Where's everyone going?

[DanZac]

BUT if everyone has an EV just imagine the fights to actually find a charging point. Let alone enough power to service them all.

As always were drifting off the original topic and question. But I'll play along.

Granted it'll take a while for infrastructure to catch up. but we don't all try to fill up our cars with petrol at the same time do we?

When you stop at the motorway services, go to tesco, or the doctors we don't always fill our car up with petrol, Id guess that less than 10% of people that stop at the services also buy fuel, and from what I see at least half the people that stop at petrol stations are buying coffees or shopping and not getting fuel.

likewise not everyone will be trying to charge their car at the same time.

As with your point about multi car families. This thread has shown that the majority of us do few miles, so even I'd you have multiple cars, your not likely to all need to charge them every night at the same time.

If you do 20 Miles a day, and your cars got a 200 mile range, you'll be charging it once a week?

There's always exceptions and high users, and as I've already said, infrastructure has to catch up (when cars first came on the scene you could only buy petrol from the chemist, but we didn't say "this is a shoot idea that will never catch on").

For the majority of low mileage "normal" users, I think your onto a flawed argument.

 

[fizzy]

My big take away from that is that your enjoyment has been lost due to decreased speed limits?

The UK speed limits are broadly in line with the rest of the world, so your unlikely to be able to go much faster in other places? (Max speed in Bhutan is a blanket 50KPH including motorways)

Speed - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

limits_by_country

Likewise you are far more likely to be killed in an accident as speed increases. As a pedestrian its 90% you'll die if your hit by a car at 40mph, but only 2.5% if the cars only doing 20mph.

Whilst I'll agree the reduced motorway limits are frustrating and often without reason, as are many things on our roads, an overall reduction in speed can only be a positive.

How about teaching people not to cross roads wearing full cup headphones without looking?
Cars are safer now than they have ever been for drivers and pedestrians. Automatic braking, ABS, better tyres. Much shorter stopping distances.
And yet speedlimits keep falling.
Lower speed limits are NOT safer. People concentrate so much on their speed they stop looking out for other things.
One street of speed humps costs more than an extra doctor in A+E. Which saves more lives

 

[Robotstar5]

Since becoming "economically inactive" (early retirement) a few years ago I fill my car up every 3 months on average apart from the annual holiday to Cornwall when it has 2 fill ups in a week, I try to get to a few vintage shows, usually up to an hour's travel away so I don't think an EV would suit me at present.
On the other hand Mrs Robo is an ideal candidate for an EV, she does about 10 miles a day to the stables plus a bit of local running around, but:

Me: an EV would be ideal for you
Mrs R: I don't want one
Me: why not?
Mrs R: because I don't want one

 

[cheb]

And with multiple cars and the right infrastructure you've got plenty of stored electricity to run the house at peak rate and recharge at cheap rate.

 

[daleyd]

To the original question - my travel habits are very varied.

I’ve had a few trips up to Newcastle in the last couple of weeks, followed by a few days working from home and a few days with a 50mile each way commute, plus the usual ferrying kids around to various clubs, supermarket shopping etc.

My wife already has an EV - she has a daily commute of around 15-20 miles, plus ferrying round of kids etc as well. we tend to use her car a lot because it’s spacious and just generally “nice” to drive. It’s got a range of around 200 miles and we use it to go to her mums caravan in west wales quite a bit - 160 mile round trip loaded with 2 adults 2 kids and boot full of luggage. Never had any issues, there is a couple of charging points on the caravan park so sometimes give it a quick blast if needed, or if we use it a lot when there. First time was a bit hairy as going uphill towards trawsfynydd the range plummeted and we wouldn’t have enough miles to get home, until we went over the top and we actually got home with stacks to spare due to regen going down hill - probably the only time in nearly 3 years and 30,000 miles that I’ve had a slight “range anxiety”, but that was once and don’t think I’ve even thought about it since.

