UK switching to electric vehicles discussion

[Peter Sarf]

What happens when I’m charging off my solar panels? Or when vehicle to home charging becomes common and I’m using the car battery instead of a home battery (instead of buying a home battery). Many vehicles can already do it, it’s just waiting for the regulatory environment and home charging infrastructure to catch up. That system you suggest has nontransparent nightmare written all over it.

The government will need to replace lost tax revenue with some sort of usage system.

Agreed, it is a lot of money.

At home I have 1 supplier for my electricity, what portion of that is me charging my car, how am I billed differently?

As I said, as someone with a drive and a garage I can bypass my smart charger to charge my car.

As such the tax will be more costly for those without those features.

As I said, it runs the risk of the rich paying less taxes than the poor (again).

I suspect this kind of in-balance would be coped with by arguing that richer people have more expensive to run cars. Even if it is not entirely fair.

The other option is congestion charging, as cars on a road with few other cars isn't too much of an issue.

It's when there are a lot of them where it's an issue.

If you drive within (or enter) a zone you are charged, say, £5 moving into a 3rd or following zone adds a further £1.

Almost no zone would be within settlements of under 9,000, so the vast majority of the rural population would not have to pay to use their cars unless going into a large town. Even then charges would only be applied where congestion is an issue - for example a town with 20,000 but a ring road might not need to change, but a town with a busy crossroads in the middle might do.

Given we are talking about £24 billion of potentially lost revenue from fuel tax then there will obviously be some way found to raise that from EV users.

Personally I would prefer it to be based on road usage as that puts a cost per mile on usage and might help encourage people to use their cars less.
Fuel duty used to achieve that and charged more for bigger heaver vehicles by way of their increased fuel consumption.

I think it will come down to crudely road usage. I do not think going round a by-pass will not be charged but it might be charged less than going into the town centre.

Do we really need an exemption for people for the area they live in. Road usage is road usage.

Perhaps a discount or free for disabled people.

For rural users then maybe look at a discount/free for their home town/village BUT THEN also for their important destination town/city - for example work place.
But is it really necessary ? - currently rural road users pay the same as anyone else for the fuel tax and road tax.

I can see the MOT being used for gathering the information on mileage. If a car is sold then all it takes is for both seller and buyer to individually report the odometer reading on their respective parts of the V5C.
Collecting the money could be done at the same time as paying for the road tax (except in the case of the seller).
Or at the point the MOT is paid for (except in the case of the seller).

 

[AM9]

Agreed, it is a lot of money.

I suspect this kind of in-balance would be coped with by arguing that richer people have more expensive to run cars. Even if it is not entirely fair.

Given we are talking about £24 billion of potentially lost revenue from fuel tax then there will obviously be some way found to raise that from EV users.

Personally I would prefer it to be based on road usage as that puts a cost per mile on usage and might help encourage people to use their cars less.
Fuel duty used to achieve that and charged more for bigger heaver vehicles by way of their increased fuel consumption.

I think it will come down to crudely road usage. I do not think going round a by-pass will not be charged but it might be charged less than going into the town centre.

Do we really need an exemption for people for the area they live in. Road usage is road usage.

Perhaps a discount or free for disabled people.

For rural users then maybe look at a discount/free for their home town/village BUT THEN also for their important destination town/city - for example work place.
But is it really necessary ? - currently rural road users pay the same as anyone else for the fuel tax and road tax.

I can see the MOT being used for gathering the information on mileage. If a car is sold then all it takes is for both seller and buyer to individually report the odometer reading on their respective parts of the V5C.
Collecting the money could be done at the same time as paying for the road tax (except in the case of the seller).
Or at the point the MOT is paid for (except in the case of the seller).

I agree that a form of pay-per-mile is the fairest option irrespective of residence or area of travel. Many (most?) towns and all cities in England seem to have CCTV networks at critical entry points that record the registrations of vehicles so enhanced charging can also be applied to persuade those who effectively contribute to the worst congestion on those roads. Vehicles that are normally kept within those zones would only attract charges when moving into or out of the zones, so there is no penalty on residents just owning a vehicle that is kept within the congestion zone. As has been mentioned before, the larger the conurbation, the lower proportion of private vehicle ownership, - which in turn results in more public transport usage, - ultimately leading to better provision of services, all good stuff!

