Electric car chargers

[pirate]

Just wondered if anyone has seen the advert for the new Fiat 500E...
If you read the small print at the bottom it says you can charge it enough in a few minutes to do 30 miles, using an 84kw charger...probably not a domestic installation then...
However, on a 13A plug it only takes 19 hours to charge...
There's a few questions in my mind about this, but please say what you think.

 

[Zerax]

It'll be interesting to see what the government will do to recoup all that lost revenue from falling petrol/diesel sales. Tax on mileage with some sort of gizmo in each car ? Whack up the annual Road Fund Licence ? It's like 25 Billion a year right now !

 

[DPG]

It'll be interesting to see what the government will do to recoup all that lost revenue from falling petrol/diesel sales. Tax on mileage with some sort of gizmo in each car ? Whack up the annual Road Fund Licence ? It's like 25 Billion a year right now !

They'll have to start doing some sort of tax based on mileage I think yes. I know it's been spoken about a few times over recent years, and it be honest it makes sense.

 

[Intoelectrics]

They'll have to start doing some sort of tax based on mileage I think yes. I know it's been spoken about a few times over recent years, and it be honest it makes sense.

Yeah this is one that always bugs me, go out and buy a low emissions car @ £0 road tax, and do 15,000 miles a year. Buy a performance car and do 1500 miles a year @ £450 road tax. Its the government's way of making more cash and using "carbon reduction incentive" as a smoke screen.

Yes I know you can potentially do the same mileage in a performance car but -

Road tax should be abolished, we already pay massive amounts of tax on fuel and this easily equates to mileage and vehicle performance. The more miles or the bigger the engine, the more fuel used = the more tax already payed... Charging your electric vehicle should offer the same "fair" tax payment, more miles you do = the more your vehicle requires charging = the more tax you pay... simple.

 

[Zerax]

Yeah this is one that always bugs me, go out and buy a low emissions car @ £0 road tax, and do 15,000 miles a year. Buy a performance car and do 1500 miles a year @ £450 road tax. Its the government's way of making more cash and using "carbon reduction incentive" as a smoke screen.

Yes I know you can potentially do the same mileage in a performance car but -

Road tax should be abolished, we already pay massive amounts of tax on fuel and this easily equates to mileage and vehicle performance. The more miles or the bigger the engine, the more fuel used = the more tax already payed... Charging your electric vehicle should offer the same "fair" tax payment, more miles you do = the more your vehicle requires charging = the more tax you pay... simple.

I always grimace whenever I hear the word "fair" being used... mostly by politicians of course. It is, obviously, a totally utopian concept and highly subjective. What may seem fair to you, may not seen fair to me, and vice versa. Taxes are, by their very nature, vile and disgusting, however government need tax revenues to pay for managing the affairs of state, defence of the realm etc. etc.

I certainly agree that we should be matching the tax revenues against the costs... 'he who uses it, pays for it'. I guess the tricky part is actually administering the system, and anything run by the state is highly inefficient, prone to fraud and expensive.

 

[Intoelectrics]

I always grimace whenever I hear the word "fair" being used... mostly by politicians of course. It is, obviously, a totally utopian concept and highly subjective. What may seem fair to you, may not seen fair to me, and vice versa. Taxes are, by their very nature, vile and disgusting, however government need tax revenues to pay for managing the affairs of state, defence of the realm etc. etc.

I certainly agree that we should be matching the tax revenues against the costs... 'he who uses it, pays for it'. I guess the tricky part is actually administering the system, and anything run by the state is highly inefficient, prone to fraud and expensive.

I'm an idealist, though this is never achievable and does often frustrate me. As you say everyone has their own view on fairness.

Governments aren't about fair they are about money, always have been always will be. What ever the decision made on electric vehicles or any other major enterprise will inevitably result in some greedy corporation, government, individual... exploiting the masses and making a bucket load of cash, and selling it as "good for the environment", " for the future of our children" " saving the polar bears" blah blah blah...

I have nothing against doing any of these, I want a better future for my kids and the animals and the Earth and so on... I just don't like it when someone uses these as an excuse to make money off the poor folk who actually suffer in the long run.

 

[nicebutdim]

Yeah this is one that always bugs me, go out and buy a low emissions car @ £0 road tax, and do 15,000 miles a year. Buy a performance car and do 1500 miles a year @ £450 road tax. Its the government's way of making more cash and using "carbon reduction incentive" as a smoke screen.

