Bye bye ecotricity?

[jaapv]

The problem being - I live in a country where the ChaDeMo chargers have been run on a commercial basis from the beginning, and with a considerably higher (PH)EV density than the UK- that these charging stations will be lucky to be used a few times a day, creating a spiral of ever increasing price to cover the cost resulting in an ever lower number of users. Over here the business model does not appear to be working - at all.
On the other hand - "normal" roadside charging does appear to be viable, with the charging stations in fairly regular use - but these are in places that coincide with frequently used parking spots, may have perks like free parking, and are priced, if not cheaply, at least within a reasonable scale.

 

[jaapv]

I am probably the eco warriors anti-christ as I would scrap all renewables and build lots of nuclear power stations

Intelligent Greens who understand the science support nuclear power, as the only means of generating reliable zero-carbon base load electricity (unless you're a country blessed with extensive hydro-electric capacity).

A marked lack of intelligent greens - and various other colours- in Germany, I notice.

 

[maby]

There are some serious technical problems with the EV business model - period! It really is impossible to see how anyone can come up with a commercially viable model for rapid chargers for PHEVs - it is simply not possible to get electricity into us fast enough to come up with a pricing structure that is in any way competitive with petrol and, simultaneously, makes it commercially viable to operate the network. Slower chargers are also a problem - ok, they are cheaper to install, but if they take several hours to charge us up, it is still very difficult to come up with an attractive pricing model - a full charge is only worth a couple of pounds of petrol which constrains the price we will pay for a session to the point where the revenue per charger is likely to average less than £10 per day - again simply not worth the investment from a commercial company.

Pure EVs can take on enough power to make a commercial pricing structure more viable - and they have no choice if they are to travel far from home. But if it takes 20 minutes or more to take on a charge, the implications for the infrastructure of a significant increase in EV ownership are significant. A well organised petrol station forecourt can turn around better than one car every five minutes per pump. If we all went EV, we would have to increase the amount of real estate devoted to fuelling by a factor of three or four - and that assumes that drivers are going to be willing to stop for 20 minutes or more instead of the current four or five.

 

[jaapv]

With present-day technology you are certainly right. However, it won't be this way for very long.
A concept like TankTwo String Cells could solve the problems you mention, and I am sure that there are more and even more intelligent solutions in the pipeline.
Induction charging from a solar-energy road surface might be another future development. I know there are serious plans in that direction.

 

[maby]

With present-day technology you are certainly right. However, it won't be this way for very long.
A concept like TankTwo String Cells could solve the problems you mention, and I am sure that there are more and even more intelligent solutions in the pipeline.
Induction charging from a solar-energy road surface might be another future development. I know there are serious plans in that direction.

Agreed - and new battery technology seems likely to be much more attractive than inductive charging - for the latter to work, we would need it installed in a significant fraction of the road infrastructure which would be both very costly and very disruptive.

 

[user 816]

Just getting my 2nd -still free- rapid charge of the day from an Ecotricity funded by the EU according to the sticker charger...

Perhaps this the flaw in Maby's calculation in that its more viable if someone funds the installation rather than the supplier.. so we need government funding to move forward.

How do Chargemaster survive on 10p a kW and 7.95a month subscription...

oh thats me @80% ...moving on..

 

[maby]

Just getting my 2nd -still free- rapid charge of the day from an Ecotricity funded by the EU according to the sticker charger...

Perhaps this the flaw in Maby's calculation in that its more viable if someone funds the installation rather than the supplier.. so we need government funding to move forward.

How do Chargemaster survive on 10p a kW and 7.95a month subscription...

oh thats me @80% ...moving on..

Well, clearly the government could fund it and make it attractive if they chose to, but I think it would be a difficult political sell. Where are they going to get the money from? There is a lot of competition for public funding and sinking many millions of pounds into a scheme that benefits guacamole socialist greens is not going to go down well with people complaining about underfunding of the NHS, for example - EVs are still very much a niche market popular with company car drivers and eco-nuts. Also, a successful rollout on the kind of price point we are looking for here would simply be counterproductive for government finances - they get a whole lot of their income from fuel duty, you know! One could also foresee all sorts of legal challenges from the petroleum producers - how can the government defend major public subsidy for one form of fuelling and not the other?

As I understand it, Chargemaster is primarily slower chargers, aren't they? I believe that they got a lot of government support for their current infrastructure and have not significantly extended it since. The technology is a lot more basic than ChaDeMo and probably more reliable and, once it's been installed, 10p per kWh probably is profitable for them - but I don't see much evidence of them significantly extending and enhancing their network, do you?

 

[K9pvc]

Apparently although The charge was originally set to be £5 for a 20min charge,
It now going to be set at £6 for a 30 minute charge session, Due to an outcry from angry drivers, the length of charge on offer was tweaked, along with the price. Still no good for the majority of us guys though

 

[user 816]

Just getting my 2nd -still free- rapid charge of the day from an Ecotricity funded by the EU according to the sticker charger...

Perhaps this the flaw in Maby's calculation in that its more viable if someone funds the installation rather than the supplier.. so we need government funding to move forward.

How do Chargemaster survive on 10p a kW and 7.95a month subscription...

oh thats me @80% ...moving on..

