-
Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Have electric vehicles been "oversold" to the detriment of public transport, walking and cycling?
- Thread starter py_megapixel
- Start date
- Status
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
But then look at other issues, taxi drivers were mentioned earlier, I was one, my car could do an indicated 530 miles to a tank of diesel, on a long run maybe a motorway contract run, it would show 700 miles indicated on the trip computer, as soon as I hit town, that 530 miles indicated on the computer would actually maybe be 350 of town driving, also factor the drain of having a taxi radio, heating or aircon on all the time if the car was being run 24-7 and what is promised from the all knowing trip computer is way below what it says, at first it causes range anxiety until you get used to what your car can do.
Electric cars are no different, in the middle of summer, are you going to be going along the road on the motorway without your aircon on, sweltering because you need the charge on your car more? one youtube video I saw was done in the middle of summer, 2 journeys and a major difference in range of nearly 100 miles all because the radio and the blower was switched off ad this is where a lot of my issues stand with pure electric vehicles.
A lot of the ranges quoted are far off real figures as it is without figuring in other factors.
Electric cars are no different, in the middle of summer, are you going to be going along the road on the motorway without your aircon on, sweltering because you need the charge on your car more? one youtube video I saw was done in the middle of summer, 2 journeys and a major difference in range of nearly 100 miles all because the radio and the blower was switched off ad this is where a lot of my issues stand with pure electric vehicles.
A lot of the ranges quoted are far off real figures as it is without figuring in other factors.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Taxi drivers should be taking appropriate breaks. If that is enforced as a side-effect of the car's range, good. The industry gets away with far too much compared with professional drivers of other vehicles - if you ask me (though further discussion on it is for another thread) all professional drivers (i.e. people driving for any form of paid work or for business travel other than ordinary commuting) should have the tacho rules applied to them even if a physical tacho is not used.
To use a random example, a trip to Ambleside in the Lakes from MK is 230 miles and would typically take in the region of 4-5 hours with traffic but excluding breaks. On that journey I would probably expect to stop about 3 times, one long one for a meal and two shorter ones for the loo/a drink. Fast charge at all of those and even a 150 mile range would not be even nearly a problem - possibly only charging on the long one would be fine. Families with kids will probably require even more frequent loo stops than that.
People should not be doing long journeys without taking breaks (and I'm unconvinced that an on-vehicle break by swapping drivers is really a true break). As someone else said, I'm yet to hear an objection (other than the very niche ones) that isn't based around people driving with inadequate rest; that cars might prevent them from doing that is good news for the safety of everyone, them included.
It’s more likely because of aircon demand in this hot spell, combined with low wind output.
Indeed. WLTP is an average, based on average conditions, much like the ‘combined’ MPG figures are. If you have an EV, and do exclusively urban driving, you will beat the WLTP. If youare spending most of the time on the motorway, you will fall short. Precisely the opposite of combined MPG figures.
That would be true for sitting still in queues in sweltering heat, but with a steady reduction in exhause from other vehicles, the air above even busy roads is likely to become a lot less polluted with noxious gases than it is at present. That would mean that opening the windows for ventialtion and cooling (which admittedly has a miniscule inpact on aerodynamics) is once again viable. There is of course the issue of particulates from tyres, but as has been mentioned here before, that along with road noise, is probably the next area of tyre and road surface development, and as tyres only last 1-3 years on regularly used vehicles new low particulate tyres could feed through fairly quickly to the majority of vehicles on the road.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Which is another way that unnecessary high speeds will be disincentivised.
I get you on the long breaks, I had to deal with my Father's cremation last week, he had been dead 2 years but because he left his body to medicine, and COVID, he was "finished" with last month, all of the cremations are done in Nottingham so that meant a drive for me from the North East, I took 2 breaks each way and left with plenty of time, it is harder when you are working though, as a professional driver with constant demands on you, now you are tracked so say you work for a parcel company and are expected to do 50 drops a day and you finish an hour early, expect from some of them for you to have an extra few on the next day because you can manage it, they don't take into account stopping for a pee or eating.
Driving a taxi can be no different, on a quiet day/nightshift, you can have plenty of time in the car on your own with nothing doing, your phone on charge the radio on, heating if it is really cold, but on a busy night, you could have jobs all shift from start to end, yes you can radio base and take a break, but a lot of drivers if it is really busy will not because you are self employed and the risk of coming back out to nothing is very real, especially when you have to make up for a lean shift a couple of days before and if I was driving someone elses car for them on a split shift, some of them would give you time to go for your tea and then expect you to be out earning.
In order for your idea to work and I'm not saying I disagree with it.. There needs to be a major shift in attitude towards professional drivers from the bosses right down to the customers, however that will probably never happen.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
This is why the vehicle effectively enforcing it is a great by-product of limited range of EVs - it's a level-ish playing field for everyone. As to be fair would be legislating it.