 

[Peter Sarf]

I agree that a form of pay-per-mile is the fairest option irrespective of residence or area of travel. Many (most?) towns and all cities in England seem to have CCTV networks at critical entry points that record the registrations of vehicles so enhanced charging can also be applied to persuade those who effectively contribute to the worst congestion on those roads. Vehicles that are normally kept within those zones would only attract charges when moving into or out of the zones, so there is no penalty on residents just owning a vehicle that is kept within the congestion zone. As has been mentioned before, the larger the conurbation, the lower proportion of private vehicle ownership, - which in turn results in more public transport usage, - ultimately leading to better provision of services, all good stuff!

I agree, it is easy to lose sight of the ideal that must be reliance on public transport and exercise more.
Car culture is still alive !.

 

[The Ham]

I agree, it is easy to lose sight of the ideal that must be reliance on public transport and exercise more.
Car culture is still alive !.

Something I read (physical media, so no link) with reference to the Green's suggesting of reducing the speed limit to 55mph highlighted the arrogance of car drivers (clearly not all) when the writer was saying that they are more alert when their driving at 70mph vs 55mph.

Even if that were true, the following highlights just how bad you can be "distracted" at 55mph.

Point A on the road (dual carriageway) two cars side by side one doing 70 overtaking one doing 55.

The one doing 70 sees an issue, reacts on the highway code reaction time (which by the way is fast and even police drivers have been know to say maintaining that consistently isn't easy, as its 0.67 seconds, not the 2 seconds often taught as the gap drivers should leave) and comes to a stop at point B, some 96m away.

The one doing 55 doesn't see the issue until the point the one doing 70 reacted at (which given the speed difference is a longer time, 0.85 seconds, even though the distance is the same) even they take 50% longer the highway code reaction time (which is still fairly quick at 1 second) and even with this total time of 1.85 seconds between point A and the point they start to break they still stop before point B (by nearly 4m).

In fact at 4m before point B the faster car would still be traveling at 16mph.

It even more pronounced at 6m before point B. The faster car would still be doing 20mph and so any attempt to deviate at that point could still result in them rolling their vehicle, whilst the slower car would be doing 11.5mph and so any deviation would be much easier to control (and they'd have had more time, even from when they applied the brakes vs the faster car's driver seeing the issue, to plan it and so are less likely to make an error).

As such, sorry to the writer of that article, absolutely no, a car driver is unlikely to be so much more reactive at 70mph than 55mph as to be safer by gong at the faster speed, almost unless the driver gong slower was basically "driving without due care and attention".

 

[jon0844]

I do find that driving on a motorway can lead to you not remaining as focussed as you might be in a town, or a road with lots of junctions, tight curves, lights, roundabouts, pedestrians, cyclists and other hazards.

I wouldn't say that driving faster makes me more alert, unless it's on a windy country road where you can go fast on sections with good visibility and must slow at other points. To be honest, this was something I did more when I had a performance car and with an EV there's little need to drive it like a rally car - although you do have the power on tap to accelerate when its clear and safe, with sufficiently good braking when you need to. You still drive to the prevailing conditions though.

Nevertheless, if something happens it's always better to be at a lower speed at the point of braking. So in a town, nobody should be thinking of doing high speeds unless the road is specifically designed for high speeds, like a ring road perhaps.

 

[Mawkie]

I do find the high level of automation in newer cars makes for very 'easy' driving on motorways, which inevitably leads to lower driver concentration levels. Adaptive cruise control and some level of Autosteer, or Lane Keep Assist* means that folk aren't paying as much attention on fast roads. Additionally, once you mate that to electric vehicles being so quiet, and their ability to accelerate from 50 mph+ upwards with such ease, it's easy to find yourself speeding past 70 mph before you know it.

One of the findings from the Jubilee Line incident where the train was running in service with the doors open on one side of the train was that drivers of ATO lines find it harder to bring their attention levels up to the necessary level to do complex reasoning tasks in comparison to manually driven lines, who are already at a higher level due to the nature of driving manually. I believe the same must true of some car drivers.

