Where is everyone going to charge their electric vehicle?

[TeapotCollection]

On the way to work I saw a car on charge, parked on the road with the cable trailing over the footpath. I’d be worried about someone tripping over it, or someone stealing the cable! But then I thought what are people meant to do?

Hadn’t thought about it before but this just isn’t going to work is it?

I have no objection to electric cars, BTW, but for us they just don"t work at the moment.

If people are happy to leave a £100+ piece of copper out for the local ne'er do wells, then who am I to stop them ?

(Speaking of scrotes, around here they are massive fans of electric cars. Because they are totally silent they are the ideal vehicle to prowl around the streets to try car and front door handles. As local doorcam footage and my own eyes have seen.)

Nothing is scrote proof. The copper alone would make it worth snipping.

Someone in our village charges an electric car across the pavement. They put one of those outdoor cable protector covers over the cable which stops you tripping over it and prevents damage to the cable from bikes/pushchairs/feet.

Plug it up their butt, probably....
😐

Cars already take up way too much street space. Why is it only now bothering people because of a few wires?

Fast chargers are more expensive than petrol. The whole EV idea is a joke.

What we really need is a car that can be filled up in 5 minutes and has a long range, any ideas?

Infrastructure is changing fast when it comes to EVs. We have had one for about 2 years now, so have been much more aware than we were before about presence of charging points etc. There are a LOT more now than there were just 2 years ago, and it seems like a lot more are faster charging.

Whilst I am totally sold on EVs (I changed mine to one 6 months ago, so now we have only EVs in the household), I would be reluctant to do so without a drive (or guaranteed off street parking to charge at home). It costs 2p a mile to run my car if I charge at home (vs the 16p it would cost at today's petrol prices). In the time since we have been driving EVs, we have charged out-of-home less than 10 times in total.

The thing you have to do if you have an EV is think/plan. At no point have we been inconvenienced by having the charge the car - but we have thought about it in advance.
For example...

We drove to Gatwick for our holiday - car wouldn't make it home, but we knew we'd need to get something to eat on the way back from the airport as we were driving over dinner time so we stopped for 30 mins and charged.

We drive to visit friends 2 1/2hrs away - the car would make it there and back, but it would be tight. My parents live on the way, so we park by their house and have a cuppa for 30 mins and charge.

A long weekend away in Devon - the car park at a place we were going to visit anyway had plenty of chargers so we charged whilst we visited (we had plans B&C in place for this in case plan A didn't work out).

And so on - there are so many places now where you can charge, and so many other things you can do whilst you're charging, that if you've given it a tiny bit of thought beforehand then it's fine.

But we NEED that at what cost? (to the environment/our health, not necessarily financial)

I think in the future charging will be much faster and there will be lots more public chargers, so it will be like going to the petrol station, with some on-street facilities where possible also - perhaps only for residents who pay for a parking permit.

We drove to the south of France in the summer in our EV. It was so easy, so many places to charge and half the price it is here!

Why would you think ‘“this just isn’t going to work is it?’
80% of new cars in Norway are now electric. Lots of people live in flats. 10 years ago it was a bit harder to find a charging station on a long journey but after a year or so it was no problem. McDonalds was an early adopter of having chargers at their restaurants along the motorway so people stopped for a coffee and a bite for 15 mins while they charged.
Charging at council and parking in the city was free for the first few years. Lots of private companies started supplying chargers in car parks etc. Including for flats.

Even if they got in our car, it's not going anywhere with the immobiliser.

And this is going to be something that affects the will of people.

There needs to be much more investment into this and there needs to be motivations for people to change.

It's human nature.

Funnily enough that was exactly what my boss said 20 years ago. He also pointed out the gates on his drive.

He last saw his car being driven away on a low loader at 4:00am which had managed so somehow silently lift it over the gates.

The attending police said he was lucky. With that level of determination they would happily have arranged for him to unimmobilise the car for them.

I repeat my previous statement: nothing is scrote proof. And folk would be well advised not to test that with their safety.

As you were.

Does anyone think we might get to a point where the battery can be lifted out of the car and charged up indoors? That would be a game changer for people without driveways.

But people don’t want to add thirty mins onto a 2.5 hour journey though…

The charging points being trialed in my area allow two cars at a time, and tgey are spaced all along the terraced street abd tgey are trialling in in a number of streets. They are also trialling just having chargers in front of shops/pubs / stations etc where obviously you charge and move on.
Apparently they are collecting data to see whats working.

That could happen to any car.

If thieves will go to the trouble of lifting/towing your car away they will go for a £80,000 Range Rover (of which there are plenty round here) or an electric Porsche rather than a £30,000 electric vehicle. It's no easier to steal than any other vehicle and more of a challenge than many.

And actually being a good deal heavier than ICE vehicle, it wouldn't go on just any old tow truck or be so easily lifted.

SallySesame no need for the sarcasm about me ‘finding out’ that people who live in flats have electric cars. I mentioned it in my second post, maybe you should read before trying to make someone look stupid

I just can’t see how there’s going to be enough charging points for everyone

For the record, once I’m retired I won’t have a car so it won’t actually affect me, I really was just wondering

They are nowhere near as expensive as petrol. It costs me £20 to ‘fill up’ my electric car. It would be at least £60 in my old ICE car

We have an EV as our only car. We also don’t have a driveway. There are a handful of lamppost chargers on the street which cost 24p/kWH, so about £20 for 300 miles. They’re slow chargers but will easily fill the battery overnight. That works fine for us.

In answer to the question about how you pay - there’s a QR code on the chargers. It links to a payment page with an Apple Pay button. Takes less than 30 seconds.

Petrol is nasty, highly explosive stuff we have to dig out of the ground, and will eventually run out. Internal combustion engines are so inefficient that, for every £1 you spend on fuel, 60-70p disappears as waste heat and noise. The whole petrol/diesel-engined vehicle idea is a joke.

According to my App I have saved £124 this month alone compared to if I was using petrol. I do charge at home 99% of the time though and use a cheap overnight tarrif.