EV-based road transportation is not viable

[themadhippy]

The price needs to fall drastically

the minute installers heard theres a £5k grant available from the government  prices shot up,just like solar instals and car charging points

[PlainName]

with the objective to phase out the sale of gas/oil boilers in their entirety by a future date. Suddenly you create a huge market for these devices and let capitalism work on the problem.

The way capitalism would work on that is to raise the price, since there will be no choice - you have to buy it and can't use the (old) alternative. And the massive demand will just raise the price again - look at what happens whenever there is a scarcity of something. The time when it becomes cheap would be after the majority of those who would install them have done so, and the demand tails off.

[Monkeh]

Almost like some sort of regulation is needed to control the markets rather than letting them abuse people.

[tautech]

Almost like some sort of regulation is needed to control the markets rather than letting them abuse people.

And regulators don't ?

[eti]

This thread needs a flippin wake up call. Go and watch Guy Martin's Great British Power Trip” on Channel Four (UK) if you can - that’ll wake all the fantasists up from their EV utopian daydreams. Wake the #### up lol.

[themadhippy]

Go and watch Guy Martin's Great British Power Trip” on Channel Four (UK)

And 1) spot the several technical errors
2) spot the   propaganda being slipped in

[eti]

Go and watch Guy Martin's Great British Power Trip” on Channel Four (UK)

And 1) spot the several technical errors
2) spot the   propaganda being slipped in

By your own admission you’re mad. I’m out. 😁

[tszaboo]

You keep missing the point here which has been explained by several people already. But I will repeat is once more so you may finally understand it: a heatpump can only work for a home that is well insulated.

And this is the part which is plain bullshit.
It's something I keep hearing from the Dutch and there is just no evidence for it. There is especially large blowback, because they want to make it mandatory.

Financially not viable = cannot work. For all intends and purposes it comes down to the same: you'll need a different solution for the problem. There is no semantic discussion necessary on what can work 'in theory' but has no practical application.

Last time I checked, I could borrow up to 30K with 10 or 15 year green mortgage for energy saving renovations. This is a separate mortgage. Plus there were bunch of local incentives, tax rebate and other forms to do projects like this. You can do these changes with almost no money up front.

[Miyuki]

There is no reason a heatpump cannot work on a poorly insulated home.  You can just put a bigger and bigger one in.  Unfortunately, a 24kW boiler costs about £2,000 but a 24kW output power heatpump costs about £15,000.  Not economical.

So instead you sometimes see "engineers" try to fit the 12kW heatpump and people complain their home takes forever to heat up (or is too cold in winter.)

A few things need to change for heatpumps to be more economical.  The price needs to fall drastically.  They are a motor, refrigeration system, controller.  Shouldn't cost that much.  And the installers need to get better.  The scheme around F-Gas in this country is a bit bizarre and segmented and too few people do air con systems.

There are no name units for as low as €/£5,000 for 24kW air-water monoblock, and some use two, or even more compressors for bigger units, with simple old on-off regulations, so can run at half the rating to limit cycling.
Yes, it probably uses a cheap ~500$ Chinese compressor which will not last many decades.
But it can be easily serviced and replaced either with a cheap one or a better one, a reasonable brand compressor for a heat pump is about 1000€
And if the unit has no inverter there is little that can go wrong
I agree those units have somewhat lower efficiency. The question is if ti makes economic sense.

[nctnico]

You keep missing the point here which has been explained by several people already. But I will repeat is once more so you may finally understand it: a heatpump can only work for a home that is well insulated.

And this is the part which is plain bullshit.
It's something I keep hearing from the Dutch and there is just no evidence for it.

You've missed the part about a relative of mine who did the math on this (using a detailed thermal model of a home; thermal modelling is his profession) and came to the same conclusion.

[Marco]

So even if you cover every wall ceiling and floor in the house with hydronic heating and it's blasting 100 kW of heating into the house with 40 degrees water temperature and a huge amount of flow, somehow the power poofs outside because the source is a heatpump?

Insulation and the thermal resistance between water and the room air are entirely orthogonal. If by some fluke of design the former is shit, but the latter is already superb (floor heating with the pipes just below a thin laminate floor, for instance) it just means you need a larger heatpump.

[nctnico]

So even if you cover every wall ceiling and floor in the house with hydronic heating and it's blasting 100 kW of heating into the house with 40 degrees water temperature and a huge amount of flow, somehow the power poofs outside because the source is a heatpump?

