| ▲ | theginger a day ago |
| A lot of fast chargers are over $1 per kwh so unless you have access to home charging there isn't much room for savings. |
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| ▲ | giobox a day ago | parent | next [-] |
| At some stage I wonder if the UK will need to regulate the charger industry. The price gouging is wild in places. If we look at the energy content of petrol, a litre of gas contains about 9kwh of energy, or at average pump prices 1.58/9 = ~18 pence a kwh. For sure, EVs are far more efficient at converting a kwh of energy into forward motion, but if we assume 35 mpg (9.25 miles/litre) for the gas car, we need about 970wh to travel 1 mile. A modern EV can manage a mile on ~260wh, almost a quarter of the gas requirement. There are public charging networks in the UK averaging 92p/kwh - we know we need much less energy to move the more efficient EV, but even with this adjustment fuel cost per mile looks like: petrol at UK average today: 17p/mi Electric at very expensive public charger: ~24p/mi !! At many chargers, there are no savings at all. For comparisons sake, that 92p kwh would be just 28.6p on the most expensive domestic electricity supply, and charging at home would be ~8p per mile on the worst possible tariffs. I've probably done some bad math somewhere here, but I think the broad picture is correct. |
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| ▲ | baq a day ago | parent | next [-] | | The market should sort this out by itself, not saying regulators shouldn’t watch closely, but competition should be enough to do its thing. Cartel formation especially should be watched for vigilantly. | |
| ▲ | KaiserPro 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | dpeends on the car. My Zoe does 4.8 miles per kwhr, my old car does 35 miles per gallon (or 7.6 miles per litre) petrol is currently £1.6 a litre. Which is 21p per mile, for my petrol car at 98p a kwhr its 20p per mile. but in practice the electric car is 3 pence a mile for me (average car charging price for me is 15p a kwhr) | | |
| ▲ | giobox 21 hours ago | parent [-] | | > dpeends on the car Of course, thats why I've been clear all my assumptions are for 260wh/mi, which I think is a very fair middle ground figure to compare to a 35mpg car - one can pick far more fuel efficient gas cars for this comparison too, the possibilities are endless. I think your numbers still illustrate the same point though; if you can't charge at home, an EV is not necessarily cheaper to fuel, and the gap between the public charger price and the cost to a private consumer with home charging is still far too big. 98p vs 15p is staggering. | | |
| ▲ | KaiserPro 20 hours ago | parent [-] | | oh yeah sorry it was meant to illustrate your point, that some of those fast chargers are massive piss takes. |
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| ▲ | afavour a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| But compared to the US home charging via a mains outlet is much more viable because it's 240v vs 110v. If you plug you car overnight you'll typically have enough charge to last you the next day. |
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| ▲ | giobox a day ago | parent | next [-] | | This isn't as big an advantage as you might think, as a huge number of US homes have 240v sockets to power the clothes dryer: > https://getneocharge.com/a/blog/identifying-your-240v-dryer-... Almost everyone I know with an EV charging at home just reused the 240v dryer socket to avoid paying for a dedicated fast charger. It's often cheaper too to have an electrician fit a new 240v socket instead of the dedicated charger as well. | | |
| ▲ | baq a day ago | parent [-] | | Home chargers with dedicated sockets is three phase 400v actually over here in the EU and every single home, and even relatively new apartments have that because of induction stoves. | | |
| ▲ | rootusrootus 21 hours ago | parent [-] | | > every single home Let me guess, you live in Germany? :) Three phase power is definitely not 100% in the EU. Not even in Germany, though adoption does tend to be higher than neighboring countries. And FWIW, I find that my induction cooktop works wonderfully on plain old 240V 40A, so I do not think it is a requirement to get three-phase for that ;-). |
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| ▲ | jbm 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I've been doing level 1 charging for the past 3 years or so. It is fine even in cold Calgary (albeit in an unheated garage) Unless you are regularly doing upwards of 150 km/ day, it's fine. | | | |
| ▲ | rootusrootus a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The US is 240V. We split it into two 120V legs for some sockets, and not for others. Some people do choose to get by on 120V, true, but they are the minority. Usually people who do not drive often. | |
| ▲ | joshl32532 a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Most homes in US built after 1980s(?) have electrical panels with 240V. It's used for dryer, stove etc. | | |
| ▲ | rootusrootus 21 hours ago | parent [-] | | Most? You mean all. 240V [0] as been the standard in the US basically since electrification started in the late 19th century. 120V has for all practical purposes never been a thing, it has always been an artifact of split-phase 240V. A deliberate choice to offer two voltages to every consumer. [0] Okay, technically 240V did not become official until around 1967, but the split-phase design was there from the beginning. They capped it at 240V to stop the creeping up that had been going on in the earlier part of the century. This is why you still have a lot of people (not all of them old enough to have been alive in 1967, oddly enough) that refer to 240V as 220. | | |
| ▲ | bluGill 18 hours ago | parent [-] | | In tge early days they did sometimes wire 120 only houses. That was mostly done before WWII | | |
| ▲ | rootusrootus 17 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sure, but that is the exception proving the rule. Not quite urban legend, you can find people on mikeholt.com who have actually seen one in the wild. Usually because of some shenanigans the local power company pulled to directly connect more houses by giving each one a phase of a three-phase feed. |
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| ▲ | iso1631 a day ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Given that the majority of people in the uk have or can have access to home charging it's not a major problem https://www.racfoundation.org/research/mobility/still-standi... Wales – 75% of households have – or could have – off-street parking and EV charging
England – 68%
Scotland – 63% In London, sure, most homes don't have off-street parking and ev charging, but then only half the households in London have a car https://content.tfl.gov.uk/travel-in-london-2024-car-ownersh... |
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| ▲ | benj111 a day ago | parent [-] | | I think you're somewhat underselling the problem. Even in Wales, 25% can't. This isn't a figure you can ignore. And that's a hypothetical, it relies on landlords playing ball etc. then there's the social issues. On the north of England we have lots of terraces built for mill workers, these aren't owned by the richest on society. So then you're in the situation of charging the poorest more for transport. And these are necessarily on towns with good transport links (think 1 bus and hour). | | |
| ▲ | iso1631 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Many of those "can't" won't have cars. 20% of households in Wales have no car. Now clearly that 25% and 20% won't overlap exactly, but they will overlap a lot When 80% of cars in the UK are electric and 20% are those households who rely on public streets to store their belongings for 23 hours a day, then sure that will be a problem Given that there's only about 2 million electric cars in the UK, yet 18 million homes which can charge electric cars, that's a long way off. |
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