EVs and chargers

Note that Strensham southbound has no EV chargers whatsoever.

<nonchalantly pours some dead dino juice into clattery toy car>

The Citroën Ami claims a range of 70km.
Let’s therefore assume 60ish in real world conditions.
That would just about get me to Big Town and back, with zero detours.
Now, I know proper EVs can go further, but when you’re rural everything is further. I can see an attraction for EVs in urban environments where you’ll typically be doing a lot of short trips. But… yeah. Things are kind of far away here. And even that’s not far like the American definition.

Maybe one day EVs will be fitted with replaceable batteries that can be swapped by machine at a service station about as rapidly and trouble free as buying liquid fuel? Then it’ll be more about the best route and less about the logistics of how and when to charge.

Mine has a range of about 450km, but that really is from 100% to OMG. It was expensive, but I’m sure it will be the last car I buy, and the only expensive one I will ever have owned.

It’s interesting to see how patchy the provision of public charging is. There are two public chargers in the village where I live, and that may be a consequence of some conversations I had with one of our Parish Councillors a few years back. Once we had them, the next town along got 5. (They have more people than us.)

But I’ve been looking at York recently, since my wife would like to have a city break there; and I don’t think their provision is very good.

If you have an electric car with a decent range, by the time you’ve travelled far enough to want/need to charge, you’re also ready for a break, a coffee and a cake, or a meal. So you put your car on charge, go and have your break, and come back refreshed to a charged car.

You have to think about it differently from dino-juice-powered cars; with those, you have to stand there while they fill up. Not so with electric cars. Set them charging, and you’re free to do something else for a little while; they take care of themselves.

And assuming someone else hasn’t just parked up in the charger for the day. Ex-radio presenter up here has a wee leccy car and can’t ever get it charged in town ‘cos the bloke in the Audi eSUV gets to the feeble charger beforehand and treats it as low cast parking every day. He could use the fast charger that’s on site but would have to come back out of the office to move it once charged!

That’s why some charge points charge an overstay fee. Quite right too.

And we need LOTS of kerbside charge points for people who don’t have their own garage or driveway.

But we have a Conservative (non-)government, so I don’t expect them to do anything useful or positive.

And we need LOTS of kerbside charge points for people who don’t have their own garage or driveway.

Easier said than done in many locations (such as where I am), and even then, there’s a lot of infrastructure required to make that happen. If you look at the size of the electrical installations going in to even the “small” locations, it’s “significant”. A separate division of a former employer did (and still does, AFAIK) electrical cabinets for that kind of thing, and beyond a couple of low power chargers in a parish council car park, they’re definitely not small.

And once places like hotels have most of their guests arriving in EVs, they are going to require chargers in the vast majority of spaces in their car parks (for comparison, I think Wakefield’s venue has a couple of spaces with chargers). Even if we ignore the cost, in many places that’s going to stress-test the local infrastructure somewhat.

Note that Strensham southbound has no EV chargers whatsoever.

Stopping at Annandale Water on the A74 (M)² up to Scotland in August, I was amused to notice that behind the electric charging station¹ were two or three large industrial diesel generator sets sat on the grass verge. I assume that they’re waiting for the local power infrastructure to be upgraded beyond the (I’d guess) fairly lightweight 11kV lines that have sufficed to keep the lights on, Costa’s coffee machines working and McDonalds’ fryers running up to now. In the meantime, EV users are probably getting worse efficiency from the diesel than someone just tipping it into the tank of their car at the adjacent filling station.

ISTR that Moto’s MD was on the Today programme a couple of months back having a rant about a similar problem at some of his own sites: he had the chargers installed, but the local DNOs were just pushing out the dates for getting the power in to them.

¹ Which isn’t on the 2021 Google footage, so I assume must be newish.

² Grr. Textile…

If you have an electric car with a decent range, by the time you’ve travelled far enough to want/need to charge, you’re also ready for a break, a coffee and a cake, or a meal. So you put your car on charge, go and have your break, and come back refreshed to a charged car.

I heard this story quite often, but I am not convinced. I regularly travel 600-800km and I do exactly 1 stop to eat something (I brought with me, because the food you get at the Autobahn is mostly awful) and drink something and go to the toilet. This takes at most 15min, which would give me with DC fast charging an additional range of perhaps 150km. So no even back to full. Ignoring for the moment that fast charging usually only works well between 20% and 80% charge level. Not to mention the insane prices that the fast chargers near the Autobahn ask for (60-80ct/kWh or even more – if you don’t charge at home, you really ruin even the small chance of having less running costs compared to a gasoline car). Or that I can do an average of 140km/h easily with one tank filling and still getting 800km range.

