The EV fact thread

[Bellow]

The Chinese auto manufacturers are decimating the legacy brands and there are going to be some big casualties amongst them in the next few years.

Lets see how you fare making the same point as I (and at least one other) have been making for some time. Thus far, it seems that no one even cares that large scale unemployment (with a likely side order of social unrest) is heading the West's way so long as the air in cities is a smidgen cleaner than before. Or that Western foreign policy will be straitjacketed by dependence on China for our basic logistical functioning.

 

[ChipChop]

Why should dynamic pricing be an inflationary pressure? Costs increase if you choose only to consume at peak times, costs go down if you choose only to consume at off peak times, and most people do a bit of both.

It’s not a new concept, supply & demand. Prices for potatoes go down when there have been bumper crops, and go up when crops are ruined. A greengrocer on the market puts up the price of sprouts in December, and reduces them in January.

Having the option reduce costs for those who need to - or can - must be a positive surely? If that also allows people to consume energy when there is least environment impact that that must also be a good thing, or at least I believe it is.

When does the unseen mega user of power, AI, choose to consume? At random? AI acts without human intervention so it creates its own power requirements. Its own demand peaks and troughs. The environmental impact of energy consumption applies only to humans not data centers it appears.

 

[poormansporsche]

It's a funny old world.

Imagine the scenario..........

You can have half price petrol if you fill up in the middle of the night but if you do we are going to charge you more to watch your 97 inch telly during the day .............

 

[markjay]

Consumers are instructed to be frugal (efficient) with their energy use while AI power use is already off the charts and rising exponentially.

True, but what is the point being made here?

You appead to be comparing two unrelated electric consumers.

You could equally argue that it makes no sense to buy a frugal ICE car with good economy when a container ship sailing from Shanghai to Tilbury burns in one journey more oil than all the cars you'll own in your lifetime put together.

Comparing home electricity consumption to industrial electricity consumption is faux logic and serves no purpose.

 

[markjay]

...The Chinese auto manufacturers are decimating the legacy brands and there are going to be some big casualties amongst them in the next few years.

Elon Musk knows that... which is why he is so keen of having good commercial relationships with China.

The Japanese time bomb was diffused in the eighties by agreements that saw Japanese cars being assembled in Europe and the US (sometimes under local brand names), and Japanese components fitted in domestic cars.

I wonder what will happen with China? It should be in China's interest to come to some agreement with the West. If they just flood the West with cheap EVs subsidised by the Chinese government via the CDB, it will 'end in tears' with the US and EU and UK putting up high tariffs on Chinese EVs to protect domestic jobs.

In the meantime, Korean brands are establishing themselves as the high-quality Far Eastern alternative to the Chinese.

 

[Steveml63]

Elon Musk knows that... which is why he is so keen of having good commercial relationships with China.

The Japanese time bomb was diffused in the eighties by agreements that saw Japanese cars being assembled in Europe and the US (sometimes under local brand names), and Japanese components fitted in domestic cars.

I wonder what will happen with China? It should be in China's interest to come to some agreement with the West. If they just flood the West with cheap EVs subsidised by the Chinese government via the CDB, it will 'end in tears' with the US and EU and UK putting up high tariffs on Chinese EVs to protect domestic jobs.

In the meantime, Korean brands are establishing themselves as the high-quality Far Eastern alternative to the Chinese.

Scarily, I hear that Chinese manufacturers are in negotiations with the likes of VW to buy European factories from them!
This would see Chinese cars manufactured in Europe - bypassing import tariffs and also reducing the European workforce.
Car manufacture in Germany is such a hot potato politically - the labour costs are through the roof and productivity rates are much lower than equivalent Chinese workers & factories.

 

[markjay]

Lets see how you fare making the same point as I (and at least one other) have been making for some time. Thus far, it seems that no one even cares that large scale unemployment (with a likely side order of social unrest) is heading the West's way so long as the air in cities is a smidgen cleaner than before. Or that Western foreign policy will be straitjacketed by dependence on China for our basic logistical functioning.

I think that these are two separate issues.

The move to EVs for cleaner air in urban areas isn't necessarily a pro-China step that brings about unemployment.

If there were no EVs, it's only a question of time before China started exporting cheap ICE cars to flood the West. Just like the Japanese did in the seventies and eighties.

The Chinese saw the future and simply skipped the ICE phase altogether, and jumped straight into making EVs. They are also easier and cheaper to make because they are less complex than traditional ICE cars.

The dilemma of the West remains the same, ICE or EVs. Put up tariffs and protect domestic jobs, or let the population enjoy cheap cars (and other consumer goods).

But to link clean air with unemployment is a fallacy - there's nothing stopping Western government from legislating in favour of local domestic EV production, just as they can do for ICE cars and other consumer goods if the need arises.

This is not an ICE vs EV issue, this is simply to do with our trade relationship with China.

 

[markjay]

...Car manufacture in Germany is such a hot potato politically - the labour costs are through the roof and productivity rates are much lower than equivalent Chinese workers & factories.

It's even worse in the States.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

What happens to the EV's current USP, cheap off peak overnight charging, in a future where 80% of new car registrations are EV's? How long until the current off peak becomes a new peak driven by those 1.5+ million new EV registrations a year?

