week 13: Maybe the Earth is flat after all
Enviado: 25 ago 2011, 14:09
week 13: Maybe the Earth is flat after all
"Robert looks at questionable EV news reporting, mobile charging trucks, and V2G technology
By Robert Llewellyn on July 25, 2011 10:16 AM
I was doing the washing up the other morning when I heard on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that research had revealed that electric cars weren’t selling. People feared range anxiety and thought they were too expensive.
That was it, just a little snippet, no explanation or sources as to where this research had come from. I admit I slumped a little, maybe the BBC have been right all along, for some mysterious reason they only ever report the most negative stories on this subject.
I checked my watch and realised I was going to be late unless I got a shift on, so I got in the Nissan LEAF and headed off to the shops.
I ruminated as I drove along. ‘What if this car did run out of power in the middle of nowhere, what would happen?’
Well, there was a story recently about the AAA - that’s the AA in America -which is starting to roll out breakdown trucks with built in fast charge units to give electric cars a bit of a jolt if they run out on the highway. Seems a bit daft, a massive diesel truck with a huge generator and battery pack. They could just tow the car to a charge point, but better belt and braces I suppose.
Maybe the AA are going to do the same thing in the UK, they have very positive statements about electric vehicles on their website. They assume, with no caveats, that we will have to change the way we move about, that electric cars are the obvious solution, we can’t rely on endless fossil fuel, blah blah. But that’s just the AA, what do they know about cars and drivers.
I did my shopping, drove further afield to my favourite little ironmongers to get some galvanised nails to finish the fence repair I was undertaking. I love the smell of an ironmongers in the morning.
I then drove home worrying, maybe the BBC’s Brian Milligan was right when he tried to drive a prototype electric car from London to Edinburgh in the dead of winter to, ahem, ‘see how long it would take.’ It took him four days.
Yes, I know my pal David Peilow did the same journey in less than a day in a full production car, the Tesla Roadster but that’s not the point. Many more people know about Brian Milligan and that’s what counts.
Little worries, small anxieties drip fed by newspapers and radio that build up to a big ‘no’ from the great British public. No, people aren’t going to change their driving habits even if it does cost them 50p a mile to drive their three-ton SUVs.
Not a glimpse of the big picture, the overriding drive behind all this development and research by many manufacturers to try and suggest that change is possible.
I drove home with a load of shopping and a bag of nails. Total distance, 38 miles. Range anxiety? No, not on a journey that short, in fact, I don’t get it at all. I drove sensibly listening to an audio book called Flat Earth News about the demise of journalism in the UK (timely but very depressing) and returned home with two thirds of the battery still full.
The fuel cost of this little jaunt? Actually zero because it was a sunny day and my solar panels had generated more power than I’d used in the car.
I got back in and read an article sent to me by a kind member of the Twitterati. It was from the June issue of Professional Engineer which, I admit, doesn’t have quite the reach of the Daily Mail but could hardly be described as a rabid-lefty-eco-fascist rag.
It’s a very interesting report on how Ricardo and the National Grid are developing a system of grid balancing using the power stored in electric vehicle batteries.
Grid balancing? Whassat?
Well, the idea is simple; because of the fluctuations in power coming from increasing amounts of renewable energy being produced, a big problem the National Grid faces is keeping the power supply ‘balanced’; as much coming in as going out.
There are two ways of doing this apparently. The first is Demand Side Management (DSM) using smart meters, which we’re all getting anyway, electric cars or no. With DSM, if there is a big demand on the grid the smart meter would stop the cars charging until demand drops. The possible inconvenience would be compensated for with a small cost reduction for the car owner.
The other and far more exciting option is Vehicle to Grid (V2G). This would mean that during a period of high demand, the grid would take power from the battery and feed it back into the grid. The same cost reduction would apply.
The one thing you need when you are producing large amounts of renewable energy is the ability to store it. Electricity is annoying; apparently you can’t pour it into buckets to use later. But if there were half a million electric cars in regular use, that adds up to one very big national battery.
They are not talking about doing this now, there’s not enough electric vehicles to make any difference. They are talking about developing this over the next five years or so.
It seems loads of people – know-nothing engineers, that bunch of eco-nutters the National Grid, leftie politicians like the Conservative party, car manufacturers like Renault, Ford, Nissan, VW, Toyota, BMW, Volvo and even Rolls Royce – think people will buy electric cars.
I think people will buy them too. I think they will get cheaper in time and I think they will get increasingly cheaper to drive. And once car rental companies and car clubs have them and more people get to try them, that uptake will increase dramatically."
