Would you have an electric car if you had the money for a new car and were in the market for one?

[Rockburner]

We've got a country here full of big 4×4s that the nearest they get to off-road is the house drive Not to mention camper vans that 'go wild' by making a cup of herbal tea in a National Trust car park.

A couple of my mates are into big camper vans, they have these £100k things that are pretty big and they swear by "wild camping".

Now before I criticise, I will point out that they love it, they seem to have a brilliant time and about 30 weekends of the year both families are off having fun with kids all over the country, it's a real social thing that they enjoy and it does look great.

However, "wild camping" usually means they turn up at a country pub in the late afternoon and ask if they can stay the night in the car park if they drink and eat at the pub all evening - and apparently 99 times out of 100 the landlord is fine with it. They both came and stayed up here and did exactly that at the village pub, the landlord was fine with it as we spent a fair bit between us all.

I don't know how "wild" that is, we sometimes join them and when we go we turn up in the Range Rover and get a room in the same pub, saving the cost of a £100k motorhome

That's about all you're legally allowed to do in England.

In England you're not legally allowed to just park up in a random spot and spend the night unless it's land specifically set aside for the purpose (eg camp-sites, overnight lorry parking etc). Pub car parks are private land so it's down the landowner.

That's not to say that it doesn't happen - but sensible motorhome livers are careful not to leave any mess and not to intrude on any locals.

Scotland does allow proper "wild camping": ie if it's not private land you can camp over night (it's mostly intended to allow tent campers to overnight while hiking etc).

In Europe it's also dependant on the country, but the whole concept of motorhoming is far more accepted generally and most towns/villages have a set-aside parking area becuase the vast majority of motorhome users bring some business to the area, where in the UK they're generally viewed in the same way as "tinkers/travellers/scum" by councils and locals. (the occasional idiot motorhomer who likes to dump his grey water onto the road, or worse, his black water into storm drains, doesn't help that impression).

[Mr. Dazzle]

One of my old colleagues I occasionally speak to still has a leccy defender. As in, and old school one with some kind of after market conversion.

He does whole weekends of camping and "proper" off roading on a single charge. Just claimbing over rocks at 5mph is almost ideal for an electric vehicle in terms of efficiency. They of course drive down as many hills and they drive up and at 5-10mph you can get nearly 100% regen efficiency. As in, virtually all of the juice you use to get up a hill you get back again on the way down.

[Rockburner]

One of my old colleagues I occasionally speak to still has a leccy defender. As in, and old school one with some kind of after market conversion.

He does whole weekends of camping and "proper" off roading on a single charge. Just claimbing over rocks at 5mph is almost ideal for an electric vehicle in terms of efficiency. They of course drive down as many hills and they drive up and at 5-10mph you can get nearly 100% regen efficiency. As in, virtually all of the juice you use to get up a hill you get back again on the way down.

Pretty unique use-case-scenario though...

[Mr. Dazzle]

Old Defender owners are a pretty unique type over all

In a similar vein though, there are a few industrial applications which take advantage of the same thing. Quarries and the like, fully lorries go down, empty ones go up, never have to charge! Like a Funicular

[Rockburner]

Old Defender owners are a pretty unique type over all

In a similar vein though, there are a few industrial applications which take advantage of the same thing. Quarries and the like, fully lorries go down, empty ones go up, never have to charge! Like a Funicular

Presumably it doesn't quite work in a quarry where the loads are coming up though....

[Potter]

That's about all you're legally allowed to do in England.

Unless you have a Transit van and a caravan, then you seem to be able to do whatever you want.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Old Defender owners are a pretty unique type over all

In a similar vein though, there are a few industrial applications which take advantage of the same thing. Quarries and the like, fully lorries go down, empty ones go up, never have to charge! Like a Funicular

Presumably it doesn't quite work in a quarry where the loads are coming up though....

No...but in all seriousness, it's sitll alot better than ICE. The lorries can regen on their way down still, just 'using' their own weight. Then they have to power back up with a load. Which of course means you only actually 'pay' for the load, unlike an ICE where you have to 'pay' for the whole weight of the lorry+load every time. Given than the lorry is a non-trivial chunk of the total mass involved (often >50%) you can see there are still huge savings to make.

