Harry’s Garage

[V8Granite]

No they are for use overnight only, they are being paid by the grid quite a bit of money to do so aswell. The one I work on is continuous load at 5.6MW and was set up to help balance the grid should it be needed.

The engines that are running overnight were bought as emergency generators should the power go out, not as base load for the grid.

Dave!

[Jobbo]

The triads tend to be on winter nights - sounds like what I'm describing?

[Mito Man]

I thought grid can just import electricity from the rest of Europe when more is required? Isn’t that basically what’s done already?

[V8Granite]

The triads tend to be on winter nights - sounds like what I'm describing?

Yes but they are going to be doing this continuously, they modified them to run on biodiesel for this reason alone as they can’t have a plant more than I believe 20MW in total energy, which means 20MW of fuel supply not load.

Also G99 has become a thing where they are now expecting these small stations to try and support the grid during frequency changes where before they wanted us to trip out and remove ourselves from the grid.

I think within 5 years there will be many many more plants operating like this and the price of electricity to rise. I also think cheap electricity at night will start to erode to being no different when the loads all become similar. Even a very small charger is 3kw and adding in a few hundred of these in a small town will start to take an affect.

I don’t know what the standard is but I know on my old 1950s ex council house, so probably done to a low budget, I cannot increase my fuse size to 100amp as I tried to when I did the garage. I couldn’t fit a 7kw charger. So that will all have to change also for many areas.

I’m thinking a nice old Rushden diesel in the garden could be my retirement pot at £25/kWh

Dave!

[ZedLeg]

* it will be interesting to see how the grid will manage, they are currently trialing running some biodiesel generators at the plant I’m working on running at night due to demand. That’s 2 40 year old design diesels running at 80% load so roughly 2.5MW. Presuming 0 losses from production to plug, that’s 88000 miles of electric range for a 12 hour period.
That’s 66mpg when you take into account fuel consumption of 500 litres an hour for those generators, that’s being optimistic. Add in the efficiency losses and it’s about a 2.0 tdi at a guess.
The national grid have a huge amount of work to do and from what I see on the ground compared to what I’ve seen in the press they are a long long way from meeting our needs.

It's the same as the telecom network, relying on the private sector to run major parts of our infrastructure has left us in a bad position for keeping up with future advances.

[V8Granite]

* it will be interesting to see how the grid will manage, they are currently trialing running some biodiesel generators at the plant I’m working on running at night due to demand. That’s 2 40 year old design diesels running at 80% load so roughly 2.5MW. Presuming 0 losses from production to plug, that’s 88000 miles of electric range for a 12 hour period.
That’s 66mpg when you take into account fuel consumption of 500 litres an hour for those generators, that’s being optimistic. Add in the efficiency losses and it’s about a 2.0 tdi at a guess.
The national grid have a huge amount of work to do and from what I see on the ground compared to what I’ve seen in the press they are a long long way from meeting our needs.

It's the same as the telecom network, relying on the private sector to run major parts of our infrastructure has left us in a bad position for keeping up with future advances.

I wonder how far ahead the grid works with infrastructure and if the government has thrown them under a bus a bit with their demands ?

Dave!

[Rich B]

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.kent ... 747150.amp

[Marv]

£2.82 for 26 miles of range.

So about the same price to fill as a petrol car doing 45mpg.

Ok, but not great. Especially for the extra outlay to have all those batteries. And the fact it took 8 minutes to do it.

Charging your car at the public charge point, is like filling your ICE car up at the most expensive motorway service station, with the most expensive fuel then dropping a few quid on the floor on your way to pay, and not noticing.

You'll have to plan any long journey extremely well to not have to use these though by the sounds of it.

Today I'm in Cardiff going round some properties with a client. It's not that common an occurrence, but could be once a month or so. It's 125miles there, then over to a couple more places in Bristol, then home. Probably 300 miles total. They'll be in their cars too, so I can't really ask them to pull into a handy Costa for an hour between stops to charge up and I can't rely on any of the properties having charging points either. So in reality, I'd have to use my ICE car or set out an hour or two earlier to charge somewhere nearby before the first meeting, then maybe stop on the way home for another 20 min too up.

Think that's why alot of people/families who own an electric car have it as a second car, or very rarely need to make long journeys.

I wonder once charging points are more prevalent, if the cost of charging will go down due to there being more competition?

[Rich B]

Charging your car at the public charge point, is like filling your ICE car up at the most expensive motorway service station, with the most expensive fuel then dropping a few quid on the floor on your way to pay, and not noticing.

You'll have to plan any long journey extremely well to not have to use these though by the sounds of it.

Today I'm in Cardiff going round some properties with a client. It's not that common an occurrence, but could be once a month or so. It's 125miles there, then over to a couple more places in Bristol, then home. Probably 300 miles total. They'll be in their cars too, so I can't really ask them to pull into a handy Costa for an hour between stops to charge up and I can't rely on any of the properties having charging points either. So in reality, I'd have to use my ICE car or set out an hour or two earlier to charge somewhere nearby before the first meeting, then maybe stop on the way home for another 20 min too up.

Think that's why alot of people/families who own an electric car have it as a second car, or very rarely need to make long journeys.

I wonder once charging points are more prevalent, if the cost of charging will go down due to there being more competition?

Thats what I think is a little farcical about EVs, that you need another car to actually do everything it can't.

