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Electric Vehicles

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It depends on the capacity of the charging unit. Up to 22kw I think they are happy for you to stick your cable in, above that, it better be a proper one
 
Filippo Lippi said:
It depends on the capacity of the charging unit. Up to 22kw I think they are happy for you to stick your cable in, above that, it better be a proper one
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The main divider is if it's AC or DC charging.

Public AC chargers mostly require that you bring your own cable. (Type 2)
Public DC chargers always have a fixed cable. (CSS)

Residential charging stations (AC) can be bought both for connecting a separate cable, or to have the cable permanently attached.

As you said, the limit for the Type 2 connector is 3 phase 230V 32A per phase, for a total of 22 kW.
 
The Don said:
We have the ability to charge at home (for free thanks to our solar panels) but our EV mileage isn't particularly high and as a result we would only need to charge (20%-80%) every 10 days or so.

Mrs Don has a ukulele lesson/club every Tuesday which lasts between 2 and 3 hours. Our local town isn't over-blessed with chargers the the ones in the local Tesco would provide plenty of charge for her week's motoring during that time.

Alternatively she could have a coffee at a local pub and use their fast(er) charger for around an hour.

Or I could leave it charging at the local leisure centre on one of my bike ride days.

https://www.connectedkerb.com/


I'm not sure how you'd remove the cable without rendering it useless but doubtless some scrote knows how. :mad:
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Scum-bags will cut up a $300 cable for the $1 of copper it contains.
 
I imagine a real effort could result in reduction of this kind of crime. I think in some places at least, catalytic converter thefts have been brought down by laws or voluntary action whereby you can't just go to the junkyard with a pile of them without titles. I suspect a similar crackdown, in which scrap dealers simply won't buy chopped off charging cables, could help.

I wonder, too, if a change in the cables would be useful. Just as some traveling pocketbook and camera straps have tempered wires inside to make it impossible to slice them off in passing, perhaps a redesign of charging cables could have a similar effect.

Of course there will likely always be greedy black market buyers of this stuff, and I doubt it will ever all go away.
 
bruto said:
I imagine a real effort could result in reduction of this kind of crime. I think in some places at least, catalytic converter thefts have been brought down by laws or voluntary action whereby you can't just go to the junkyard with a pile of them without titles.
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The company I work for had several catalytic converters stolen from their vehicles recently. Funny thing is nobody was citing that as a reason against having gas cars.

Also nobody complains about the environmental damage caused by mining of the super-expensive rare earth metals used in them.
 
Roger Ramjets said:
The company I work for had several catalytic converters stolen from their vehicles recently. Funny thing is nobody was citing that as a reason against having gas cars.

Also nobody complains about the environmental damage caused by mining of the super-expensive rare earth metals used in them.
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Not sure that's entirely true. There may be far too many somebodies, but not none.
 
Rapid Tesla charging apparently not rapid enough. Unclear at this time what the exact nature of the altercation was, and considering the victim is dead, we may never know.

A Tesla driver was killed Wednesday following an altercation at a charging station.

The 33-year-old man, whose name has not been released, was fatally shot at a Tesla Supercharger station in Edgewater, a suburb of Denver, following an argument, according to Jenny Fulton, a spokesperson for the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. The victim was taken to a hospital for a single gunshot wound, she said, and he was pronounced dead there.

The man who allegedly shot the Tesla driver left the scene before calling police to report what happened, Fulton said. He was later taken into custody.
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https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-driver-killed-in-fatal-shooting-at-a-charging-station-2023-5

USA #1 baby. Rock, flag, and eagle
 
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bruto said:
Here's one:

https://hir.harvard.edu/not-so-green-technology-the-complicated-legacy-of-rare-earth-mining/
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But as much as technology is hailed as the panacea of the future, most of these innovations have a dirty underside: production of these new technologies requires companies to dig up what are referred to as rare earth elements...

Perhaps these elements also get their name from being rarely discussed, even though everything from the iPhone to the Tesla electric engine to LED lights use REEs.

Demand for these elements is projected to spike in coming years as governments, organizations, and individuals increasingly invest in clean energy. An electric car requires six times the mineral inputs of a conventional car, and a wind plant requires nine times more minerals than a gas-fired plant. With current estimates, demand for REEs could increase six-fold by 2040. Lithium and cobalt demand could increase ten to twenty times by 2050 because of electric cars.
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Notice what is not mentioned in that hit piece? Catalytic converters and the rare earth elements used in them. Just a vague reference which says that conventional cars only use 1/6th as much. Nothing about their use in oil refineries etc.

What's worse is the article also says nothing about the toxic waste caused by coal mining and use, which renewables are displacing. However it does say,
researchers at Purdue University found a way to extract REEs from coal ash instead of mining for ores.
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Oh yay, lets mine and burn coal to get our rare-earth elements. A much 'cleaner' solution! :rolleyes:
 
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Roger Ramjets said:
bruto said:
[snip]

What's worse is the article also says nothing about the toxic waste caused by coal mining and use, which renewables are displacing. However it does say,
researchers at Purdue University found a way to extract REEs from coal ash instead of mining for ores.
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Oh yay, lets mine and burn coal to get our rare-earth elements. A much 'cleaner' solution! :rolleyes:
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There's plenty of coal ash (and slurry) out there already. Mebbe they could mine that and get rid of the REE's that are also toxic contaminants poisoning the water tables and rivers.
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quadraginta said:
There's plenty of coal ash (and slurry) out there already. Mebbe they could mine that and get rid of the REE's that are also toxic contaminants poisoning the water tables and rivers.
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If the concentrations were viable you can bet they would be.

But what we should be doing is shuttering coal powered plants as soon as possible. I could not believe the amount of coal a single power plant consumes every day. That probably would be a viable source of REE's, but we don't want that!
 
Roger Ramjets said:
If the concentrations were viable you can bet they would be.

But what we should be doing is shuttering coal powered plants as soon as possible. I could not believe the amount of coal a single power plant consumes every day. That probably would be a viable source of REE's, but we don't want that!
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Damn straight. They don't need any more excuses to bulldoze the tops off the mountains where I grew up and push the debris down into the valleys. They're gonna keep going until West Virginia is as flat as Florida.

And as polluted.
 
We've been watching the TV show Kingdom, with Stephen Fry. In an episode we watched last night, released in 2008,his assistant bought an electric car -- a G-Wiz.
We've come a long way in 15 years!
 
Supposed to be available in the UK in 2024. Not sure about elsewhere or affordability.




eta Price is stated to be about £50k
 
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Skoda are sponsoring the ITV4 coverage of the Tour de France this year, and the ad breaks have mildly amusing promotional slots; the slightly bizarre thing is that the Skoda cars featured are EVs, but appear to have had engine noise dubbed on.

 
Some EV's have a fake engine noise at low speeds, it would be interesting to know if Skoda's do or if they have decided that people who watch cycling want to buy exhaust fume producing ICE cars
 
Filippo Lippi said:
Some EV's have a fake engine noise at low speeds, it would be interesting to know if Skoda's do or if they have decided that people who watch cycling want to buy exhaust fume producing ICE cars
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We worry about spooking horses in Mrs Don's EV on the narrow lanes. If you come up behind them without them hearing it can get dangerous for everyone involved.:(

A bit of fake engine noise would be good in that case.
 
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