‘Electric Cars: Are We Ready?’ - ITV Tonight (Thursday 3/9/20)
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Yes. (As long as 90% of everyone else remain in ICE paying all the Fuel duty Tax)
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Shouldn't it be about improving local environment air quality, rather the personal financial gain?
Back to the programme...
"...the most common reason for not wanting an electric car was the concern about a lack of public charging points, with nearly 7 in 10 people (69%) stating this as a reason not to buy one.
Responding to this concern, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told reporter Ginny Buckley that: “we have more charging locations, than petrol stations, in this country now” ..."
I do wish they wouldn't keep on trotting that line out. It is meaningless. Unless you drive a Tesla, the public charging network is a shambolic embarrassment to this country.
"...but he conceded that there is still work to be done to make motorway charging easier and more widely available."... yes indeed, so stop using the meaningless excuse about the quantity of chargers.
We need a good national network of rapid charging hubs, with enough chargers to make sure there is always a place to charge.
Electric Cars: Are We Ready? | ITV News
'Electric Cars: Are We Ready?' is on ITV tonight at 7:30pm.
www.itv.com
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In anticipation of my Zoe 50 arriving I've been using Zap Map to plan a possible trip from here on the East Sussex coast to Glasgow. If I was doing this in my Diesel Civic I'd stop every couple of hours or so at a convenient Motorway Service Station. I'd presumed I'd be able to do the same in the Zoe, but according to Zap Map it looks like a real gamble hoping to find WORKING rapid chargers at Motorway Services.
It sounds like this issue isn't addressed on the programme
We'll probably end up having to take my wife's petrol car - that's got a small tank and not hugely more range than the Zoe, but at least we can be certain that we can get fuel at the services.
It sounds like this issue isn't addressed on the programme
We'll probably end up having to take my wife's petrol car - that's got a small tank and not hugely more range than the Zoe, but at least we can be certain that we can get fuel at the services.
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This must be a delicate balance for Ginny, ITV will be going for psudo Daily Mail "we are not ready yet, tell me when they can do 600 miles, the grid will melt" angle (I mean come on, driving a 100 mile Mini from Yorkshire to London will be a bit of a PITA, I know I drove a 100 mile Soul from Yorkshire to Reading last year, I was fine, but I'm not their target market) and then Ginny has the issue that she is trying to get a YouTube channel of the ground around EVs, which is struggling to pick up subscribers - Electrifying
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It is - but there are now lots of mostly reliable chargers at locations just off many motorway junctions.
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Easy journey, go to Banbury Junction 40, loads of Instavolt there, up to Sandbach exit, just beyond msa, Coop, Greg's, toilet, petrol and a pair of contactless Podpoints, up to Carnforth Booths supermarket + toilets / cafe + a pair of Instavolts, then i expect you can make Glascow with your range, or another stop along the way.
Look for Instavolts and drive the country, usually get anywhere now.
Back from Arran to Bham tomorrow, Dumfries, Carnforth and Sandbach on the way home.
I agree with @Bill N here. There are a lot of much nicer places to stop just off the motorway with restaurants and so forth. I always aim for one of these.
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As an EV newbie, but computer programmer for over 35 years so fairly capable of finding my way around software, the problem is, how am I supposed to know that? ZapMap doesn't suggest those options to me, and as someone who gets a nosebleed north of Tunbridge Wells I don't really know the M6 that well. That being said, I did have to drive to Manchester a few times in the 90s, and if I forgot to refuel north of Birmingham and came down the M40 there were no motorway services until the aforementioned T.Wells so I developed a bit of a dislike of having to go "off route" to refuel.
The point is though, charging an EV is never going to be as quick as pouring petrol or diesel into a fuel tank, but it should be as easy - and from a not-quite EV owner it definitely appears a bit of a pain. That could put a lot of potential owners off - I'll just moan about it on the internet though
The point is though, charging an EV is never going to be as quick as pouring petrol or diesel into a fuel tank, but it should be as easy - and from a not-quite EV owner it definitely appears a bit of a pain. That could put a lot of potential owners off - I'll just moan about it on the internet though
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Female with 28kWh Ioniq here; never stress nor worry going on journeys.....Zap-Map, Watts Up, PlugShare or one of the company's Apps (Engenie/Instavolt etc.) is always at hand.
