Do you think that the UK switching to electric vehicles is realistic?

[Deafdoggie]

Because, very obviously, petrol & electric are very, very different. Few firms want to have a flammable liquid on their premises, whereas all of them already have electric.

But why should there be? There was no legislation mandating the provision of petrol pumps in workplaces. People seemed to manage well enough without them up to now. Why should employers be compelled to provide charging facilities (even if they could, which many of them couldn't)?

 

[Ken H]

But why should there be? There was no legislation mandating the provision of petrol pumps in workplaces. People seemed to manage well enough without them up to now. Why should employers be compelled to provide charging facilities (even if they could, which many of them couldn't)?

How many workplaces have off street parking? Enough for all employees?

 

[The Ham]

But why should there be? There was no legislation mandating the provision of petrol pumps in workplaces. People seemed to manage well enough without them up to now. Why should employers be compelled to provide charging facilities (even if they could, which many of them couldn't)?

It may not even be an issue of legislation, as EV's become more widespread if you are an employer who doesn't offer at work charging (even if there's a charge for that) it's going to be harder and harder to recruit and retain staff.

2 years ago I saw a price for 2 pairs of 7kwh free standing chargers coming in at just under £7,000 (£1,750 each, and that included monitoring of the system). If you've got to advertise for a new member is staff that can easily cost £1,000 before you consider existing staff time for the interview process and onboarding. However, for a workplace setting you could probably have most chargers as a basic plug system and just a few of the faster chargers.

 

[JamesT]

It may not even be an issue of legislation, as EV's become more widespread if you are an employer who doesn't offer at work charging (even if there's a charge for that) it's going to be harder and harder to recruit and retain staff.

2 years ago I saw a price for 2 pairs of 7kwh free standing chargers coming in at just under £7,000 (£1,750 each, and that included monitoring of the system). If you've got to advertise for a new member is staff that can easily cost £1,000 before you consider existing staff time for the interview process and onboarding. However, for a workplace setting you could probably have most chargers as a basic plug system and just a few of the faster chargers.

Oxford may be an outlier with it's congestion issues, but offering workplace parking at all is being discouraged. The council hasn't imposed its levy yet, but my employer already has a 1.75% of salary charge for a peak time parking permit (which doesn't guarantee a space).

 

[Bletchleyite]

Oxford may be an outlier with it's congestion issues, but offering workplace parking at all is being discouraged. The council hasn't imposed its levy yet, but my employer already has a 1.75% of salary charge for a peak time parking permit (which doesn't guarantee a space).

Certainly for places like Oxford park and ride is a "killer app". With enough usage an excellent early to late service can be provided, and then there's no reason for anyone to be driving anything into the centre for non-commercial purposes bar some Blue Badge holders and the likes.

 

[birchesgreen]

I don't know any workplaces that have chargers.
Only big corporate companies do

Not true, some of the SMEs on the business park i work at have charge points.

 

[Deafdoggie]

Certainly for places like Oxford park and ride is a "killer app". With enough usage an excellent early to late service can be provided, and then there's no reason for anyone to be driving anything into the centre for non-commercial purposes bar some Blue Badge holders and the likes.

But P&R should have chargers. I don't know Oxford, but I know Cambridge has chargers at all its P&R sites

 

[Busaholic]

I don't know any workplaces that have chargers.
Only big corporate companies do

Councils do too, amazing the amount of parking allowed there for staff and councillors, plus plenty of electric chargers often standing unused. A recent video of County Hall in Truro, Cornwall, showing the pods for homeless temporary accommodation placed there was quite revealing in its 'bigger picture', unintentionally I'm sure. Good to know how they use our Council Taxes.

 

[jon0844]

Responding to your point "a", it would appear that Hyundai has this option covered. The Fully Charged Show has just done a review of the Ioniq N which comes complete with petrolhead-pleasing noises and a flappy-paddle "gearbox".

Link to video is here:

Nice to see cars arriving where software can emulate the feeling of driving a manual car. I mean, it might sound stupid to have a car that can fake reaching a rev limit and reduce/cut power, but it will make EVs more entertaining (and perhaps prove that more people will likely want this than something that drives them as they sit back and watch YouTube on their phone).

The best thing being that you can turn it off and then get the full benefit of the power of an EV motor.. or go from crazy supercar performance to a 'fuel sipping' eco car.

Sadly the car is a little bit more than I could justify, doing less than 5,000 miles a year! That said, if I did get one, I could see myself adding another few thousand miles of just 'going for a drive for no reason' purposes as I used to do years ago.

 

[JamesT]

But P&R should have chargers. I don't know Oxford, but I know Cambridge has chargers at all its P&R sites

Looking through https://www.oxford.gov.uk/parkandridesites the number of chargers at each site is 0/2/42/10/2.
Even at the best equipped site, you're not going to be able to leave it plugged in all day whilst you're at work.