I have a PHEV and what tends to happen is we plug the wife’s car in every couple of days (probably about 1 and a half times, maybe twice a week) and whenever it isn’t then I plug mine in to make the most of cheap electric.

There’s a couple of guys in work have EV (one an Tesla and one a polestar) and they both said they will be replacing with another if offered on the next swap. One lives in Scotland and our office is in Worthing, he has no real issues with long journeys. I happened to be speaking with him the other day and the car subject came up, he said he was quite happy with it.

 

[DanZac]

How about teaching people not to cross roads wearing full cup headphones without looking?
Cars are safer now than they have ever been for drivers and pedestrians. Automatic braking, ABS, better tyres. Much shorter stopping distances.
And yet speedlimits keep falling.
Lower speed limits are NOT safer. People concentrate so much on their speed they stop looking out for other things.
One street of speed humps costs more than an extra doctor in A+E. Which saves more lives

Unfortunately from what I can see all the evidence appears to contradict your findings.

https://www.pacts.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Lustre-Report-2023-Funded-by-the-RST.pdf

Lower speed limits - Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety

Key asks What we mean by it[1] Lowering legally-allowed maximum speed limits using speed limit signage to provide safe mobility for all road users. Lower speed limits are most effective when supported with traffic calming measures and/or enforcement to increase compliance with the legal limit...

www.roadsafetyngos.org

Lower Speed Means Fewer Road Deaths

A new report by the International Transport Forum confirms that lower speeds make roads safer.The study examined how the road safety performance in ten countries changed after they changed speed limits or introduced automatic speed cameras on a large scale.All the cases indicated a strong...

www.itf-oecd.org

 

[ukracer]

As always were drifting off the original topic and question. But I'll play along.

Granted it'll take a while for infrastructure to catch up. but we don't all try to fill up our cars with petrol at the same time do we?

When you stop at the motorway services, go to tesco, or the doctors we don't always fill our car up with petrol, Id guess that less than 10% of people that stop at the services also buy fuel, and from what I see at least half the people that stop at petrol stations are buying coffees or shopping and not getting fuel.

likewise not everyone will be trying to charge their car at the same time.

As with your point about multi car families. This thread has shown that the majority of us do few miles, so even I'd you have multiple cars, your not likely to all need to charge them every night at the same time.

If you do 20 Miles a day, and your cars got a 200 mile range, you'll be charging it once a week?

There's always exceptions and high users, and as I've already said, infrastructure has to catch up (when cars first came on the scene you could only buy petrol from the chemist, but we didn't say "this is a shoot idea that will never catch on").

For the majority of low mileage "normal" users, I think your onto a flawed argument.

Actually you miss the point. We don't all fill up at services because it's expensive. We actually fill up less than we would charge for a couple of reasons. A full tank is 3 times the range of a standard EV and if we get home with a low tank, we simply fill up on the way to where we are going next day.
Charging requires planning.

All of this is sitting next to the closures of car plants as they can't sell enough and are being penalised because customers don't actually want EV's.

One thing we have not seen mentioned is young drivers (most won't have an EV yet) are likely to loose control more as they are like scalded cats from a standing charge.

 

[ukracer]

And with multiple cars and the right infrastructure you've got plenty of stored electricity to run the house at peak rate and recharge at cheap rate.

MMMMmmmm not if the cars are not at home.

 

[daleyd]

Actually you miss the point. We don't all fill up at services because it's expensive. We actually fill up less than we would charge for a couple of reasons. A full tank is 3 times the range of a standard EV and if we get home with a low tank, we simply fill up on the way to where we are going next day.
Charging requires planning.

All of this is sitting next to the closures of car plants as they can't sell enough and are being penalised because customers don't actually want EV's.

One thing we have not seen mentioned is young drivers (most won't have an EV yet) are likely to loose control more as they are like scalded cats from a standing charge.

But to counter that wouldn’t most people also be charging from home? Why would anyone use an expensive motorway service charge when you could do so for much less?