*For those unfamiliar with modern cars, some Lane Keep Assistants are capable of accelerating, braking, and steering independently, with little to no input from the driver.

 

[bspahh]

I do find the high level of automation in newer cars makes for very 'easy' driving on motorways, which inevitably leads to lower driver concentration levels. Adaptive cruise control and some level of Autosteer, or Lane Keep Assist* means that folk aren't paying as much attention on fast roads. Additionally, once you mate that to electric vehicles being so quiet, and their ability to accelerate from 50 mph+ upwards with such ease, it's easy to find yourself speeding past 70 mph before you know it.

*For those unfamiliar with modern cars, some Lane Keep Assistants are capable of accelerating, braking, and steering independently, with little to no input from the driver.

The jobs change. I don't trust my car to change lanes. I don't mind a few bleeps if I get close to the lane boundary. Adaptive cruise control does a good job of keeping a safe distance from the car in front. I then need to plan to change lanes before, the speed drops for a car in front, and adjust the cruising speed as speed limits change, and if there is heavy traffic.

Heading back to the topic of switching to electric cars, a big incentive to not speed in an electric car is the amount that the range suffers if you drive at high speed.

 

[The Ham]

My wife was talking about an anti EV post she saw on Facebook (I'm not going looking for it, but others can if they like).

It was apparently to an MP, from a pensioner now in their third trimester (yes, I'm aware of what that word means, and I have jokingly said that those over 65 tend to be less inclined to have children and fair on her for taking the issue of falling birth rates so seriously) in a rural area and how her "car tax" was going to cost her £280 and how she couldn't afford to buy an EV and it was Ed Millaband's fault.

I thought, I don't know much about what sorts of cars have to pay car tax of £280, so being interested in numbers I looked it up.

The closest older car (pre 2017) would be band G (£275), which isn't quite right for the number quoted and maybe they paid via direct debit and so it's a bit more.

Either way, a lot of cars in this bracket are 1.8l or 2.0l engines, so hardly fuel efficient.

However, the one VED which most closely matches the rate quoted is for cars in their first year and so would be part of the purchase price and not something that would be paid separately, so I'm a bit confused as to why this might be the case.

Anyway, clearly on a fixed with a child due soon, it's perfectly understandable as to why replacing their car isn't something that she's looking to do.

As such, I thought I'd ask on here for any advice for such a situation.

 

[bspahh]

My wife was talking about an anti EV post she saw on Facebook (I'm not going looking for it, but others can if they like).

It was apparently to an MP, from a pensioner now in their third trimester (yes, I'm aware of what that word means, and I have jokingly said that those over 65 tend to be less inclined to have children and fair on her for taking the issue of falling birth rates so seriously) in a rural area and how her "car tax" was going to cost her £280 and how she couldn't afford to buy an EV and it was Ed Millaband's fault.

I thought, I don't know much about what sorts of cars have to pay car tax of £280, so being interested in numbers I looked it up.

The closest older car (pre 2017) would be band G (£275), which isn't quite right for the number quoted and maybe they paid via direct debit and so it's a bit more.

Either way, a lot of cars in this bracket are 1.8l or 2.0l engines, so hardly fuel efficient.

However, the one VED which most closely matches the rate quoted is for cars in their first year and so would be part of the purchase price and not something that would be paid separately, so I'm a bit confused as to why this might be the case.

Anyway, clearly on a fixed with a child due soon, it's perfectly understandable as to why replacing their car isn't something that she's looking to do.

As such, I thought I'd ask on here for any advice for such a situation.

The MP is Richard Tice.

This heartbreaking email from an elderly constituent shows the damaging reality of Stupid Net Zero policies.