 

[jon0844]

Councils do too, amazing the amount of parking allowed there for staff and councillors, plus plenty of electric chargers often standing unused. A recent video of County Hall in Truro, Cornwall, showing the pods for homeless temporary accommodation placed there was quite revealing in its 'bigger picture', unintentionally I'm sure. Good to know how they use our Council Taxes.

Chargers are popping up all over the place with no fanfare - like council owned sports centres.

A car park in Welwyn Garden City has also extended its EV parking bays still further, and already had around 50-55. I've never seen them all used, but the land owner must be confident that they'll see use in the coming years.

Looking through https://www.oxford.gov.uk/parkandridesites the number of chargers at each site is 0/2/42/10/2.
Even at the best equipped site, you're not going to be able to leave it plugged in all day whilst you're at work.

I'd assume that most people going to a park and ride aren't coming from that far away, so you really don't need rapid charging. Slow charging, even at just 1-2kWh, would almost certainly replenish the mileage going to/from the park and ride if you were there most of the day.

 

[Bletchleyite]

But P&R should have chargers. I don't know Oxford, but I know Cambridge has chargers at all its P&R sites

Oxford has some, but with universal EV usage you'll want at least about a third of spaces to have one - though a slow charger is fine as most cars will be there all day. Fast chargers serve very little purpose in this sort of location.

 

[jon0844]

Oxford has some, but with universal EV usage you'll want at least about a third of spaces to have one - though a slow charger is fine as most cars will be there all day. Fast chargers serve very little purpose in this sort of location.

Does anyone know how much power the sockets in Swedish car parks (for providing heat to vehicles) supplied? In residential areas, it's common for every space to have one - and in the winter, people plug in to power small heaters in the cabin/footwell.

They were using them (and I assume other Scandinavian countries) for decades. It can't be hard to offer the same here, with no huge infrastructure upgrades. While I expect most in-car heaters were probably drawing only 500 or 750W, it can't be difficult to offer 2-3kWh, and implement load balancing to protect circuits.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don't know about those specifically, but a 1 bar electric fire or small fan heater draws about 5A, so it's likely around there. A slow charger is typically nearer 13A. But of course not everyone will need one.

 

[The Ham]

Oxford has some, but with universal EV usage you'll want at least about a third of spaces to have one - though a slow charger is fine as most cars will be there all day. Fast chargers serve very little purpose in this sort of location.

6 hours from a normal plug socket should get you about 45 miles, it's fairly uncommon for people to do more than about 20 miles a day each way (circa 9,000 miles per year) and if they are then charging with a 7kwh charger once or twice a week would likely keep most of the rest topped up (there's bound to be some who would need more, but they are likely to be the exception).

 

[Deafdoggie]

Looking through https://www.oxford.gov.uk/parkandridesites the number of chargers at each site is 0/2/42/10/2.
Even at the best equipped site, you're not going to be able to leave it plugged in all day whilst you're at work.

Chargers are popping up all over the place with no fanfare - like council owned sports centres.

I know loads of car parks with fast chargers that aren't announced anywhere, you just park and plug in and go off for the day. Usually there's loads of fast chargers and just 1 or 2 rapid chargers which is perfectly fine.
At the moment there are far more chargers than needed. But those opposed to EVs demand there are more before they'll get an EV. I don't really know how many they think is enough. There's loads going unused everyday.

 

[jon0844]

Anti EV people often make no sense anyway.

One minute there aren't enough chargers and you'll get a photo of a bunch of cars at a car meet or something that's passed off as supposedly all queuing to charge somewhere.

Then you are told that all the charging bays in the country are empty all day because nobody wants an EV and what a waste of money building them.

I find that in the car parks I use, maybe 30-40% of bays are in use*. That's probably a pretty decent ratio, and clearly there may be times when they're full and times when empty (like the small hours).

Chargers that have varying rates can further control usage, but many just want to charge a rip off rate 24/7.

* at the station car park, that can often be 70-80%.

 

[trebor79]

From memory it's been a legal requirement for a noise maker to be installed for years, though only since 2022 mandatory that it can't be turned off.

My 2021 Tesla doesn't have one at all.

I don't know any workplaces that have chargers.
Only big corporate companies do

Loads of places do. There were some.karge greenhouses I was managing, they had them. Lots of business parks have them. Lots of council run car parks have them. Lots of NCP etc car parks have them.

 

[PeterC]

But why should there be? There was no legislation mandating the provision of petrol pumps in workplaces. People seemed to manage well enough without them up to now. Why should employers be compelled to provide charging facilities (even if they could, which many of them couldn't)?

Most of my working life has been in offices without staff parking. I don't know if my local station car park has acquired chargers in rhe past couple of months. If not the nearest non high speed chargers are 2 in the long stay car park on the other side of the town centre.

Increasingly I am seeing EV drivers treating charging bays as dedicated EV parking and leaving vehicles in them when not charging.