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Electric Cars - likely to reduce rail travel?
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No He didn't say anything of the sort, try reading it again (or maybe read it properly for the first time. Here is what I said:
So, where did I say the bulk of new cars being electric? Any reference to the grid collapsing is drivel, as is comparing prices today, because today isn't 5-6 years away.
Why will the prices be as competitive or better than an equivalent IC vehicle in 5+ years? For a start, once production of EV components ramps up, they are much simpler to produce, i.e., a motor package, probably 3 phase PM motors will be the norm, power electronics packages will have works costs of 10s of pounds, the natural development of car management processor/interfaces will be no more expensive than current engine management processors. The battery pack will be then have higher power density and recyclable such that lithium can be recovered. The body will be about the same but have more flexible space. There will of course be no engine, gearbox, fuel tank or exhaust system, so all in all much simpler to manufacture, and for the buyer, much cheaper to run.
To 'persuade' take-up of EVs, I would imagine car tax to remain lower or non-existent, with road pricing or mileage based levies applied. To drive motorists away from IC vehicles I suspect that ever increasing restrictions on where they can be used, first cities, then towns meaning that those whose use includes high mileages on rural roads can still operate IC vehicles until EV ranges and charging reaches a level that will not disadvantage them compared to EVs already in use. Indeed, EV users in rural areas are more likely to be able to charge at home with off-grid renewable sources. So that's the sort of 'stick' that I can see being progressively introduced.
With children in Greenwich suffering above normal levels of asthma and other respiratory ailments, the benefit of a ban on certain gross polluters will quickly start improving things. The money won't stop tomorrow anyway because as everybody here has said (ene you) that there won't suddenly be a majority of EVs on the roads, it will take a few years.
HSTEd
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You stated that electric cars would be comparable in price to IC vehicles with the range characteristics you have suggested.
This means they will dominate the market, because there would be no downsides to buying them.
What is more likely to happen if manufacturers can't produce enough cars to dominate the market, is they will increase the price of the cars to choke off demand - they will charge what the market will bear.
As someone who is literally paid to do research on the decarbonisation of the UK energy system, I am somewhat qualified to speak on this topic.
The average car does something like 7800 miles per year, which is 21 miles per day or so.
The stated consumption of this new "ID.3" is about 240Wh/mile - which translates into 5040Wh per day.
5kWh per vehicle per day.
This is an absolute minimum charging power of 210W per car, even if they are all magically charged evenly over the day.
With a more realistic Economy 7 charge scale, you are looking at 720W per car.
This doesn't sound like a lot.
But for every million cars that is 720MWe of extra load. And given availability and the fact that that energy tends to get used on weekdays and it is likely that people will keep their cars near topped off since they will get into the habit of plugging in every night, you will want more than that.
But nevermind that.
There are ~30 million cars in the UK, the average lifespan of a British light vehicle ~8 years
That implies a replacement rate of nearly 4 million vehicles per annum.
So even 25% market share of new car will look at an extra ~700MWe CCGT unit per annum at the minimum.
The diurnal demand swing will let you get away with this for a while.
But it is only a few gigawatts these days and it has been getting smaller for years.
Very rapidly you will exhaust it - and the grid planners have not made any allowance for the massive demand electric cars will place on it.
And if they really can deliver the specs they are saying at the price they are saying, it will probably rapidly grow beyond 25%, assuming IC car manufacturers do nothing in response.
Oh and assuming people don't celebrate the very low cost of driving their electric cars by driving way more! Which we all know they will. (Americans drive twice what we do)
You will be lucky to get a CCGT operational in much less than 10 years from a standing start today, these projects take a long time, and then there are investments in distribution upgrades and all the governance issues that will arise when Economy 7 becomes peak time because of people charging cars.
The asymptotic electricity demand for the current car fleet would be expected to be in the region of 20GWe charging power!
Even workplace charging doesn't help that much in this case
And that doesn't even have a proper set of standards or payment infrastructure concieved of yet, yet alone ready for roll out.
And whilst workplace charging reduces total peak charging demand, it also removes any residual nightime off-peak effect.
But engines, gearboxes, fuel tanks and exhaust systems (and you will still have to have a final drive!) are not the expensive parts in modern cars.
Things like the Volkswagen Up! demonstrate just how cheap they are to make. Cars that cost well under £10,000 have all these things.
Engines and gearboxes are made with tooling that the companies have already developed, qualified and procured.
The cost of these things is the marginal cost of making them and will be for many years - Internal Combustion cars will get cheaper.
As Norway demonstrates, such things will be reduced rapidly as takeup increases, otherwise the Government will blow all it's money subsidising cars that will have been purchased anyway
Unfortunately people who have Asthma and other respiratory ailments tend to have them pretty much for life, with varying severity.
