Electric cars - so worried

[Northernlurker]

I keep worrying about being forced to buy an electric car when I change my car in a few years.
Reason being the long journeys and (mostly) self catering we love. In Scotland.
We need a range around 50% higher than the current max. It's no good saying charge it on the way if there are no fast chargers. Been looking at details today, even the fastest chargers need just over 30 minutes. Thousands of people drive UJ the Highlands and Islands annually. There won't be anything like enough chargers to cover that. We can charge overnight using an ordinary plug but it's not going to hit the max. Feel like we will spend the whole time worrying about finding a free charger in the middle of nowhere.
How is this ever going to work? It takes two Minutes to fill up a tank with petrol, electric is going to take hours!

Hydrogen will be a game changer. Five years, tops.

So if we take those statistics: 72% of car owners have off road parking. Almost all of those could have electric charging points put in - communal ones for flats, it will become essential for rented houses etc. You can hum and hah and said well they don't at the moment but houses didn't have telephones or electricity sockets - change happens and it happens faster when it is necessitated.

So then we have the 28% who have a car but don't have off road parking. The solution to this will be piecemeal. A good chunk of those people will be able to charge at work (necessity being the mother of invention again - if this is going to an issue putting charging points at workplaces like supermarkets etc will be incentivised. Another chunk may be able to arrange off road parking. Another chunk will use on road chargers built or built into lampposts. Most people who own a car, have on road parking and can't park at their work won't be driving loads and loads of miles a day so are likely to only need to charge once a week, especially as battery sizes increase. They are still likely to be able to top up in public car parks, at the supermarket or when visiting anywhere they go by car which isn't work.

That won't fix everyone's problems but it will mean that by e.g. 2040 almost everyone will be fine. Battery ranges have extended so much in the last ten years that in another 20 they might be quite different again. And if they aren't the solution they can keep running a second hand ICE car.

This problem doesn't have to be solved only by a single solution for that 28% - piecemeal is fine and frankly inevitable.

@MrsSkylerWhite

Hydrogen will be a game changer. Five years, tops.

Except most hydrogen at the moment is produced from methane. Which makes carbon dioxide as a waste product.

So we need to use electrolysis to produce hydrogen.
But electrolysis needs electricity.
So we need green solutions to produce electricity to ensure we can use electrolysis to produce hydrogen.

Electric isn't the future and never will be , the upgrades to infrastructure, charging points for houses without drives ect won't happe

^

Not in the UK.

Totally will be in the US and Canada

So we need to use electrolysis to produce hydrogen.
But electrolysis needs electricity.
So we need green solutions to produce electricity to ensure we can use electrolysis to produce hydrogen.

^^

I. E. Spends more energy than it produces. So it's useless

you don't want to buy a car and only find that you can charge from company A's chargers and not company B's.

That's not really happening as CCS is virtually the world wide standard. Chademo was the betamax if you like but that boat has largely sailed.

The government will naturally have some input but they don't control home chargers, except for forthcoming legislation. Neither do they control what's installed in company car parks, hotels or shopping malls etc. Therefore, the free market and private buyers account for a huge part of the network.

Therefore, the free market and private buyers account for a huge part of the network

Which is why local authorities and Government need to ensure that people who can't install their own have access to chargers - through incentives, planning permission etc

I wouldn’t worry about it. The way things are going, none of us will be able to afford cars by then anyway!

But seriously, this is a total non issue, and who the hell knows what might have happened by then?!

[quote lameasahorse]@MichaelAndEagle you are lucky. That would be my ideal. My DO is disabled so at the moment I would have to walk to the car over a mile away 9about 25 mins walk) and hope it is still there. Start it and drive back to my house to pick up DP and DCs. It really is not realistic. It is also not cheap which would be okay if it was easier to access.[/quote]
I am lucky, and you're right it's not cheap but I compare it to the cost of keeping a car on the road for just a few essential car journeys. We walk to school, public transport to work, shopping delivered etc.
There is another less than a mile away too. If I book it on the app its reserved for me so no chance it will not be there when I get there.
To be even better you need a bank of them you can pick up and drop off at different locations.

Why are you worrying about this is if its a decision to be taken years away? Tesla just ran a new battery and manged 600 miles on one charge. New tech will be here very soon, chargers are going in full scale and tbh doing a journey of that length needs at least a 30min stop or 2. That's all you need - 30mins.

Seriously OP worry about something else.

eVs are lovely to drive, so quiet, one pedal driving is bliss, they are going to last a lot longer than a fossil vehicle and cost less to fuel and maintain. Give you an example cost me £60 to fill up the fossil car my son was given whilst his eV is in the garage awaiting parts. I switched it for an eV. Cost me less than £4 to top it up 110miles. Took less than an hour on our home charger which is off restriction at the mo (long story it does need to go back on restriction but my solar installers don't have anyone local yet so we're waiting). eVs are fabulous cars and range will not be an issue soon....

A family ev is about £70k for one of any size, we looked at some to tow our caravan, the small ones for pootling around are the ones that are about £30k but they are not family size cars

[quote lameasahorse]@MrsSkylerWhite my plumber says we will heat our homes with hydrogen and that heat pumps are a waste of time for all but the newest most energy-efficient homes. I actually know someone who got a heat pump and then had it removed as the house was still so cold.[/quote]
Your plumber is wrong.

To convert the entire gas network so it can use hydrogen is a huge and extremely costly undertaking. Every valve and compressor needs to be changed. Every metal pipe across the entire system and in all homes would need to be swapped out for plastic instead. Moving hydrogen around the system takes 3 times more energy than gas. It's just not feasible.

There are going to be test towns trying it out. But it's a waste if time.

Electric heat pumps will be the way forward unless they make some huge steps with hydrogen.

@lameasahorse. Sure but you'll be hard pushed to purchase a new car with chademo, only used. In 2030, all those Nissan Leafs will be the last and may have been converted to CCS anyway.

It'll be an even more extreme case of Apple vs Android.

However, what you're neglecting is that it won't be the infrastructure that'll be out of date but the cable. Switch from chademo to type 2 or CCS and it'll be fine.

Speaking as someone who had Betamax video and a Commodore instead of a ZX, I hope they get this right.

@cakeorwine

Therefore, the free market and private buyers account for a huge part of the network

Which is why local authorities and Government need to ensure that people who can't install their own have access to chargers - through incentives, planning permission etc

Councils are already doing this though. Even with an infinitesimal number of EV's on the road, they're popping up in public car parks all over the place.

However, they're still run by private companies like BP Polar

So what makes you think that this isn't going to expand as it is already?

2022 saw a 33% increase from 2021.

@cakeorwine

Speaking as someone who had Betamax video and a Commodore instead of a ZX, I hope they get this right.

There's no hope about it. It's been done already 🤦

Heat pump will be useless in our house, a lot of older houses will be worthless, thank goodness we only paid £50k for it and have had our money's worth

@Gladioli23 i would be wary of that 78% figure though in my town its much lower than that and your bein simplistic in the 28% only having one car , in my house we have three as do next door as older kids living at home etc , public transport being non exsistent etc