“Dear Richard,
The Ed Milliband madness with net zero is making my final trimester a nightmare - this is highlighted by his failure to see the illogical woke path he and his colleagues are imposing, via several routes, on this nation!
Yesterday, I received yet another blow - my annual car tax bill (for £285) arrived. Due to everyday budget constraints, the expense of keeping my vehicle on the road is spiralling out of my control and this is very frightening as my mobility and independence are at risk.
I CANNOT AFFORD TO BUY AN ELECTRIC CAR OR TRADE MINE IN FOR A DIFFERENT MODEL so my only remaining hope is that my constituency MP will alert ALL relevant Ministers to the current unfairness.
With the severe financial pressure of ongoing maintenance at my home, plus the snowballing effect of the ever increasing cost of living, my future is bleak…
Living on the Lincolnshire fens, a vehicle is essential for me to survive a bit longer.”
Only Reform UK is standing up for ordinary people and common sense

Quoting an inaccurate value for the car tax, and using a phrase like "final trimester" for an "elderly constituent" made me suspect it was AI generated, but I tried a few detectors and they thought it was from a human. A human who thinks its ACCEPTABLE to drop into upper case.

On reflection, I think this is a carefully crafted message for engagement, in the same way that spam messages have bad grammar. The discussions about the grammar and facts mean more people get to see it than if it was concise and accurate.

 

[The Ham]

(Note, no one is suggesting having a book whilst at the wheel is a good thing, it's the town of Reading which is getting the on street chargers)

Reading motorists to get 2,600 new on-street charging points - BBC News https://share.google/iE7xFrW7K2eReVRKZ

About 2,600 new vehicle charging points will be installed on a town's residential streets as part of a council-led project to bring them closer to residents.

Reading Borough Council and char.gy said they hope their 15-year project will mean at least nine out of 10 households without a driveway will be within 100 metres of a charging point.

About half of Reading's households do not have driveways or off-street parking, which the council said was a "significant barrier" if motorists want to use electric vehicles.

Transport accounts for about a quarter of all carbon emissions in Reading and the authority has said improving air quality is one of its priorities.

"We will be prioritising high-density residential areas without access to off-street parking for the installation of public charging points to clear the way for more people to make the switch to electric," John Ennis, the council's lead member for climate strategy and transport, said.

"Alongside the council's work to increase active travel and the use of public transport, boosted by £9m government funding for 49 new electric buses, this scheme will help improve our local environment, air quality and the health of Reading residents."

 

[davews]

And will these charging point spaces be restricted to those charging? With that number it presumably will cause problems for those households finding a parking space if they are not charging their car.

 

[anthony263]

Looks like ford's are planning on ressurecting thw ford fiesta as an ev but are also looking at models.with combustion engines.

Favourite car I owned was my lovely 14 plate fiesta so a ev model might tempt me to buy an ev depending though if the landlords will give permission to install chargers for an electric car

 

[jon0844]

Looks like ford's are planning on ressurecting thw ford fiesta as an ev but are also looking at models.with combustion engines.

Favourite car I owned was my lovely 14 plate fiesta so a ev model might tempt me to buy an ev depending though if the landlords will give permission to install chargers for an electric car

Ford announced a while back that they'll be making an EV Fiesta using the Renault 5/Nissan Micra platform. If they decide to do an ICE version too, it will have to be built on something else because the Renault platform is strictly for electric cars.

 

[The Ham]

And will these charging point spaces be restricted to those charging? With that number it presumably will cause problems for those households finding a parking space if they are not charging their car.

Given that the article mentions 1/2 of homes, this means around 35,000 homes so 2,600 chargers is 1 per 13 homes.

I doubt that the charges will be only allowing charging EV's based on those numbers (I'm not sure that you could even set the Traffic Regulation Orders to define anything other than EV or not, and not more refined to if one is charging or not).

 

[Mawkie]

A 2025 Battery Performance Index has been published. Seems like good news for EV buyers.

We’ve published the first edition of our Generational 2025 Battery Performance Index.

This is the UK’s largest analysis of EV battery condition conducted to date, based on 8,000+ battery health assessments conducted in 2025 across BEVs and PHEVs, passenger cars and LCVs, spanning 0–12 years and 0–160,000+ miles.

Example findings from the 2025 data:

• Average battery health: 95.15% across all vehicles tested.
• Even 8–9-year-old vehicles show ~85% median capacity, comfortably above common OEM warranty thresholds (typically 70% SoH).
• Mileage alone isn’t a reliable predictor: vehicles with 100,000+ miles often return 88–95% battery health.
  

