The EV fact thread

[poormansporsche]

Would be worth considering the amount of journeys that would otherwise be made by all of those who have their shopping delivered by just one vehicle instead.

Surely more efficient to deliver say 20x customers worth of shopping in one vehicle than typically 20x households travelling to the supermarket in their Qashqai or whatever.

I guess looking further, it’s probably more efficient to deliver from warehouses than having people maintaining a heated/lit up supermarket full of people and products etc.

Can’t see this trend changing to be honest!

Supermarkets are not interested in efficiency, online home deliveries are just extra bunce. Having the 40% obese population waddling round the stores grabbing anything in sight earns them more money than any little pics on a website.

There is not going to be a large scale switch to BEVs for Supermarket delivery vehicles anytime soon, just the odd virtue signalling few.

It has nothing to do with range and 100% to do with weight. Groceries are surprisingly heavy. Our Sprinters with lightweight (flimsy and crap) fibreglass bodies, compact refrigeration units, alloy dolly cages and trollies only have a payload of 900 kgs, which is not a lot groceries wise. Everyday I am thereabouts on the limit. So much that we are only allowed to fill up with 3/4 of a tank of diesel as a full tank we would be overweight. If you added half a tonne of batteries and the extra length to retain the same interior space it just would not be worth it.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Supermarkets are not interested in efficiency, online home deliveries are just extra bunce. Having the 40% obese population waddling round the stores grabbing anything in sight earns them more money than any little pics on a website.

There is not going to be a large scale switch to BEVs for Supermarket delivery vehicles anytime soon, just the odd virtue signalling few.

It has nothing to do with range and 100% to do with weight. Groceries are surprisingly heavy. Our Sprinters with lightweight (flimsy and crap) fibreglass bodies, compact refrigeration units, alloy dolly cages and trollies only have a payload of 900 kgs, which is not a lot groceries wise. Everyday I am thereabouts on the limit. So much that we are only allowed to fill up with 3/4 of a tank of diesel as a full tank we would be overweight. If you added half a tonne of batteries and the extra length to retain the same interior space it just would not be worth it.

We've already seen that home deliveries have blown away the need for the second, and even the first (ICE) motor, to get you to the Supermarket.

This isn't an EV thing. it's just ways of offsetting the need for a motor. From Tesco home delivery to taking an e-Bike or scooter to work.

 

[markjay]

...There is not going to be a large scale switch to BEVs for Supermarket delivery vehicles anytime soon, just the odd virtue signalling few....

True, but this is only an issue away from densly-populated areas. I can tell you for fact that in Central London where I live the majority of supermarket delivery vehicles have the "100% Electric" livery, as do many other national companies to include couriers such as Amazon and UPS, as well as BT, Royal Mail, etc. Addison Lee, for example, operate only BEVs. I do agree, however, that this may not be feasible (yet) in smaller cities and towns or in rural areas. But to say that it's 'virtue signaling' is wishful thinking - I see these BEV delivery vans everywhere, every day, around London.

 

[markjay]

Also, on the rare occasion that I drive to work, it's a 6 mile drive and takes 45 minutes during the day, or 1h during rush hour. And that's without stops along the way... a delivery van delivering goods or groceries around London can easily run an 8 hour shift and cover no more than 30-40 miles overall (assuming that the depot is local, of course).

 

[BPD07]

For elimination of doubt,

I won't be buying an EV any time soon because they're too new / expensive / "rubbish to drive" / ugly. (* delete according to model)

And I'm not bothered about changing vehicle to save the planet. Because it won't.

(Cough, yes I know that all of this is the Harry Metcalf argument)

Rule EV's out on those grounds. Not because of range, cabling, "time spent charging" or commercial charging during a 500 mile journey.

(By the way, another reason NOT to run an EV is that most girlfriends / wives won't want to put the filthy cable away into the boot of their car.)

Change takes time. No-one needed "the internet" in their own homes 20-30 years ago. But gradually the benefits emerged.

Well bully for you.

 

[BTB 500]

With an ICE you’d have made a 10 minute trip to a fuel station to fill up before you started, when you would wake up with a full ‘tank’ in the Model 3 - so net time is probably the same if you’re going to analyse it minute by minute (assuming you can charge overnight) - also this use case assumes none of the destinations have charging facilities.