Eg my colleague when away from home, if he has to stop and charge he’ll put enough to get him back (plus a bit extra) and that’s it. When he gets home he’ll plug in and wake up to a full car in the morning.

 

[ukracer]

Unfortunately from what I can see all the evidence appears to contradict your findings.

https://www.pacts.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Lustre-Report-2023-Funded-by-the-RST.pdf

Lower speed limits - Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety

Key asks What we mean by it[1] Lowering legally-allowed maximum speed limits using speed limit signage to provide safe mobility for all road users. Lower speed limits are most effective when supported with traffic calming measures and/or enforcement to increase compliance with the legal limit...

www.roadsafetyngos.org

Lower Speed Means Fewer Road Deaths

A new report by the International Transport Forum confirms that lower speeds make roads safer.The study examined how the road safety performance in ten countries changed after they changed speed limits or introduced automatic speed cameras on a large scale.All the cases indicated a strong...

www.itf-oecd.org

Sadly that relies on you trusting the department who provides those figures.
It's been proved those in positions of power lie and lie and keep lying when caught out.
Especially when it's in their interests to lower speed limits to stupid levels.
Watch the road not the speedo THAT saves more lives.

 

[Onoff]

So a few years down the line.....

We're all driving EVs and heating our houses via electric.

Anyone considered the vulnerability fragility of offshore wind farms and their undersea cabling, ditto massed PV panel sites etc. Or their effect on national defence?

Eggs in one basket?

Insulate the hell out of your house and burn a pallet I say!

 

[jmp49]

On the continent the distances you tend to travel are larger once you get away from metro area living, but unless its near a tourist trap in peak season, its much better flowing and emptier roads.

We (me and wife) have a ev, its a little Seat Mii over 2 year old with 30,000km on the clock currently. Its very range limited, 150km in winter with the extra load of the demisters etc and it has heated seats to save on cabin heating but the battery chemistry changes with cold temperature, so it can JUST make it to the local big city where the big shops are and back in winter. We've never charged it in a service, becaue the price is eye watering for the electricity. Municipal chargers are hit and miss if they are going to work and if you have the correct loyalty card for that region too. The only hope if you run low thats guaranteed is to find a lidl's or carrefore supermarket or somewhere else that have courtesy chargers to top it off enough to make it back to base. Its fantastic in that you can set it to demist and be ready to go at a certain time, and you dont have to warm it up like a ic engine, and small trips dont ruin it. We have solar panels to help offset the running costs of home charging too and effectively use it as a big current sink when we're generating a lot.

Wifey also has a diesel clio iv for longer trips that the odo is on 180k after 11 years of ownership from near new, and I have a ancient renault master mk1 for bigger stuff. I probably put less than 5k a year on the master but it was out yesterday attempting to collect a geka style punching machine I bought, I say attempting becaue I arrived and it was way beyond the lift capacity of the mounts for my little bed crane so a repeat attempt will be made sat with more appropriate lifting equipments... Add to that a motorhome, a motley collection of landrovers, motorbikes etc. I like to travel too.
Daughter has just passed test and I'm painting her 2007 207 petrol 1.4, she'll use it to go to uni next year and going shopping with her mates (because then I dont have to worry about her damaging the 2 yo EV...)

Where do we go? dunno, just live too far out in the sticks to suit people's eliminate private vehicle ownership agenda's. Its all very good suggesting alternatives, but these are mostly from people tucked away in some population center with good access to transport. I cant even get dial a pizza out here. The few times I've tried to take the train its been a complete disaster, and same for ride sharing like blah blah car, half the time the drivers cancel the trip while your stood in the pickup area.

 

[ukracer]

But to counter that wouldn’t most people also be charging from home? Why would anyone use an expensive motorway service charge when you could do so for much less?

I agree in a perfect world This could happen. But motorways are different as you don't have much choice. That said many people , especially on expenses just fill up anywhere.
When doing a splash and dash it takes 5 mins max to put fuel in and pay and you could get a 100 cars fueled and away while 100 EV's were driving round the car park waiting for a charging point.