Insulation and the thermal resistance between water and the room air are entirely orthogonal. If by some fluke of design the former is shit, but the latter is already superb (floor heating with the pipes just below a thin laminate floor, for instance) it just means you need a larger heatpump.

You are throwing things together that aren't related at all. It doesn't matter how you put the heat into a home; that is a question to be answered once you know how much energy you need and determined a heatpump is financially viable. There are several other options compared to retrofitting existing radiators as well. Like combining air-to-air heatpump (aka airconditioning) with an existing boiler + radiators. This is relatively easy & cheap to retrofit in most homes. Added bonus is cooling as well.

If you need a lot of energy then the costs for the energy will be high. Especially since at low COP the heat from electricity will cost way more compared to gas, you are spending a lot more money during cold days with a heat-pump only solution. A bigger heatpump will also cost more to buy so you'll be throwing any chance of a positive ROI out of the window. Again: first step is to investigate the insulation of a home to determine required energy input (like walk before trying to run).

[Marco]

If you need a lot of energy then the costs for the energy will be high. Especially since at low COP the heat from electricity will cost way more compared to gas, you are spending a lot more money during cold days with a heat-pump only solution. A bigger heatpump will also cost more to buy so you'll be throwing any chance of a positive ROI out of the window. Again: first step is to investigate the insulation of a home to determine required energy input (like walk before trying to run).

The cost of larger systems doesn't grow that fast. Sure the subsidy effect falls off, but the labour cost stay the same ... until you get to really large systems, linear is a good enough approximation. So if there is ROI to be had at a given ratio of electricity/gas use, the size of the system doesn't matter, only the ratio of electricity/gas matters.

The ratio of electricity/gas use is determined not by insulation, but by heating system thermal resistance. Insulation is thus not the determining factor.

[tggzzz]

To reduce the recenr volume of hot air (ho ho) and get back to BEV charge points, here's my local council's assessment and predictions...

As you can see, the predictions for charging points 2030 are

• populated areas: a significant shortfall, principally urban and suburban but also rural areas. N.B. those area are not the densely populated city areas I have previously used as illustrations; these areas are easier
  
• sparsely populated areas: a moderate shortfall (pale yellow areas), principally low-lying farmland with lots of drainage ditches
  

That' s not a surprise, and I expect it to be mirrored across the country.



The council favours funding public charging points by a concession model, presumably since there would be no capital outlay. There is no indication of the feasibility nor any commercial terms.

On-street charging will be required, and they have an objective to investigate the technology. Translation: don't know cost and feasibility.



FFI read the full report https://n-somerset.inconsult.uk/gf2.ti/-/1473250/159997125.1/PDF/-/NSC%20Formatted%20EV%20Strategy%20Exec%20Summary%20Numbered.pdf

[coppice]

On-street charging will be required, and they have an objective to investigate the technology. Translation: don't know cost and feasibility.

Interesting that the complexity of lamppost charging is medium, rather than low. I guess that is due to heaver cables being required along the whole street. Does anyone know what "gullies (cable channels)" means in this context? It sounds like a component of a solution, rather than a complete one.

[tom66]

Gullies refers to something like the Oxford pilot project: https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/case-study/oxgul-e/  (though this has been done in a few areas of the UK now, both arranged by LA's and arranged by a few owners privately by planning request, it's basically the same as getting a dropped curb.)

It requires you to be able to park outside (or reasonably near) to your home on the street, so either neighbourly cooperation is required, or more likely allocated street parking will become more common.

Most lamp-posts hang off the street ring main and even in the newer estate I lived in, were fused with a 20A fuse, suggesting a capacity of at least 16A for the incomer.  Obviously the street itself needs to have enough capacity but that's an issue either way you charge cars.  LED streetlamps free up some capacity but it's my understanding that this capacity always existed even with SOx lamps because those were only a few hundred watts.  As to why so much capacity was designed in, I have no idea. 

Overall that study seems to be a fair assessment of the challenge - certainly not impossible to accommodate EV's on UK streets but work needs to be done (and importantly, the work needs to start 'now' to accommodate EV's becoming the only new car by 2030).

[tggzzz]

On-street charging will be required, and they have an objective to investigate the technology. Translation: don't know cost and feasibility.

Interesting that the complexity of lamppost charging is medium, rather than low. I guess that is due to heaver cables being required along the whole street.

Others are the need to have a payment device in each lamppost, and what happens to the 75%+ of cars that aren't next to a lamp post. Rationale: my suburban street has ~8 cars between two lamp posts, and hope that 2 cars can simultaneously charge from each lamp post.