In an ICE car,, unless you departed with comfortably more than enough fuel in the tank for the whole journey, then you’d also have to stop to refill.

Let’s suppose though that you did have more than enough, then on the journey before - and/or the journey after - you’d likely have to stop to refill.

But let let’s suppose that you had more than enough for all three journeys, then you’d likely have had to stop to refill on the journey before and after those.

Not with the EV though. Unless you drive 300 miles every day.

My ICE (petrol C Class estate, nothing particularly special but bigger than a Tesla Model 3) has a typical full tank range of around 500 miles (600+ miles on the motorway), so unlikely I'd have to stop to cover 300 miles. Or that I'd have to refill straight after. And when I do fill the tank this (a) doesn't require any planning or diversion off the most direct route to wherever I'm going and (b) doesn't take 10 minutes. And as mentioned I would have no reason (rest / food / drink / toilet / etc.) to stop on a leg of just 100 miles - this would simply be wasted time. And needing a 10 minute charge clearly doesn't add just 10 minutes to an EV journey, as suggested.

So IMHO the particular trip raised here is not a great example of the benefits of using an EV. But YMMV

 

[clk320x]

diversion off the most direct route to wherever I'm going

What difference does it make exiting a motorway onto the services to fill up with fuel as opposed to plug in?

But yeah, the rest of what you say is fair enough. You might lose a couple minutes compared to an ICE if you do 300 miles a day - comparing 10 mins charging to say 8 minutes to park, faff around whilst they turn on the pump, fill up, walk in, queue behind the people who have done a weekly shop etc etc.

 

[poormansporsche]

True, but this is only an issue away from densly-populated areas. I can tell you for fact that in Central London where I live the majority of supermarket delivery vehicles have the "100% Electric" livery, as do many other national companies to include couriers such as Amazon and UPS, as well as BT, Royal Mail, etc. Addison Lee, for example, operate only BEVs. I do agree, however, that this may not be feasible (yet) in smaller cities and towns or in rural areas. But to say that it's 'virtue signaling' is wishful thinking - I see these BEV delivery vans everywhere, every day, around London.

A quick reply. Central London is not representative of 99% of the Country either is West or South West London. Our Wimbledon depot is the smallest in the country but earns the highest per drop profit of them all.

Virtue signalling is a necessary evil for all companies in the current world we live in. Short term it's virtue signalling, long term BEVs are coming whether the supermarkets like it or not and whoever lays the best groundwork now will win the "war"

Grocery deliveries are a completely different kettle of fish to the likes of Amazon

Addison Lee are basically a taxi lease company and their business model cannot be compared to other companies

 

[Will]

Supermarkets are not interested in efficiency, online home deliveries are just extra bunce. Having the 40% obese population waddling round the stores grabbing anything in sight earns them more money than any little pics on a website.

There is not going to be a large scale switch to BEVs for Supermarket delivery vehicles anytime soon, just the odd virtue signalling few.

It has nothing to do with range and 100% to do with weight. Groceries are surprisingly heavy. Our Sprinters with lightweight (flimsy and crap) fibreglass bodies, compact refrigeration units, alloy dolly cages and trollies only have a payload of 900 kgs, which is not a lot groceries wise. Everyday I am thereabouts on the limit. So much that we are only allowed to fill up with 3/4 of a tank of diesel as a full tank we would be overweight. If you added half a tonne of batteries and the extra length to retain the same interior space it just would not be worth it.

I don’t think my point was regarding EV delivery trucks vs. conventional ones.

More the point that even as things currently stand, it’s surely more efficient for 1x dedicated delivery vehicle to service multiple addresses in one go than 10/20 or whatever vehicles each driving to the supermarket and back again for their weekly shop.

You might be able to elaborate Brett, but typically how many drops do you make on one full truck?

 

[philnewmerc]

One of my friends has just planned his route from Coventry > London > Coventry > Bristol….

This involves a 10 min charge stop on a Model 3…. Yet people still complain about charging time

Sounds good. But the operative word is "planned". No ice driver is used to planning to the degree EV requires, eg must remember charge to 100% tonight, must plan top up stop, must find charger at the destination, etc. it doesn't sound too onerous but when most people struggle to remember bin day maybe it is one more thing to do and therefore unattractive.

 

[poormansporsche]

I don’t think my point was regarding EV delivery trucks vs. conventional ones.