I just hope tonight's programme isn't the typical one showing only broken chargers and neurotic drivers banging on about always being terrified of "running out" and "what happens when you're stuck in a blizzard and the heater doesn't work?" (yes, what the heck!).
I just hope tonight's programme isn't the typical one showing only broken chargers and neurotic drivers banging on about always being terrified of "running out" and "what happens when you're stuck in a blizzard and the heater doesn't work?" (yes, what the heck!).
In the way diesel drivers are/did/have ?
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ah yes
one petrol station with 8 pumps vs one charging station (a single 22kw in a pub cark park currently out of service)
I mean he is right, there are more charging stations than petrol stations
Thing is, we are early adopters. It will improve. The fact I can charge at home though is simply brilliant!
one petrol station with 8 pumps vs one charging station (a single 22kw in a pub cark park currently out of service)
I mean he is right, there are more charging stations than petrol stations
Thing is, we are early adopters. It will improve. The fact I can charge at home though is simply brilliant!
I disagree with "shoulds" in general. This is only a habit that was formed over decades and it is ingrained in our daily life. We believe that going to a place to refuel/charge and sitting next to the car is the only way forward, the only way acceptable, because we've been doing this for ages. We don't have fuel pumps at home, nor at the shopping mall, nor at work and we take that to be normal. We only have pumps at specific places and for long journeys at motorway stations (which is expensive and many avoid anyways - I never refuelled at motorway stations in Germany, it's a double rip-off).
As a software engineer and programmer, I always had a disdain for unquestioned "best practices" and usually found other ways that I thought are more elegant and useful for my software. The same I applied to owning an EV: even for the longest of the journeys did I rarely charge at motorway station; I go visit a near-by town for an hour or so. For daily driving, I charge while shopping, while sleeping, while working, while talking with others.
We are free to do other things while EVs are charging, there's no law to say that we have to sit in our car while charging; it's just an unquestioned "best practice".
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Carnforth Booths is bit off the motorway, but a much more pleasant place to stop. I am just a retired non rushing driver so these stops are fine for me.The point is though, charging an EV is never going to be as quick as pouring petrol or diesel into a fuel tank, but it should be as easy - and from a not-quite EV owner it definitely appears a bit of a pain. That could put a lot of potential owners off - I'll just moan about it on the internet though
Even further off is Garstang with 4 Instavolts at another Booths + facilities.
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Totally agree, and this where Tesla have nailed long distance driving & charging.
Until other cars catch up, A Better Route Planner is your friend as you can tell it to prioritise certain reliable networks and avoid other less so ones.
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The problem isn't "sitting in the car" - charging times are always going to be longer than refuelling times - the problem is that it's easy to find a working fuel station, you rarely have to even think about it. That doesn't seem to be the case with chargers.
And when you get there you can be 99% sure the pumps are going to work. That doesn't seem to be the case with chargers.
And when you want to pay it's easy. That doesn't seem to be the case with chargers.
No amount of changing habits is going to make less chargers "unavailable" or stop you needing several different apps and accounts to be sure-ish to be able to charge and pay.
Agree here.
We are not yet in a world where you can walk into a dealership, buy an EV, and drive off happily into the sunset without any planning. You still need to do your research.
That said, you could do a lot worse than forgetting all the other networks, apps, route planners, monthly subscriptions, prepaid accounts, RFID cards, etc, and just look at the Instavolt website. You can't go wrong (in England). You still need to be a bit canny and check the location has any facilities, and you're not on the motorway network, but you're close, and it's the simplest one-stop-shop.
For many and complicated reasons, motorway service stations aren't now and won't in the near future be the answer.
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