Does anyone know what "gullies (cable channels)" means in this context? It sounds like a component of a solution, rather than a complete one.

Gullies are things that

• will get blocked with detritus and vegetation
• will channel rainwater into some properties. My property is downhill from the road, and the road (but not the properties!) has a low risk of flash flooding. There are many others in my village, since it it on a hll

Gullies refers to something like the Oxford pilot project: https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/case-study/oxgul-e/  (though this has been done in a few areas of the UK now, both arranged by LA's and arranged by a few owners privately by planning request, it's basically the same as getting a dropped curb.)

It requires you to be able to park outside (or reasonably near) to your home on the street, so either neighbourly cooperation is required, or more likely allocated street parking will become more common.

What kind of cooperation are you thinking of?

I'm not going to allow someone from down the road to charge their vehicle with my electricity.

Even in my suburban street there is around zero chance that I would be able to park outside my house. Too often I've had to chase around trying to find who is blocking my drive and preventing me from getting out. And this is, by all accounts, a good and desireable neighbourhood.

(Good luck where my daughter used to live in a capital city; if you put scrap metal on the pavement you wouldn't be done for littering - since the "metal fairies" always disappeared it within a few hours Copper cables would disappear equally fast )

Overall that study seems to be a fair assessment of the challenge - certainly not impossible to accommodate EV's on UK streets but work needs to be done (and importantly, the work needs to start 'now' to accommodate EV's becoming the only new car by 2030).

I think "assessment" is too strong a word; "summary" would be appropriate.

[tom66]

What kind of cooperation are you thinking of?

I'm not going to allow someone from down the road to charge their vehicle with my electricity.

Even in my suburban street there is around zero chance that I would be able to park outside my house. Too often I've had to chase around trying to find who is blocking my drive and preventing me from getting out. And this is, by all accounts, a good and desireable neighbourhood.

(Good luck where my daughter used to live in a capital city; if you put scrap metal on the pavement you wouldn't be done for littering - since the "metal fairies" always disappeared it within a few hours Copper cables would disappear equally fast )

The cooperation aspect is being able to park outside of your home if you wanted to use a cable gulley setup.  This is possible in some areas, for instance my street it seems that most people park in the same space even if they don't have a driveway.  Other streets will be more difficult.  So they will either have allocated parking (this space is for No. 32) or will need other solutions (pop up charging, lamp post charging, standard charging posts etc.)

There will not be one solution appropriate to all areas, that's guaranteed.

We have a few of these chargers now around me - pity they're a bit ugly.
https://transportandenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/LibertyCharge_Wandsworth_GatwickRoad_002-scaled.jpg

[tggzzz]

What kind of cooperation are you thinking of?

I'm not going to allow someone from down the road to charge their vehicle with my electricity.

Even in my suburban street there is around zero chance that I would be able to park outside my house. Too often I've had to chase around trying to find who is blocking my drive and preventing me from getting out. And this is, by all accounts, a good and desireable neighbourhood.

(Good luck where my daughter used to live in a capital city; if you put scrap metal on the pavement you wouldn't be done for littering - since the "metal fairies" always disappeared it within a few hours Copper cables would disappear equally fast )

The cooperation aspect is being able to park outside of your home if you wanted to use a cable gulley setup.  This is possible in some areas, for instance my street it seems that most people park in the same space even if they don't have a driveway.  Other streets will be more difficult.  So they will either have allocated parking (this space is for No. 32) or will need other solutions (pop up charging, lamp post charging, standard charging posts etc.)

There will not be one solution appropriate to all areas, that's guaranteed.

Based on what I can see inside cities and in the suburbs...

If there is enough space for such cooperation to be practical, there won't be much need for on-screen charging. That's not a problem.

But the inverse is also true: on-screen charging will be required where there is little space. And it will be difficult to arrange cooperation there, so that will be a big and more-or-less unsolvable problem.

[coppice]

Even in my suburban street there is around zero chance that I would be able to park outside my house. Too often I've had to chase around trying to find who is blocking my drive and preventing me from getting out. And this is, by all accounts, a good and desirable neighbourhood.

There are plenty of suburban UK city areas where people park within a couple of metres of the same spot each day There are also plenty where the last part of any journey home is filled with dread, not always that of what horrors the family has in store for you. One size will never fit all with parking and charging issues.

[tggzzz]

Even in my suburban street there is around zero chance that I would be able to park outside my house. Too often I've had to chase around trying to find who is blocking my drive and preventing me from getting out. And this is, by all accounts, a good and desirable neighbourhood.