The report explains why battery condition transparency is becoming essential infrastructure, and aims to support decision making across the industry, across policy-making, valuation, underwriting, warranty design, fleet management, and remarketing.

Download the full white paper here.

I didn't read the full paper though.

 

[The Ham]

A 2025 Battery Performance Index has been published. Seems like good news for EV buyers.


I didn't read the full paper though.

Based on what's been quoted, I agree, it looks good.

The one thing which could happen, which could give better than expected results (and I'm not suggesting that this is happening) is that a 9 user old battery cloud have been replaced under warranty at 7 years 9 months.

Although, the likelihood of there being significant numbers doing that is likely to be low and generally not significant anyway.

 

[Mawkie]

Even if a battery has been replaced late into its warranty period, that falls into the 'not my problem' category.

I suppose these kinds of reports will become more important in determining the failure points of EVs as they age. We have all seen the reports of the 400,000+ mile cars on original batteries, still in daily service. Obviously batteries do fail, just not at the rate the fossil fuel lobbyists were hoping for, and not usually at the 'fall off a cliff' rate that a failed cam belt would do to a drive train. Battery degradation tends to be known, understood, and manageable.

At this stage of EV development, is it fair to say I don't think it's the batteries that will kill off your EV, but the lack of software support? Tesla have been very good at supporting older cars (the first Model Ss are 14 years old now) but how long can that go on - there are physical restrictions on the hardware for example - but also, how many legacy automakers are sending software updates (even just maintenance, not new features) to 15 year old vehicles?

 

[The Ham]

Even if a battery has been replaced late into its warranty period, that falls into the 'not my problem' category.

I suppose these kinds of reports will become more important in determining the failure points of EVs as they age. We have all seen the reports of the 400,000+ mile cars on original batteries, still in daily service. Obviously batteries do fail, just not at the rate the fossil fuel lobbyists were hoping for, and not usually at the 'fall off a cliff' rate that a failed cam belt would do to a drive train. Battery degradation tends to be known, understood, and manageable.

At this stage of EV development, is it fair to say I don't think it's the batteries that will kill off your EV, but the lack of software support? Tesla have been very good at supporting older cars (the first Model Ss are 14 years old now) but how long can that go on - there are physical restrictions on the hardware for example - but also, how many legacy automakers are sending software updates (even just maintenance, not new features) to 15 year old vehicles?

Indeed, and my point was basically that even if someone were to try and pick a hole in the data, it's not a sufficient issue.

 

[E27007]

Even if a battery has been replaced late into its warranty period, that falls into the 'not my problem' category.

I suppose these kinds of reports will become more important in determining the failure points of EVs as they age. We have all seen the reports of the 400,000+ mile cars on original batteries, still in daily service. Obviously batteries do fail, just not at the rate the fossil fuel lobbyists were hoping for, and not usually at the 'fall off a cliff' rate that a failed cam belt would do to a drive train. Battery degradation tends to be known, understood, and manageable.

Here is a link to YouTube, a long-term owner reporting upon the history of his high-mileage VW iD4 owned from new and approaching the end of battery warranty

VW iD4 report

The video covers a test of the Aviloo ZEV battery testing kit.
Battery health rose from 94% to 97% after warranty repairs.
The video attracted useful comments battery balance/imbalance at high and low end state of charge when state of charge is outside the buffer zone of normal operation.

 

[BananaRepublic]

SMMT has now published April new car sales data
First month since Iran war pushed up fuel prices

Battery EV 39,084 26.2%
Hybrid EV 19,711 13.2%
Plug In hybrid 20,597 13.8%
Petrol 63,541 42.6%
Diesel 6314 4.2%

Think it might be first month that petrol + diesel (not hybrid) has fallen below half

The European ACEA data for April has been published, which allows us to see a further breakdown of those SMMT stats. for market share.

Petrol (pure petrol - no form of hybrid power) 22.3%
Mild-Hybrid Petrol - 20.3%

Diesel (pure diesel - no form of hybrid power) 1.8%
Mild-Hybrid Diesel - 2.4%

This is how the SMMT arrives at 42.6% market share for Petrol, as their figures combine Mild-Hybrid into Petrol.
Similarly, the same for Diesel being recorded at 4.2%.

