Have electric vehicles been "oversold" to the detriment of public transport, walking and cycling?

[Bletchleyite]

Individually no it's not, however if the money being spent on maintaining the status quo (i.e. road building, charging points, etc.) was spent on getting more car clubs to be rolled out, providing better public transport and the like then it could (for the amount of carbon reduction achieved) be easier to reach net zero than mostly relying on EV's (which at best currently are circa 50% reduction vs ICE's when you look at while life emissions)

I think that is overoptimistic. I have no intention whatsoever of giving up car ownership, even if there's a car club at the end of the street and my withdrawn local bus service was reinstated and upped to 10 buses per hour 18 hours a day and a half hourly night bus (which would be a financial basket case to the extent of making the Conwy Valley line look profitable). In my current location you would have to ban car ownership for me not to own one. I might use it less, though, and I might downsize it if I can easily get a large car or van from the car club on-spec.

 

[DustyBin]

* There aren't as many "boxy" city cars as there were, but there's that weird Nissan, the Ford Tourneo Courier (which is Fiesta based but vertically stretched) and I had a Vauxhall Agila (Suzuki Wagon version) years ago which was great for a small car for a tall driver, as well as the Citroen Nemo and the Peugeot version, and I think a Fiat equivalent too.

Strictly speaking it's not Fiesta based, although both vehicles use Ford's B-segment platform (the B2E). The (current) Puma is another example, as is the EcoSport.

 

[WelshBluebird]

and I might downsize it if I can easily get a large car or van from the car club on-spec.

I may have mentioned this before, but this is a really good point.
And downsizing isn't just related to size. Lots of worries about EV's are about range, but in reality most of the time those worries are unfounded.
Very very few people do the amount of mileage in one go that would cause that issue on a regular basis, and so for 99% of the year a smaller, cheaper EV with less range would be fine. And for the once a year trip to Devon or the Lake District, then a car club or even good old school car rental comes along and allows you to take a larger EV with a much longer range. Given the price differences associated with getting a longer range car, you'd probably save money doing it that way too!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Very very few people do the amount of mileage in one go that would cause that issue on a regular basis, and so for 99% of the year a smaller, cheaper EV with less range would be fine. And for the once a year trip to Devon or the Lake District, then a car club or even good old school car rental comes along and allows you to take a larger EV with a much longer range. Given the price differences associated with getting a longer range car, you'd probably save money doing it that way too!

Or even better, if feasible for that trip, you take the train for the trunk journey, and your booked EV is there waiting for you outside the station for your local trip into somewhere without good public transport for your holiday. Oxenholme and Penrith would be good places to operate schemes like that, and I'm sure it'd do well in Cornwall too (perhaps Bodmin Parkway as a first go?). Bangor or Llandudno Junction might also work well for Snowdonia.

Traditional car hire is un-user-friendly hassle*, but car clubs have the possibility of changing that.

* e.g. no returns on Sunday, and charging an extra day for the inconvenience they are causing by not being open on the day I'm most likely to want to return a hire car from a leisure trip! Er, nope, you don't get my business.

 

[Ediswan]

And for the once a year trip to Devon or the Lake District, then a car club or even good old school car rental comes along and allows you to take a larger EV with a much longer range. Given the price differences associated with getting a longer range car, you'd probably save money doing it that way too!

Which is fine until a lot of people all want to do that at the same time, say Easter, and there are not enough large vehicles available to satisfy demand.

 

[NoRoute]

Reducing car usage is far more achievable and vastly more beneficial than changing people to electric cars and keeping most of the problems cars cause on our streets...

I'm not convinced it is more achievable for the individual because outside London and the major cities many people, possibly most, do not have access to good public transport, so remain dependent on the car out of necessity.

As individuals our power to influence the provision of public transport in our local area is very very limited, but our power to select the car we drive is vastly greater. I cannot get the council or bus company to open new service in my area, or get GBR to restore passenger rail services to my local town, but I was able to buy an efficient PHEV when my last car wore out, thereby significantly cutting my CO2 emissions. That will make a difference today whereas changes to buses will take years, improvements to rail will take several decades and come too late.