Back in the 80s, when driving was hard work, there were reasons for doing longer breaks and more often. But with cars built since 2010 (or more expensive ones built since 2000), travel is so relaxed that you don’t really need those anymore. And if we travel with two or more people, the breaks shrink to 5min, because you can eat and drink while the other one drives, and then you switch drivers.

I mean, if I wanted to travel slow and uncomfortable, I would take the train. A car that forces me to do long, unwanted pauses, contradicts the reason that you want a car in the first place. So while the electric car owner does his second hour-long break to reach his destination with a few kms of range left, I already have a nice meal with my friends at whatever destination I choose to travel to.

behind the electric charging station1 were two or three large industrial diesel generator sets sat on the grass verge

I don’t know about the particular case you’re citing, of course, but I read on cleantechnica a while ago about a similar observation, where in fact they were emergency backup generators and nothing to do with the charge points.

We all have to be careful about jumping to conclusions.

I regularly travel 600-800km and I do exactly 1 stop to eat something

Rather you than me, Steffen.

As for windmills generating electric being new – years ago -here they had I believe low voltage dc – or rechargable battery for the new fangled radio.

In Texas USA they are working towards mass producing a fuel that you can use in diesel/ petrol engines.

Mains didn’t turn up here until the 1950s.

In Texas USA they are working towards mass producing a fuel that you can use in diesel/ petrol engines.

If it’s alcohol, then tell them the concept isn’t patentable, as alcohol powered internal combustion engines were being used back in 1826-1860 (pre- American Civil War)¹ and the patent sort of ran out a while back.
Control of the tech to use alcohol efficiently might be a different issue, as might the method of refining the waste product of a happy little yeast colony.

¹ As opposed to other Civil Wars (there have been a fair few)

I think it’s supposed to be something like ammonia.

So, remember, your morning pee goes into the fuel tank, not the toilet.

In Texas USA they are working towards mass producing a fuel that you can use in diesel/ petrol engines.

There are hundreds of projects around the world (the Fischer-Tropsch process was invented in Germany and used mainly during WWII) to produce “liquid carbons” from other sources of carbon than oil. Commonly called “XtL”, usual variants are BtL, CtL and GtL. But you can also do it from “air”, because of CO2. You “only” need energy, everything else is advanced chemistry. Heat also is helpful, this is why high temperature nuclear reactors were often cited to help us when we run out of oil. Well, that didn’t happen yet.

With Germany’s current insanity called “Energiewende”, we aim for installed capacities of around 400GW of PV and a further 400GW of wind, while having a typical maximum grid power demand of 50-80GW. So we will create A LOT of surplus electricity (some of the time) to produce e.g. CH4, and of course we could also produce liquid carbons from that huge amount of too-much-electricity. It will be interesting to see if that kind of subsidized-to-zero-cost energy will be enough to produce competitive fuel prices.

And… Tom Scott delivers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNZy603as5w

It will be interesting to see if that kind of subsidized-to-zero-cost energy will be enough to produce competitive fuel prices.

Well, it makes a change from subsidising fossil fuel extraction or nuclear power – both still in receipt of vastly greater subsidies than renewables have ever received. (UK government paying £500,000,000 for the development of the Rosebank oil field at the moment, just by way of example.)

Maybe one day EVs will be fitted with replaceable batteries that can be swapped by machine at a service station about as rapidly and trouble free as buying liquid fuel?

Probably not. Batteries are too large a part of the weight of an electric vehicle for that to be mechanically reasonable. Rapid charging is a far more likely route forward – or synthetic fuel. Steffen is right that the production of synthetic fuel isn’t terribly efficient, but at least it’s sustainable and doesn’t roast the planet (as long as the energy used comes from sustainable sources…). Biofuel (on any but a minuscule scale as a by-product of food production) is bloody daft though – its production is in competition with food production, not to mention wildlife habitat.

Maybe one day EVs will be fitted with replaceable batteries that can be swapped by machine at a service station about as rapidly and trouble free as buying liquid fuel?

It’s been done in the past and I think there is till one Chinese(?) car company that but it requires special infrastructure so only the car company could do it.