Yes I know you can potentially do the same mileage in a performance car but -

Road tax should be abolished, we already pay massive amounts of tax on fuel and this easily equates to mileage and vehicle performance. The more miles or the bigger the engine, the more fuel used = the more tax already payed... Charging your electric vehicle should offer the same "fair" tax payment, more miles you do = the more your vehicle requires charging = the more tax you pay... simple.

My mother pays £330 per year for her Mini and filled the tank three times in the last year.

I pay £20 for a 2.0 Insignia estate.

The idea of paying per mile is reasonable, but it'll never be a case of one tax replacing another - in some form or other we'll continue to see indirect taxation increase.

 

[justcurioustwo]

Do not charge—exchange instead

There is a better and easier way to get your car battery charged.

Just exchange your discharged battery with a charged one.

Just like in a car wash, drive between the rails, stop when the red light comes on and sit while your discharged battery is exchanged with a charged one.

It will take you less time than you spend filling a car with gas

 

[Mike Johnson]

Yeah this is one that always bugs me, go out and buy a low emissions car @ £0 road tax, and do 15,000 miles a year. Buy a performance car and do 1500 miles a year @ £450 road tax. Its the government's way of making more cash and using "carbon reduction incentive" as a smoke screen.

Yes I know you can potentially do the same mileage in a performance car but -

Road tax should be abolished, we already pay massive amounts of tax on fuel and this easily equates to mileage and vehicle performance. The more miles or the bigger the engine, the more fuel used = the more tax already payed... Charging your electric vehicle should offer the same "fair" tax payment, more miles you do = the more your vehicle requires charging = the more tax you pay... simple.

I have what I consider to be a performance car, 0-60 in under six seconds, and pay £120.00 tax, but do think it would be fairer to pay for the road fund licence on fuel.

 

[UNG]

I've just read through this thread again when it appeared in the new posts list mainly because I recently had the chance to attend an an EV charging training course at Garo's new office in Birmingham
The course really highlighted some interesting points of EV charging that always seem to be hidden from the EV buyer with regard to maximum charge rates, every EV seems to have different charging parameters when it comes to how quick you can charge your EV, cases were highlighted where EV users had 22Kw home chargers installed when their EV was only capable of taking a maximum charge of 11Kw, 3 phase chargers installed when their EV could only charge on single phase, then there was how these multiple charge point sites work and examples were shown how 10 11Kw 3 phase charge points could be connected to a 3 phase 63A supply with DLM ( Dynamic Load Management ) that limits when all 10 EV chargepoints are simulaneously in use to as little as a 6.3A charge per connected EV (EV's need a minimum of 6A to take a charge) so it could take a long time to get a meaningful charge at that rate
Move on to the DC fast chargepoints and it comes to light that these are not recommended for regular charging as they only fast charge the battery to 80% capacity before reducing the charge and potentially cause battery problems in the long term so longer AC charging is the preferred charge method
The Garo training course is only a ½ day course with a lot packed in but well worth the time if you want to know more about EV chargepoint installation and the limitations some of the EV's have when it comes to charging them

 

[Intoelectrics]

I have what I consider to be a performance car, 0-60 in under six seconds, and pay £120.00 tax, but do think it would be fairer to pay for the road fund licence on fuel.

There will never be a "fair" way of taxing vehicles, there is so much variety for so many different functions. Ideally I guess the fairest way would be by mileage. The more miles you do the more roads and service you use etc... But then this just raises a ---- load more work and stress having to declare your mileage much like your income, not an easy prospect.

So what alternatives are there? The current system is based on emissions, fine. But then you have a situation where Dorothy goes down the shops once a week in her gas guzzling 6ltr V8 and does 10 miles tops dishing out a total of 10kg of carbon emissions or what ever... Then Ted jumps in his low emissions 0 tax 1.0ltr 3 cylinder and commutes to Cornwall each day doing 2000 miles a week dumping out 100kg of carbon emissions. At the end of the year Ted hasn't been taxed a penny but Dorothy has had to fork out £400.

I get that its difficult to manage what people do, what vehicles they prefer to drive etc... I'm just a firm believer in, you should get what you pay for and you should pay for what you get.

 

[Mike Johnson]

There will never be a "fair" way of taxing vehicles, there is so much variety for so many different functions. Ideally I guess the fairest way would be by mileage. The more miles you do the more roads and service you use etc... But then this just raises a ---- load more work and stress having to declare your mileage much like your income, not an easy prospect.