All those people will require a lot more money spent on their healthcare for years and years.
Whilst the number of new cases might be expected to drop off, the problem with these chronic ailments is that they never really go away.
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No it doesn't. Just because the cars are a better buy, it doesn't mean that all existing cars are on the road are replaced overnight, - even in boom times. It means that replacments will be mainly EVs. So even if every car sold is an EV, by 2030, they would still only be about 2/3 of the cars on the road. Add the fact that we will probably be in the midst of a recession, car sales will dive and of those bought, the majority of them will be imports, means that there will be virtually no IC cars sold and the EV figures constrained.
I agree that electric road travel will be subject to a similar level of tax as today. However it won’t be on the same basis. It is much more likely to be a distance, time and location based road pricing. Given that most of my road travel is at off peak times, on quiet roads, I’d expect to come out of it rather well. People who drive to work, particularly in busy towns and cities, may not do so well.
Busaholic
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I just can't see how all this is going to work in practice if electric cars become prolific. I live in West Cornwall and my nearest motorway is 100 miles away at Exeter, so even a day trip to there would require a battery charge. I assume charging facilities would be available at Exeter services, but how many points would there be? Half a dozen, even if 10 minute fast charging became possible, would result in long, long queues once even 10% of cars became electric, and if 10 mins was in reality 20, particularly after all the faffing around of connection, then it would become an ordeal you wouldn't contemplate unless there was an emergency. Anyone who thinks there'd be 20 or more points is more of a fantasist than Boris Johnson and his motley crew. For the foreseeable future, electric car transport is not going to be possible for the many, only the few.
You can come and charge it at mine over a nice cup of tea.
Busaholic
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In the unlikely event of my getting one, or even continuing to drive, then I'll take you up on that!You can come and charge it at mine over a nice cup of tea.
As the number of EV's increase the number of charging points do.
Take for example the Dorset town of Swanage, that in the main beach car park has 4 charging points a few years ago none.
Chances are in a few more years there'll be some more. That's in an area where, although there's a lot of tourists, and write a few day trippers, it's not really on the way to somewhere.
Motorway services will want to have sufficient charging points, as if they don't they are likely to loose custom. Even if that's from the fear of the risk of the charging points being all in use.
Yes there's going to be challenges to overcome, however (getting back to the main subject) the impact on rail is likely to be small or positive.
The user of e-bikes would likely decrease the amount people drive whilst reducing the impact on the grid compared to it being a EV.
Even though there's downsides to e-bikes (mostly weather related) they do overcome a lot of the other negatives of cycling.
Why is motorway classification important? Why can't there be charging facilities at services near grade separated dual-carriageways in Cornwall and Devon?
Struner
Member
The weather related upside is the wind of course. The NL equivalent of gradients...
& yes, ebikes used to be just a senior thing, but more & more people are using them for commuting.
But that would be replacing the ordinary bike, the bus & sometimes the car, but not the train I think.
Good news!
1) Exeter services has 8 charging points. No doubt there will be more soon. The last services I went to (Oxford) had over 20. **Disclaimer** I am not Boris Johnson, nor part of his crew.
2) Exeter has over 20 other locations in around the city with charging points, almost all of which have multiple chargers. This includes six of the main city car parks and IKEA.
3) a number of organisations have announced that they will be installing chargers. Tesco for example is proposing to install at 600 stores - and I’d be astonished if they didn’t do so at Exeter Extra. Even better - charging will be free at Tesco. Other supermarkets have already done so. Sainsbury’s at Penzance for example. Asda at St Austell. Amongst others.
4) there are cars on the market now that could easily get you from West Cornwall to Exeter, and back, without needing to charge. Many more new models that can do this are coming to market in the next 12 months.
Of course all this depends on your definition of ‘foreseeable future’. If it’s less than 10 years, then prepare to be wrong.
There are. In Devon at least.
One of the main reasons for a lack of motorways in places like Cornwall is to do with the fact that there's got to be an alternative route for those who can't use motorways (cyclists, learner drivers, mopeds, etc.).
Much of the A30 West of Exeter isn't too dissimilar to some of the lower grade motorways, with 70mph limits, mostly grade separated junctions, etc. (Yes there's still bits, mostly after the first turning to Truro which isn't, but then no worse than other roads like the A303, even if you allow for the works due at Stonehenge).
I agree that e-bikes aren't likely to negatively impact on trains, if anything is likely to lead to some more use of them, even if it's just for the occasional bit of travel, as they replace second cars meaning that longer distance travel needs another mode of transport if the only car is being used by another.
underbank
Established Member
But as they have a bigger footprint, ultimately fewer cars will be able to park, meaning congestion and loss of custom.