In just over a decade, we've moved from 99% of new car registrations being "pure" Petrol and Diesel, to the present day where combined, they account for under a quarter of all new registrations (22.7%) !

However, with just under three quarters (73.8%) of new car registrations employing an ICE in some form, there's still a long way to go.


.

 

[rangersac]

A 2025 Battery Performance Index has been published. Seems like good news for EV buyers.


I didn't read the full paper though.

It would be interesting to see the data breakdown by manufacturer, as I suspect that the overall SOH stats are actually pretty heavily negatively skewed because of Nissan Leaf batteries which had no thermal management, and are known to suffer degradation issues from heat and fast charging. They would also make up a significant proportion of pre 2020 EVs.

Looks like ford's are planning on ressurecting thw ford fiesta as an ev but are also looking at models.with combustion engines.

To be honest I am pretty surprised that a lot of legacy manufacturers haven't done this. For example I suspect a Honda Jazz EV with a 200 mile range would sell like hot cakes.

 

[E27007]

In just over a decade, we've moved from 99% of new car registrations being "pure" Petrol and Diesel, to the present day where combined, they account for under a quarter of all new registrations (22.7%) !

However, with just under three quarters (73.8%) of new car registrations employing an ICE in some form, there's still a long way to go.

From IC to ZEV is as you suggest, a difficult transition, yet could have been both natural and evolutionary, the evolution could have been in stages of the following technologies.
1)Pure IC
2)Early hybrid of IC plus low-capacity battery eg Toyota Prius.
3)Plug-in hybrid IC plus medium-capacity battery.
4)Range extender hybrid, high-capacity battery plus small IC engine.
5)Pure ZEV.
Stage by stage , the propulsion battery is ascending in importance and the IC engine descending.
Those with long memories will recall Honda and Toyota launched the first hybrids in Europe as long ago as 2000, the forgotten Mk1 Toyota Prius and the never to be forgotten Honda Insight.
2005 saw the Mk2 Prius, a mainstream product, high volume of sales and proven technology IC plus low-capacity battery..
The stages of the evolution of the hybrid were interrupted not by Toyota or Honda, but by the European car makers rejecting the hybrid technology in favour of the pure IC diesel car of which we know the outcome only too well, dieselgate of 2015, fraudulence in observing emissions standards, major loss of credibility of the culprits in the political institutions of the EU and the USA.
Had the evolution which began in 2000 continued , we may be far closer to full ZEV in the market and not in the halfway house of today

 

[Harpers Tate]

I suspect that the transition to pure EV will increase geometrically, as increasing numbers of folk find
- having taken the "leap of faith" that EVs are, in fact, way, way better than ICEs
- and increasingly share that opinion with others
- who, in turn, become more likely to become that very "mate down the pub" who is no longer a firm nay-sayer based only on what s/he read in the press or heard from another "mate down the pub"
- and advises yet someone else of the benefits, rather than the unfounded fears
- who then takes the "leap of faith" and so on.

 

[Snow1964]

Looks like ford's are planning on ressurecting thw ford fiesta as an ev but are also looking at models.with combustion engines.

Ford went through a phase few years ago led by a bad CEO of assuming European drivers wanted American style vehicles, and he killed off the European smaller cars : Ka, Fiesta, Focus.

They have now realised their error, and are desperately trying to get smaller Fords back to the market. I have heard new electric Fiesta is based on Renault 4 and 5 platform (which already has the Alpine A290 and Nissan Micra)

There was a Ford commercial (pickups and vans) presentation in Austria, recently where this came out

Ford Pro will also broaden its range with two additional models for Europe. The Ranger Super Duty will target extreme towing and payload demands, while the Transit City electric van is being aimed at urban operators needing compact zero-emission capability.

On the retail side of the business, Ford (F) is promoting a new era for passenger vehicles built around rally-inspired, multi-energy models that blend off-road DNA with on-road performance for Europe's unique setup of alpine passes, cobblestones, and tight roads. The lineup will include a new small electric hatchback, a fully electric small SUV, and two crossover models to be completed by the end of 2029.

MSN

 

[Mawkie]

From IC to ZEV is as you suggest, a difficult transition, yet could have been both natural and evolutionary, the evolution could have been...