So what alternatives are there? The current system is based on emissions, fine. But then you have a situation where Dorothy goes down the shops once a week in her gas guzzling 6ltr V8 and does 10 miles tops dishing out a total of 10kg of carbon emissions or what ever... Then Ted jumps in his low emissions 0 tax 1.0ltr 3 cylinder and commutes to Cornwall each day doing 2000 miles a week dumping out 100kg of carbon emissions. At the end of the year Ted hasn't been taxed a penny but Dorothy has had to fork out £400.

I get that its difficult to manage what people do, what vehicles they prefer to drive etc... I'm just a firm believer in, you should get what you pay for and you should pay for what you get.

Charging tax on milage is just asking to bring back milometer clocking.

Dorothy still has free choice to use her gas guzzler, I wonder how long that will last until they are banned from our roads.

Put a tax on EV charge points, I don't see why I should pay for their use of the roads.

 

[littlespark]

Put a tax on EV charge points, I don't see why I should pay for their use of the roads.

And cyclists? pedestrians? hedgehogs?

Should 40t lorries pay the same as a mini cooper?


Yeah.. i know what you mean, im just being daft.

Two cars of equal weight will cause the same wear on the road surface, whatever fuel they use.. so should pay the same road tax... Now i mention it... Do electric cars weigh more due to the batteries?

 

[DPG]

And cyclists? pedestrians? hedgehogs?

Should 40t lorries pay the same as a mini cooper?


Yeah.. i know what you mean, im just being daft.

Two cars of equal weight will cause the same wear on the road surface, whatever fuel they use.. so should pay the same road tax... Now i mention it... Do electric cars weigh more due to the batteries?

A lot of electric and hybrid cars are very heavy.

 

[Mike Johnson]

I wonder what the kinetic energy of an EV is compared to a conventional car when hitting something/someone, long time since I did any of this, but think it was something like KE = 1/2 mv squared, my brain hurts.

 

[Intoelectrics]

Charging tax on milage is just asking to bring back milometer clocking.

Dorothy still has free choice to use her gas guzzler, I wonder how long that will last until they are banned from our roads.

Put a tax on EV charge points, I don't see why I should pay for their use of the roads.

I don't disagree with you, I was just pointing out that all is not fair either way and that it can be difficult to find an all round "fair" solution.

As I said, you should get what you pay for and pay for what you get.

 

[Intoelectrics]

Put a tax on EV charge points, I don't see why I should pay for their use of the roads.

I agree which is why a mileage based system would seem the fairest approach, but things are never this simple.

There are many things that we pay for in life that someone else reaps the benefit from.

It can be frustrating at times and personally I don't agree with most of them, but I have to go with it because I either, don't have the power to change it, not in a position to exclude myself from it or don't have a better solution to resolve it.

 

[pc1966]

I wonder what the kinetic energy of an EV is compared to a conventional car when hitting something/someone, long time since I did any of this, but think it was something like KE = 1/2 mv squared, my brain hurts.

Depends on what the hit involves.

If it is something light like a person then the car's KE is trivial, it is the velocity of impact on the object that determines what energy it absorbs.

If it is hitting something of comparable mass or larger than the car's KE is largely transferred so its mass matters, but still not as much as its velocity.

 

[pc1966]

I agree which is why a mileage based system would seem the fairest approach, but things are never this simple.

Charging a tax on EV consumption, rather like fuel duty, is fairer as it means heavy vehicles and/or more milage and/or inefficient use pay more and they are the ones doing more damage to the roads and environment.

Sure others get the benefits of roads, but motor vehicles are the key reason they exist in as many routes and multiple lanes as they do now.

 

[brianmoooore]

Modern vehicles have 'lane assist technology'. Use the sensors for this to charge per mile on any road with a white line down the middle.

 

[Mike Johnson]

Depends on what the hit involves.

If it is something light like a person then the car's KE is trivial, it is the velocity of impact on the object that determines what energy it absorbs.

If it is hitting something of comparable mass or larger than the car's KE is largely transferred so its mass matters, but still not as much as its velocity.

I witnessed the ship car transporter from Japan hitting the jetty at Sheerness, it was moving at about 2mph, but demolished approximately 500M of jetty.

 

[UNG]

I witnessed the ship car transporter from Japan hitting the jetty at Sheerness, it was moving at about 2mph, but demolished approximately 500M of jetty.

I'm not sure of the point you are trying to make with your example, a ship can be affected by a number of external influences that can provide motion or continued motion long after it's main power is removed it can take several miles to bring it to a stop even with the props running hard astern

 

[Mike Johnson]

The point was, it was kinetic energy and not velocity that caused the damage.

 

[littlespark]

Wasn't there a physics professor joined the forum last week?
Maybe he can help with the kenetic energy equations???