ABB Unveils What It Calls Fastest Electric-Vehicle-Charging Station

[Hood]

I bought my car 33 years ago for the princely sum of £500.

Sadly £500 these days might buy you the bricks propping up an old banger reg'd in the late 1990s...

VW are planning the ID.2 for sale in 2025 with an estimated price of £17,000 which would make it the UK's cheapest EV if VW meets that price which is a big if given market forces and development costs. Apparently VW are planning the ID.1 will be even cheaper but that's years away.

I read recently that the forthcoming Euro 8 emissions targets are apparently likely to kill off the entire city car and supermini classes as anything under £20,000 will become unprofitable for manufacturers. So that means either losing all their highest volume selling ranges or reducing the price of EVs to fill this gap by 2030.

In this month's What Car I surprised to read one of the writers being amazed that people instinctively seemed to know his top-end Audi was an EV even when it wasn't moving or charging. The truth is if you see a stonking big SUV dripping in chrome and looking like it costs the same a small property to buy then its probably an EV.

 

[Foo Fighter]

Everyone wants an electric, just cant afford them, or find them....

They just hope dopy old Joe public, stays on autopilot, and picks the ICE car with the nicest colour, again.

Really? Anyone who does not agree with this is dopy?

Just who is this everyone who wants an EV?

I suppose it's OK to say anyone who is so myopic as to demand a BEV future is a sandwich short of a picnic?

In case nobody noticed, I cannot afford a new car even at the wildly optimistic price points mentioned. A new Dacia starts at £7K and that's too much.

Again, why not use the alternate ICE fuels? They can do the same without the investment in a new infrastructure. Why? Simples, someone is looking to a nice fat earner and it is puirely social change driven rather than climate change driven. Oh, and greed.

 

[shin_getter]

Carbon neutral synthetic fuel normally starts at 10x cost that of plain old oil from the ground and take either land or significant energy input. That is not big deal for someone that drive a Porsche but a big problem for someone driving a beater.

Ultimately it is about projection into the future at 2030. If Li-ion production cost drop a further 25% (2010~2020 a 90% drop) personal ICE is dead even on purchase price once production catches up. The signs as to whether this will really happen will be very clear by 2025 when next gen factories complete.

 

[Fluff]

Everyone wants an electric, just cant afford them, or find them....

They just hope dopy old Joe public, stays on autopilot, and picks the ICE car with the nicest colour, again.

Really? Anyone who does not agree with this is dopy?

Just who is this everyone who wants an EV?

I suppose it's OK to say anyone who is so myopic as to demand a BEV future is a sandwich short of a picnic?

In case nobody noticed, I cannot afford a new car even at the wildly optimistic price points mentioned. A new Dacia starts at £7K and that's too much.

Again, why not use the alternate ICE fuels? They can do the same without the investment in a new infrastructure. Why? Simples, someone is looking to a nice fat earner and it is puirely social change driven rather than climate change driven. Oh, and greed.

To correct your aim, I said the manufacturers/dealers hope people keep buying ICE, as that is the people's habit. Because the manufacturers dont have EV's ready/in volume/in price.

Electricity really is everywhere....wait your not still using paraffin lamps are you?

The alternative fuels include used oil from fish and chip shops - have you seen 20,000 litre tankers delivering to fish and chip shops? The volume just isnt there. Ethanol from crops - great, lets incentivise Brazil to destroy 110% of the amazon rainforest.

Another alternative is to convert your good old ICE, into an EV, lots of that going on, also big with busses and trucks.

IMO any private citizen buying a brand new ICE today, in the UK, needs their head examining. Akin to flushing 20K down the toilet.

 

[Foo Fighter]

"They just hope dopy old Joe public.....". Your words to describe what you believe the manufacturers are hoping. Unless you have a quote from a manufacturer.

Not all eco fuels are chip fat, your emphasis, not mine and ethanol from plants, another ONLY option?. Picking and choosing a pointless link does nothing for the actual points raised in this whole question of how to clean up the ecology. I have zero problem with BE having a PART in doing so but to limit the methodology to this one route is myopic. We can begin the cleanup process WITHOUT isolating large parts of the population or waiting for a sea change in the infrastructure.

We have a LOT of ICE vehicles and using the right eco friendly fuel can help make a change NOW. Not just in the future. About time we worked on many fronts because this is serious.

 

[Hood]

Electricity really is everywhere....wait your not still using paraffin lamps are you?

