No, I don't know! and I don't know where the biggest filling station is either!
In Scotland as my grandson commented on it when he took the Tesla up there. Overall he was very impressed by Alba's approach to infrastructure.
These figures do not seem to make sense, Regeneration only occurs when the vehicle is actually recharging the battery. Are you referring to zero emmision mileage? Can you clarify please?
I'm sure there's more to it than just the Smart Alternator but as for the factors you mention - the newer car is heavier, it has the same spare wheel and the fuel tank is the same size.
Whatever they did, small changes here and there resulted in a 30% increase in mpg.
On the subject of weight as someone mentioned it earlier, an Audi A6 in petrol form (TFSI) has a MIRO of 1865kgs, my TFSI-e (plug in hybrid) version has a MIRO of 2250kgs. Battery, motor, structural mods to accommodate it all, wiring etc, etc sure do add to the weight.
Certainly not on the Borders! Probably one of the major City Areas? Or please tell me it’s
Cornwall😉😉
The Toyota RAV4/Suzuki Across hybrid system operates differently to your VW system to difficult to compare.
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Banbury, the instavolts just off J11 of M40? Or Oxford, Or possibly Rugby Moto services, J1 M6.
Not convinced by the delays cost money argument. If you charge at home, and 90% of your journeys are inside the range of your car, with just the occasional public rapid charging, the saving of time over dedicated trips to the fuel station easily nets out. Further, if I am stopping to charge at a public charger, I am probably having a comfort break anyway. Combining the two adds basically no additional time just to charge.
With the right subscritpion, public charging is as little a 35p / kWh. Thats no more expensive than petrol or diesel.
But given the majority of charging is from home, the net net is a saving to the employer.
With EVs, this "perk" is back and once again valuable. For a full EV, there is no BIK on nay charging for personal miles, and with the still low (2% but now on an escalator, 1 % per year from next year) BIK on the car, they are cheap for employees. But they are also cheap for employers too. Just as there is no BIK on charging, so there is no NIC on that payment, and with charging from home being 90% of the fuel spend at just 7p per kWh, the actual spend on fuel for the company is very low. AND the funding of an EV vs ICE gets tax breaks for the company too.
As a matter of interest if the car was a normal ICE vehicle and it was used for business i.e. sales rep whether doing low or high mileage, would you be happy to pay for the fuel as in essence that is what you are doing with home charging?
When I was working, I seldom stopped for a lunch break and would be travelling up to 200 miles a day. No such thing as services to stop at as most of the driving was on A roads.
Grabbed a coke and sandwich from supermarket if I was passing one. Point is not every one uses motorways for travelling to destinations and does not have the convenience of services. At the time I was working for Channel 5 and my area was from north Birmingham across to Coventry and right down to Abergavenny and the valleys. I did not have the time to stop for a break of even 30 minutes. Obviously a bit different today with all the new rules and regulations.
I am not paying for home charging - the company is. For my charger it's a direct reimbursement, for others you just track the usage and claim via expenses.
You are thinking petrol, not EV. Rapid EV chargers are everywhere including A roads.
There are lots of supermarkets with rapid chargers. Waitrose use Shell, Lidl and Tesco use PodPoint, Morisons use Geneipoint, Sainsbury's are rolling out their own, Booths have Instavolt. Thats the beauty of electricity - it's everywhere already.
And even if it's just a pop into a regular forecourt, lots of those now have MFG EVPower chargers. Park and put on charge - go in, use loo, buy sandwich and drink, eat them in the shop (it it has a cafe area) or in the car (if not). If you really need a bit longer to charge - get laptop or phone out and catch up on back officestuff or emails etc.
The work day has become so flexible, there is always something to be done whether sat in a car, on a train at an airport etc. The 5 or 10 mins extra charging does not need to be unproductive, unlike holding a fuel hose which can be about nothing else.
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Can you elaborate on that bit? 35p/kWh is about on-par with petrol costs for my car so if I could charge it at the same rate I probably would (not towing though) but have no idea how to obtain such a low rate! Thanks
Recent surveys show that London and South-east has plenty of chargers but the north-south divide means the rest of the UK is less well served - so plenty of chargers were EVs are more popular for short journeys but not so plentiful elsewhere.
Why is it now normal to buy food/drink while refueling/recharging a car, no wonder the country has an obesity problem! What's wrong with the traditional "refuel, pay for it,
continue journey" ?
Tesla superchargers with a subscription when charging off peak. Have a look at the Tesla app, add a credit card for payment and then explore chargers around you. Even without the subscription, my closest charger (Northampton) is 61p peak and 51p off peak. With subscription it's 39p off peak and 48p peak. Even off peak, with a 4 mile/kWh car you are still at 12p per mile which is the cheaper end of ICE. When you combine that with home charging, you are definitely cheaper over all.
My point was that I did not have enough time to spend 20-30 minutes at a recharging station that is if it working and there is space. I am sure the same applies today.
Assuming you can home charge (and yes there are those who can't, for whom solutions need to be found) you don't need public charging. In my experience, the density of chargers in London and the south east are from, slow destination types - specifically to help those who cant home charge. In the rest of the country, the balance is in the other direction, with more rapid chargers, helping those who are on longer trips.
Different methodology. With petrol you stop because the car needs to. While you are filling the car, you cant do anything else, partly because you are holding the refilling nozzle and partly because not all fuel stations have toilets. With EV you stop when the person needs to and charge while on the person stop. Almost every rapid EV charger I have been to has a facility associated with it.
Nowadays employers encourage anyone driving on company business to take a break, from memory it's endorsed by ROSPA and the like to try and reduce accidents caused by fatigue.
I regularly take 4 other people out for the day - on longer trips we have to stop for a comfort break - it NEVER takes more than 10 minutes, often only 5 minutes if the toilets are close by the parking - just how much recharging can you actually achieve in such a short time, less the time it takes to plug-in, authorise and then disconnect afterwards.
I can drive anywhere solo in the UK without having to refuel as it's "only" 560 miles to the north coast of Scotland, much less than that down to Cornwall - if/when I switch to an EV I know I'll have to take recharging stops into account for journey planning which will increase overall journey times.
A cynic would say it's only the advent of EV charging delay that's highlighted the "need" for breaks to avoid fatigue.
Thanks, a quick look shows there's a £9 monthly subscription fee which (for me) wouldn't be worth it with a hybrid that can't use the rapid charging rates, but anyone doing a lot of business miles and able to use fast chargers it would make sense.
On the latter part "it its working and there is a space" is a non-issue. The car can tell you that before you get there. On the former part, not enough time to stop - I think that is very dependent on your job, on your employer, on the nature of the stop.
No, it was being pushed by HR departments and fleet managers 20 years ago when I drove a company car. The H&S side of thigs bit firmly before the EV side of things.
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