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?

Many people are assuming that fuel filling stations are going to continue to exist. But it's expensive and labour intensive to comply with relevant safety legislation and maintain a distribution network across the country. Eventually the infrastructure will change over, and the question will be "is there a petrol station anywhere near my house/destination?"

Indeed, but that was due to successive UK governments taking the cheapest, short-term approach. We clung on to steam locomotives until the late 1960s, and the success of the diesel-powered InterCity 125 allowed the can to be kicked down the road for many years. The key London-Edinburgh line wasn't fully electrified until 1991, for example. Other European countries electrified such routes decades earlier.

@deplorabelle I know people will be forced to get an EV or not have a car at all. My nearest EV charger is 11 mins drive away in a retail park. I live in a city.

There are still main train routes that are not electrified.

Things will start to change as more and more people get EVs though. And more people will start to get them because they're cool and, if you have a driveway, they're very convenient. Charge points will start being more common at supermarkets, car parks, workplaces, on the street. I don't think anyone expects those with no off street parking to be early EV adopters but to say that it's a non-starter is short sighted (I know you didn't say that but it's the vibe from some people when it comes to EVs - including my Dad who very rarely drives more than 40 minutes a day and has off street parking and a charger at his office!).

There are efficiencies to be made when there is enough demand and as battery technology improves.

Part of the efficiency is in electricity production, power plants have to keep working so they are still running even when there isn't enough demand to use the lowest amount of electricity that they produce, at night time. There is also a cost to ramping electricity production up and down, it would be more efficient if production could be at more or less the same level all the time. Making a network available that encourages most ev owners to charge at night most of the time will take advantage of excess capacity at night.

The other efficiency is in storage. There used to be a lot of power lost between charging a battery and then using the battery, but as batteries are improving it will make more sense to put excess power into them to be used at peak times. As an example, a car charger could have a large battery contained in it which charges at night and releases at peak hours but can also use direct from the grid at medium usage times.

Automated battery/power management is also improving massively. With the cost of batteries coming down I can see a future where houses are built or retrofitted to have batteries that charge when power is cheap and release when power is expensive. And if houses have batteries anyway, there is more likelihood that people will install some solar panels to take advantage of the battery storage. So there is definitely potential to make better use of the electricity infrastructure that is there before needing to build more infrastructure.

There was also the expectation that road transport would make railways more or less redundant, meaning investment went into roads.

How do we see successive UK governments investing in the charging (and eventually disposal) infrastructure for electric vehicles?

A PP mentioned that 80% of new vehicles sold in Norway are electric. But the Norwegian government has invested heavily in developing a comprehensive charging infrastructure, with an extensive network of charging stations strategically placed in urban areas, along highways, and even in remote regions.

And government incentives and exemptions from import duties and VAT make electric vehicles in Norway more affordable.

Do you envision any UK government making that kind of investment? Or indeed being able to?

They already are outlawed if you are charging a mobility scooter. Funny that

I'm just hoping that by the time I am in the market for a second hand electric car, they are quite good. The first electric car I buy, hasn't run off the production line yet.

If the last ice cars are being sold in 2030, I will be getting a second hand ev in about 2045, so it will probably be 10 years progress at least, based on my car ownership pattern so far..

By the late 1970s it was becoming obvious that they had made the wrong call on railways, and the (Conservative!) government ceased closures and began re-opening routes and electrifying others.

I would hope that as EVs improve, their benefits become more widely understood and they become less expensive to buy, the government would have no choice but to take the same approach as Norway and others.

I know EV cars are coming for all. I do not care about cars being cool, I want something that gets me from A to B. Lots of people do not have a driveway. I have already said I will have to plan for our future car to be charged and realistically that will probably mean a weekly visit to the pub and using their EV in the car park. I order online or use small shops to buy food. And like many I do not have a car park at my workplace. I use free street parking.
I will I said work around it, but it will require planning.

Chinese EVs are cheap. They just don’t sell many in the UK yet as have to invest in all the sales and servicing infrastructure. But the government has said no tariffs so let’s see.

Main train routes like York to Manchester are still not electrified.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_proposed_railway_electrification_routes_in_Great_Britain

So how many housing associations will be installing chargers in their car parks

I work in construction, and am involved with projects including EV charging parks. One of the biggest obstacles at the moment is the lack of infrastructure for electrical distribution. While there are huge proposals in place for major upgrades of the electricity transmission network, that is going to take time. I have two proposals where planning permission has been granted for the EV charging park development, but we have been advised by the network providers that a substation connection will not be available until 2028 - by which time our planning permission will have expired.

JenniferBooth - all of them will. It is part of the Building Standards requirements. In my area, it's currently 25% of the parking spaces, with the infrastructure for all of the other spaces to be installed, without the charger.

The way social housing providers in my local area get round this is by not providing parking spaces at all and claiming everyone will use public transport.

Yes, really.

My point is that people, other than you, will buy them because they are cool/fun/clean/whatever reason. When more people buy them then you get more charging infrastructure. So you will have options other than just the pub when the time comes.

Yes! Ours is Chinese. Change from £22k for a new 7 seat EV.

Chersfrozenface yes, but where a car park is being built, it will have to include EV chargers.

However, we're not currently seeing a requirement for retro fitting in existing developments

@FlowerBlowing I hope so. But I live in a part of the country where our train line from the city to London was fairly recently electrified. We seem to be low priority for infrastructure and pretty much ignored.

Good luck with that plan.
A friend of mine spent 6 hours at a recharge station travelling home from the north to London.
The place was heaving and waits were very long. It was not good.

And you'll get less far in it if you have the heating on.

OMG. So you now have to cross the road or take a few extra steps to get to your house, how ever do you cope?

We never stop at services for half an hour. We just share the driving.

Every lamppost on our street is a charging point.

Where??
I have never even seen a lamp post charger.