They don't have to have a bigger footprint, at least if they run along a footway.
Even if you were to need some extra length (say 0.5m per double row) then you'd be looking at the loss of a double row of parking for every 20 double rows of parking.
In reality you could fit them like you do with lampposts, so even if you allowed an extra 0.24m of width for each block of 4, you'd loose 2 spaces for every 40 spaces (2.5%).
Given how much parking there is at most motorway services it's not likely to impact their income overly much.
Figures like that are a drop in the ocean and these installations are mere gestures by councils and other entities who want to be able to claim that they are going "green". They can work while only a tiny minority of motorist need them, but there is no hint that the long term practicalities have been considered
Imagine OTOH if all existing vehicles were charger-reliant EVs, as some predict. With many people unable to charge at home, I would guesstimate (has anyone a more accurate figure?) that at least 25% of public parking spaces (including at workplaces and supermarkets) will need charging points based on average demand. To meet peak demand such as on bank holidays at M-way services, the percentage would need to be much higher.
That's assuming efficient use of the facilities - ie that eg people already 90% full do not plug while they go off all day in just in case they don't get another charging opportunity for a while. Motorists will be unable to have confidence in finding charging points during busier times, and if for example they have driven to a resort, be unable on their existing charge to drive home again. Even a charging point at every public parking space would not solve that problem if all the parking is full, as often the case these days (so the exact figure in my guesstimate above does not matter).
With petrol and diesel, there are often not enough pumps for the demand, but we know the wait is not likely to exceed a few minutes. But the wait for a free EV charging point because they are combined with parking (ironically claimed by EV advocates as an advantage) is likely to be hours. It's no use saying there will be more charging points because there will be more EVs needing them too.
I like the idea of EVs for certain purposes such as commuting and shopping if you can charge at home. I would also be happy if EV tech were based on exchangeable batteries (eg at existing filling stations, done automatically in bays in half a minute). But I believe that charging is the wrong way to go - I certainly do not want to get involved in "Charging Bay Rage" confrontations of which we increasingly hearing.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/features/electric-car-drivers-could-face-queues-quarrels-christmas/
https://www.howestreet.com/2019/06/...ng-hours-for-charging-bay-then-hrs-to-charge/
Charging at motorway services with current fast chargers would be circa 30 minutes.
Most workplaces would be able to offer fast charging as well as slower charging, quite possibly from the same chargers. Probably being able to offer 10 minutes of fast charge in the first three hours after arrival with staff being able to book longer fast charging slots if they are due to attend a meeting.
That would be enough to allow most people to so some lunchtime tasks whilst giving enough charge capacity to get all the cars to a fairly high percentage charge during the afternoon.
Shopping and other leisure locations could do a similar thing with a lot of slow charging vehicles whilst fast charging a few at a time, probably a rapid charge for about 5 minutes when they first arrive.
Geezertronic
Established Member
That's how we have to get our classic Mini to pass emissions, give it a good 1 hour rag before MOT test time and it's good
Geezertronic
Established Member
Is there any current manufacturer guidelines on charging with relation to fast charging vs slow charging?
That's because only a tiniy minority of motorists have EVs, at the moment.
Selling EV drivers 'motoring' electrical power* will become as big business as petrol and diesel sales are now.
In the US, some high power (30 min) charging points already have a time-based charge element. If 'charger-squatting' becomes an issue, offenders would have their access to that network removed.
See my comment on your previous paragraph.
That would be the equivalent of going back to floppy disks for software distribution. After their environmental benefits, the whole point of EV's is that they don't need any physical fuel sysems to be carried anywhere, once the infrastructure is installed, nothing needs to be carried or connected by anybody except for the driver plugging in an electric cable.
With the number of climate change deniers, many of whom don't want to let go of their precious IC vehicles, some media outlets are bound to play up any complaints from those who have progressed onto EVs. When the freedoms of IC vehicles are reduced, attitudes will change, albeit with a lot of noise from those whose interests are with the status quo, - until the majority object to their CO2 dirty habits.
* That will include most home charging by means of chargers that communicate with power distributions systems, (mandated from 2020).
underbank
Established Member
Only those with their own car parks - highly unlikely for firms in town/city centres.
Harpers Tate
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Or at increasingly numerous supermarkets, hotels, pubs and shopping venues. Not just motorway services.
Mine has a recommendation to minimise rapid charges, but no specific proportions, and with nothing in the 8 year, 100k mile battery warranty about proportions.
eMeS
Member
I'm in Milton Keynes which the local authority claims to be electric-car friendly, and it also seems to be encouraging automatically driven pods or similar.