On the other hand it is far easier to do it for trucks.I remember seeing a video of an Australian company that converts Diesel trucks to electric ones: the batteries are installed on some sort of palette so you disconnect a few cables, use a clark to remove the palette and install another one, reconnect the cables and job done.

Ah, and there is also that spanish company that is the world leader in the production of electric scooters. They recently produced a micro car which use 2 batteries which you can remove in a few seconds and recharge at home. Ok, not the average Joe’s car but still interesting.

It’s been done in the past

Yes. With lead-acid batteries for buses in New York and others. It makes for very heavy vehicles, but if they’re only going slowly on relatively short routes, it’s workable. But if your battery contains the kind of amount of energy needed for modern speeds and a good range, then you’re going to add too much to the weight of the vehicle with the mechanical arrangements to enable battery swapping.

They recently produced a micro car which use 2 batteries which you can remove in a few seconds and recharge at home.

But how far can it go on a single charge?

But how far can it go on a single charge?

Probably far enough to do the daily commute for a week, as I suspect the “micro car” has a rather high power to weight ratio.

Realistically, the average bod has to accept that driving a vehicle capable of moving 4-5 people and their luggage at speeds comfortably over the national maximum and using that for a commute of less than 10 miles, parking it for many hours and the repeat in reverse is a profligate use of energy. Most of these things are substitute items for a willy contest anyway.

At the end of all this, the fossil fuel will run out, and such things will need to be either synthetic fuel driven or electric. At that juncture, points are scored for the most efficient method.

No need to blockquote that – just agree with all of it, Steve.

At the end of all this, the fossil fuel will run out

I keep pointing this out. Fossil fuels took millions of years to lay down. We aren’t laying any more down. We are using the existing stock orders of magnitude more quickly than it was laid down. We can only kick the can down the road so far. When it runs out, we had better have Plan B in place, and thoroughly shaken down.

Actually, I don’t agree with quite all of it.

At the end of all this, the fossil fuel will run out.

There is absolutely no way the fossil fuel will run out. There’s enough down there somewhere to take our atmosphere back to where it was before plant life started turning carbon dioxide into oxygen – when our atmosphere had no free oxygen at all, and more carbon dioxide than we now have oxygen.

Humans can’t breathe if it goes up to more than about 4% – but the whole biosphere would be cooked long before it reached that level anyway.

Well, it makes a change from subsidising fossil fuel extraction or nuclear power – both still in receipt of vastly greater subsidies than renewables have ever received.

This is not true for Germany. While nuclear research got money (is this already “subsidies”?), the power-generating large PWRs and BWRs were entirely industry- (and ultimately of course consumer-) funded. The various governments tried very hard (mainly post-1998) to make it as expensive to run as possible, but ultimately had to force the shutdown far earlier than necessary for mainly religious reasons (no joke – read up about the “Ethikkomission” that was established post-Fukushima by Mrs Merkel).

Coal received a lot of subsidies in Germany, but not the power generation itself – only the coal mining, so that the German-produced coal reached the same price as imported coal.

Wind and PV, on the other hand, received insane amounts of subsidies. And still produces less power year-by-year than nuclear once did in the 90s, despite adding another 15 GW of theoretical generating capacity in 2023 alone.

At the moment, the CO2 price for driving an ICE-powered car is around 10 times as high as the “real” CO2 price set by the government is (360€/t vs. 35€/t). While at the same time, electric cars are subsidized all over the place despite basically being powered mostly by lignite-based electricity.

despite basically being powered mostly by lignite-based electricity

That is indeed insane.

I’m interested to know where Germany gets its uranium, and where it puts its used fuel.

It’s been done in the past and I think there is till one Chinese(?) car company that but it requires special infrastructure so only the car company could do it.

That’s what the video I linked to was about. That Chinese car company. That is slowly expanding in parts of Europe, and better yet, has demonstrated that it’s actually a viable option (albeit one that is currently making a loss as the infrastructure needs built – but this isn’t unusual). I understand (from the video) that they are in talks with other car companies. I think one of the main hurdles is that everybody has their own battery packs in whatever weird shape fits into the space available. To use a unipart battery… would be great.

There’s a picture of the Aixam battery pack at https://heyrick.eu/blog/index.php?diary=20230911 (fifth photo down). Maybe a bit of rejigging could make that a swappable battery? I say maybe in italics as these little cars are legally counted as quad bikes (which is why they don’t need a driving licence, only a few hours of training ¹) so they have very specific weight requirements ².