Not always.
Storm Desmond in December 2015 knocked out power supplies across the locality where I lived for about 4 days. We take it for granted that the power infrastructure is always there, you might have the odd power cut for a few hours due to faults and can put up with that, but sometimes mother nature can swing you some curveballs. As extreme weather events increase these risks of severe damage to the grid increase.

Being green these days seems to mean "let's shove everything onto the grid" but electricity has to come from somewhere. For example a recent study estimated 5.7 million heat pumps installed by 2035 to replace gas boilers would require reinforcement of 42% of the distribution network at a cost of £40.7 billion (that's £1,500 for every consumer) to cope with peak demand loads. By 2050 we could need up to 80TWh annually just to heat our homes, let alone EV charging.

IMO any private citizen buying a brand new ICE today, in the UK, needs their head examining. Akin to flushing 20K down the toilet.

Anyone buying a new car of any sort needs their head examining, you lose 60% of the car's value within 3 years. You still lose 57-58% of a Tesla 3's value over 3 years so you can kiss goodbye to 20K anyway...

 

[Fluff]

The home heating item is an issue, especially as its seasonal, cars etc are a fairly even load across the year. Solar/wind with battery storage will help. It seems the UK has woken up to the fact that wind cannot be guaranteed, and we seem to be heading for a few new nuclear power stations, to give some secure base supply.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Cheapest electric car in the UK today, is £2100 with new batteries. a G-Wiz.

I had to look up the "G-Wiz." That... that is *not* a car. According to Wiki, top speed is barely 50 mph and range tops out at 50 miles.

A true car needs to hit 75 mph, have a range of *at* *least* 250 miles (preferable 350), seat two comfortably and not ruin your chances of attracting the opposite sex. Imagine a teenager contemplating taking his date out with this thing. This thing is better birth control than an engineers personality.

 

[Fluff]

Cheapest electric car in the UK today, is £2100 with new batteries. a G-Wiz.

I had to look up the "G-Wiz." That... that is *not* a car. According to Wiki, top speed is barely 50 mph and range tops out at 50 miles.

A true car needs to hit 75 mph, have a range of *at* *least* 250 miles (preferable 350), seat two comfortably and not ruin your chances of attracting the opposite sex. Imagine a teenager contemplating taking his date out with this thing. This thing is better birth control than an engineers personality.

LOL Look it has a filler cap, lights, a wiper, what more do you want or need?

all battery cars attract the opposite sex, admittedly sometime laughing, but hey, if it works....

 

[Orionblamblam]

LOL Look it has a filler cap, lights, a wiper, what more do you want or need?

The ability to drive on the highway without suffering the twin heartaches of shame and immanent death under the wheels of a Yugo.

all battery cars attract the opposite sex, admittedly sometime laughing, but hey, if it works....

Yeah, but I doubt that a vehicle this compressed *does* work. The passenger volume looks... confining.

To the point of this thread... vehicles like this might charge up fast, but they are so impractical for so many people that they likely will play no meaningful role in the discussion.

 

[Fluff]

They sold 4600, which I'd say is pretty good! But yes its a bit limited on appeal, the Nissan Leaf is a real car, and are available from £5000, which a good number of people would be able to afford.

For brand new EV, The vauxhall corsa is pretty good, about £20,000 or the MG ZS about the same(Chinese built mini SUV).

 

[Foo Fighter]

The g-wiz is a quadricycle rather than a car. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-453565/Deadly-dangers-G-Wiz-green-car-40mph-crash.html

If you are happy that this is a reasonable level of safety it's your call folks. I would not let anyone I cared about loose on the roads with one of those death traps.

The second hand ev's will need a new battery at that price which must be added to the cost of the car.

 

[Orionblamblam]

They sold 4600, which I'd say is pretty good! But yes its a bit limited on appeal, the Nissan Leaf is a real car, and are available from £5000, which a good number of people would be able to afford.

My first car cost a princely $750 circa 1987 (a Volvo as drop-dead sexy as a well-considered insurance policy), which would seem to equate to about $1770 today, or about £1300. Interestingly, the cheapest of cars today seem to run about $1500. 5 kilopounds would have been *vastly* beyond my means, certainly so for many others.

Gas would have cost a lot more than electricity, but that's an expense over a long run, not up-front. That Volvo of mine, some decade and a half old at the time, had three or more times the range of a *modern* Nissan Leaf, never mind a ratted-out beater with an end-of-life battery. Giving a teenager a car that keeps him closely tethered to home just seems cruel.