More the point that even as things currently stand, it’s surely more efficient for 1x dedicated delivery vehicle to service multiple addresses in one go than 10/20 or whatever vehicles each driving to the supermarket and back again for their weekly shop.

You might be able to elaborate Brett, but typically how many drops do you make on one full truck?

Yep excuse my Sunday morning ramblings.

I work for both Ocado and Morrisons (Morrisons pay Ocado to do their deliveries for them) Plus I also do a bit for Amazon (Parcels and Morrisons groceries !!!!)

For reference Asda and Sainsbury's "Pick from Store" and have fleets of vans at each large store.

Tesco have several large distribution centres throughout the country but more remote places are served by pick from store.

Ocado and Morrisons are served from central large distribution centres with smaller satellite distribution centres. Morrisons have tried delivering from store but just did not work for them. Morrisons are not happy with the Ocado set up and are looking to Amazon to take over delivering for them in whatever form that takes.

Waitrose pick from store and the majority of deliveries are close to stores which would suit BEVs but they are hoping to improve market share and they have now built a large distribution centre and are looking to move away from pick from store.

My Depot covers South East London, all of Kent, East and West Sussex, some of Surrey and some of SW London.

I have 2 types of route.

1 van load, 10 hours, up to 900 kgs, up to 275 miles travelled, generally around 25 drops

2 van load, 10 hours, up to 2 x 900 kgs, 2 x 50 miles travelled , up to about 40 drops.

We actually get paid more than any other Supermarket drivers because we do more actual work !!!

Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury's vans actually have a lot less range and space capability just because they do not use plastic bags, our vans are stacked floor to ceiling with zero space to move.

Tesco drivers do less than 20 drops a day , I do not know how many Asda and Sainsbury's drivers do.


Ocado are basically stuffed when BEVs become mandatory

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Sounds good. But the operative word is "planned". No ice driver is used to planning to the degree EV requires, eg must remember charge to 100% tonight, must plan top up stop, must find charger at the destination, etc. it doesn't sound too onerous but when most people struggle to remember bin day maybe it is one more thing to do and therefore unattractive.

EV drivers don’t plan either. The plug in when they can - that is to say when they hapoen to be in a place with an EV charger - and when they’re driving somewhere they don’t know, if the car needs to be charged it will tell them and direct them to the optimally placed charger.

It could be argued that that requires even less planning than ICE, as an ICE will only notify you that you’re close to empty (if it doesn’t have satnav) and will direct you to a filling station (if it does have satnav) but only when your range is very low - then it’s about getting to a filling station rather than using the optimally placed filling station.

Personally I wouldn’t make that argument though because neither really require planning, it’s fairly instinctive stuff for a driver. In any case l, both require stopping for a while, and both require messing about with a long, heavy, rubbery thing which connects to your car.

 

[markjay]

Sounds good. But the operative word is "planned". No ice driver is used to planning to the degree EV requires, eg must remember charge to 100% tonight, must plan top up stop, must find charger at the destination, etc. it doesn't sound too onerous but when most people struggle to remember bin day maybe it is one more thing to do and therefore unattractive.

I am driving to North London today. Last night I plugged the car in and programmed it to charge off-peak. I woke up this morning and had a message on the mobile phone app that charging has been completed. In this specific case it's actually more convenient than driving to a petrol station and filling up the tank.

Most of what you describe (route planning and charging etc) is done by software. I am planning to drive to Switzerland in April, I am going to let the software do the work - plan the route and guide me to the various charging stops (and the software also knows if the chargers are free and working). The software also knows in real-time the car's battery charge level, and the anticipated miles-per-kW ahead.

It's not exactly AI, not yet anyway, but in some sense it's like driving a computer. I'm sure that some people will still prefer the old ways, though.

The closest analogy is perhaps how we used to drive with a road atlas or A-Z, planning a route ahead of our journey, and often keeping the map open on the passenger seat - while these days most people just hop into the car and choose the destination on the SatNav, then lean back and concentrate on the driving, letting the SatNav computer do the work. Some people still refuse to use SatNav, and that's fine.

 

[Will]

I actually find refuelling ICE vehicles a bit of an inconvenience these days - being able to top up at home would be very welcome.