As for costs going down, I expect the opposite will be true. Once people are firmly established using them, the taxes will be raised on charging and it'll cost more.

[integrale_evo]

When everyone is forced into them they can charge what they like knowing you have to pay or you won’t be able to make your return journey

[simon_g]

£2.82 for 26 miles of range.

So about the same price to fill as a petrol car doing 45mpg.

Ok, but not great. Especially for the extra outlay to have all those batteries. And the fact it took 8 minutes to do it.

Charging your car at the public charge point, is like filling your ICE car up at the most expensive motorway service station, with the most expensive fuel then dropping a few quid on the floor on your way to pay, and not noticing.

You'll have to plan any long journey extremely well to not have to use these though by the sounds of it.

Today I'm in Cardiff going round some properties with a client. It's not that common an occurrence, but could be once a month or so. It's 125miles there, then over to a couple more places in Bristol, then home. Probably 300 miles total. They'll be in their cars too, so I can't really ask them to pull into a handy Costa for an hour between stops to charge up and I can't rely on any of the properties having charging points either. So in reality, I'd have to use my ICE car or set out an hour or two earlier to charge somewhere nearby before the first meeting, then maybe stop on the way home for another 20 min too up.

In a modern mainstream EV like a eNiro or Model 3 that would be a single quick stop (10 mins or so) well into the homebound leg assuming you’re leaving from home full.

Presumably you’re filling up your car the evening before or very soon after a day like that?

[Rich B]

Charging your car at the public charge point, is like filling your ICE car up at the most expensive motorway service station, with the most expensive fuel then dropping a few quid on the floor on your way to pay, and not noticing.

You'll have to plan any long journey extremely well to not have to use these though by the sounds of it.

Today I'm in Cardiff going round some properties with a client. It's not that common an occurrence, but could be once a month or so. It's 125miles there, then over to a couple more places in Bristol, then home. Probably 300 miles total. They'll be in their cars too, so I can't really ask them to pull into a handy Costa for an hour between stops to charge up and I can't rely on any of the properties having charging points either. So in reality, I'd have to use my ICE car or set out an hour or two earlier to charge somewhere nearby before the first meeting, then maybe stop on the way home for another 20 min too up.

In a modern mainstream EV like a eNiro or Model 3 that would be a single quick stop (10 mins or so) well into the homebound leg assuming you’re leaving from home full.

Presumably you’re filling up your car the evening before or very soon after a day like that?

Are you allowed to use all the battery on them then? I haven't RTFM so don't understand how much percentage you can and can't use?

As for ICE cars, you can stop basically anywhere and refill in a few minutes, so you really don't need to worry if you start on full or nearly empty.

[simon_g]

They have decent buffers at the top and bottom. You can drive until they won’t go any more (past many warnings and well past 0 on the range meter) and the car protects the battery before it gets too low.

10 or 20% to 80% charging is often talked about because this makes the most sense usually - you don’t want to go too low just in case there’s a problem or you need to divert, and rapid charging speeds tend to slow down past 80% full so on a long trip best to move on rather than wait for 100%. Bit like filling a bottle from a tap without spilling - you can open the tap right up when it’s low but then slow it down as you get near the top.

Some cars offer to keep everyday charging below 100% (then you override for the charge before a long trip). It’s marginally kinder to the battery but I don’t really think it’s worth worrying about.

[speedingfine]

[scotta]

They have decent buffers at the top and bottom. You can drive until they won’t go any more (past many warnings and well past 0 on the range meter) and the car protects the battery before it gets too low.

10 or 20% to 80% charging is often talked about because this makes the most sense usually - you don’t want to go too low just in case there’s a problem or you need to divert, and rapid charging speeds tend to slow down past 80% full so on a long trip best to move on rather than wait for 100%. Bit like filling a bottle from a tap without spilling - you can open the tap right up when it’s low but then slow it down as you get near the top.

Some cars offer to keep everyday charging below 100% (then you override for the charge before a long trip). It’s marginally kinder to the battery but I don’t really think it’s worth worrying about.

Car wow did a test on range until they stopped moving.

[integrale_evo]

Didn’t they do similar a while back too? I remember being quite alarmed that several of them basically switched off and locked up solid and couldn’t even be pushed or towed to a safe place.

Seemed a bit daft to me. Ok, I’m sure there are plenty of low charge followed by charge now followed by stop messages, but if it was you and you were a few miles from home you’d keep going as far as you could wouldn’t you?

[integrale_evo]

The paint match on that porkers rear bumper is pretty horrendous for a £100k car!

Was also wondering, when pottering about in electric does it pre-warm the engine? Surely can’t be good if you’re pottering about, floor it up a hill or to overtake and the engine wakes up straight into a thrash to the red line?

[McSwede]

Was also wondering, when pottering about in electric does it pre-warm the engine? Surely can’t be good if you’re pottering about, floor it up a hill or to overtake and the engine wakes up straight into a thrash to the red line?

The same thing crossed my mind. Cold engine cutting in and going straight to WOT

[V8Granite]

We used to do lots of those kind of tests on diesels.

It was on the test bed we used to try and damage the engines before a 250hr tear down and inspection

Dave!

[mr_jon]

The electric motors used don't mind being thrashed from cold. The amount of friction compared to an ICE is tiny.