My Dad isn't fussed about automatics either, he bought an automatic last year. Its a hurdle for EV adoption for other people. I got a strong reaction off friends and colleagues when I said I had switched to automatic lessons. I find British attachment to manual cars bizarre. I do wonder if we will be the only western country to adopt semi automatic cars.
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UK switching to electric vehicles discussion
- Thread starter MattA7
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My Dad isn't fussed about automatics either, he bought an automatic last year. Its a hurdle for EV adoption for other people. I got a strong reaction off friends and colleagues when I said I had switched to automatic lessons. I find British attachment to manual cars bizarre. I do wonder if we will be the only western country to adopt semi automatic cars.
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R
RailUK Forums
Are you in England and is your block over 10 units? If the application was made after June 22, it has parking and is undergoing major renovation it likely to require EV chargers (one per unit) or cable routing (the legal minimum) which means you have have to install the charger.
It’s a legal requirement for all new residential sites (houses and flats) and major renovation of existing sites where there is associated parking. Not sure about the rules in the rest of the UK but I imagine there is something similar in all four nations.
And it won’t be long before having a charger becomes a factor in decision making, and that will mean they are fitted everywhere (ie where parking currently is not assigned).
Here is the link to the guidance document with various examples:
Approved Document S: Infrastructure for charging electric vehicles, frequently asked questions
Answers to frequently asked questions on Approved Document S, which sets standards for installation of electric vehicle charge points or cable routes.
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An RFID card to charge the correct person for that charging session would be an obvious solution.
I have yet to hear a rational explanation as to why some drivers has such an issue with vehicles that have automatic transmissions.
Are you in England and is your block over 10 units? If the application was made after June 22, it has parking and is undergoing major renovation it likely to require EV chargers (one per unit) or cable routing (the legal minimum) which means you have have to install the charger.
It’s a legal requirement for all new residential sites (houses and flats) and major renovation of existing sites where there is associated parking. Not sure about the rules in the rest of the UK but I imagine there is something similar in all four nations.
And it won’t be long before having a charger becomes a factor in decision making, and that will mean they are fitted everywhere (ie where parking currently is not assigned).
Here is the link to the guidance document with various examples:
Approved Document S: Infrastructure for charging electric vehicles, frequently asked questions
Answers to frequently asked questions on Approved Document S, which sets standards for installation of electric vehicle charge points or cable routes.www.gov.uk
The permission is older than June unfortunately.
That sounds like a lot of work for a disinterested freeholder.
I haven't. Fuel efficiency and extra control are pretty marginal differences and this is reflected in other countries attitudes towards automatics.
I might be wrong but I think hybrids can be semi automatics and I wonder if they will take off here because of our bizarre national obsession with changing gears ourselves.
I have no longing to control the advance and retard, or to have a manual choke, when they can be automatic and work better. I once had a car with a useless automatic choke, and I replaced that with a manual choke.
I replaced my last car because it had a Powershift gearbox which had lost half its gears when a plastic bracket broke up. That was a car from 2010. It cost £3000 to fix, but I was lucky and it was covered by a warranty. It kept giving error messages after that, so I traded it for a similar car with a manual gearbox. The old car still has being getting MOTs, so presumably someone got it fixed.
A diesel was handy for a 700 mile day trip to collect my son from University before a Covid lockdown. However, my next car will be an electric one.
One of the issues we found when investigating installing chargers in our block is that the head lease doesn't allow for allocated parking spaces - each property has an entitlement to park in any space. The freeholders here thought it was too much hassle to get agreement to change the lease to prevent ICE cars parking in changing bays so we did nothing.
(There were other rather more onerous conditions - such as 25 or 30 year agreements with installers, forced access to the general public for charging, no control over pricing, etc)
Does a 13A external socket marked EV Charging meet the regulations?Are you in England and is your block over 10 units? If the application was made after June 22, it has parking and is undergoing major renovation it likely to require EV chargers (one per unit) or cable routing (the legal minimum) which means you have have to install the charger.
It’s a legal requirement for all new residential sites (houses and flats) and major renovation of existing sites where there is associated parking. Not sure about the rules in the rest of the UK but I imagine there is something similar in all four nations.
And it won’t be long before having a charger becomes a factor in decision making, and that will mean they are fitted everywhere (ie where parking currently is not assigned).
