Deafdoggie
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Because, very obviously, petrol & electric are very, very different. Few firms want to have a flammable liquid on their premises, whereas all of them already have electric.
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Do you think that the UK switching to electric vehicles is realistic?
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How many workplaces have off street parking? Enough for all employees?
It may not even be an issue of legislation, as EV's become more widespread if you are an employer who doesn't offer at work charging (even if there's a charge for that) it's going to be harder and harder to recruit and retain staff.
2 years ago I saw a price for 2 pairs of 7kwh free standing chargers coming in at just under £7,000 (£1,750 each, and that included monitoring of the system). If you've got to advertise for a new member is staff that can easily cost £1,000 before you consider existing staff time for the interview process and onboarding. However, for a workplace setting you could probably have most chargers as a basic plug system and just a few of the faster chargers.
Oxford may be an outlier with it's congestion issues, but offering workplace parking at all is being discouraged. The council hasn't imposed its levy yet, but my employer already has a 1.75% of salary charge for a peak time parking permit (which doesn't guarantee a space).
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Certainly for places like Oxford park and ride is a "killer app". With enough usage an excellent early to late service can be provided, and then there's no reason for anyone to be driving anything into the centre for non-commercial purposes bar some Blue Badge holders and the likes.
birchesgreen
Established Member
Not true, some of the SMEs on the business park i work at have charge points.
Deafdoggie
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But P&R should have chargers. I don't know Oxford, but I know Cambridge has chargers at all its P&R sites
Busaholic
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Councils do too, amazing the amount of parking allowed there for staff and councillors, plus plenty of electric chargers often standing unused. A recent video of County Hall in Truro, Cornwall, showing the pods for homeless temporary accommodation placed there was quite revealing in its 'bigger picture', unintentionally I'm sure. Good to know how they use our Council Taxes.
Nice to see cars arriving where software can emulate the feeling of driving a manual car. I mean, it might sound stupid to have a car that can fake reaching a rev limit and reduce/cut power, but it will make EVs more entertaining (and perhaps prove that more people will likely want this than something that drives them as they sit back and watch YouTube on their phone).
The best thing being that you can turn it off and then get the full benefit of the power of an EV motor.. or go from crazy supercar performance to a 'fuel sipping' eco car.
Sadly the car is a little bit more than I could justify, doing less than 5,000 miles a year! That said, if I did get one, I could see myself adding another few thousand miles of just 'going for a drive for no reason' purposes as I used to do years ago.
Looking through https://www.oxford.gov.uk/parkandridesites the number of chargers at each site is 0/2/42/10/2.
Even at the best equipped site, you're not going to be able to leave it plugged in all day whilst you're at work.
Chargers are popping up all over the place with no fanfare - like council owned sports centres.
A car park in Welwyn Garden City has also extended its EV parking bays still further, and already had around 50-55. I've never seen them all used, but the land owner must be confident that they'll see use in the coming years.
I'd assume that most people going to a park and ride aren't coming from that far away, so you really don't need rapid charging. Slow charging, even at just 1-2kWh, would almost certainly replenish the mileage going to/from the park and ride if you were there most of the day.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Oxford has some, but with universal EV usage you'll want at least about a third of spaces to have one - though a slow charger is fine as most cars will be there all day. Fast chargers serve very little purpose in this sort of location.
Does anyone know how much power the sockets in Swedish car parks (for providing heat to vehicles) supplied? In residential areas, it's common for every space to have one - and in the winter, people plug in to power small heaters in the cabin/footwell.
They were using them (and I assume other Scandinavian countries) for decades. It can't be hard to offer the same here, with no huge infrastructure upgrades. While I expect most in-car heaters were probably drawing only 500 or 750W, it can't be difficult to offer 2-3kWh, and implement load balancing to protect circuits.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I don't know about those specifically, but a 1 bar electric fire or small fan heater draws about 5A, so it's likely around there. A slow charger is typically nearer 13A. But of course not everyone will need one.
6 hours from a normal plug socket should get you about 45 miles, it's fairly uncommon for people to do more than about 20 miles a day each way (circa 9,000 miles per year) and if they are then charging with a 7kwh charger once or twice a week would likely keep most of the rest topped up (there's bound to be some who would need more, but they are likely to be the exception).
Deafdoggie
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I know loads of car parks with fast chargers that aren't announced anywhere, you just park and plug in and go off for the day. Usually there's loads of fast chargers and just 1 or 2 rapid chargers which is perfectly fine.