You fail to understand how small EV energy consumption can be in the context of total consumption.

The United Kingdom’s electricity use has been declining since peaking at 357 terawatt-hours in 2005. In 2023, the UK's electricity consumption fell to its lowest level this century, at 266 terawatt-hours.

Think about your own and your business’ use of energy. Peak usage is all about the daytime. Your 25 miles of driving per day is peanuts (call it a quid) in the grand plan of things

 

[ChipChop]

You fail to understand how small EV energy consumption can be in the context of total consumption.

How many acres of solar panels does it take to supply an EV charging station with 10MW capacity?

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

How many acres of solar panels does it take to supply an EV charging station with 10MW capacity?

I’m no expert but I’m pretty sure Solar panels don’t work at night. Why do you think they do?

Why would I need 10MW of power to charge a BMW I3 on my driveway that’s doing just 25 miles a day?

 

[markjay]

When does the unseen mega user of power, AI, choose to consume? At random? AI acts without human intervention so it creates its own power requirements. Its own demand peaks and troughs. The environmental impact of energy consumption applies only to humans not data centers it appears.

Again, you are compounding two issues.

The power consumption of data centres is indeed massive, but this has been the case for the past 10 years, and no one is suggesting to shut them down to save electricity, because they run (among other things) all the online services that we are using daily (including this forum...) as well as other essential services from government through transport to hospitals etc.

AI will need even more power, granted. But it's a layman view to suggest that more power consumption is bad. If AI is more efficient, then it will actually use less power to process a task than conventional computers do.

For example, it has been reported that a single ChatGPT answer takes (on average) as much power as ten Google searches. The question to be asked is how many Google searches are needed to obtain the full information provided by AI in a single answer?

I think that you can see that as AI improves, it will become more efficient than conventional computers systems and will require less energy per task.

The last bit is important. What will likely happen is that more and more tasks will be handed over to AI, and so in spite of AI being more frugal pet task, it will still need more power overall due to the increase in the number of tasks.

Your statement is akin to saying that cars today are less frugal than they once were, because the overall usage of fuel nationwide has increased over the past 50 years - the obvious answer is that cars have become more frugal - but we are simply drivings more miles annually than we did 50 years ago.

Of course, you could argue against more computerisation in general, and that's a separate discussion. But if we are to make more use of computers, then AI will be the most energy-efficient way of doing it.

 

[ALFAitalia]

I'm pretty sure AI could figure out how to make itself lots more efficient on power if someone asked it to!!!!

 

[markjay]

How many acres of solar panels does it take to supply an EV charging station with 10MW capacity?

I think that wind turbine, not solar, is the main source of renewable energy in the UK?

But yes, it would be interesting to know. I've seen quite a few chargers both in the UK and in France that had a notice that said that the electricity comes from 100% renewable sources.

 

[ChipChop]

I’m no expert but I’m pretty sure Solar panels don’t work at night. Why do you think they do?

A connection to the grid solves your perceived issue. 74 acres btw is the answer. The size of around 74 football pitches.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

I think that wind turbine, not solar, is the main source of renewable energy in the UK?

But yes, it would be interesting to know. I've seen quite a few chargers both in the UK and in France that had a notice that said that the electricity comes from 100% renewable sources.

Beware the operator BS in claiming that electricity is 100% green

It is because they’re taking it instead of someone else

 

[ChipChop]

I think that wind turbine, not solar, is the main source of renewable energy in the UK?

But yes, it would be interesting to know. I've seen quite a few chargers both in the UK and in France that had a notice that said that the electricity comes from 100% renewable sources.

@BTB 500 shared this link for info on all 3100+ of the UK's power plants earlier in the thread.

Open Infrastructure Map

List of power plants in the United Kingdom from OpenStreetMap

openinframap.org

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

A connection to the grid solves your perceived issue. 74 acres btw is the answer. The size of around 74 football pitches.

What perceived issue?

I’m not running the biggest EV charging site in the UK, which can offer 10MW - that being enough to power 400 vehicles continuously.

I’d like to own more cars and have a bigger driveway, but not that many cars, nor that big a driveway

 

[ChipChop]

What perceived issue?

I’m not running the biggest EV charging site in the UK, which can offer 10MW - that being enough to power 400 vehicles continuously.

I’d like to own more cars and have a bigger driveway, but not that many cars, nor that big a driveway

40 chargers. 40 stalls all delivering 250 kW (Tesla V3 & V4 Superchargers) would require a 10 million watt supply from the grid.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

40 chargers. 40 stalls all delivering 250 kW (Tesla V3 & V4 Superchargers) would require a 10 million watt supply from the grid.

Yes, you don’t understand how chargers work, this is clear. Why would I, or anyone else, have a stream of vehicles charging at top speed?

“If” I bought a couple of EVs to do my 12,000 miles a year, I could comfortably keep them topped up on a three pin plug, apart from maybe a dozen times when I’d need a short, slow top up while away from home.

As you don’t know what a 10MW high volume site looks like, here’s the detail of the 10MW site in Oxford, the biggest in Europe, which has the capacity to charge up to 400 vehicles, using 10MW “if” it was ever needed.

Europe’s most powerful EV charging hub officially launched as part of Energy Superhub Oxford - EDF Renewables

www.edf-re.uk