Rapid charging is a far more likely route forward

Only if you’re in a well-paid job. Rapid charging is lousy for the battery. That’s one of the benefits of the swappable battery gizmo – the ones that are taken out can be set aside and slow-charged for best lifespan (plus monitoring so they don’t load up a car with a dud).

Steffen is right that the production of synthetic fuel isn’t terribly efficient, but at least it’s sustainable and doesn’t roast the planet

It might not be efficient, but I wonder how much of that lack of efficiency is due to a lack of serious investment and development? I would imagine if it becomes “the answer” to keep non-EVs running, not to mention agriculture and long-haul, there will be changes.

is bloody daft though – its production is in competition with food production

Yup. Alas I think smashed corn bits for biofuel pays a little better than smashed corn bits for animal or human consumption. Around here, I think some of the local tractor-botherers are growing for biomass as the maize was brought it too early to be useful as a grain crop. Plus it basically shredded everything rather than extracting the corn kernels. Weird seeing a harvester that wasn’t spitting all the detritus out the back.

UK government paying £500,000,000

…and half that to send nobody to the middle of Africa. I’m not sure I’d hold Westminster up as anything other than a demonstration of inmates running the asylum.

They recently produced a micro car which use 2 batteries which you can remove in a few seconds and recharge at home.

? The Aimax/Microcar/Ami (etc) come fitted with a 16A (sort of EU standard) plug that you just whack into a wall socket. They do not fast charge. I’ve run into brick walls in obtaining any information on the actual energy draw of these things, but I’m going to guess something in the ballpark of 2-3kW.

then you’re going to add too much to the weight of the vehicle with the mechanical arrangements to enable battery swapping.

Tom’s video didn’t go into too much detail on how it actually works, but it looks like it’s a battery in a cradle that is removed straight down. I don’t know if it is clipped, screwed, or held in place by solenoid bolts or whatever. So you’d need the cradle carrier on the car, and the cradle to put the battery in, and some good contacts. If anything, it might provide more solidity to the battery. The Aixam one is well hidden underneath, but I wonder how easily it would be mashed in a rear-end collision.

And no spare tyre back there, dammit … hey, here’s an idea, how about a spare tyre bracket just under the bonnet instead? I mean, it’s not as if there’s anything much in the engine compartment (there’s a photo of that on my blog page, seems like so much wasted space).

But how far can it go on a single charge?

The Citroën Ami, which is like the crappiest most basic EV that anybody has ever made can manage around 65km per charge. That’s two days of commute (25km round trip) with a little left over for stuff like popping by the supermarket on the way home. Not that I wouldn’t want to top it up daily as, well, ~15km is not a lot to have remaining. Like the other day when I went to have my vaccinations? Well, I’d be driving up my driveway with the km counter reading around -1 if I did that on day two.

[having said that, I think there’s a law that places of work with employee parking have to provide a number of places with charging facilities by… 2024? 2025? so, hey, if I could get my employer to cough up for the ’leccy…]

Most of these things are substitute items for a willy contest anyway.

Yup. People who I know don’t have a big family (lots of children) turn up to work in urban tanks. It’s ridiculous. And there’s a woman in the village that takes her car to visit her sister in law. That’s across the road and about 100m down. WTF?

using the existing stock orders of magnitude more quickly than it was laid down.

Eventually the dead dino juice will run out. However I rather suspect our comfy friendly environmental conditions might be what comes to an end first.

That’s why people are looking for alternatives now.

Of course, having climate change deniers and megapolluters as welcome guests of COP28 which was hosted in a nation that got rich off oil…is probably not much of a way forward to be honest.
Oh, and did I read that the UK rep flew back to the UK for something and then back again to the ending summit of COP28? WTF? That’s the sort of nonsense we’re supposed to be frowning upon.

but the whole biosphere would be cooked long before it reached that level anyway.

Hmm, going back to the Cambrian era?

despite adding another 15 GW of theoretical generating capacity in 2023 alone.

I think the important word there is “theoretical”. When it’s the right sort of wind blowing in the right sort of way…right?

despite basically being powered mostly by lignite-based electricity.

Shhh! We’re not supposed to think where the electricity comes from, nor that there’s a pretty good chance it’s just burning fossil fuels somewhere else.