sold until 2035 compared to full ICE only cars being 2030 but feel like more than a 5 year gap will be needed to get the charging situation up to snuff.
I liken this to fibre broadband. The end goal is fibre into the house and BT is making good progress but how long have they been working on this? 15+ years at a guess and they probably still have 15 more years to go. Yes we've made some progress down the charging route already but have barely scratched the surface of what we'll need by the time all cars are electric.
Pretty much the only reason we use our Tesla for long trips instead of our Lexus hybrid that does 50mpg on normal unleaded is because we have 'free for life' Supercharging.
Right now if we had to pay for Supercharging the Tesla costs MORE per mile to refuel on a road trip vs the Lexus.
So pay more for more inconvenience.......No thank you.
I never bought our Tesla for 'green's reasons, right now I don't see why you would buy an EV over something like a Lexus hybrid.
Jason71
Well-Known Member
Agreed
As much as I adore my tesla( and the BIK), I am questioning if I should go back to hybrid in a few years time?
I suppose the BIK on the hybrid would make that decision for me.
I've not, yet, queued at a charging bay.
Not sure just how long that will last.
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
We started out there. Got EV in 2015, real-world motorway range of 240 miles, out-of-range / Supercharged 2 days a month, kept the ICE for "backup" and used that, for example, to go to Alps to ski.
2019 replaced primary ICE with 300 mile range model. Now supercharging (out-and-back days) has reduced to a couple of times a year. We happily take it skiing (more Superchargers than back in 2015 also enables that). Then replaced the additional ICE with EV as had no need for it for backup.
I agree, I always thought the "lawn mower engine" was a lot less plumbing than a full Battery AND ICE engine. Range Entender runs at constant, optimal, revs so both efficient and emission control is simplified (compared to being able to handle "any revs"), presumably the maintenance is a lot less demanding to - I'm guessing no cam belt and so on? maybe wear-and-tear is reduces because of constant-revs too (not that Range Extender would be used much anyway)
Also, reduced size of the battery (to whatever is prudent for, say, "80% of journeys") thus both cheaper and also can make more cars from the same amount of, currently, supply-constrained battery materials.
But ... Automotive world doesn't seem to agree with me/us!
Tesla seem to have managed to produce a significant number (maybe less than we would like, but.) sites with lots of stalls. Norway has loads of infrastrure, and also loads of supply-demand (90+% new vehicles are EV). I'm hopeful that market forces will get the infrastructure improved, and as battery-range /price improves over that time the demand for trip-charging will reduce, along with increase in number of vehicles, and maybe? the demand will be similar to now rather than increase linearly with number of EVs on the road.
But the planet cannot wait ...
Did you ever queue for petrol? Not the same of course, as that wait would have probably only been 5 minutes (although some of the queues I see at Supermarket Forecourt look longer to me ... people spending time to save only a little ...)
10 minutes a week refuelling an ICE is 8 hour a year ... although my wife tells me that that is nothing like / not comparable with having to wait half-and-hour for Supercharging 16 times a year !
Zilla91
Active Member
What are you doing to take 5-10 mins to fill up at a petrol station? I don't think I've ever taken that long to fill up unless there's been a queue.
It's even quicker with app based payment or pay@pump
It's even quicker with app based payment or pay@pump
I think though the reason a lot are trying to hit the magic 70 mile range is the BiK is then 5%. Not quite as good as 2% but not terrible either.
Got to be that it's just not as cheap / easy as sticking a battery in the boot and an electric motor into the gearbox is all. Pretty sure it's technically the better approach. I think Mazda have one coming out with a Rotory engine soon and rumours suggest the next lower end Land Rover models might have this as an option along with full EV models. I imagine to reduce battery size and costs or just to work for people that have issues charging.
It's moving far too slowly if you ask me. Tesla's done a good job but even they aren't keeping up and opening their network up to other brands cars will make this much worse.
Don't disagree that mankind needs to push forwards but some large, complex infrastructure tasks just take a long time. Could we do it quicker with more money on the table, sure but money is finite.
Consider all the issues here to solve:
- Around 1/3 I think of cars are parked on the street, if they cannot charge at home we need enough public chargers to cover them charging
- Also do not forget that a lot of these without driveways probably are not quite as wealthy, the cost of public charging could well put them off along with the inconvience
- Electricity grid and the issues of having lots of EV's charging from houses. Lots of studies on this but it'll also be a major issue that's not cheap to solve
- We already know also planning and lack of HV cables in places is slowing down the rollout in this country.
- Additional land and space for all EV chargers, we'll need far more of these than we ever did petrol / diesel pumps.
- Quantity of chargers and maintaining the network is going to be expensive. Currently for petrol / diesel pumps you've someone onsite to know when they stop working and get a repair organised. This works well as how often do you go to a petrol station and a pump isn't working?
- When EV chargers are spread all over the country it requires people to report the issues and operators to have deeper pockets to get people out to so many locations to repair them. More chargers vs pumps will equal more repairs. No one with eyes on them like at petrol stations will result in some being vandalised. This by the way I suspect is what is going to make public charging very expensive if they cannot hugely increase the reliability.
- The cost of electric cars is too high for a lot of people. The cheaper cars can have something like 100 miles of range where a cheap petrol / diesel would cost less and probably have a tank for 300 miles even on a little city car. Prices will come down but enough in 7 years? A lot rides on new battery chemistry being able to come to market to improve the energy density of batteries.
- Electric cars have a much higher environmental impact to make, only have a lot of miles in a petrol / diesel are they better. Making a lot of electric cars isn't a perfect answer but yes it is likely an improvement.
Yes but it's rare. Obviously been the odd time where panic buying or lack of lottery drivers have caused a shortage but very rare. Once or twice I've pulled into a station and all pumps have been full and had to wait 5 minutes to get in. Most of the time though it's straight in, pay at pump and out.
Don't have to worry about broken stalls, filling up at half the speed because someone else is parked at the pump besides me, slower filling up because my battery is cold, etc.
Electric is going to get better, no doubt. But by enough for 2030 which is just 7 years away? I don't believe that's possible for a moment personally.
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queuing + filling + queuing to pay + waiting for people to do their weekly shopping. It can easily take 10 minutes. Perhaps it doesn't feel like it because you're doing lots of little things keeping you active - like going the long way round with less traffic can feel quicker?
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