Random EV thoughts.....

It's 7% on vehicles with 0 - 50 CO2 on the WLTP cycle.

What about the polluter pays principal? Carbon tax on fuel already taxes those who emit CO2 by driving.

Do a conversion!!!!

You know you want to 😁

Colin Furze did a conversion of a ride on mower recently and it actually worked out pretty well

I'd say a conversion of a UTV would be straightforward enough, no need to worry about aerodynamics or any of that nonsense. You could mount motors on either end, or even do a motor per wheel for 4WD

Probably not the answer you were looking for was it? 🤣

Other than a few ATVs on Alibaba there doesn't seem to be much around.

I know there's a couple of electric tractors from John Deere, so they're at least considering it, but haven't heard of anything brought to market yet

My guess is the work is priced on an exchange basis where the old battery is part payment.

I haven’t had a battery replaced but did read something on one of the ev sites about an battery company allowing ‘trade in’ for old packs to offset the cost of an upgrade. Like you say, they’re valuable and quite sought after.

Yeah I think I saw the same company offering that as part of a Leaf battery upgrade

I suspect the mainstream garages won't offer the same deal and will instead charge you full price on the battery and sell the old one on to be recycled 😑

If you can't get a home charger, then the easiest option would be to plug in at a public charger near home or work and leave the car there for half a day

Currently with the ID.4, I'm only charging it once or twice a week from around 30% to 80%

So 50% charge will take around 3.5 hours on a 22kW charger. Plug in one or two mornings a week and that's all you need

Last picture shows a crashed car, I guess it got written off and they took the battery out

How much fuel goes into your tank at the moment while you're in shopping? You have to look at energy in a different manner with an EV than you do in a petrol/diesel car.

There are different categories of EV owner/driver.

1 Have home/work charging and do most of their day-to-day driving inside the range of their vehicle. These drivers don't need to use public chargers on a day-to-day basis, and will only use public chargers for long distance travel or extended times away from their home.

2 Have no home/work charging. These drivers need to use public charging, and can be divided into 2 subcategories

a Plug in any time they are stopped in a location with public charging. This is the equivalent of the driver who buys €10/20 of fuel to get them through the week.

b Plug in at a rapid charger when the charge is low, and completely charge the vehicle. This is the equivalent of the driver who lets the car run to "empty" (which, depending on the driver could be anywhere from low fuel light is on to tank is half full) and then fills it completely.

3 Travel significant distances and exceed the range of their vehicle on a regular basis. These drivers need to use public charging, either at their destination if available or rapid chargers where available (possibly while having lunch).

4 Day-to-day travel is not long distance, but is not covered by the range of the car. This is drivers who for the most part have bought a second hand car with a degraded battery.

If you're in category 1, you're not going to plug in while shopping. It's cheaper to charge at home, and you can do that overnight.

If you're in category 2, you're likely to have some combination of 2a and 2b. How much will depend on your driving profile, and how much charge you need on a weekly basis. 2a covers the type of charging that you are talking about. If you go shopping and use 6kWh to get to the supermarket and back, but take on 11kWh in the time you were shopping, then you have 5kWh more at the end of the trip than you did at the start. This is without it costing you anything in time. If you only use category 2b, and don't charge while shopping, but wait until you go to a fast charger, then you will take on the charge quicker, but likely have to wait with the car. If you use 11kWh to travel to/from the shop and take on 6kWh while shopping, then you will have a longer time between visits to a fast charger. From a time efficiency point of view, you are better off charging while shopping, even if you only take on a relatively small amount. Then you do the same when you go to the gym, or anywhere else you go that has public charging available.

Government policy at the moment has been to prioritise category 1, and sort of facilitate category 2a, 3 & 4. There are grants for home chargers and there are a limited number of public AC destination chargers and rapid chargers on motorway routes. There is an extremely small number of rapid chargers in urban locations which would be needed to support category 2b.

This policy made sense for the initial phases of transitioning towards EVs, especially in the extremely early stages (a decade ago) when there was a level of uncertainty over whether BEV or FCEV was the way to go. As it currently stands, there doesn't seem to be a need for government to increase the level of support for EV ownership - there are waiting lists for virtually all EVs on the market. When the rate of market penetration slows, and it can be seen to be due to infrastructural deficiencies, then government will target their supports at whatever infrastructure is missing. Until then, any significant changes are likely to come only when there is a commercially viable proposition.

Ireland has a large number of homes with dedicated off-street parking, and that has allowed the government to follow this strategy. Charging EVs overnight allows a larger number to be facilitated by the electrical grid than charging them using fast chargers, which would be more likely to happen at one of the peak electricity usage periods of the day.

I wonder how long it will be until we see something like this here (only with wind as opposed to solar). Using the complete battery pack as opposed to removing the cells helps to set a base price for the second hand value of EVs.

Have a listen to hot mess podcast it's on Rte/Spotify. Talks about grid storage a little bit

just two years ago PSA boss at the time said:

https://www.driving.co.uk/news/business/tavares-why-should-peugeot-pay-electric-car-chargers/

Times are changing fast and who's hung on the good old days might realize is too late.