There are plenty of suburban UK city areas where people park within a couple of metres of the same spot each day There are also plenty where the last part of any journey home is filled with dread, not always that of what horrors the family has in store for you. One size will never fit all with parking and charging issues.

I contend that where you can reliably park in one spot on the street, there will usually be sufficient space for off street parking. And that would render the on street charging moot.

Numbers are required; adjectives are useless. Emotive statements are to be deprecated.

[coppice]

Even in my suburban street there is around zero chance that I would be able to park outside my house. Too often I've had to chase around trying to find who is blocking my drive and preventing me from getting out. And this is, by all accounts, a good and desirable neighbourhood.

There are plenty of suburban UK city areas where people park within a couple of metres of the same spot each day There are also plenty where the last part of any journey home is filled with dread, not always that of what horrors the family has in store for you. One size will never fit all with parking and charging issues.

I contend that where you can reliably park in one spot on the street, there will usually be sufficient space for off street parking. And that would render the on street charging moot.

Numbers are required; adjectives are useless. Emotive statements are to be deprecated.

Its quite common for 1930s North London housing to be a compromise between terraced and semi-detached - blocks of 4, with 2 car widths between each block. So, 50% of the houses have their own driveway. The other 50% usually park in the street in a consistent place, because the driveways reduce the pressure on kerb space. Unreliable park is a threshold problem. When the cars per house are below a threshold that the street can accommodate parking can be quite reliable. Go over the threshold and parking rapidly descends into chaos. You see streets where parking has never been a problem, where one house getting an extra car puts the whole street's parking in chaos.

[TimFox]

In the city of Chicago, we have a long-standing, controversial, and quite illegal street-parking tradition of "dibs", especially after snowstorms.
By tradition, when one shovels out the street in front of ones house to park there, it is thereafter reserved by placing unfashionable furniture (especially chairs) in the newly-cleared space.
The media like to report on the more artistic placeholders, such as a pair of free-standing frozen bluejeans or a plastic basketball hoop.
The authorities tend to tolerate this in the immediate aftermath of a heavy snowfall, but will make formal announcements about when all that trash will get picked up.
See  https://gladstonepark.net/community/dibs/

[tggzzz]

Even in my suburban street there is around zero chance that I would be able to park outside my house. Too often I've had to chase around trying to find who is blocking my drive and preventing me from getting out. And this is, by all accounts, a good and desirable neighbourhood.

There are plenty of suburban UK city areas where people park within a couple of metres of the same spot each day There are also plenty where the last part of any journey home is filled with dread, not always that of what horrors the family has in store for you. One size will never fit all with parking and charging issues.

I contend that where you can reliably park in one spot on the street, there will usually be sufficient space for off street parking. And that would render the on street charging moot.

Numbers are required; adjectives are useless. Emotive statements are to be deprecated.

Its quite common for 1930s North London housing to be a compromise between terraced and semi-detached - blocks of 4, with 2 car widths between each block. So, 50% of the houses have their own driveway. The other 50% usually park in the street in a consistent place, because the driveways reduce the pressure on kerb space. Unreliable park is a threshold problem. When the cars per house are below a threshold that the street can accommodate parking can be quite reliable. Go over the threshold and parking rapidly descends into chaos. You see streets where parking has never been a problem, where one house getting an extra car puts the whole street's parking in chaos.

Yes, just so. That non-linearity is real and a pain.

I have a 1930 semi, and cars from surrounding roads occasionally infest the road. It is, of course, very difficult to be sure of that since the "residence" associated with any given car is difficult to determine. I once found a car from a neighbouring road partially blocking my drive, and had to insist they !over it pronto.

[tggzzz]

In the city of Chicago, we have a long-standing, controversial, and quite illegal street-parking tradition of "dibs", especially after snowstorms.
By tradition, when one shovels out the street in front of ones house to park there, it is thereafter reserved by placing unfashionable furniture (especially chairs) in the newly-cleared space.
The media like to report on the more artistic placeholders, such as a pair of free-standing frozen bluejeans or a plastic basketball hoop.
The authorities tend to tolerate this in the immediate aftermath of a heavy snowfall, but will make formal announcements about when all that trash will get picked up.
See  https://gladstonepark.net/community/dibs/

I'm going to have to reserve headspace for a woodchipper while a tree is pruned. It won't be easy: I'll have to keep twitching the curtains until I see a space, then rush out and park my car and a wheelie rubbish bin in the space.

Painful enough for 1day/decade; intolerable every day.