 

[Bald Rick]

Which is fine until a lot of people all want to do that at the same time, say Easter, and there are not enough large vehicles available to satisfy demand.

Just like now. The market sorts that through price.

 

[Ediswan]

Just like now. The market sorts that through price.

Of course. Which generally means that some people will not be able to afford peak season.

 

[AM9]

Of course. Which generally means that some people will not be able to afford peak season.

Which is (unfortunately) part of the capitalist society we live in. Introducing EVs, making ICVs' pollution and CO2 creation more costly or even prohibiting it in some localities doesn't alter that; - but doing nothing certainly will make things a lot worse for the poorest in every country.

 

[Bald Rick]

Of course. Which generally means that some people will not be able to afford peak season.

Indeed. Just like now.

 

[The Ham]

I think that is overoptimistic. I have no intention whatsoever of giving up car ownership, even if there's a car club at the end of the street and my withdrawn local bus service was reinstated and upped to 10 buses per hour 18 hours a day and a half hourly night bus (which would be a financial basket case to the extent of making the Conwy Valley line look profitable). In my current location you would have to ban car ownership for me not to own one. I might use it less, though, and I might downsize it if I can easily get a large car or van from the car club on-spec.

It wouldn't need to work everywhere to be successful, 85% of the population lives somewhere with a population of over 10,000 and even write a few of the remaining 15% would be located in smaller (say 5k to 10k) which are between large places which would also be able to benefit from such improvements.

You also wouldn't need everyone to give up car ownership just a lot of those who have 2 cars or more to reduce to one. Yes you'd need some to give up their car, however that wouldn't mean not using cars at all.

If we got to the point where we only needed 1/2 the number of cars that we currently do then the freed up road space could be used for other purposes. For instance in urban streets you could put in micro parks with trees providing shade and habitat. The shade would help keep the urban areas cool, whilst the green space would limit the amount of water run off (which in turn would reduce downstream flooding).

 

[Ediswan]

Indeed. Just like now.

Not really. People who currently run a car generally have one that is large enough for all trips. They do not rely on hiring one as the need arises. (Motorhomes etc. are a different subject.)

 

[Bletchleyite]

Not really. People who currently run a car generally have one that is large enough for all trips. They do not rely on hiring one as the need arises. (Motorhomes etc. are a different subject.)

I don't think they were referring to cars specifically, but rather the high expense of holidays in school holiday periods, of which the cost of taking the car is only a fairly small part (unless you're going camping to the sort of basic "bog and tap" site that just charges £5 per person per night all year round).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Jan 2022 ==

If we got to the point where we only needed 1/2 the number of cars that we currently do then the freed up road space could be used for other purposes. For instance in urban streets you could put in micro parks with trees providing shade and habitat. The shade would help keep the urban areas cool, whilst the green space would limit the amount of water run off (which in turn would reduce downstream flooding).

Yes, true, being able to move away from narrow terraced streets being blighted with cars parked up both sides, often also taking up half the pavement, would be a great benefit. A terraced house is in most cases wide enough for one small car to be parked outside it, but each house having two or more makes things very difficult.

 

[paul1609]

That's not how it works. The electricity price is the electricity price and independant of instantaneous load. You are correct that 10 x 350kW chargers will likely be a much more expensive connection than 10 x 50kW chargers, but that's a one-off sunk cost. It makes no sense to incur that cost, then encourage the capacity to be under-utilised by discounting the price to people who choose to charge at a slower rate.
Even if the electricity price varied with load, why wouldn't you just charge all of your customers the higher rate, to encourage those that can to use the higher charging speeds?

Sorry that's not correct once you reach a certain threshold on an instalation half hourly metering is mandatory. Consumers on half hourly metering pay a unit charge, a peak usage charge daily and a power factor correction charge, standing charge and a smart metering charge. A recent contract will be paying 38 p per Kwh peak and around 25 off peak plus the extra charges.

