Isn't it the same argument for connecting an electric cooker with an oven, grill and 4 hot plates with 6mm cable to a 32amp mcb ?. Diversity handles the apparent overload.
Hopefully all those extra EV's will by pure chance tend to be charging at different times. I only did 1,200 miles last year so if I had an EV it would only be charged about once per week, if that. The folks who really need to hammer up and down the motorways or do a normal to higher mileage should stick to existing hybrid technology for many more years.
Sadly we had a Labour government for 13 years that managed to not just avoid commissioning new nuclear power stations, they even managed to make our existing plants economically unviable, which crashed their share price and they were then snapped up by foreign operators (who were themselves government controlled). Then they sold off Westinghouse to the Japanese? so we cannot even build our own, apart from the modular design that Rolls Royce designed, makes and supports for use in our nuclear-powered subs.
I thought they did, huge banks of diesel generators for those awkward times between November and February when there is a blocking high pressure over Scandinavia and the UK is blanketed with freezing fog for days.
But if you simply don't use a battery powered whotsit, then the cleverest battery management system cannot stop it discharging to the point of no return. EV's must have a means of detecting this and giving the battery a 'tickle' to point where it can ramp up the charge rate without causing a fire.
[AD for Brian: Insulate Britain protesters on the M25 walk along hard shoulder towards traffic, holding banner, then onto carriageway when police arrive]
PS
I wonder if they'd have tried that trick with the numbers of pissed E European HGV drivers we used to have
She rarely does a long journey, and hates filling up. With an electric I'd be doing it for her on the drive.
Trouble is that I don't want to get rid of my 20YO sports car, and we need something sensible with a long range from time to time... which would mean 3 cars.
Does make you wonder doesn't it? We apparently can't run things like electricity generation and railways ourselves, so sell them off to effectively foreign governments who can - and make a profit. Same with making cars. Impossible for a UK company to make mass market - or even upmarket cars - at a profit, but foreign companies can and do in the UK.
I watch the workers coming home on my street. The all arrive between 5pm and 6.30pm. They all park on their drives or in their garages. The ones with EVs plug in.
But you don't know how those users have programmed the car computer.
I could set my BEV to charge to at least 50%, between the hours of 2AM and 6AM. I would do that, because the electricity is time-of-day billed, and the best rates are late at night.
Just because the power cable is plugged in, the car does not have to chow-down immediately. It can wait for the cheaper electricity to arrive later in the day.
It can't start charging immediately anyway. First it has to heat the battery.
The charging temperature range is limited. It can't charge at 0C. The battery must be warmed, using mains power, until it's closer to the ideal temperature. (This is unlike lead-acid batteries, which easily tolerate lower temperatures.)
Later in the charging cycle, the car air conditioner compressor starts to run, and the cooling effort runs cool fluid through the battery pack, to bring the battery core temperature back in line with the allowed temperature band. If you were charging a Taycan at 275kW, the air conditioner might be on for the whole 22 minute charge cycle.
Since none of this involves toxic fumes, you can leave the garage door closed.
If for any reason, the car does not like how things are going (abnormal temperature in pack detected), the car aborts charging automatically. It always errs on the safe side, when it comes to lithium battery fires.
And how do you know they?re charging at that time? All new EVs have programmable charging times, and even if the car can?t be programmed, many domestic chargers can be.
The actual amount of lithium in the battery is small and it?s not its chemical properties that cause an issue. The stored energy is another matter though.
Newer battery packs now have many fusible links to prevent (or at least reduce) conflagrations in the event of a dead short though.
The fire services carry extensive data on vehicles, such where the fuel lines and power cables run, where the isolators are, how many airbags it has, which pillars not to cut, etc, etc, etc
no. there is a lot of lithium in them, but yes, its not what catches fire - it's generally in lithium carbonate form.
The stored energy is what heats them up, but its the electrolyte, which is fully capable of catching fire at a bit over 100°C and sustaining a very hot fire in the absence of oxygen, that has led to them being banned in plane cargo compartments etc
Doesn't work.
Case in point. Pack left on passenger seat of car in hot California car park. Model plane flyer looked out of window, car a heap of ashes.
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