Electric vans

Highland Mule

Member
Livestock Farmer
That is great for a car but where the journey of 300 miles is commercial the driver usually wants to get back home as well.

Absolutely, so there will be a demand for diesel engines for some time to come. Not all your vans do that though, do they? Some will do local drops and would suit battery, others won't. I'd say very few private customers would be doing your sort of mileage though.
 

Will0

Member
I have no personal experience of electric cars yet, but I’d imagine that very few personal vehicles will need quick charge - I do about 30k miles a year minimum, and can’t think when I would need a service station charge except on holidays.

Extrapolating, the network doesn’t need to be huge, as most vehicle charges would be overnight. Sure, the grid isn’t there yet but it’s got time to grow as EV ownership does.

Exactly how my wife uses her electric car, I don’t know how people don’t get it 😂
25,000 miles a year, home charge over night. Then we rapid charge at 50kw for holidays
 

JP1

Member
Livestock Farmer
Exactly how my wife uses her electric car, I don’t know how people don’t get it 😂
25,000 miles a year, home charge over night. Then we rapid charge at 50kw for holidays
I get it but I just can't make it work

Last week family funeral Bury St Edmunds to Bournemouth and back. Day before with a colleague two site visits Bury St Edmunds to Barnsley to Coningsby to Bury St Edmunds

Previous week, drive Bury St Edmunds to Wells with overnight just about do-able

Same equation with a stock checking electric bike or scooter. Range on best so called 70 miles but does that tail off after many charges and do you ruin a battery topping up without full discharge. My complete stock check round is 60 miles. I still think a 140mpg petrol something is safer
 

Will0

Member
I completely get that it isn’t for everyone, and I still have my pickup if the journey is more practical by diesel.

But some of these comments are making out like it doesn’t work at all, and a home charger doesn’t charge you properly overnight. For 90% of commuters that go to the same office every day, why not?
 

Highland Mule

Member
Livestock Farmer
I get it but I just can't make it work

Last week family funeral Bury St Edmunds to Bournemouth and back. Day before with a colleague two site visits Bury St Edmunds to Barnsley to Coningsby to Bury St Edmunds

Previous week, drive Bury St Edmunds to Wells with overnight just about do-able

Same equation with a stock checking electric bike or scooter. Range on best so called 70 miles but does that tail off after many charges and do you ruin a battery topping up without full discharge. My complete stock check round is 60 miles. I still think a 140mpg petrol something is safer

Where did you have lunch on the day of the funeral? Surely you stopped somewhere en route for a coffee Or to empty your bladder? Not that it would be needed, as it’s right on the range of a model 3. No idea where the other places are, sorry, but can’t see you doing 300miles without passing a service station for a top up. Guys up here run BMW i3 cars (really poor range) so struggle to see how you couldn’t make a Tesla 3 or similar range work in the south.
 

Dave645

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
N Lincs
Trying to read up on this. Looks like a big van would need a charger drawing something like 32 amps per phase on a 3 ph supply to charge in a reasonable time
Imagine the draw your local DPD depot would make on the grid if they had 40 vans to charge up before the next shift.
If the vans had say a 75kwhr battery each and are parked say 12 hrs over night, and they used 80% of there charge every day leaving 60kwhr of charge needed every night then a standard home 7kw charger would cover each vehicle.
In fact they would only need 8 hrs ish.
Given that 60kwhrs is around 240 miles of range I doubt they use as much as that in a day.

most will use less than 25kwhrs of electric and do about 100 miles per day on average.
That’s only 3 and a bit hrs of charger each if charged very day, 100 vans is still 208 kwh per hour over the 12 hrs they are parked, every night. . . 2.08 kwh each over a 12 hr night.

if I was them I would install solar electric and large battery storage which is being encouraged at the moments by electric utilities, large commercial demand users that fit battery systems that have grid hook ups are being encouraged with incentives to the companies.
If they slow the utilities to use them for grid stability.
 
On the radio this morning there was an industry rep stating that many PHEVs were actually worse for emissions than pure ICE cars because of the extra battery weight being carried around .....Doesn't surprise me as many are bought simply for for the tax benefits and the users have little interest in efficient usage.

"Self-Charging Hybrids" must be even worse..

This is the future,


Battery is currently (see what I did there) suitable for domestic use or city centre use and not a lot more .
 

Highland Mule

Member
Livestock Farmer
On the radio this morning there was an industry rep stating that many PHEVs were actually worse for emissions than pure ICE cars because of the extra battery weight being carried around .....Doesn't surprise me as many are bought simply for for the tax benefits and the users have little interest in efficient usage.

"Self-Charging Hybrids" must be even worse..

This is the future,


Battery is currently (see what I did there) suitable for domestic use or city centre use and not a lot more .

They are a bit heavier, that's true, but not hugely so. Emissions from tyres is greater too, but mainly because they have more torque and hence can be driven more spiritedly.

As an engineer, hydrogen doesn't convince me - transmission and storage is more tricky that a copper wire, and the infrastructre doesn't seem to be gaining traction. It also needs fuel manufacture, which is a further chemical conversion step over straight electricity generation, and which robs efficiency overall.

Battery is indeed fine for domestic use, and limited short distance courier services, but it is getting better. LE JOG in 15h32m is pretty impressive, you have to admit (albeit with careful planning).


My prediction is that EV will become the default for private passenger cars fairly soon, possibly with advanced battery types or even capacitor type storage, but freight will be some time behind. Your type of enterprise will probably end up with a bit of both. Couldn't guess what your fuel bill is at the moment, but suspect it's one of your biggest costs and the largest that's open for chipping away at.
 

JP1

Member
Livestock Farmer
On the radio this morning there was an industry rep stating that many PHEVs were actually worse for emissions than pure ICE cars because of the extra battery weight being carried around .....Doesn't surprise me as many are bought simply for for the tax benefits and the users have little interest in efficient usage.

"Self-Charging Hybrids" must be even worse..

This is the future,


Battery is currently (see what I did there) suitable for domestic use or city centre use and not a lot more .
It was a Greenpeace spokesman not an industry rep:

 

Highland Mule

Member
Livestock Farmer
Never really studied them too much but is the main market for these as a Company Car tax dodge?

I'm not sure. I suspect well meaning eco types who think they're better than a small diesel - which they probably are in cities and other areas with local pollution issues, and for short trips. If all you do is a 5 mile commute, then why bother with anything else? You have an ICE for the occassional long trip and a battery for the day to day journeys.

My shortest regular trip is too long for anythng of that type, but I can see how it would suit others.
 

JP1

Member
Livestock Farmer
I'm not sure. I suspect well meaning eco types who think they're better than a small diesel - which they probably are in cities and other areas with local pollution issues, and for short trips. If all you do is a 5 mile commute, then why bother with anything else? You have an ICE for the occassional long trip and a battery for the day to day journeys.

My shortest regular trip is too long for anythng of that type, but I can see how it would suit others.
Aparently the GP chap said if you turn the air-con on or the cruise control it automatically starts the petrol motor (as well as when you boot it). Again not sure if that's really correct. I bet a few smug types still call it zero emissions
 

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