At my Local Centre, the electric charging points appear to be able to charge 4 different vehicles, but only if the vehicles have different plugs. (Or can they get round this limitation using adapters?) Why weren't these charging interfaces standardised?
However, this is a theoretical point as the car-park is on one of the local bus routes to & from MKC, and many of the parking slots are now taken up all day by rail commuters - this may change for a short period after the new car park being constructed at MKC comes on stream in a year or two.
I do see electric vehicles being charged in the city centre, but not so far, at my Local Centre.
At my Local Centre, the electric charging points appear to be able to charge 4 different vehicles, but only if the vehicles have different plugs. (Or can they get round this limitation using adapters?) Why weren't these charging interfaces standardised?
However, this is a theoretical point as the car-park is on one of the local bus routes to & from MKC, and many of the parking slots are now taken up all day by rail commuters - this may change for a short period after the new car park being constructed at MKC comes on stream in a year or two.
I do see electric vehicles being charged in the city centre, but not so far, at my Local Centre.
They will probably all get disabled the minute HMRC realise that the free electricity being provided is an workplace benefit and needs to be metered and taxed appropriately
Which is fair enough. Why should some employees be taxed on all of their income and others only on part of their income?
I would imagine that the type 2 connector will become the defacto standard. It is an IEC standard, has enough pins to work with single and 3 phase ac and DC, and is already adopted by most European countries and some beyond. Tesla has also preoduced a compatible version that is uprated to handle 120kW. However, adaptors will be common until a dominant standard becomes universal.
I think the trend in the US to have time-based tariffs on higher output chargers will sort out much of the 'charger-squatting' problems.
43021HST
Established Member
My apologies if this has been said earlier in the thread, I've just skimmed through all 178 posts.
Please note I'm describing mostly urban and city to city transport, so this doesn't apply to rural transport.
I don't think electric cars will reduce rail travel, as it does nothing to reduce road congestion. However I do believe self driving electric cars risk impacting on rail travel, especially the uber hail and ride proposal which the pointy heads in silicon valley keep proposing. (For those not in the know, the proposed system is no one actually owns a car, but using an app on your your phone, you call a self driving car to pick you and and deposit you wherever you like.) Just because this works in California, it's got to work for the rest of the world right?
WRONG! This ridiculous model is based on an american car-centric system, where every city has an LA style freeway system, whereas it may reduce road congestion, due to shorter stopping distances, more efficient driving etc, it doesn't move away from the model of people being transported around in their individualistic little ego bubbles. A car whether self driven or not takes up a lot of space, particularly in cities.
The train is a far superior mode of transport, it can move vast volumes of people, in a way that's quieter, less polluting, aesthetically better, takes up less space and can be electrified meaning the power source can be centralised on any power source you like, Wind, Solar, Nuclear, Geo-thermal, Hydro Electric, Etc, Etc. Without having to manufacture loads of filthy batteries (Yes I know a train requires batteries, however it needs less of them). There should be a big move away from urban car ownership altogether in European countries, and maybe for the rural areas, bring back the branch line!
No self driving car nonsense, yes to branch lines!
Please note I'm describing mostly urban and city to city transport, so this doesn't apply to rural transport.
I don't think electric cars will reduce rail travel, as it does nothing to reduce road congestion. However I do believe self driving electric cars risk impacting on rail travel, especially the uber hail and ride proposal which the pointy heads in silicon valley keep proposing. (For those not in the know, the proposed system is no one actually owns a car, but using an app on your your phone, you call a self driving car to pick you and and deposit you wherever you like.) Just because this works in California, it's got to work for the rest of the world right?
WRONG! This ridiculous model is based on an american car-centric system, where every city has an LA style freeway system, whereas it may reduce road congestion, due to shorter stopping distances, more efficient driving etc, it doesn't move away from the model of people being transported around in their individualistic little ego bubbles. A car whether self driven or not takes up a lot of space, particularly in cities.
The train is a far superior mode of transport, it can move vast volumes of people, in a way that's quieter, less polluting, aesthetically better, takes up less space and can be electrified meaning the power source can be centralised on any power source you like, Wind, Solar, Nuclear, Geo-thermal, Hydro Electric, Etc, Etc. Without having to manufacture loads of filthy batteries (Yes I know a train requires batteries, however it needs less of them). There should be a big move away from urban car ownership altogether in European countries, and maybe for the rural areas, bring back the branch line!
No self driving car nonsense, yes to branch lines!
cjmillsnun
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Hybrids make no sense. Just like bimode trains, you carry extra weight.
Why fewer parking spaces? They can park in exactly the same space as any other car.
Charging infrastructure??? I've never had a problem and it is improving all the time.
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