Tag: Batterie

Telegraph’s EV Fan Gets A Shock!

It is amazing how often we read about EV drivers moaning about the lack of charging infrastructure. Who do they think is going to pay for it all? Why should the rest of us have to pay for it? And private businesses are not going to invest billions, when chargers will be sat idle for most of the time given the small number of EVs on the road.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Paul Kolk

If you need a good laugh, read on!

I am not the first man to have cried in an Ikea car park and I won’t be the last. But at that moment I might have been the only one weeping tears of pure frustration.

At the wheel of my battery-powered Skoda Enyaq, I pulled into the car park, where my satnav had indicated several electric charging points. Seeing them, I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. A delivery van was parked at an angle, splayed across three spaces so it didn’t stick out into the road. Another car was in the final slot, charging patiently. There was no room at the power inn.

I banged my head against the steering wheel and wondered what to do. After driving around at various speeds, idling in traffic and looping back on myself, I didn’t have the required range remaining in the battery to reach another charging point. Ikea was my last charge saloon.

It wasn’t the only setback I’d had that morning. I was due to drive from my home in north London to my in-laws outside Petersfield, Hampshire. On a good day, the  journey takes about an hour and 45 minutes, but I had allowed three hours to give me plenty of time for a top-up charge before leaving the capital.

When I set out, the sun shone in the sky, the birds sang in the trees and all was rosy with the world. Although I was down to my last 35 miles or so of current, I had plenty of mileage to reach a charging station.

Or so I thought. Using the car’s in-built charger finder, I plotted a course to a juicy looking one in north London. When I got there, I found the machines completely inert. No problem, I thought, popping in another charger to the navigation system, I still had plenty of margin for error.

It was also out of service. The attendant shrugged apologetically, but I didn’t get the impression he minded much. So by the time I reached Ikea the game was up. I had no choice but to wait. When I finally got to plug in and saw how long it would take to charge to a level to complete my journey – much longer than the best-case scenarios I had planned in my head – I texted the family to say I would be late.

I had wanted to see what it was like being an EV person, and was grateful to Skoda for offering me one. At the start of the week I had never driven one before. My wife and I were never big car people, which is to say I only learned to drive in my mid-20s and do so sparingly. After its catalytic converter was stolen last year, we were forced to write off our trusty old Honda Jazz. With two young children, we reasoned we would probably need a car at some point, but we didn’t want to go crazy. Like all self-righteous millennials, we vaguely thought our next vehicle would be an EV, but we weren’t quite sure when to pull the trigger or which to get.

We don’t have off-street parking, so charging would be more problematic than it would if we had a driveway and a home charger. And used EVs were even more expensive than other second-hand cars, the prices of which had been sent through the roof by Covid-related shortages of factory-fresh models.

The pitiful state of charging in the UK is hardly the car’s fault. The Enyaq was satisfying to drive: fast, responsive, comfortable, spacious and quiet. The driver aids alone were a revelation, especially the computer game-style head-up display in the windscreen, invisible except to the driver, telling you where to turn.

Sadly my Ikea experience was not the only charger issue. Later in the week, having driven the family here and there around the countryside, I decided to stock up on charge for the way home. A five-minute petrol stop with a baby and a toddler can be disruptive enough; I didn’t want to experience a half-hour – or longer – recharging stop.

Instead I headed to Petersfield Waitrose, where apparently there was a fast charger in the car park.On arrival I was greeted by a man on his way out of the car park. “It’s not working,” he told me. Like any man, I refused to believe this good faith advice until I had tested the machine for myself. He was right, it wasn’t working.

It started to rain, great sheets of it. I followed the map to another fast-looking charger, 10 miles away. There I found the same man, charging his car. He grinned at me.

I had always thought the whole point of a car is its predictability. Living in London, there is always a choice. Tube lines can be closed, railways replaced by buses, buses on diversion. Even walking you might get rained on.

There’s less choice in rural areas. Sometimes none. The advantage of a car is that apart from traffic, there aren’t as many surprises waiting in store. Yes, it’s expensive and polluting, but it does the job. Without our own charging point, an EV introduces new things to think about. That was the real lesson I learned from Ikea Wembley.

Flat pack can be irritating, but it’s nothing on a flat battery.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/comment/left-flat-by-my-electric-car-charging-experience/

It is amazing how often we read about EV drivers moaning about the lack of charging infrastructure. Who do they think is going to pay for it all? Why should the rest of us have to pay for it? And private businesses are not going to invest billions, when chargers will be sat idle for most of the time given the small number of EVs on the road.

Ed Cumming epitomises the London bubble mentality, when talks about “rural areas” being different. He does not seem to realise that for just about everybody living outside London, a car is a necessity, not a luxury.

His little problem visiting his in-laws may have been a minor inconvenience. For most of us who need cars everyday, especially those with no off road parking, problems like these will have a major impact on our lives.

Why 100% Wind & Solar 100% Guarantees Blackouts and Rocketing Power Prices

No civilised country has ever powered itself entirely with wind and solar; no country ever will. And yet the grand wind and solar ‘transition’ – being peddled by rent-seekers and crony capitalists – is still taken as an article of faith by the naïve and gullible.

From STOP THESE THINGS

No civilised country has ever powered itself entirely with wind and solar; no country ever will. And yet the grand wind and solar ‘transition’ – being peddled by rent-seekers and crony capitalists – is still taken as an article of faith by the naïve and gullible.

What is evident is the direct and unassailable relationship between intermittent wind and solar, rocketing power prices, load shedding and, ultimately, mass blackouts.

In this piece from September last year, Isaac Orr, Mitch Rolling and John Phelan rich precisely that conclusion in relation to plans by Governor Tim Walz to permanently unhitch Minnesota from reality and reason.

The High Cost of 100 Percent Carbon-Free Electricity by 2040
American Experiment
Isaac Orr, Mitch Rolling, John Phelan
12 September 2022

The 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2040 mandate proposed by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz would cost the state $313.2 billion through 2050 and lead to devastating blackouts.

Governor Walz’s Proposal would commit the state to obtaining 100 percent of its electricity from carbon-free energy sources by 2040, but his proposal would not legalize the construction of new nuclear power plants in Minnesota or allow the hydroelectric electricity generated in Canada that Minnesotans already purchase to count as “carbon-free.” As a result, the Walz Proposal is essentially a wind, solar, and battery storage mandate.

We also investigated another scenario, called the Lower Cost Decarbonization (LCD) Scenario, that uses new nuclear power plants, coal plants with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) equipment, battery storage, and Canadian hydro and found that this suite of technologies would reduce emissions for a much lower cost.

This report is the most robust modeling on the true cost of attempting to power our state using wind turbines, solar panels, and battery storage technology. Our study finds:

  • Minnesota electricity customers will see their electricity expenses increase by an average of nearly $3,888 per year, every year, through 2050.
  • The Walz Proposal would reduce the reliability of the grid by making the state more vulnerable to fluctuations in output from weather-dependent energy sources like wind and solar.
  • Shockingly, Minnesota would experience a devastating 55-hour blackout in late January if wind and solar output is the same as it was in the year 2020, and electricity demand was the same as 2021.

These are just a few of our findings. By contrast, embracing a diverse portfolio of reliable technologies, including new nuclear power plants, coal plants with carbon capture and sequestration equipment, battery storage, and large hydroelectric power facilities in Canada, would reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the electricity sector by 98 percent. This portfolio would cost $224 billion less than the Walz Proposal and not cause blackouts.

American Experiment