Well, clearly the government could fund it and make it attractive if they chose to, but I think it would be a difficult political sell. Where are they going to get the money from? There is a lot of competition for public funding and sinking many millions of pounds into a scheme that benefits guacamole socialist greens is not going to go down well with people complaining about underfunding of the NHS, for example - EVs are still very much a niche market popular with company car drivers and eco-nuts. Also, a successful rollout on the kind of price point we are looking for here would simply be counterproductive for government finances - they get a whole lot of their income from fuel duty, you know! One could also foresee all sorts of legal challenges from the petroleum producers - how can the government defend major public subsidy for one form of fuelling and not the other?

As I understand it, Chargemaster is primarily slower chargers, aren't they? I believe that they got a lot of government support for their current infrastructure and have not significantly extended it since. The technology is a lot more basic than ChaDeMo and probably more reliable and, once it's been installed, 10p per kWh probably is profitable for them - but I don't see much evidence of them significantly extending and enhancing their network, do you?

Well no one sued the EU for funding Ecotricity but EU money is taxpayers money as we are a net contributor so we funded a private company to build a near monopoly network and now I believe they will profit from it nicely.. good old EU!

More seriously, I thought the whole EV purchase subsidy thing was to encourage lower emissions and help towards government targets, surely there must be capital for building a network its probably only a few 10's of millions to do it on an pretty extensive scale. As long as the energy supplied is at cost (plus maintenance overheads) it can't really be claimed to be undercutting and disadvantaging other fuels unfairly.

Its a fair point about Chargemaster, they do have some rapids, but not many, lucky old residents of Milton Keynes! but many of their slow chargers can't see much use where they are located. If a PHEV takes 5 hours at 2kW then its still 1.5 hours on a 7kW, long enough to spoil my day!

Tesla have half a dozen superchargers up the road from me, only ever a couple in use. Perhaps they should start a price war!

 

[user 816]

Apparently although The charge was originally set to be £5 for a 20min charge,
It now going to be set at £6 for a 30 minute charge session, Due to an outcry from angry drivers, the length of charge on offer was tweaked, along with the price. Still no good for the majority of us guys though

Well mine takes 21 minutes to charge so that is even more useless as 9 minutes of charging I can't use for yet more money, they really don't like us do they?

 

[Goodshot]

With present-day technology you are certainly right. However, it won't be this way for very long.
A concept like TankTwo String Cells could solve the problems you mention, and I am sure that there are more and even more intelligent solutions in the pipeline.
Induction charging from a solar-energy road surface might be another future development. I know there are serious plans in that direction.

Agreed - and new battery technology seems likely to be much more attractive than inductive charging - for the latter to work, we would need it installed in a significant fraction of the road infrastructure which would be both very costly and very disruptive.

Sure a BMW 3i salesman just told me that they have near doubled the range from their battery system by some relatively simple either battery/software update, so the new 3i's coming out have a well extended range at not great cost.

 

[user 816]

Utter insanity! - for the benefit of doubt I ran a price comparison compared to my current provider on last years usage figures if I switched dual fuel.

£840 a year more expensive, absolutely shocking! :shock: :shock: :shock:

As a charge uses about 80p of electricity (at sensible prices) I would have to do 1050 rapid charges a year just to break even, in other words spend 350 hours sat at a motorway services.

Green or not, you have to be seriously overpaid if you can afford to sign up with them.

 

[Kesto]

Ecotricity website now states £6 for 30 mins

 

[SimHo]

Are we at the point where using the charge button is a cheaper way of charging on long trips?

 

[Kesto]

Sort off. PHEV is a hybrid so series drive is the cheapest . On long drives I have noticed after drive battery is flat the ICE is in paralel mode and trickle chargers it , you get 1-2 miles charge and then ICE is of for the same distance. My suggestion is to charge at 65 to 70mph for about 40 min on the run. Not cheaper way to run but cheaper than ecotricity.But will compete well with a 2.5 or 3 litre diesel.

 

[anko]

Sort off. PHEV is a hybrid so series drive is the cheapest.

Series hybrid usually take place at a lower speed than parallel hybrid drive and slower is cheaper than faster. So, perhaps. But parallel hybrid must be way more efficient than series hybrid, as it skips two power conversion steps. In the end, 40 MPH in parallel mode is likely to be cheaper than 35 MPH in series mode.

On long drives I have noticed after drive battery is flat the ICE is in paralel mode and trickle chargers it , you get 1-2 miles charge and then ICE is of for the same distance.

What is your definition of "trickle"?

My suggestion is to charge at 65 to 70mph for about 40 min on the run.

Why?

 

[jaapv]

On long drives I have noticed after drive battery is flat the ICE is in paralel mode and trickle chargers it , you get 1-2 miles charge and then ICE is of for the same distance.

What is your definition of "trickle"?

I guess he means the automatic "Save" function at the lowest level

 

[jaapv]

Are we at the point where using the charge button is a cheaper way of charging on long trips?

Probably - but it is likely even cheaper to keep it at 40-50% by Save.

 

[anko]

On long drives I have noticed after drive battery is flat the ICE is in paralel mode and trickle chargers it , you get 1-2 miles charge and then ICE is of for the same distance.

What is your definition of "trickle"?

I guess he means the automatic "Save" function at the lowest level

He might. But you can hardly call that "trickle" charging ....

 

[CJ1045]

Unlike the BREXIT vote this one is a complete no-brainer. No more fast charging with Ecotricity.

CJ