With a taxi if you were sitting around you'd sit around plugged into a charger.
True, if they provided them at a taxi rank. I know that DPD have a few electric vans round here and they are still expected to do a full shift without breaks, instead of having a 25 mile delivery radius for instance, they have a 10, Amazon have a couple to, but again are expected to do a full days shift without breaks.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Those expectations will have to shift, of course, if they are not achievable.
Personally I'd like to see a tacho-style arrangement built into any road-pricing electronics to be used for any "hire or reward" journey of any kind (i.e. any journey for which tax-free expenses would be payable), and that to claim such expenses would require evidence to be recorded that the journey was fully compliant. But that's one for another thread.
I'm open to correction but believe this is currently defined in the rules for professional drivers as a 45 minute break after 4.5 hours driving
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
It is, yes. Going back to my example above of MK to the Lakes (230 miles), in most cases traffic means it would be impossible to do the journey without at least one 45 minute break. Personally it's much more likely to be 2 short ones plus half an hour long one, which is exactly the example I gave and plenty to work with for an EV with a 150 mile range, never mind 200+.
I agree with Bletchleyite, it certainly is, however, ask a courier driver if he actually gets that and you will get varying answers dependent to how much they get paid per parcel and how their bosses are in terms of how much of a load they add to their route.
With the lack of people to actually check and enforce the rules (especially when you cannot prove it in a 3.5 ton van or your own car if you work for the likes of Hermes or the likes), the bosses can do what they like and if you disagree then there are loads of people in the queue that would happily do the job instead.
Really it is an attitude thing, I know of a delivery driver in Denmark and if she finishes early, she gets sent home with full pay, not sent out on another run, not told to load up tomorrows run, or to fuel up other vehicles.
Again probably a rant for another thread.
No. I am not saying that.
I was pointing out that saying that the average journey length is 100 miles does not mean thqt a car with only 100 mile range is suitable for everyone.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
I never said that I would make a 500mile journey without a break. Few ICE cars have that range anyway.
But I do not want to have to take a couple of two hour breaks to recharge a 200mile range EV.
It doesn't take two hours to recharge an EV, unless you're deliberately using slow chargers. It's crazy to suggest you'd need 4hrs of charging to drive 500 miles in a 200 mile range vehicle.
I didn't say that the average journey length was 100 miles, I said that given that few (8) trips are over 50 miles that many would be able to cope for the vast majority of their driving with a car with a range of 100 miles, however many BEV's are now 200 miles plus. This then reduces the impact on people further, with anything beyond 250 miles would be a 4 hour trip and very few do that very often.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Even with the coal power station being brought online the maximum was 3% of grid capacity, that's down from a yearly figure of 25% 5 years ago.
It's it less than ideal that it was used, yes.
Is it going to have a significant impact on the carbon emissions for the year, almost certainly not.
Last edited:
The time taken has to include waiting for the charging station to become available which could be thrity minutes.
It only takes 2 minutes to fill my ICE vehicle with fuel. But the visit to the service station is often 15 minutes, what with the queuing for a pump.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Not really, because if there isn't one free you just try another location, and your phone can inform you where they are available.
People don't buy cars to cope with the vast majority of trips. They buy cars to cope with their worst case. Which is why you see so many large vehicles with single occupants on the commuting run when a sub-mini would be far more appropriate
Some people buy big cars to do the school run to ensure that they can fit 3 child car seats across the back.
Whilst some do buy a car which is too big, a significant number of those will be doing trips of less than 100 miles at any time during any given year and the vast majority will be doing less than a couple of trips of over 200 miles.
The argument against EV's boils down to this:
I may wish to drive for 5 hours straight without a break, my current car "can" do that (assuming I've only just filled it up) and so every other car I would ever possibly wish to own has to do that.
However it wasn't that long ago that cars didn't do much more than 250 miles anyway (due to being less efficient), and not that you'd want to as they weren't as comfortable. If you did, and you stopped for food then chances are you'd have had stopped for all least 30 minutes.
Those who are sure that they'll never use a BEV will likely be able to last another 15 years before it really becomes too hard not to swap to them. By which point infrastructure will be much better, the range of cars will have improved and the rate of charging will have also improved.
10 years ago iPhones were a fairly new thing and many couldn't understand why they would even need something like that, now smart phones are so widespread that it's starting to be the case that life is difficult without owning one.
Change happens, early adopters pay over the odds for whatever the new thing is, however over time is likely that is something works for a lot of people then they become widespread. Petrol and diesel are on their way out, BEV's are a good solution for many (if prices come down a little and range goes up a bit then more so), Hydrogen has many issues (not least the carbon emissions, or if green hydrogen the need to also shift existing grey hydrogen to green as well) and doesn't look like it's going to be very widespread.
