Advice regarding driving to France and Switzerland

[rf065]

Really isn’t an issue driving anywhere in the UK with the existing infrastructure.

The UK is tiny in comparison to other countries.

Plenty of people drive up to John O’Groates on the Tesla groups, and do the NC500.

You've shown a whole section in the middle of the Cairngorms area with no chargers, people who live there are not doing the NC500, they live and work in area with no chargeing infrastructure.
In everyday life, any of those chargers could be a couple of hours away and not even in the direction you wanted to travel in.

 

[rf065]

Clearly if he can afford a house with a driveway that’s a massive bonus, so all I can see is an EV accelerated the switch?

He cant, he's looking at houses smaller and in worse areas that the ones he's in already in.
If he was never inclined to get an EV he would not need to move at all.

 

[clk320x]

You've shown a whole section in the middle of the Cairngorms area with no chargers, people who live there are not doing the NC500, they live and work in area with no chargeing infrastructure.
In everyday life, any of those chargers could be a couple of hours away and not even in the direction you wanted to travel in.

They won’t need a DC rapid charger if they live and work in the Cairngorms though, there will be standard 7/11kW units that will top them up just fine, if they don’t have off-street parking, which seems unlikely in a remote location like that. This map only shows 50kW+ units.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

How's this for an example of the problems of EV ownership, my son in law was offered one as a works car in place of his ICE car, he jumped at the chance of this newer/bigger car than the one he already had.
I pointed out to him that he lived in an end terrace at the bottom of a row of houses furthest from the roadway with no way of chargeing his car from home. Not a problem he says, I can charge it from work for free, or at the shops etc at the weekend.
Two months in and his house is up for sale and looking for a house with a driveway!

So was he wrong to think that he can charge at work for free?

 

[clk320x]

He cant, he's looking at houses smaller and in worse areas that the ones he's in already in.
If he was never inclined to get an EV he would not need to move at all.

So why doesn’t he just hand the car back then? I’ve not heard of anyone moving to a worse area because of an EV yet. Blimey.

 

[rf065]

So was he wrong to think that he can charge at work for free?

No, he can during the week, the weekends are the problem.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

He cant, he's looking at houses smaller and in worse areas that the ones he's in already in.
If he was never inclined to get an EV he would not need to move at all.

So he's going to spend more than ten thousand pounds in move costs, just to keep his EV topped up at the weekend?

Must do a lot of weekend driving. And yet he never drives past a charger.

That's quite a story.

 

[rf065]

So he's going to spend more than ten thousand pounds in move costs, just to keep his EV topped up at the weekend?

Must do a lot of weekend driving. And yet he never drives past a charger.

That's quite a story.

Not a great deal of chargers around where he stays, a quick look earlier showed most were all in use. We don't all live in London where they seem to be on every lampost.

 

[clk320x]

Not a great deal of chargers around where he stays, a quick look earlier showed most were all in use. We don't all live in London where they seem to be on every lampost.

So if he charges at work on Friday, he does 2-300 miles every Saturday/Sunday? and whilst doing said mileage he doesn’t drive past a single rapid charger or park somewhere where there’s even a 7kW charger? Almost impossible… Where does he live?

Also, I guess he loves his EV so much he would rather move than switch back to ICE? That’s good news in my book.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

So if he charges at work on Friday, he does 2-300 miles every Saturday/Sunday? and whilst doing said mileage he doesn’t drive past a single rapid charger or park somewhere where there’s even a 7kW charger? Almost impossible… Where does he live?

Also, I guess he loves his EV so much he would rather move than switch back to ICE? That’s good news in my book.

Fantastic endorsement for EV ownership that someone will go out of pocket to the tune of more than £10k AND a huge amount of personal legal and administrative hassle just so as to charge his EV on the weekend when he’s done more than 250 miles without passing a supermarket, pub or McDonalds with a charger.

I mean we know that company cars are a bit rubbish, but surely it would be easier just to chop his EV in for an ICE and pay a bit of extra income tax each year?

Good story though.

 

[markjay]

How's this for an example of the problems of EV ownership, my son in law was offered one as a works car in place of his ICE car, he jumped at the chance of this newer/bigger car than the one he already had.
I pointed out to him that he lived in an end terrace at the bottom of a row of houses furthest from the roadway with no way of chargeing his car from home. Not a problem he says, I can charge it from work for free, or at the shops etc at the weekend.
Two months in and his house is up for sale and looking for a house with a driveway!

Yes, for some people, EVs have become a fad. But I have to say that moving house in order to be able to keep the EV is probably the most extreme example I've heard so far. What does he drive? A Tesla?

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

I can’t say much more but last week I saw two completely different types of car side by side - the heaviest and least aerodynamically efficient of which weighs 1150kg with a 170 mile range - and which are both capable of charging from 0-100% in 6 minutes using a 350 kW charger.

By the time it reaches production next year there will be a model with twice the range but capable of the same 0-100% 6-minute charging time at the right charger. Neither will be cheap but they are reasonably priced, and the cost of the technology will reduce as volumes increase.

So it’s promising that we’re moving in the right direc5ion:
Light weight
Long range
Fast charge
Blistering pace

But EV car manufacturers, energy providers and the UK Government still have a long way to go:
Takes more than 3 seconds to charge, which even then is a compromise
Unable to charge the battery to 200% for those regularly long journeys without chargers
Electricity is not free, and for as long as it’s not free, it can’t possibly be good value
Some people don’t go to work, the shops or anywhere at all in fact and can’t charge at home
Expensive compared to a 1994 Renault Laguna with 80115417 miles and no MOT since 2008
Not made of Unobtainium from sustainable sources directly beneath the cell and car factory

I could go on but I won’t. You don’t have any of those problems with hydrogen, but they don’t us to have hydrogen

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Fantastic endorsement for EV ownership that someone will go out of pocket to the tune of more than £10k AND a huge amount of personal legal and administrative hassle just so as to charge his EV on the weekend when he’s done more than 250 miles without passing a supermarket, pub or McDonalds with a charger.