 

[trebor79]

If you are queueing for petrol pumps then the petrol station will not have the extra space needed to charge those cars.

I don't this this is necessarily true. Most people will do most of their charging at home or destinations. If we all drove EVs we would actually do less visits to petrol/charging stations as most journies that people do are well within the range of a full battery from home. Most people with EVs report about 90% of charging is done at home. With a fuelled car that's 0%.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don't this this is necessarily true. Most people will do most of their charging at home or destinations. If we all drove EVs we would actually do less visits to petrol/charging stations as most journies that people do are well within the range of a full battery from home. Most people with EVs report about 90% of charging is done at home. With a fuelled car that's 0%.

Further to that, petrol pumps make inefficient use of forecourt space. Typically there is room for 8 cars using the pumps in a small forecourt, plus perhaps 4 queueing, one for each of 4 lanes, for a total of 12. If you instead put parking spaces around all four sides, with a gap for entrance and one for exit, you would likely easily get 20-25 spaces with chargers. And that assumes just using the existing forecourt and building rather than optimising the layout for its new purpose.

 

[Bald Rick]

I don't this this is necessarily true. Most people will do most of their charging at home or destinations. If we all drove EVs we would actually do less visits to petrol/charging stations as most journies that people do are well within the range of a full battery from home. Most people with EVs report about 90% of charging is done at home. With a fuelled car that's 0%.

Quite so. Two of my neighbours have EVs, both for over a year now, and neither have charged anywhere except at home. And neither of them are just runabouts.

 

[87 027]

Further to that, petrol pumps make inefficient use of forecourt space. Typically there is room for 8 cars using the pumps in a small forecourt, plus perhaps 4 queueing, one for each of 4 lanes, for a total of 12. If you instead put parking spaces around all four sides, with a gap for entrance and one for exit, you would likely easily get 20-25 spaces with chargers. And that assumes just using the existing forecourt and building rather than optimising the layout for its new purpose.

Agreed although obviously one needs to consider the timescale for the changeover. So long as there remain enough ICEs and hybrids on the road I'm not sure we will see the demise of the traditional filling station just yet. Paradoxically the thinning out of filling stations might be an argument for favouring with diesel over petrol - just filled mine up this evening and the range gauge went back up to 704 miles

 

[DustyBin]

Quite so. Two of my neighbours have EVs, both for over a year now, and neither have charged anywhere except at home. And neither of them are just runabouts.

As I see it this is one of the benefits actually; no more jumping in the car on a morning and remembering you only have a quarter of a tank!

 

[AM9]

As I see it this is one of the benefits actually; no more jumping in the car on a morning and remembering you only have a quarter of a tank!

You will also be able to check the charge from your bed if necessary.

 

[NoRoute]

Further to that, petrol pumps make inefficient use of forecourt space. Typically there is room for 8 cars using the pumps in a small forecourt, plus perhaps 4 queueing, one for each of 4 lanes, for a total of 12. If you instead put parking spaces around all four sides, with a gap for entrance and one for exit, you would likely easily get 20-25 spaces with chargers. And that assumes just using the existing forecourt and building rather than optimising the layout for its new purpose.

No that space is not inefficiency, its necessary to allow the safe movement of a steady stream of vehicles through the forecourt while minimising conflicts between vehicles as they arrive and depart. If you look at a petrol station from a process perspective then it is quite well designed for efficiency and safety, the vehicles arrive and queue at one end, drive through one of multiple parallel streams without needing to turn or reverse, and avoid conflicts with arriving vehicles as they exit. It can also accommodate unusually large and long vehicles with trailers.

By contrast, most EV charging stations are poorly designed, with parking bays requiring maneuvering and reversing when arriving or departing, conflicts between vehicles arriving and leaving, no capacity for long or larger vehicles and no arrangements for queuing.