Or we could have been more like Norway (albeit with their significant sovereign fund) and paid our way through transition. I think I heard they're on 97% of new car sales being EVs last year?

Instead we allowed the fossil fuel industry to dictate terms and got mealy mouthed discounts such as "free congestion charge" and "lower road tax". Our various governments have increased road tax, brought in extra charges on salary sacrifice, and proposed a charge per mile for EVs. Little to no public investment in charging infrastructure in the early days, leaving it to 'the market' instead, has slowed EV transition. The government had the chance recently to reduce the VAT on public charging from 20% to 5% (same as a private housing supply) and chose not to.

 

[Snow1964]

Or we could have been more like Norway (albeit with their significant sovereign fund) and paid our way through transition. I think I heard they're on 97% of new car sales being EVs last year?

Instead we allowed the fossil fuel industry to dictate terms and got mealy mouthed discounts such as "free congestion charge" and "lower road tax". Our various governments have increased road tax, brought in extra charges on salary sacrifice, and proposed a charge per mile for EVs. Little to no public investment in charging infrastructure in the early days, leaving it to 'the market' instead, has slowed EV transition. The government had the chance recently to reduce the VAT on public charging from 20% to 5% (same as a private housing supply) and chose not to.

Norway did have number of incentives for few years ( of which have ended), things like EVs could use bus lanes, free parking etc). It got the market started.

A lot of the country is fairly rural, so I expect costs and viability of keeping open petrol stations is now a factor too, as petrol/diesel cars get replaced

They also have lot of hydro electric, I think business pay about 9p per kw/h and residential about 17p. In UK daytime electricity is nearer 29p per kw/h

 

[E27007]

Instead we allowed the fossil fuel industry to dictate terms and got mealy mouthed discounts such as "free congestion charge" and "lower road tax".

I do not blame the fossil fuel industry, I blame the both the EU car makers, and Brussels too, for being too close to the domestic car makers , both promoted the pure IC car in the form of diesel engines over the IC hybrid. The probable cause, EU car makers , lacking the exemplary profitability of Toyota and Honda, could not afford hybrid-IC technology, the traction battery alone more than the slim profit margins on the vehicles, the alternative, given time and EU funding, the development of advanced diesel engines to rival the hybrid.
The EU understandably tends to grant the wishes of the "home" car makers, so in addition to funding, 10-years of easily-met standards for diesel car exhaust emissions too, only Euro6 emissions standards forvdiesel emissiins had real "teeth", effectively spiking the guns of Toyota and Honda hybrids on EU roads by a decade.
What did spoil the cosy situation, the 2014 emissions scandal by VW. A scandal the trigger for the rapid about-turn, the expensive race, panic reaction, "electric mobility as soon as possible". The winners for "electric mobility asap", Japanese or European ? Neither it is the Chinese!

 

[johncrossley]

Are fast charging electric bike batteries possible? My friends charger is 84W (42 V, 2.0A) and takes several hours to fully charge. If it could charge at 400 kW it would be fully charged in minutes. You could then make batteries very small and make continuous bike touring a lot easier.

 

[E27007]

Are fast charging electric bike batteries possible? My friends charger is 84W (42 V, 2.0A) and takes several hours to fully charge. If it could charge at 400 kW it would be fully charged in minutes. You could then make batteries very small and make continuous bike touring a lot easier.

WARNING; Only if the battery is designed to be charged at 400kW.
Many reasons, self-heating of the battery being charged is just one, in a c
0% to 100% of capacity charge cycle, the battery will convert around 90% of the charge current to stored charge, the difference is self-heating of the battery, think of 10% of 400kW into the battery and the heat of several electric fires.

 

[JamesT]

Are fast charging electric bike batteries possible? My friends charger is 84W (42 V, 2.0A) and takes several hours to fully charge. If it could charge at 400 kW it would be fully charged in minutes. You could then make batteries very small and make continuous bike touring a lot easier.

5A e-bike chargers exist. Cars have much bigger batteries to spread the charge over and (unless it's an old Leaf) colling systems to prevent overheating. I'd be very wary that trying to charge a bike battery too fast is going to knacker it at best.