Here is the link to the guidance document with various examples:
Approved Document S: Infrastructure for charging electric vehicles, frequently asked questions
Answers to frequently asked questions on Approved Document S, which sets standards for installation of electric vehicle charge points or cable routes.
This market is becoming more and more competitive as time goes on, and the caveats listed will be gradually removed as it gets hotter.
Absolutely not. The minimum is 7KW (32amp).
There is lots of minimum specs they have to meet, all identified in Building Regs, Approved Document S.
Infrastructure for charging electric vehicles: Approved Document S
Building regulation in England for the installation of electric vehicle charge points or cable routes.
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While it might sound like a lot of work now, devalued properties because tenants and landlords are avoiding them and choosing other properties with chargers provided will mean attitudes like this will change. And as I say for sites (both new and redeveloped) over a certain size it is a legal requirement (in England) now.
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There are going to be challenges. There’s lots of questions to be asked today about parking on streets like this without the element of charging.Still doesnt cope with people who cant park on private land close to their house so they can charge on their domestic supply. The front of my 1850 house opens onto a public highway, then village green. I can stop to unload, not for an overnight charge.
No chargers in my village. Much of the parking is on street in a conservation area in a national park. My car is on street 150m away just now.
Then there are people in flats, houses in narrow streets, terraced houses.
Not everyone lives in a suburban post ww2 semi so they can charge at home.
Many council estates built pre 1960 didnt have facilities for cars.
How will EV's work in a street like this (In Gipton, Leeds)
(Link goes to Google Maps street view of narrow street of 1940's council houses in Gipton, Leeds)
Personally, I think with current technology, we are looking at crane-like structures, lamp post charging and transformers embedded in the road with people paying to use the structure they are next to rather than the allocated space. I’m also interested to see how far technology gets with self-charging vehicles using solar panels.
Interesting, from my discussions with Uk power networks about 2 x 7kW chargers for our village hall it would appear that all rural developments will be exempt on the maximum cost of the electrical supply, perhaps this is where the 13A sockets seen on nearly every affordable development in East Kent are at.Absolutely not. The minimum is 7KW (32amp).
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There is lots of minimum specs they have to meet, all identified in Building Regs, Approved Document S.
Infrastructure for charging electric vehicles: Approved Document S
Building regulation in England for the installation of electric vehicle charge points or cable routes.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
While it might sound like a lot of work now, devalued properties because tenants and landlords are avoiding them and choosing other properties with chargers provided will mean attitudes like this will change. And as I say for sites (both new and redeveloped) over a certain size it is a legal requirement (in England) now.
Agreed, and that's why I've made a mental note to bring it up again in the next year or two. There is an inevitability about charging infrastructure - and @Noddy makes a good point about the buy-to-let brigade getting twitchy and the devaluing of rental yields and potentially even property prices. I haven't looked, but I bet estate agents are starting to advertise "on site charging available" when they market properties.
johncrossley
Established Member
Has anyone here started renting electric cars instead of petrol cars? I had a look at cars at Heathrow the other day on the Enterprise site and there seemed to be a few non-premium electric cars to choose from for about £30 more a day compared to petrol.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Unless forced to do so (never the case UK domestic) I won't rent cars, be they EV or ICE, until the industry stops being such a bunch of shysters. Car clubs do show some promise I suppose, and suit EVs far better than ICEs because they can be left charging in their space until needed.
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There are certain exemptions from the requirements for example if it is a listed building, in a conservation area or the additional cost is over 3600 (I think) pounds per unit. But even with the later you still have to provide a certain number up to the point you’ve spent that value, and cable runs for the rest. You won’t be exempt for a lack of power as any new development or major refurbishment over 10 units will require additional power infrastructure as part of the development (this is where the £3600 comes in).
The reason you are not seeing them yet in East Kent is it only applies to developments approved (possibly submitted?) after 15th June 2022 and most existing developments currently being built are likely to have had approval before that date.
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Just like you'd better make sure you can get a decent broadband connection, either cable or FTTP. FTTC or similar isn't going to cut it (unless you're lucky enough to get the max possible speed from it).
Decent phone signal is another must-have these days.
They need to speak to a different installer then. Loads of hotels, blocks of flats etc have chargers that are not open to the general public. Sounds like they were trying to get it done without picking up any cost, which is possible, provided you allow the installers to make some money by offering public access.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
The leases will also prohibit that, presumably, and I'd be quite angry as a leaseholder if a variation was attempted to entitle the public to park in our allocated car park, even if that car park was shared between residents (presumably with each flat being entitled to N permits, with N * number of flats being the number of spaces, plus I guess a few visitor bays).