 

[Bletchleyite]

By contrast, most EV charging stations are poorly designed, with parking bays requiring maneuvering and reversing when arriving or departing, conflicts between vehicles arriving and leaving, no capacity for long or larger vehicles and no arrangements for queuing.

An EV charging station is a car park. You must find car parks incredibly stressful.

 

[DustyBin]

You will also be able to check the charge from your bed if necessary.

Sounds good to me! I think I mentioned it previously but a lot of cars (perhaps more higher end models) now have the ability to be heated up, defrosted etc. from your phone which is great too.

An EV charging station is a car park. You must find car parks incredibly stressful.

To be fair I’ve noticed a few EV charging areas that can become congested with people waiting and I can see how it does make manoeuvring slightly awkward. A couple of these are ones I’d probably use which is partly what put me off an EV this time around as I simply don’t have time to wait for a bay, during the week anyway.

 

[NoRoute]

An EV charging station is a car park. You must find car parks incredibly stressful.

When we are discussing high capacity rapid charging stations, equivalent to petrol stations, with vehicles queuing up to use them, a steady flow of vehicles arriving and departing within a small area then no, it is not simply a car park, there's additional considerations which come into play like managing queues, traffic flows, and the safety issue from conflicts between vehicle movements.

 

[37424]

I think there needs to be a standard position for charging plug really mine is at the back side like a petrol, I think the front is the best really and that ought to be standard with the chargers geared up to that arrangement which they already are generally. Plugging in at the side is more awkward especially at charge points where they don't give you a wider parking space.

I have just got my new overnight EV charging rate from octopus when my fixed tariff ends and its gone from 5p to 20p per KW for the cheap overnight rate, the daytime rate has doubled from 15p to 30p which I was kind of expecting from what I had already picked up on but not such a hike on the overnight rate.

The mind boggles what rate the public chargers are going to go up to and on present fuel prices I consider 40p per KW to be the tipping point where I might consider going back to a hybrid.

I gather that Gridserve which is one of the cheaper ones has now gone up to 39p from 30p with immediate effect and will be 45p at its new special hubs its building, and instavolt has gone up to 45p from 40p.

 

[gg1]

I think there needs to be a standard position for charging plug really mine is at the back side like a petrol, I think the front is the best really and that ought to be standard with the chargers geared up to that arrangement which they already are generally. Plugging in at the side is more awkward especially at charge points where they don't give you a wider parking space.

The obstacle to standardisation is there is no 'best' way and different people will have different preferences. I don't have an EV yet but if I did I would prefer the charging port to be at the rear as I always reverse into parking spaces, others like you prefer the front. People with garages or with particularly small drives (where you have to drive the car right up to the house) would probably find a side mounted port the most convenient.

 

[jon0844]

I wonder if anyone will think to install more than one charging socket (rather like many laptops can now charge from the left or right hand side USB-C socket). That way you could do front and back, or front and side, to make charging more flexible at home and away.

Possibly an option at extra cost.

 

[gg1]

I wonder if anyone will think to install more than one charging socket (rather like many laptops can now charge from the left or right hand side USB-C socket). That way you could do front and back, or front and side, to make charging more flexible at home and away.

Possibly an option at extra cost.

That's an interesting idea, and something I would be willing to pay for as a factory fitted option when buying a new car if the standard port is in an inconvenient (for me) position and if the additional cost isn't too excessive.

 

[DustyBin]

I wonder if anyone will think to install more than one charging socket (rather like many laptops can now charge from the left or right hand side USB-C socket). That way you could do front and back, or front and side, to make charging more flexible at home and away.

Possibly an option at extra cost.

I can’t see why not, although wouldn’t a longer lead achieve the same thing?

 

[jon0844]

I can’t see why not, although wouldn’t a longer lead achieve the same thing?

Yes, but that's another 'issue' if you have those long cables you need to store in your car. They always show them nicely stored under the main boot cover, which isn't exactly convenient when the boot is full up.

I guess car makers will learn as time goes on and adapt designs to improve the charging process in a number of ways. It's still relatively early days.