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

[Couchy]

An EV needs a 32A charge overnight to make sense. Most lamp posts have at best 10A/16A feed for a whole row, that’s an amp or so per lamppost. I guess if you can leave your car plugged in for a month at a time a lamp post supply could work

[Horse]

Given that the charging cables cost north of £1500.... it will be interesting what the travellers do, when the streets are lined with these.... apart from the trip hazards of course.

It's absolutely not viable in the UK because of the level of theft.
Until they find some way of charging a car in the street, outside your house, without cables, then it simply won't happen, because if it's unsecured then someone will steal it.

The Koreans have been looking at induction charging both in car parks and in a special lane on highways, which would be a great solution for all.

A road in Paris had in-surface charging installed a couple of years ago and track trials have been carried out for other methods for charging moving vehicles.

[Mr. Dazzle]

An EV needs a 32A charge overnight to make sense. Most lamp posts have at best 10A/16A feed for a whole row, that’s an amp or so per lamppost. I guess if you can leave your car plugged in for a month at a time a lamp post supply could work

But only if you don't mind your street lights not actually making light

[Bwana]

Given that the charging cables cost north of £1500.... it will be interesting what the travellers do, when the streets are lined with these.... apart from the trip hazards of course.

It's absolutely not viable in the UK because of the level of theft.
Until they find some way of charging a car in the street, outside your house, without cables, then it simply won't happen, because if it's unsecured then someone will steal it.

But I don't think that problem will ever actually be an issue because the price of owning a car is/has/and always will simply keep increasing in cost until it's priced out of the hands of many. Even if you can afford the vehicle you might not be able to afford the cost of running it or the infrastructure to charge it conveniently.

The Koreans have been looking at induction charging both in car parks and in a special lane on highways, which would be a great solution for all. Also I have heard of an idea where lampposts are equipped with chargers suitable for overnight AC

I linked to this article a post or two above. It covers inductive charging, both on roadways as well as parking.

[niggle]

An EV needs a 32A charge overnight to make sense. Most lamp posts have at best 10A/16A feed for a whole row, that’s an amp or so per lamppost. I guess if you can leave your car plugged in for a month at a time a lamp post supply could work

I don’t know the details but I think it was more a case of utilising/replacing existing street furniture. So yes with chargers needing to be at 16-32A it would of course mean a new suitable supply etc.

[Yambo]

An EV needs a 32A charge overnight to make sense. Most lamp posts have at best 10A/16A feed for a whole row, that’s an amp or so per lamppost. I guess if you can leave your car plugged in for a month at a time a lamp post supply could work

But only if you don't mind your street lights not actually making light

Leave them off. Light pollution is a serious issue.

[Horse]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the- ... ffc319424e#

[Mussels]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the- ... ffc319424e#

He says £60 for 300 miles, that's better than my Jeep managed on a long journey. With a 50 mile battery I'd be happy with that solution depending on the cost.

[Horse]

https://hondanews.eu/eu/en/motorcycles/ ... 2Elinkedin

01/03/2021

Honda announced today that the company has signed a letter of intent with KTM AG, Piaggio & C SpA and Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. to set up a Swappable Batteries Consortium for Motorcycles and Light Electric Vehicles.

[Mussels]

https://hondanews.eu/eu/en/motorcycles/ ... 2Elinkedin

01/03/2021

Honda announced today that the company has signed a letter of intent with KTM AG, Piaggio & C SpA and Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. to set up a Swappable Batteries Consortium for Motorcycles and Light Electric Vehicles.

If swappable batteries can be removed from the bike and stored Indoors it means they can be charged inside and the bike is less desirable for theft. They just need to get it past the marketing team for not being pretty enough.

[Horse]

Luckily, they have the key styling team behind the MZ TS250, Suzuki RE5 and Bimota Mantra already on the case.

[niggle]

Luckily, they have the key styling team behind the MZ TS250, Suzuki RE5 and Bimota Mantra already on the case.

Oi! What’s wrong with looking like my old Supa Five?

[Mr. Dazzle]

I already posted this another thread about swappable batteries, but its relevant none the less...

It seems swappable batteries are being targeted at small bikes (scooters basically). This makes sense, because with current volume automotive battery tech the packs are just too damned big for high power bikes.

Take a look at this guy swapping a battery (pic is from the MCN article). And then consider than in ~100bhp bikes the battery is more like 50, 60 or even 100kg!

Unfortunately battery power, battery capacity and battery size are linked. You're unlikely to see a high power battery that is also small and light capacity...not for a while anyway. But you will one day not too far off.



Just for scale, Lithium Ion batteries are currently about 500-1200W/kg power density. I.e. for every 1kg of battery you can get about 500-1200W of power out. It's a really wide spread because with EV stuff you can massively overate it for "a bit" before it overheats and catches fire. So a 50kW battery might actually be able to output more than 100kW for a few seconds.

If you have a 100kW electric motor (about 135bhp) you need a slightly more than 100kW battery to power it due to efficiency losses. So say for argument's sake that is a 105kW battery. Said battery is going to be somewhere in the range 80kg and 200kg. You're not swapping that in a hurry! THe only real reason electric bikes are "a bit lardy" rather than "catastrophically heavy" is 'cause the engine - the electric motor - is hugely lighter than the piston engine it replaced, thus offsetting the massive (in the literal sense) battery.

[Horse]

https://www.engadget.com/arrival-ups-de ... jpW_Bhzban


Anglo-American vehicle manufacturer Arrival has today unveiled its electric van in a form ready to begin testing. 25 vans, currently under construction in Oxfordshire, will be spending the summer on roads in the UK in the run-up to mass production. There’s a lot riding on the success of these tests, especially since UPS has already committed to purchase 10,000 units.

[Mr. Dazzle]

They've got a Bus in the works too. Loads and loads of my ex colleagues work there. I jumped ship to a different EV firm instead

Note that its got a 20 plate registration...I.e. they're driving it for a real, it's not a mockup.

[Wreckless Rat]

Unfortunately battery power, battery capacity and battery size are linked. You're unlikely to see a high power battery that is also small and light capacity...not for a while anyway. But you will one day not too far off.

When is soon though. We keep hearing about these big leaps - air cells, aluminium/graphite etc but they all seem to fizzle out and never arrive.

[Mr. Dazzle]

First solid state battery car hits the road this year AFAIK.

Edit: Here you go, several companies anticipate having SS battery cars with 500km range and 10 min charge times on sale in the second half of this decade. As far as I know a Chinese company is putting one on sale late this year / early next.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Most- ... 2021-debut

[Asian Boss]

It's all coming together, the exponential increase of the transition to the Circular Economy.

You can almost taste the textured insect protein!

The workers break rocks, they pay for their gruel!

[demographic]

Think we covered this a little a wbile ago and it seems that snow on solar panels isn't really that big an issue.

[ZRX61]

Latest here is a move to take out 4 hydro-electric dams in the PNW because *salmon*.. yanno, because we have decreasing demand for electricity & they are banning the use of gas in new construction...