Exactly. So the freeholders need to go to an installer that doesn't use that business model.
It isn't a case of stopping it is a case of the frequency of filing up with fuel\electricity. I don't want to be forced into wasting my time and money hanging about a motorway services charging up I want to 'fill up' when it is convenient
My car has a real world motorway range of 250-290 miles depending upon conditions (starting with battery at 90% charge). That is absolutely more than enough to stop "when I want to" rather than "because I have to charge".
The reality is I stop because I need a break, cup of tea, whatever. I sling the car onto a charger and by the time I've had my break it's back to 200-250 miles range. In fact usually I'm getting notified that the charge has finished before I'm quite ready to drive on.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
With ranges now increasing above 200 miles, nobody should drive 200 miles without a decent break of at least 20 minutes somewhere around the middle, even if they have an iron bladder. Effectively forcing this will be a road safety benefit.
The problem for now is there not being enough chargers to guarantee one will be available at the chosen break point, which is why I think I'll have one more petrol before switching. I can quite happily do with a charging break (I take breaks anyway), I can't do with the stress of "will it, won't it", which is a bit like the railway at the moment!
One if you have real world range of 250-290 you have a very good and I daresay expensive EV and secondly do you have home charging? Thereby starting most\all of you journeys with a 'full' battery? For a lot of people out there access to a top of the line EV and at home charging aren't available they are very much a privilege.
It's a used Tesla Model 3 long range. There are cheaper cars with similar range available, but the supercharger network swung it for me.
I do have charging at home yes.
@Bletchleyite Tesla are doing 0% finance ATM, check it out. I've never had to wait for a supercharger yet. On the one occasion they were all in use I just drove on to the next place.
Loads of Tesla and other chargers going in right now. There were at least 30 ready to be powered up at Exeter last week, big expansion happening at Rugby etc.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Under no circumstances whatsoever would I be giving Musk any money, I'm afraid. And even if he didn't own it, they aren't particularly good cars for the price.
While I don't physically fit in one so it can't be that actual car, the Kia e-Niro is more the sort of EV I'd be looking at. Or possibly the MG5, which I do fit in but can't decide if I fit well enough.
I do agree, I wouldn't pay what they want for a new Tesla. Mine was bought for a particular mission profile which it fulfills well.
We also have a Niro EV and it's a much nicer car (and cheaper), if slightly shorter range and significantly slower to charge.
Indeed, however, owning a car is also a privilege (the bottom 20% of households average 50% car ownership).
There's a fair few households which have more than one car, chances are the second car rarely does more than 200 miles in a week - as a household (even though we regularly do ~250 miles trips to see family) it's not uncommon for us to do less than 200 miles a week by car (I can walk to work, as do my children to get to/from school, my other half WFH 2 days a week and travels 45 miles each day on the other three days; leaving us 65 miles for other travel - which isn't uncommon to for us to travel less than that).
Likewise, how many second cars are averaging 30 miles a day (including weekends, when they are less likely to be used)? Even if they're used a little more than that, a car with 100 miles range would only need 2 charges a week.
Whilst, at least with the cheaper cars, you can't change super rapidly you can at least charge whilst doing something else. For instance it might be possible to charge as you do a supermarket shop, are in the gym, are at work, in the pub it any other task that you are already doing.
On street charging is something where there's more needed. However in October the number of on street chargers made up 32% of all public chargers.
Since July 2022 and July 2023 the total number of public chargers grew by 40% (with a 4% rise just in July 2023).
This isn't equally spread, so if you're traveling in London it's much more likely that you'll see a charger than most other regions, as it has 31% of all chargers. However most of the other regions aren't too far behind their percentage of population figures.
Whilst the numbers of public chargers (circa 45,700) would only mean that circa 8,500 petrol stations would only need to average 5 pumps to match the numbers, that's only public chargers.
Also whilst a charger would need to be in use for longer, there's a lot fewer EV's then ICE's so probably not that far off where it should be overall (although more would still be better).
Additional thought, the point I was making was that a 400 miles range EV is not necessary. Range is already enough that I'm never "forced" into stopping, which was your concern.