Em: http://www.thechargingpoint.com/opinion ... r-all.html
"Robert looks at questionable EV news reporting, mobile charging trucks, and V2G technology
By Robert Llewellyn on July 25, 2011 10:16 AM
I was doing the washing up the other morning when I heard on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that research had revealed that electric cars weren’t selling. People feared range anxiety and thought they were too expensive.
That was it, just a little snippet, no explanation or sources as to where this research had come from. I admit I slumped a little, maybe the BBC have been right all along, for some mysterious reason they only ever report the most negative stories on this subject.
I checked my watch and realised I was going to be late unless I got a shift on, so I got in the Nissan LEAF and headed off to the shops.
I ruminated as I drove along. ‘What if this car did run out of power in the middle of nowhere, what would happen?’
Well, there was a story recently about the AAA - that’s the AA in America -which is starting to roll out breakdown trucks with built in fast charge units to give electric cars a bit of a jolt if they run out on the highway. Seems a bit daft, a massive diesel truck with a huge generator and battery pack. They could just tow the car to a charge point, but better belt and braces I suppose.
Maybe the AA are going to do the same thing in the UK, they have very positive statements about electric vehicles on their website. They assume, with no caveats, that we will have to change the way we move about, that electric cars are the obvious solution, we can’t rely on endless fossil fuel, blah blah. But that’s just the AA, what do they know about cars and drivers.
I did my shopping, drove further afield to my favourite little ironmongers to get some galvanised nails to finish the fence repair I was undertaking. I love the smell of an ironmongers in the morning.
I then drove home worrying, maybe the BBC’s Brian Milligan was right when he tried to drive a prototype electric car from London to Edinburgh in the dead of winter to, ahem, ‘see how long it would take.’ It took him four days.
Yes, I know my pal David Peilow did the same journey in less than a day in a full production car, the Tesla Roadster but that’s not the point. Many more people know about Brian Milligan and that’s what counts.
Little worries, small anxieties drip fed by newspapers and radio that build up to a big ‘no’ from the great British public. No, people aren’t going to change their driving habits even if it does cost them 50p a mile to drive their three-ton SUVs.
Not a glimpse of the big picture, the overriding drive behind all this development and research by many manufacturers to try and suggest that change is possible.
I drove home with a load of shopping and a bag of nails. Total distance, 38 miles. Range anxiety? No, not on a journey that short, in fact, I don’t get it at all. I drove sensibly listening to an audio book called Flat Earth News about the demise of journalism in the UK (timely but very depressing) and returned home with two thirds of the battery still full.
The fuel cost of this little jaunt? Actually zero because it was a sunny day and my solar panels had generated more power than I’d used in the car.
I got back in and read an article sent to me by a kind member of the Twitterati. It was from the June issue of Professional Engineer which, I admit, doesn’t have quite the reach of the Daily Mail but could hardly be described as a rabid-lefty-eco-fascist rag.
It’s a very interesting report on how Ricardo and the National Grid are developing a system of grid balancing using the power stored in electric vehicle batteries.
Grid balancing? Whassat?
Well, the idea is simple; because of the fluctuations in power coming from increasing amounts of renewable energy being produced, a big problem the National Grid faces is keeping the power supply ‘balanced’; as much coming in as going out.
There are two ways of doing this apparently. The first is Demand Side Management (DSM) using smart meters, which we’re all getting anyway, electric cars or no. With DSM, if there is a big demand on the grid the smart meter would stop the cars charging until demand drops. The possible inconvenience would be compensated for with a small cost reduction for the car owner.
The other and far more exciting option is Vehicle to Grid (V2G). This would mean that during a period of high demand, the grid would take power from the battery and feed it back into the grid. The same cost reduction would apply.
The one thing you need when you are producing large amounts of renewable energy is the ability to store it. Electricity is annoying; apparently you can’t pour it into buckets to use later. But if there were half a million electric cars in regular use, that adds up to one very big national battery.
They are not talking about doing this now, there’s not enough electric vehicles to make any difference. They are talking about developing this over the next five years or so.
It seems loads of people – know-nothing engineers, that bunch of eco-nutters the National Grid, leftie politicians like the Conservative party, car manufacturers like Renault, Ford, Nissan, VW, Toyota, BMW, Volvo and even Rolls Royce – think people will buy electric cars.
I think people will buy them too. I think they will get cheaper in time and I think they will get increasingly cheaper to drive. And once car rental companies and car clubs have them and more people get to try them, that uptake will increase dramatically."
Em: http://www.thechargingpoint.com/opinion ... r-all.html