We are not set up for electric vehicles in this country

[Pollyannaatemyjelly]

We have an electric vehicle. We tend not to do too many long journeys but today it was inevitable. We have visit a very popular destination via major motorways but there is not one fast charger available on our route. I've just stopped on the M5 on what is supposed to be a dual charger (so more than one vehicle can charge) but it's not working. I've had to wait 20 minutes for the vehicle next to me to charge before I can even begin to charge mine. There is no chance this county can become all electric when the infrastructure is so poor.

I think that could be said for most countries in the world. Currently living in Switzerland, I don't see an abundance of charging points.

Of course there aren't an overabundance of charging points now.

Obviously, there will be more as more of us drive electric vehicles.

MasterBeth but if we can't even cope with it relatively now then we've got no chance going forwards

I don’t agree. There has obviously been an explosion of charging points in recent years, no reason to assume that won’t continue over the next couple of years.
In the past 3/4 years since I’ve lived in my house it’s gone from no electric provision to multiple charging points along the residential streets, along with charging bays at the nearby supermarket and shopping centres.

I agree. How will people without a driveway charge their cars? Or those in flats? Will renters be allowed to install the faster chargers? Will workplaces provide charge points? Can the grid even manage? Too many questions not being talked about.

Well I dont think we are currently set up for everyone to have an electric vehicle. But I cant see why we cant make a decision that we want to be and then get on with sorting the infrastructure out.

It seems very defeatist to decide something cant be achieved.

Apparently something like 85% of the current railway network was built over about 10-15 years.

Not to mention car parks...

They are talking of banning electric cars from multi-story car parks (which would be every shopping centre/airport in the uK) because they weigh too much for a standard multi story to support a floor full of them.

There have already been entire floor collapses and it's widely reported that older carparks in particular are very vulnerable - and that is before every car parked in a bay is electric.

As ever - not thought through properly. Just lots of utopian style blanket policies being made with no connection to reality.

No one has a drive where I live and many of the houses are split into flats. The council has installed multiple charging bays along the Victorian streets. It’s perfectly possible.
Many workplaces with car parks do provide charging points.

This is precisely why I replaced my non ULEZ compliant car with a hybrid rather than full electric. I simply don't think the infrastructure is there yet. Also, now it seems that some manufacturers are moving away from electric cars anyway.

They don’t want us having cars. Have you not figured this out yet. Hence the 15 minutes towns they are trying to bind us to.

The idea is to reduce car ownership, not have everyone drive electric.

Noone has a petrol pump at their house at all. We all manage to drive to a special location and fill up with petrol.

Battery technology is improving rapidy and charging is getting quicker. It would be nice to think in 10 years time its all moved forward enough to be plausible.

@Coffeerum there's nothing like this where I live. There a handful of charge points at a business park which is 15 minutes away. I can't see our council spending that kind of money any time soon if I'm honest.

Not ready for anything else either that the goverment dreams up-ground or air source heat pumps. Air one needs lesser space vs ground one but even air needs minimum - 1.5mx1.5m room to put the control unit in, thats like a bedroom in most houses in the uk lol.

uk has oldest housing stock,like 80pcnt are old houses,good luck leveling them all and starting all over

@SlightlyJaded I’d be really interested to learn more about this issue of car parks being unable to take the weight of electric cars. Do you have any links or sources for that?

It takes a couple of minutes to fill up a car with petrol. How quickly can you charge an electric car?

Okay, and?
That doesn’t take away from the fact that there are areas of the UK with a rapidly expanding electric vehicle provision.
There is nothing to suggest that not being more widespread in coming years.

But those of us who live very rurally will continue to need cars. And yet these are the locations where there are least numbers of electric chargers, in my hamlet there are no streetlights or points where electric chargers could be installed onstreet, yet several runs of terraced houses without driveways, and with long front gardens so cabling can't be run from the house to the street. There are very few charging points in local car parks, and many of us work in environments where you can't charge the car while you're at work.

I won't be getting an electric car until there are batteries capable of doing long journeys or long periods between charges.

"No one has a drive where I live and many of the houses are split into flats. The council has installed multiple charging bays along the Victorian streets. It’s perfectly possible.
Many workplaces with car parks do provide charging points"

sorry I don't know how to quote but agree with the PP that said this!

I second this where I live. No driveways and Victorian terraced houses. The chargers are installed on lampposts. It's really easy to charge. We don't do loads of long distance travel but have had no problem charging en route to North Wales, Cornwall snd Bordeaux. You need to get really hood at finding charge points on the apps that have loads of chargers eg the big Ionity or Tesla stations. The places where there are only 2 chargers are a waste of time. It took us a while to figure that out.
A lot of the people commenting on terrible infrastructure are not EV drivers I suspect and therefore have no clue what they are talking about!

@Coffeerum just discussing the current limitations- as I thought that was the point of this thread. Making a direct comparison to your experience to show the range of provision in different areas.

But that can only happen if public transport is available as an alternative. We haven't had a bus service through the village for 15 years and the nearest one is a 2 miles walk on unlit country roads.
We have no alternative. They need to properly fund public transport if they want to reduce car dependency/ownership

I think the point about mass charging & if the current infrastructure can cope is very valid. Atm, electric cars are few & far between (extremely few where I am cos it's super rural af) but the more there are? Whole streets charging at once? That's a huge additional load.

Aside from that, the more there are the more the rare occurrences of thermal runaway of the the lithium ion cells will happen. Afaik we don't even have a way to put that kind of fire out yet.

Lithium ion is no joke - if it goes wrong it goes spectacularly wrong incredibly quickly. 20yrs ago RC enthusiasts designed safe bags for charging their li-io cells in, this isn't a new thing. FIL lives in a flat overseas with parking underneath that now contains a charge point. I can't see that being allowed en masse in the future.

I love the idea of electric cars but li-io cells in huge banks all over the place? Yeah, I'm not sure about that at all.

Well right now, apparently you can get to 80% charge in 30 mins on rapid chagers, and this will do a good distancem

But as i say thats today. In 10 years we might be having batteries that last longer and charge in 10 mins. Yes 10 mins is longer than 30 seconds but it might be we have to make sacrifices for the environment. And apparently a good 50% of people do have drives.

Its all so defeatist. Like nothing can improve or change. Its a new technology being developed and rapidly improving.

Its not where in needs to be to work today. But it could be if we decided to make it so.

What about provision for disposal of the batteries though?

as others have said upthread it’s about killing off car ownership. There’s a very long way to go before I’ll consider even hybrid, never mind full electric.

Ive replaced my non ULEZ car with petrol

How would this benefit 'them' exactly?