The future.... Gulp

[candida]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1460367195066671113

And apart from the legion of Teslas, like a very quiet army, it appears in Cali there's a drive in drive out system and they don't need roofs coz it never rains....
Never understood why all chargers (not just superchargers) are just in standard parking slots making queueing and manoeuvring impossible and are open to the rain

 

[Nick77]

I think it's almost guaranteed that there'll be a period we have to go through where demand for charging outstrips the infrastructure.

Just look at how full car parks are every day in towns and cities, and you realise that the majority of spaces will need some kind of destination charging for those that don't have home chargers. Which is what, 40% of the population IIRC.

Knowing our government it'll take public outcry and chaos, fighting and gridlock at charging stations before they react quickly enough too.

 

[Simonix]

Things will go like this:

• Push EVs to the gen pop, until there are way more cars than charging facilities.
• BBC to report a nationwide "shortage" of charging options.
• Mass panic and hysteria as queues build up in service stations all the way down to the off-ramps of the motorways across the land.
• Energy providers announce at least another 4 price hikes due to "overwhelming demand".
• Government react to loss of revenue from low BIK rates, Emissions taxes, fossil fuel taxes, and start adding tax to EVs & public charging.
• Pubic chargers increase prices to £1.50 per KW. In order to pay for more chargepoints and cover the new taxing regime. Costing the same/more to "fill" your EV as it did to fill your ICE vehicle.
• Finally, "normal" society resumes........

 

[GRiLLA]

I think it's almost guaranteed that there'll be a period we have to go through where demand for charging outstrips the infrastructure.

Just look at how full car parks are every day in towns and cities, and you realise that the majority of spaces will need some kind of destination charging for those that don't have home chargers. Which is what, 40% of the population IIRC.

Knowing our government it'll take public outcry and chaos, fighting and gridlock at charging stations before they react quickly enough too.

I don't think it's that bleak.

How long does it take to fill a car with petrol then pay in the shop with the massive chocolate bars? 10 mins ?
The average annual mileage in the uk is 7K *, so 135miles a week, so roughly 34KW. On a 100KW charger that would take 20 minutes.

60% of people can charge at home, so rarely visit a converted petrol station **

End result being that we just replace all the pumps with 100KW chargers and we are done.

Now there are several best case assumptions there, and small differences amplify quickly, but technology is also improving, charging gets faster, range gets better etc.

* Not sure how safe this figure is, it's an average that includes a lot of cars that don't go very far, so I'm not sure how realistic it really is.
** I do think this is a rather unsafe figure, 60% have some form of offstreet parking, but that's not necessarily sufficient for all the cars at a property

 

[EzekielJM]

This wont apply to us. In the US Tesla's can ONLY use their superchargers (they are hopefully getting an adapter for CCS but it does not exist yet). In the UK / EU /ROW we can use CCS which means other charger companies can provide services for the tesla. E.g. if the superchargers are full at MSA xxxx I will go use the Electric highway ones or the shell ones or the bp pulse ones etc etc.

 

[Peter 224]

And many of us will leave home in the morning fully charged.

 

[Washout]

I think it's almost guaranteed that there'll be a period we have to go through where demand for charging outstrips the infrastructure.

Just look at how full car parks are every day in towns and cities, and you realise that the majority of spaces will need some kind of destination charging for those that don't have home chargers. Which is what, 40% of the population IIRC.

Knowing our government it'll take public outcry and chaos, fighting and gridlock at charging stations before they react quickly enough too.

I hope the government keep their money sucking and incompetant fingers out of the whole thing, other than OFGEM actually doing the job they're paid for and telling the power companies and NDOs they have to invest in infrastructure and not their pension funds...

 

[HenryT]

I hope the government keep their money sucking and incompetant fingers out of the whole thing*

*(Nobody mention road pricing)

 

[candida]

Things will go like this:

• Pubic chargers increase prices to £1.50 per KW.

That pubic charger has to be worth £1.50 per kw

 

[adsheff]

I don't think we'll have as many issues as in the US. We are a smaller country - and with the advent of 400+ mile range most of us will be able to do a long trip without a charging stop soon. I've noticed loads more Teslas on the roads, but outside peak times there's never a problem getting a charging spot somewhere.

That aside, what the problems do highlight is the general inefficiency of private cars as a transportation system. We should be on trains for long journeys, but they are so overpriced a lot of people don't even consider them.

 

[Adopado]

I don't think we'll have as many issues as in the US. We are a smaller country

I think the small country is the issue. The USA has lots of cars but the place is huge! The number of cars per square mile will be much lower on average. And there will be a smaller number of homes without the potential for off street charging. I'm fortunate to be living in one of the lowest density areas of the UK and I must admit I'm quite taken aback when travelling on the motorway networks and urban routes across much of the country. It goes withouot saying that we are going to need more charging infrastructure and we just can't wait for market forces to do the job.
(Of course the real traffic issues come at the pinch points and the States has high density areas too so it's not black and white.)

 

[adsheff]

I wonder if anyone has actually done the full calculation for the amount of rapid chargers needed. If we replaced every oil industry car with an EV, based on average charge times, just how many are needed? I reckon it may be an excessive amount given current usage - like 50+ in every service station. I'm not sure it's even possible to push that much juice at once. So the answer has to be slow home charging and greater range, negating the need to charge in public.

 

[NewbieT]

This wont apply to us. In the US Tesla's can ONLY use their superchargers (they are hopefully getting an adapter for CCS but it does not exist yet). In the UK / EU /ROW we can use CCS which means other charger companies can provide services for the tesla. E.g. if the superchargers are full at MSA xxxx I will go use the Electric highway ones or the shell ones or the bp pulse ones etc etc.