I mean we know that company cars are a bit rubbish, but surely it would be easier just to chop his EV in for an ICE and pay a bit of extra income tax each year?

Good story though.

Cracked it !! So he wants to keep the huge tax saving from running an EV as a company car, and wants to continue to use the virtually free electricity he can access at work from Monday to Friday. But weekends are a problem because he does more than 250 miles between Friday night and Monday morning, so he runs out of free company EV charge.

A solution: keep the income tax saving and the free work charging. Instead of looking for a charger or spending more than ten thousand pounds moving home....

Just buy a Ford Focus as a weekend runabout.

£3k buys a peach. Virtually no depreciation, just the insurance, tax and petrol. (TBH This kind of Focus drives better than most EV's)

Or just buy an SLK for buzzing around. He's still got 250 miles of weekend family car mileage from his company EV.

 

[ToeKnee]

How much is a diesel generator from machine mart??

 

[nyssa7]

No, he can during the week, the weekends are the problem.

How far does he travel at weekends? I bought my EV as made sense with free charging at work, but I only went in twice a week, 65 mile round trip. Some weeks I would spread out the charging, some weeks I’d go in on consecutive days. In winter I probably had 130 miles range left after allowing the 65 miles to go home and back to work (so 200 miles total, more like 260-270 in summer - poorer range in winter as much to do with pre-warming/defrosting) and still hardly ever charged away from work. Only once did I cut it fine, rolling into work with 4 miles range left, but knew there would be no issue

I’ve done 11500 miles in 16 months (skewed as hardly drove this winter due to job that worked too many hours to feel like going anywhere after work), have used public charging less than 10 times in total, 3 of them on same day (450 mile round trip in winter), two because my journey changed at last minute to one longer than expected, one because I had a power cut at home

Have holiday booked in Bruges later this year, have no issues taking the EV, it’s 120 miles to the Chunnel, about 60 the other side?

I moved jobs so no longer have free work charging, but do have a home charger that mostly gets plugged in once a week on “half price Sunday”

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

I’ve done 11500 miles in 16 months (skewed as hardly drove this winter due to job that worked too many hours to feel like going anywhere after work), have used public charging less than 10 times in total, 3 of them on same day (450 mile round trip in winter), two because my journey changed at last minute to one longer than expected, one because I had a power cut at home

"Used public chargers 10 times in 16 months (in the course of 11,500 miles)"

Exactly !

 

[markjay]

I moved jobs so no longer have free work charging, but do have a home charger that mostly gets plugged in once a week on “half price Sunday”

I think that this is the answer to all those who are concerned about everyone plugging in their EVs at 6pm all at the same time.

Lower night and weekend tariffs will distribute the power supply more equally.

 

[BTB 500]

Why would anyone "think" that they need a 150kwh charger to top up in the middle of a day involving seven hours driving (340 mile round trip)?

You don't need a fast charger, if you're happy to hang around waiting. But you're very likely to need a charger of some sort.

Have you been reading this thread?

I set the cruise control to 120km/h, that's fast enough for me. Averaged 4.0-4.1 km/kWh at that speed. Not great, obviously, it's about 300 km for my battery size.

300 km is 186 miles. 120 kph is 75 mph (actual speed will be somewhat less of course).

Realistically, in France you'll probably need to pull into a charging point every 120 miles or so, and then charge for around 15 minutes, if you want to avoid range anxiety.

You can't do that on a slow charger.

Thanks for proving that there really isn't much demand to economically justify too many high speed chargers.

Which is why Sainsbury's Exeter has 12 empty high speed charging bays on a busy Saturday morning last week.

That will probably be because few people need to charge at all when going out to get groceries. Plus of course nobody is currently buying BEVs.

 

[markjay]

300 km is 186 miles. 120 kph is 75 mph (actual speed will be somewhat less of course).

True. At that speed, my satnav was showing 2kph less than the odometer on the dash, but obviously the satnav isn't accurate either (due to reduced accuracy for non-military use). I have no way of knowing my exact speed, but I reckon it was just over 70mph.

You can't do that on a slow charger.

Of course not, that's why you need a good network of fast chargers along motorways and trunk routes. I can only speak of my own experience, but during my journey from Calais to Switzerland I was spolit for choice.

 

[BTB 500]

I can’t say much more but last week I saw two completely different types of car side by side - the heaviest and least aerodynamically efficient of which weighs 1150kg with a 170 mile range - and which are both capable of charging from 0-100% in 6 minutes using a 350 kW charger.

Sounds interesting ... that would be a 35 kWh battery then (assuming the chemistry supports charging at full rate the whole time).

By the time it reaches production next year there will be a model with twice the range but capable of the same 0-100% 6-minute charging time at the right charger.

Will that range increase be achieved by doubling the battery size, or by some drivetrain magic? The former would require a 700 kW charger of course.

I've said several times that we are due another leap in battery technology as Li cells have been in widespread use for 30 years now. There have been some promising ideas but none have yet delivered in real life. Hopefully this one will be the exception (and it would be great if it was safer than Li Ion, too ).