[Rockburner]

That's about all you're legally allowed to do in England.

Unless you have a Transit van and a caravan, then you seem to be able to do whatever you want.

I think that tends to work well when you have a few like-minded friends/family members so that you can present overwhelming force to the guardians of the law that arrive to see what you're up to.

[demographic]

Old Defender owners are a pretty unique type over all

In a similar vein though, there are a few industrial applications which take advantage of the same thing. Quarries and the like, fully lorries go down, empty ones go up, never have to charge! Like a Funicular

Can't remember where it is but theres a quarry up a mountain where they actually gain electricity from their quarry trucks cos they carry a load down the hill and drive back up empty.

I assume they do a vehicle to grid (or vehicle to canteen?) charging so its not overcharged.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I don't think there's any system in place yet to allow vehicle to grid charging in the UK, but that might just be a limitation placed on regular folk like you and me.

Local 'vehicle to load' is a thing though, powering homes or fridges or tea urns or whatever. Trains feed back into their power grid all the time though, so prevision must exist.

Several of my old colleagues work for these guys now. They make industrial electricity storage systems based on very high performance flywheels. Shipping containers etc. which act like a big 'battery' basically.

https://punchflybrid.com

Lots of EVs support V2L and V2G now, as you'll probably not be surprised to hear it's the infrastructure which is behind.

[ZRX61]

You've got a bit more 'off-grid' space over there.

We get endless freeway traffic here with people heading off to the desert out near Ridgecrest on holiday weekends (July 4th, Mem Day etc). There are thousands of trailers parked out there past Jawbone Cyn, all with dirt bikes & quads etc. The Wagon Wheel OHV area is hugely popular.

[Count Steer]

You've got a bit more 'off-grid' space over there.

We get endless freeway traffic here with people heading off to the desert out near Ridgecrest on holiday weekends (July 4th, Mem Day etc). There are thousands of trailers parked out there past Jawbone Cyn, all with dirt bikes & quads etc. The Wagon Wheel OHV area is hugely popular.

There's an awful lot of dark space on the map.

[Mr. Dazzle]

You've got a bit more 'off-grid' space over there.

We get endless freeway traffic here with people heading off to the desert out near Ridgecrest on holiday weekends (July 4th, Mem Day etc). There are thousands of trailers parked out there past Jawbone Cyn, all with dirt bikes & quads etc. The Wagon Wheel OHV area is hugely popular.

There's an awful lot of dark space on the map.

That's the ocean fella.

[Count Steer]

We get endless freeway traffic here with people heading off to the desert out near Ridgecrest on holiday weekends (July 4th, Mem Day etc). There are thousands of trailers parked out there past Jawbone Cyn, all with dirt bikes & quads etc. The Wagon Wheel OHV area is hugely popular.

There's an awful lot of dark space on the map.

That's the ocean fella.

Not the bit that's in North America it ain't.

[cheb]

That's where the preppers have their underground bunkers.

[demographic]

That's where the preppers have their underground bunkers.

Ha, thats what THEY want you to think

[cheb]

Don't you accuse me of thinking, I'm not one of your book learned intellectuals.

[Potter]

I can sit for hours looking at those photos, and then overlaying an actual map over it.

I have no idea how they are produced though, are they literally satellite images, or are they representative, or something else?

[Count Steer]

I can sit for hours looking at those photos, and then overlaying an actual map over it.

I have no idea how they are produced though, are they literally satellite images, or are they representative, or something else?

I got it from here...

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... _night.jpg

It explains that it's a composite. (I just googled something like 'USA at night satellite').

[Potter]

I can sit for hours looking at those photos, and then overlaying an actual map over it.

I have no idea how they are produced though, are they literally satellite images, or are they representative, or something else?

I got it from here...

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... _night.jpg

It explains that it's a composite. (I just googled something like 'USA at night satellite').

The one in the link is slightly different than the one you posted though.
I noticed because I was looking at the Bahamas islands and you can't see them in the one in the link, but you can in the one you posted.

I wanted to zoom in because it doesn't seem to be accurate.