Nooo you won’t… they’ll be full to.

The issue is peak time charging & how much spare capacity you have the rest of the time. It all has to be paid for whether it’s used or not. It doesn’t matter where each company draws that line there still won’t be enough for peak because the maths won’t work - you won’t be able to compete with rivals if you carry loads of unused capacity. Summer Bank Holiday trip to Cornwall? Not if you can’t charge on arrival or don’t mind queuing.

 

[GRiLLA]

I wonder if anyone has actually done the full calculation for the amount of rapid chargers needed. If we replaced every oil industry car with an EV, based on average charge times, just how many are needed? I reckon it may be an excessive amount given current usage - like 50+ in every service station. I'm not sure it's even possible to push that much juice at once. So the answer has to be slow home charging and greater range, negating the need to charge in public.

It's easy to do.

There are about 40M cars on the road in the UK.

Given average mileage of 7000 miles, that's about 20 mins charging on a 100KW charger per week.

Lets say that in a week a single charger could be in operation 7 - 11pm that's 16 hours a day, 112 hours a week. Each charger could therefore service 336* cars

So if every car was to be charged using fast chargers we would need 120,000 chargers.

Lets say that 75% of the time people use home/work/lower speed chargers, that would then be 30K chargers.

There are 8,400 petrol stations in the uk, lets guess that on average each has 6 pumps, that would be 50K chargers.

* this is the cheat that makes it work, you could never achieve 100% utilization. However lets say it was 50% utilisation, the number of petrol pumps is still not far off the required. If every car took 150KW, and did 5 miles/KWH, it's really not that improbable.

 

[Adopado]

I wonder if anyone has actually done the full calculation for the amount of rapid chargers needed. If we replaced every oil industry car with an EV, based on average charge times, just how many are needed? I reckon it may be an excessive amount given current usage - like 50+ in every service station. I'm not sure it's even possible to push that much juice at once. So the answer has to be slow home charging and greater range, negating the need to charge in public.

They have certainly done the calculations. The grid has already confirmed they can cope with amount of actual electricity needed. We definitely need more charge points of course but the great thing about electricity (unlike petrol stations) is that it's everywhere. The use and requirement for public charging by users is hugely variable. I require to use public charging a handful of times a year, far less than I ever needed petrol stations, because I can charge at home. For people without that facility charging points need to become a routine feature of urban infrastructure ... at some point in the past it must have been unthinkable that we would come to have multiple street lights along every road and street in every city and town in the country. The petrol station model is just needed for the rapid charging requirements on trips ... routine slower charging can be everywhere, every street, every car parking place.

 

[Fat Wolfie]

Interestingly I have my first wait at at supercharger yesterday.

Grentna Green has 4 stalls, serving both North and Southbound traffic. My wait was maybe 2 mins but while charging another 3 cars turned up to charge, all politely waiting - no probs.

but immediately next to the Superchargers are 2 other rapid chargers, can’t remember whose they are. Neither were in use.

and at the BP station, there were either 4 or 6 Ionity 350 chargers, only 1 was in use.

I just wondered if we are sometimes our own worse enemy, I appreciate costs might be different but there wasn’t really any need to queue…

 

[Jason71]

It's easy to do.

There are about 40M cars on the road in the UK.

Given average mileage of 7000 miles, that's about 20 mins charging on a 100KW charger per week.

Lets say that in a week a single charger could be in operation 7 - 11pm that's 16 hours a day, 112 hours a week. Each charger could therefore service 336* cars

So if every car was to be charged using fast chargers we would need 120,000 chargers.

Lets say that 75% of the time people use home/work/lower speed chargers, that would then be 30K chargers.

There are 8,400 petrol stations in the uk, lets guess that on average each has 6 pumps, that would be 50K chargers.

* this is the cheat that makes it work, you could never achieve 100% utilization. However lets say it was 50% utilisation, the number of petrol pumps is still not far off the required. If every car took 150KW, and did 5 miles/KWH, it's really not that improbable.

Nice Estimate but I'm not sure 5miles/KWH is the most realistic figure to work with. As far as I know there are no mainstream EV's that can consistently achieve this now and I don't see improvements in efficiency being the big area of progress in the near future. bigger cheaper batteries are more likely but they take longer to charge. I would be surprised if the average in the UK is currently above 3miles/KWh

 

[Jason71]

Interestingly I have my first wait at at supercharger yesterday.

Grentna Green has 4 stalls, serving both North and Southbound traffic. My wait was maybe 2 mins but while charging another 3 cars turned up to charge, all politely waiting - no probs.

but immediately next to the Superchargers are 2 other rapid chargers, can’t remember whose they are. Neither were in use.

and at the BP station, there were either 4 or 6 Ionity 350 chargers, only 1 was in use.

I just wondered if we are sometimes our own worse enemy, I appreciate costs might be different but there wasn’t really any need to queue…

if they were MS or MX with free charging that's a pretty big incentive to queue

 

[Fat Wolfie]

if they were MS or MX with free charging that's a pretty big incentive to queue

There was 1 S and the rest (including me) were all model 3s.

to be honest I waited as it was my last day of free supercharging and without a charge I’d have got home with only 2% provided (according to the sat nav) I stayed below 65 mph. But if I wasn’t on free vend I’d have gone to the Ionity at (probably) 70p a KW..mainly to see how the charging curve looks on a 350

 

[AndrewGR]

to be honest I waited as it was my last day of free supercharging

I’ll be interested to know if it was free! I got charged on my last day. It seems Tesla’s day ends at 00:01!