Has anyone also mentioned that many filling stations close at night? You can’t as easily refuel an ICE vehicle in this scenario. And back on the subject of all these broken or vandalised chargers - we’ve all gone to get petrol/diesel and there’s a tanker there with the forecourt coned off…or a pump with an out of use tag on it (fuel shortages!)

Agree regarding range and filling / charge time but in some other respects there’s a clear advantage. As the tech is developing and range is increasing/charging times decreasing this whole anti-EV argument will not be around forever anyway

 

[Will]

I have 2 types of route.

1 van load, 10 hours, up to 900 kgs, up to 275 miles travelled, generally around 25 drops

2 van load, 10 hours, up to 2 x 900 kgs, 2 x 50 miles travelled , up to about 40 drops.

So the first route is one to service addresses that are quite far apart and probably out of town etc.

Second route sounds more typical to the sort of route I was suggesting would avoid lots of unnecessary individual trips - I’m thinking relatively urban/suburban.

Probably both scenarios are going for work out more efficient than each customer from every address driving from home to store and back from a cold start etc.

Good insight though Brett, thank you

 

[clk320x]

Sounds good. But the operative word is "planned". No ice driver is used to planning to the degree EV requires, eg must remember charge to 100% tonight, must plan top up stop, must find charger at the destination, etc. it doesn't sound too onerous but when most people struggle to remember bin day maybe it is one more thing to do and therefore unattractive.

When I say planned, he put it on the car satnav, it requires no thinking, so should be fine even for the least intellectual people.

 

[poormansporsche]

So the first route is one to service addresses that are quite far apart and probably out of town etc.

Second route sounds more typical to the sort of route I was suggesting would avoid lots of unnecessary individual trips - I’m thinking relatively urban/suburban.

Probably both scenarios are going for work out more efficient than each customer from every address driving from home to store and back from a cold start etc.

Good insight though Brett, thank you

Most definitely.

If you take the extreme example of the Wimbledon depot. For just 1 Van, 2 loads of 25 drops morning shift, 2 loads of of 25 drops afternoon / evening shift. Equates to 200 less Victoria's in their Range Rovers pounding the already congested battlefields of SW9

 

[ChipChop]

Supermarkets are not interested in efficiency, online home deliveries are just extra bunce. Having the 40% obese population waddling round the stores grabbing anything in sight earns them more money than any little pics on a website.

There is not going to be a large scale switch to BEVs for Supermarket delivery vehicles anytime soon, just the odd virtue signalling few.

It has nothing to do with range and 100% to do with weight. Groceries are surprisingly heavy. Our Sprinters with lightweight (flimsy and crap) fibreglass bodies, compact refrigeration units, alloy dolly cages and trollies only have a payload of 900 kgs, which is not a lot groceries wise. Everyday I am thereabouts on the limit. So much that we are only allowed to fill up with 3/4 of a tank of diesel as a full tank we would be overweight. If you added half a tonne of batteries and the extra length to retain the same interior space it just would not be worth it.

The higher unladen kerb weight of EV commercials must create a plethora of issues. Lower load capacity could mean more trips to & from the depots, maybe even the need for larger fleets of EV vans compared to ICE's. Switching to EV vans heavier than 3500kg an option, if they exist?, but the pool of drivers with C1 licenses must be small.

 

[Alfie]

Lol.... no.......it isn't. But its been said so many times on here that I can't be bothered to go into why yet again...... but mainly it just takes way too much electricity to make.

Not sure how EV are useless..... they can do 99 percent percent of what ICE cars can for 99 percent of people...... they might not be for me.... but they are certainly not useless. I take it you drive more than about 300 miles most days.... because the people who do that are about the only people who would notice any difference in convenience over an ICE car......

Yawn.....Read the first two words.

Hydrogen engines are in development and will, IN MY OPINION, take over from Ev's and all the negativity associated with them.

 

[BPD07]

Yawn.....Read the first two words.

Hydrogen engines are in development and will, IN MY OPINION, take over from Ev's and all the negativity associated with them.

Hydrogen will probably really only be effective for plant, heavy machinery and buses /HGVs that only fuel at depots. The total lack of infrastructure at dispersal point (ie. Your local Shell) and the complexity of fueling (Ok probably more like an LPG fitment) versus Electricity that is there already… and “worse”case hydrogen could fuel a generator to charge an EV. I 5ink the battle is lost… but synthetic fuels at £40 a gallon will be available.