OT: How the electric car revolution could backfire

charles was thinking very hard :

Which equates to around 14.4Kw. Easy dig all the streets up and install larger supply cables, replace all the sub stations, rejig the National Grid to cope with the increased usage, increase generating capacity by

I think it would be more efficient if the generator were built into the car instead of being on a trailer.

Owain

Not always. There are some where you have to buy the hub incorporating a wheel sensor. For a Mundano they're around £70-90.

Most jobs like these are straightforward if you have the tools.

Dave Plowman (News) has brought this to us :

I would sometimes do that 400 miles and yes there would be time to do some work when I got there. Not much time I grant you, but if it needed longer there were hotels for the night.

For a delivery driver, that is their work. Same for taxi drivers.

Indeed - a pile of rusting scrap with aeroplane wings sticking out of each side of it.

I hear that some people actually like it.

The same ones, probably, who also admire the sculpture of the mermaid off the M80 at Cumbernauld.

Fewer.

Bill

They're ideal when you can't be arsed to cook. Morrisons do a nice one, but sell the Heinz one cheaper!

Bill

Not for long. It was good. It was well paid and far more educational than college. My vocabulary increased enormously. So did my muscles.

On one job we worked 7am to 9pm seven days a week for a month and in that month I earned a year's teaching pay.

I also know quite a bit about asphalt and how to set out a carriageway!

Bill

Typical statist mentality.

Bill

It doesn't matter if the job pays for the time on site. If it doesn't you don't go.

Bill

but that would mean you had to carry the weight of the generator even when you didn't want it - and it would take up valuable carrying space.

When you're talking about the current needed to charge these vehicles do you mean the incoming mains current at 240V or the actual charging current at a higher voltage of the battery plus a bit?

Bill

Good grief.

Bill

Well for a 50kW charger, at 230V it would require 217A, what the car does to transform that power internally, is up to the car.

I presume they do charge the Lithium cells in series at a higher voltage, but with some form of balance mechanism to stop individual cells going over/under voltage?

that is normal in RC packs

you would be likely to run 400vac 3ph for 50kw

somewhere round the 100A mark

for fast charge anyway..

but an all night top up on 230v = say 6 hours - is only +-30A on 240v

I worked with a guy who was part of a presentation at Buckingham Palace and then somewhere in America. He was driving around, out and about, in a vehicle with a prototype fuel cell - it was only later that he found out it was worth about £3,000,000.

SteveW

I worked away most weeks for 18 months and stayed in a B&B regularly. They had 8 rooms and 16 caravan spaces, plus their own family lived there. Do you think they could provide charging for 28 vehicles? Many of which will have travelled some distance - and a lot of those while towing. That's a hell of a hefty supply to lay in, quite possibly miles from the nearest substation capable of it.

SteveW

and how amy houses have a 3 Phase supply?