Nonsense. Of all my friends with EVs, not one of them has ever had to wait for a charger in any circumstances. In the very unlikely event that all chargers are unavailable at your chosen location because they are occupied, then your car will simply direct you to another one nearby.
Put it in your terms. If there’s a long queue at petrol station (a), and you knew there was no queue at petrol station (b) up the road, would you wait or drive on?
Many ‘people’ do. And many people buy cars bigger than they need simply for status reasons, but that’s another subject.
I think you are just going to get your head round the fact that for most people EVs are / will be no problem at all. There are of course people who they may not be suitable for (real or perceived), in the same way that some people don’t use smart phones.
Well in 2 years of driving only an EV I've never had to wait for a free charger. As @Bletchleyite says, you just move to the next one.
I agree with all that and you have been generous by only stating the carrots that will persuade IC diehards to switch. There's also the stick which will get progressively more painful, e.g. as the number of IC vehicles dwindles, the support for them will also fade away. First it will be a reduction in the number of fuel opportunities, for every extra 10 charging points there will be a reduction in the number of fuel pumps in service. Eventually, refuelling would involve longer and longer trips to fill up, (ironically reducing the useful range of these cars that their owners are clingning on to them for. Then spare parts and servicing facilities will become fewer and further between. Alll of that is just the way businesses will abandon IC vehicles and their drivers. Then there's the government's actions to flush IC vehicles off the roads, starting with road charging, which will be in addition to any fuel and car tax costs. No problem for EV drivers as they don't use polluting fuel. The final blows will be the ever increasing restrictions on where IC vehicles can go, particularly in towns, where local authorities will respect the wishes of the majority of their electorate and clean up town centre air.
Life will be tough driving an IC vehicle by the 2040s.
How would I know there isn't a queue at the station up the road? And, having driven my permitted 200 miles it would be dangerous for me to drive any further
Whether there are queues rather depends on whether the expansion of the infra structure keeps up with the take of evs.
No problem with that. My ICE car has more years left in it than my body has so, for me, it is an academic question.
Can't see any equivalence between EVs and "smart" 'phones
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
That is not the use-case (it's also a stupid way to use an ICE vehicle as you'll end up running out of fuel with that too, or at least paying a premium to fuel at motorway services).
If making say a 300 mile journey you would plan to charge somewhere around 150 miles, giving you 50 in grace to find somewhere if needs be.
Both of them have had dinosaurs rejecting them when introduced but wholesale acceptance within a very short timescale.
Good thing I can easily see how many chargers are in use at planned stops with a simple app then.
I drove 1600 miles in just over 2 weeks in a car with a 250-mile quoted range. I can 100% say what you previously said about needing to allow 4 hours for charging on a 500 mile drive is nonsense.
For a petrol station, you wouldn’t. In an EV, you would, as it tells you. That’s the point.
1) no one is ‘permitting’ you to drive only 200 miles.
2) assuming you have the range, it is not ‘dangerous’ to drive more than 200 miles.
Comparison to smart phones - some people don’t understand that they are actually very useful, and therefore refuse to have one. My father is one of them. Similarly with people who won’t use online banking, etc. Etc.
Depends on the EV to be honest my company Nissan Leaf 40Kw 2018 could only fast charge once on a journey. The second 80 % charge would take around 3 hours. You definately need more than 4 hours charging on a 500 mile journey.
DustyBin
Established Member
I think there are people with fairly “extreme” views from both sides of the debate contributing to this thread. We have people who I suspect would quite happily see IC engined cars banned altogether (probably in the near future as well!) and others who don’t want an electric car and will find any (often tenuous) reason to claim they couldn’t live with one. I’ve said it a few times now but initial purchase cost is the main and often only hurdle to EV ownership for the majority of people at this stage.
I’m still hesitant to use one as my company car as I cover a lot of miles, often off the beaten track (relatively) and I worry about getting “caught out” either in terms of running out of charge (unlikely admittedly) or, more likely, having to wait longer than anticipated and then running late. How founded my concerns are in reality I’m not actually sure, and the chance of the latter will decrease as more chargers are installed.
My only other practical concern is charging whilst in meetings and having to move the car out of the charging bay half way through. I’m not sure there’s an easy answer to that although again it may become less of an issue when charging bays are more plentiful. I don’t think it’s an insurmountable problem but it is something I don’t need to worry about currently.
I’m still hesitant to use one as my company car as I cover a lot of miles, often off the beaten track (relatively) and I worry about getting “caught out” either in terms of running out of charge (unlikely admittedly) or, more likely, having to wait longer than anticipated and then running late. How founded my concerns are in reality I’m not actually sure, and the chance of the latter will decrease as more chargers are installed.
My only other practical concern is charging whilst in meetings and having to move the car out of the charging bay half way through. I’m not sure there’s an easy answer to that although again it may become less of an issue when charging bays are more plentiful. I don’t think it’s an insurmountable problem but it is something I don’t need to worry about currently.
- Status