Eg my colleague when away from home, if he has to stop and charge he’ll put enough to get him back (plus a bit extra) and that’s it. When he gets home he’ll plug in and wake up to a full car in the morning.

Yep he will plug in. But not if his wife and kids are charging as well. In a perfect world it all sounds simple. And yes given the current amount of EV on the road it's fairly easily to plan but double or even treble the amount and we are heading for chaos.

 

[DanZac]

Sadly that relies on you trusting the department who provides those figures.
It's been proved those in positions of power lie and lie and keep lying when caught out.
Especially when it's in their interests to lower speed limits to stupid levels.
Watch the road not the speedo THAT saves more lives.

I'll await your evidence to suggest that increased speeds are safer. If you can post a few links for me to have a look at then I'm sure I'll be convinced in short order.

 

[ukracer]

On the continent the distances you tend to travel are larger once you get away from metro area living, but unless its near a tourist trap in peak season, its much better flowing and emptier roads.

We (me and wife) have a ev, its a little Seat Mii over 2 year old with 30,000km on the clock currently. Its very range limited, 150km in winter with the extra load of the demisters etc and it has heated seats to save on cabin heating but the battery chemistry changes with cold temperature, so it can JUST make it to the local big city where the big shops are and back in winter. We've never charged it in a service, becaue the price is eye watering for the electricity. Municipal chargers are hit and miss if they are going to work and if you have the correct loyalty card for that region too. The only hope if you run low thats guaranteed is to find a lidl's or carrefore supermarket or somewhere else that have courtesy chargers to top it off enough to make it back to base. Its fantastic in that you can set it to demist and be ready to go at a certain time, and you dont have to warm it up like a ic engine, and small trips dont ruin it. We have solar panels to help offset the running costs of home charging too and effectively use it as a big current sink when we're generating a lot.

Wifey also has a diesel clio iv for longer trips that the odo is on 180k after 11 years of ownership from near new, and I have a ancient renault master mk1 for bigger stuff. I probably put less than 5k a year on the master but it was out yesterday attempting to collect a geka style punching machine I bought, I say attempting becaue I arrived and it was way beyond the lift capacity of the mounts for my little bed crane so a repeat attempt will be made sat with more appropriate lifting equipments... Add to that a motorhome, a motley collection of landrovers, motorbikes etc. I like to travel too.
Daughter has just passed test and I'm painting her 2007 207 petrol 1.4, she'll use it to go to uni next year and going shopping with her mates (because then I dont have to worry about her damaging the 2 yo EV...)

Where do we go? dunno, just live too far out in the sticks to suit people's eliminate private vehicle ownership agenda's. Its all very good suggesting alternatives, but these are mostly from people tucked away in some population center with good access to transport. I cant even get dial a pizza out here. The few times I've tried to take the train its been a complete disaster, and same for ride sharing like blah blah car, half the time the drivers cancel the trip while your stood in the pickup area.

I think the key is EV will work for some people largely because there are so few around and they fit the lifestyle etc.

One example was my son was driving in an unknown area and he put the Satnav on. The range dropped by 25 miles......wow.

 

[ukracer]

I'll await your evidence to suggest that increased speeds are safer. If you can post a few links for me to have a look at then I'm sure I'll be convinced in short order.

I don't really need to.provide evidence. If we keep going in the direction you want we will either have a man with a red flag walking in front or even go back to horses.

But that aside where did I say increased speeds were safer? I did however say looking at the road rather than the speedo was safer.

 

[daleyd]

I agree in a perfect world This could happen. But motorways are different as you don't have much choice. That said many people , especially on expenses just fill up anywhere.
When doing a splash and dash it takes 5 mins max to put fuel in and pay and you could get a 100 cars fueled and away while 100 EV's were driving round the car park waiting for a charging point.

