No. The opposite. I have been driving like Miss Daisy to try and see if I can get from home to Riverhead Sevenoaks on one charge. 124 miles.

Shortly I will move on, turn on the heating, maybe try for a wheelie. Didn't even know there was TC to turn off/on.

edit: that said, I have given one or two diesel BMWs a shock at the traffic lights drag

 

Finally got to read the free Guardian delivered by Waitrose on Friday evening. Over the last few days of last week they had to fire up coal and gas power stations. Not enough wind. I've been noticing this in my wholesale market price tracking electricity tariff, Agile Octopus. Waiting for winds to drive down the prices before I charge my 'e' but still got a few trips to the supermarket in the tank.

I have found a couple of Shell stations on the A11/A14 that might help in executing our 128 mile trip to see the grands in Kent, one 10 miles from home and one at 58 miles. If it's out of service I can always turn round and limp home assuming the 120 mile range holds true for me. Doesn't work for the return trip though ... I suppose I can always try the LV car insurance promise of a tow to the nearest EV charger. But all of these uncertainties make the UK charge point network the achilles heel of the typically draconian Gov't strategy to force us off fossil fuel cars and onto EVs. edit: Shell is one of few where you simply need a contactless card. Instavolt is another. Most of the myriad of charge point vendors require you to join their club, use their dedicated smart phone app. The zap-map site and app shows location, type, vendor and activity at every charge point in the UK, whether they're in use, available, out of service etc That story about the Porsche Taycan people makes me think I might have to invest in a smart phone if I want to go on any trips.

And a pacemaker

 

I like the planning..

one of those in the boot for emergencies? 2kw ish so 6-8mph? Haha.. bigger wont fit

AA tow you to a charge point. Might be most cost effective but obviously you need to find somewhere safe to stop

 

I'm still bemused as to how they intend to provide the infrastrcture if we all go E c ar or are they hoping the Elon Musks step in/up and business deals with it?

What Covid19 and the last 12 months has taught me is that i don't really need to drive far at all ... most of the mileage has been to keep things running as opposed to any kind of need.

 

Well, it's finally dawning on the less-brainwashed greens that unreliables are simply tilting at windmills and nuclear power is the only answer if you do believe in the CO2-warming religion.

Things will only get worse if the interconnectors with the EU are turned off. Part-Brexit TransEnd, partly that they are short of wind over there too.

The biggest problem is who would pay for all the pavements/drives to be ripped up? Most houses are old and only have a 100A supply cable.

And as for the van/truck fleets (which require serious kWh of reserve) you're not gonna do that off a 415v three-phase..

Whoever described BEVs as a 'crackpot idea' was probably right.

 

Haha, that was the very item I was thinking about whilst reading the first posts today, assuming you can get petrol to power it?
On the trip to visit mum in the home I pass several wind turbine farms and lately they are turning very slowly, if at all!
I noticed the other day one tower had twin red lights on top of the generator unit, pity about the 20/30 metres of blade that exceeds that height.

 

Haha emergency kit: 5 gallons of petrol, this genny giving 1.8kWh (about six miles on the 'e' every hour), pup tent and sleeping bag.

Shall ask my dealer about getting a petrol tank fitted

 

Houses with 100A not a big issue surely? Smart charging when you are asleep and consumption is low, the chargers are what, 7KW so about 30A. Don't see why they can't be hooked into smart meter too. We have a shower which is a lot more than 7Kw.

I think It actually makes sense consuming stuff which is potentially on 24hrs a day and can't easily be centrally stored. Wind turbines typically don't turn fast but overall I believe they generate over 20% of our juice already so regardless of your skepticism of climate change they are doing well and you'd probably prefer to live near a turbine than sellafield or drax?

 

Agree all that but houses are not a big issue in my view although to do 'rapid' charging at 22kWh not just 7kWh would take 90A so an old house with 100A supply is marginal. Mine new build is 200A so the heat pump, cooker and EV charger can all be pulling 30A and not a prob. Big issues are (a) public charging is a joke (b) the electricity supply network is increasingly reliant on hard to predict undependable 'green' stuff, sun and wind. It worries me that they shut down / decommission fossil and nuclear power in exchange for the sun and the wind.
The electricity supply is all on instant demand and generators have to be carefully scheduled ahead, as most of them take time to crank up to operational and/or cannot be turned off without knock on consequences. Nuclear you can't turn off completely short of decommissioning I don't think. @m1bjr will know Except for a small number of hydro schemes where you can pump water up to reservoirs to 'store' as potential energy, you are right it can't be 'centrally stored'. From memory the hydro schemes are a limited and special case and can either pay to store energy or be paid to supply energy. All of this subject to a round of bidding (the 'wholesale market') I think it is a day ahead and based around 48 x half hour slots. My consumer tariff Agile Octopus, is based on the wholesale market spread in half hour slots.

Agree any sane person doesn't want to live near a nuclear power station or big coal fired station.

But you can't get away from the issue with 'green' energy of winter nights and windless periods like now. Right this second the sun isn't shining on us and the wind turbines ain't turning, as Martin pointed out. Earlier this year they were boasting of being all green but that's only because it was our summer. Winter is a different game.

If Europe had an interconnector with the Sahara and we funded vast solar farms we could wean volatile countries from extracting oil onto supplying clean power.

Perhaps this would also give more prospects to all the millions paying people traffickers to leave their countries & come here as economic refugees.

Our politicians are no help, cannot manage change which takes decades to have an effect. They spout green stuff to appeal to the 'wokes'.

 

the decentralised storage of wind or tidal energy harvested overnight in peoples car batteries is surely a good thing. albeit needs some smart meters which seem beyond us.

home chargers i was talking about, typically 7kw for a reason and that is probably enough for all relevant use cases

not sure i would charge on the move more than a few times a year (i'm sure i wouldnt actually)

and to Nicks' point it doesnt suit commercial full stop but i think evs do suit the vast majority of traffic on our roads, they can be cheaply run, efficient and can be green. unlike petrol or diseasel which as a former regular cyclist i experienced far too much. if you have a sub 75 mile each way commute (95% of us?) then a 200 mile range car can do that and you can whack on clever charge when you get back, at 7kw it might need 8 or even 9 hrs but you need 7 sleep ffs so...

emerging tech is always pricey and always comes down in price, christ the geeks on here understand that more than most