At the moment there are far more chargers than needed. But those opposed to EVs demand there are more before they'll get an EV. I don't really know how many they think is enough. There's loads going unused everyday.
Anti EV people often make no sense anyway.
One minute there aren't enough chargers and you'll get a photo of a bunch of cars at a car meet or something that's passed off as supposedly all queuing to charge somewhere.
Then you are told that all the charging bays in the country are empty all day because nobody wants an EV and what a waste of money building them.
I find that in the car parks I use, maybe 30-40% of bays are in use*. That's probably a pretty decent ratio, and clearly there may be times when they're full and times when empty (like the small hours).
Chargers that have varying rates can further control usage, but many just want to charge a rip off rate 24/7.
* at the station car park, that can often be 70-80%.
One minute there aren't enough chargers and you'll get a photo of a bunch of cars at a car meet or something that's passed off as supposedly all queuing to charge somewhere.
Then you are told that all the charging bays in the country are empty all day because nobody wants an EV and what a waste of money building them.
I find that in the car parks I use, maybe 30-40% of bays are in use*. That's probably a pretty decent ratio, and clearly there may be times when they're full and times when empty (like the small hours).
Chargers that have varying rates can further control usage, but many just want to charge a rip off rate 24/7.
* at the station car park, that can often be 70-80%.
My 2021 Tesla doesn't have one at all.
Loads of places do. There were some.karge greenhouses I was managing, they had them. Lots of business parks have them. Lots of council run car parks have them. Lots of NCP etc car parks have them.
Most of my working life has been in offices without staff parking. I don't know if my local station car park has acquired chargers in rhe past couple of months. If not the nearest non high speed chargers are 2 in the long stay car park on the other side of the town centre.
Increasingly I am seeing EV drivers treating charging bays as dedicated EV parking and leaving vehicles in them when not charging.
No, you don‘t. There’s several people in my city living in terraced houses who charge their cars at home. I know one of them. It‘s simply not a problem.
They are very much in the minority. Friends of mine in London were lucky if they could park in the same street.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Running cables over the pavement IS a problem for accessibility. It isn't specifically illegal now, but in time it will have to be.
Lamp post charging is the only solution for on street parking.
The only other way is to actually rent out on street spaces next to the relevant house and install cable gullies, which as not everyone would get one would have to be at a very significant premium. Cable gullies without this are not workable, as it would cause parking wars even worse than you get now when getting to work tomorrow is contingent on being able to arrive at midnight from a weekend away and park outside your own house.
pokemonsuper9
Established Member
Some terraced houses have driveways, some don't
Many semi-detached houses have driveways, some don't
Most detached houses have driveways, some don't.
Surely it's driveway vs no driveway rather than terraced or not that's the problem?
Many semi-detached houses have driveways, some don't
Most detached houses have driveways, some don't.
Surely it's driveway vs no driveway rather than terraced or not that's the problem?
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
It is yes.
This is the case in many towns and cities, not just London.
It isn‘t a problem. Ramped Cable guards across the pavement do the trick.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
No, they absolutely don't. Borrow a wheelchair or pram and give it a go. It's bad enough on a bicycle*.
The grooved installations do, but they just make parking conflicts worse than they are now (and they're bad in a lot of places) when getting to work tomorrow is contingent on parking outside your own house and it isn't just about people being bone idle and unwilling to walk ten yards.
* Yes, I know, bicycles aren't to be ridden on the pavement, but it's figurative.
While sales volume of BEV cars are steady, the growth in the sales volume of BEV has stalled in the USA and UK.
How many BEV owners use their vehicle as a second car with an IC car as their primary car?
How many BEV ownersare returning to IC cars now and in the near future?
EV sales stall (The Guardian newspaper )
How many BEV owners use their vehicle as a second car with an IC car as their primary car?
How many BEV ownersare returning to IC cars now and in the near future?
EV sales stall (The Guardian newspaper )
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Harpers Tate
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No statistics to back this - but I suspect that the answer to that is - very, very few. I certainly wouldn't willingly do so. There is no good reason to "require" a ICE over an EV and EVs are (IMO) better in pretty much every way.
Deafdoggie
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I don't know of any EV owners going back to ICE. I do know of lots going over to two EVs and no ICE at all. The biggest issue is dealers can't keep up with demand. I know there's at least a years wait for a brand new EV, and there are hardly any on the second hand market. All this, naturally, means there aren't as many sales. But it's not lack of demand.