Yep he will plug in. But not if his wife and kids are charging as well. In a perfect world it all sounds simple. And yes given the current amount of EV on the road it's fairly easily to plan but double or even treble the amount and we are heading for chaos.

But again, people currently go on motorway journeys and fill up at the most convenient place because they have to. For example if I was setting off quite often I’d have 1/4 a tank or less, but no matter as I’ll just fill up wherever when I got low. In an EV, for people with home charging you pretty much always leave the house with a full tank.

So there were many times when I would be filling up at a motorway services just because I had to. There’s equally going to be many times, if I had an ev, where I wouldn’t even need to visit those services I’d be leaving home already full.

Petrol/diesel cars have to go somewhere to fuel. An ev can be refilled at other places.

Quite a few customer sites I go to have ev chargers in their car parks. Eg the site I mentioned in Newcastle earlier - last week there at least half the chargers empty. I could have easily drove up, stuck my imaginary ev on charge there while I was in work, and drove home without even going near a service station.

That’s not an isolated customer, I’ve been to quite a few like that.

So will it be different? Yes. Is it going to be impossible? I don’t think so.

 

[jmp49]

I think the key is EV will work for some people largely because there are so few around and they fit the lifestyle etc.

One example was my son was driving in an unknown area and he put the Satnav on. The range dropped by 25 miles......wow.

I agree completely with that, we have the EV for short trips when its profile suits it, and diesel/petrol cars for everything else. And there's a art to getting enough range out of the EV, but it is what it is.
If we spent a huge sum on say a Tesla with a range extended battery, then things would be different. But I dont fancy paying more than my house cost for a car covered with gadgets and hype.

 

[DanZac]

Actually you miss the point. We don't all fill up at services because it's expensive. We actually fill up less than we would charge for a couple of reasons. A full tank is 3 times the range of a standard EV and if we get home with a low tank, we simply fill up on the way to where we are going next day.
Charging requires planning.

Yep he will plug in. But not if his wife and kids are charging as well. In a perfect world it all sounds simple. And yes given the current amount of EV on the road it's fairly easily to plan but double or even treble the amount and we are heading for chaos.

I originally asked the question of where are we all going? The majority of replies have suggested not very far at all in general, which suggests that even in a multi car household your not all likely to need to charge your car at the same time, just as you don't all fill it up with petrol every day, so I don't think this argument stacks up.

Likewise as it becomes clear to manufacturers that one of the stoppers to them meeting their targets is lack of infrastructure, they will bring the power of their groups to driving infrastructure forward. The big names won't just sit by and watch profits fall due to a lack of chargers.

And back to my original question. I might have missed it but I don't think you've shared with us your average sort of journey distance yet. Just told us why things are impossible and don't work, which wasn't the question?

 

[jmp49]

But again, people currently go on motorway journeys and fill up at the most convenient place because they have to. For example if I was setting off quite often I’d have 1/4 a tank or less, but no matter as I’ll just fill up wherever when I got low. In an EV, for people with home charging you pretty much always leave the house with a full tank.

So there were many times when I would be filling up at a motorway services just because I had to. There’s equally going to be many times, if I had an ev, where I wouldn’t even need to visit those services I’d be leaving home already full.

Petrol/diesel cars have to go somewhere to fuel. An ev can be refilled at other places.

Quite a few customer sites I go to have ev chargers in their car parks. Eg the site I mentioned in Newcastle earlier - last week there at least half the chargers empty. I could have easily drove up, stuck my imaginary ev on charge there while I was in work, and drove home without even going near a service station.

That’s not an isolated customer, I’ve been to quite a few like that.

So will it be different? Yes. Is it going to be impossible? I don’t think so.

How many times have you been at a EV charging point, and had the car refuse to negotiate a charge level with the point? because our Mii has had this lots of times.
The only SURE way to get home on a journey is to plan to do it one charge, or have a known reliable place to charge in midway and then hope their charging spots are not filled with others charging.
I couldnt have the EV as a only vehicle...