Random EV thoughts.....

They envision using all 140,000 airport spaces. Everything else typically vague. Is that £1.3bn in total by 2050 or per annum. In today's money or 2050's money?

https://www.ukpowernetworks.co.uk/news/airport-car-parks-sleeping-giant-of-the-uk-s-energy-transition

Does that mean that each of those spaces will need a V2G capable charger? If so, then at £1,000 per space that's a CAPEX of £1.4bn. Is that included in the 'savings'. I think this 'study' originated in their Marketing Dept and not their R&D Dept.

I kinda think there's some merit to the airport idea, you have a good idea of how many cars will be there in advance, and there's usually an airport nearby with a huge grid connection

Tbh it seems simpler to just power the airport and not worry about grid stabilisation

I think V2H is the holy grail personally, both for consumers and the grid. Easiest way to stabilise the grid is to flatten the demand curve so generators can just keep chipping away at their optimum performance

If there was a wallbox for around €2k that could output 5-6kW from my car's battery into the house then the whole thing becomes an AC coupled battery and I've got 77kWh available on demand

Much easier from a regulatory point of view, just need the same testing as any solar PV inverter

I'm dreaming though, any DC wallbox will probably be closer to €5k plus installation 🙄

@munchkin_utd - "One of the main catches of the scheme is that the installed system must be able to feed back power to the grid at peak times from the car and/ or static battery system."

Any hybrid inverter can feed back to the grid from a static battery

€10k subsidy, that's madness. Basically a complete mid size PV system with battery for free. Paid for by the tax payer. No wonder the kitty went empty straight away. Just 30k people got lucky. What about the other 80m Germans? Goes to show how ridiculous subsidies are. 30k installs is barely a drop in the bucket. Might as well have sent the whole country a lotto ticket with 30k price winners of €10k cash, tax free 🙄

What is it with the French and leasing when it comes to EVs?

The thing was unjust to begin with, a pot of cash to those who have seen their property soar in value over the past years (eg, average house price in Munich was tipping 1.5million a couple of years back) whilst so many others are locked out of the property market. Thats aside from them being in the position to PRIVATELY buy an Ev (company cars were excluded) to park outside their house, so again lads with enough resources that they dont need their pockets lined further.

The money would have been far better invested in public charging infrastructure but it wasnt.

BTW, the scheme required that you install a home battery - you couldnt just install the solar panels and a wallbox and use your car as your battery, the 2 way charging of the car is just an extra backup to run appliances on to save you needing to tap into the grid (or something like that)

From what I read there is sweet money in the infrastructure as well.

The original article. Also this is the phase 1 of the program. The state selected the locations and companies tendered for them

I use browser translation so maybe I loose some context but it seems to me a quite decent effort.

VW have huge sales (of EVs) in China. Competition is a relative thing. As long as you can add perceived value, quality and status, you can charge more for your product. Even in a market with cut throat competition.

People keep mentioning the $15k ID.3. What are we supposed to do with that information? Some people seem to use it to get mad that VW are being greedy because they're €45k in Europe yet nobody is complaining that a Kona or Prius is also €45k.

Are they paying German wages in China? Are they following the same health and safety audits/ISO standards? Are the cars getting all the same collision detection and safety tech? Are VW China on the same manufacturing level as Zwickau or are they purposely using old technology to prevent copyright infringement like Intel China for example? I literally have zero context to care about a $15k ID.3. It could be a piece of ****, zero spec, no safety standard car for all I know or like old Dacia Dusters banged together with hammers in Romania.

All I know is that VW have a whole line of Chinese exclusive models and that their EV market is currently very competitive. Is that a good price for China car sales?

I thought they were experiencing double digit drop in sales in China. Still a huge market for them all right.

Exactly, they've forgotten their roots. I want a car with a built in coffee machine and currywurst oven 😁

I mean I'd settle for a decent V2L system as a runner up

Yes, but they're being squeezed at both ends

VW always tried to be the affordable premium brand with an option for everyone

If you wanted a base spec Polo with nothing but seats and a steering wheel, no problem

If you wanted a big Passat with a powerful engine and a nice interior, no problem either

Almost like they were the people's car brand...funny that 🤔

But for the last few years it's all been about cutting costs and increasing profits while seemingly maintaining dozens of models across multiple brands. A high spec 2023 Golf is considerably poorer specced than an equivalent 2003 version IMO

So now their base spec cars are more expensive and worse than the competition, and their high spec cars are more expensive and worse than the competition

They can't beat Tesla at premium EVs and they can't beat MG or BYD at cheap EVs

Has anyone seen any sign of this as a potential issue for here?

“Asked about its position on electric cars, Aviva said it regularly reviewed its underwriting criteria for all makes and models to reflect emerging trends and experience.

”Although we insured the Tesla Y Model last year, during the year we changed this acceptance criteria and we were no longer able to offer a policy at renewal,”

”

what is specifically hard to insure about the model Y - presumably it can only be the repair costs the insurance companies are seeing so far?

there are some bizarrely high repair bills in the model Y thread recently

Surely though if a ‘cheap’ repair and respray is actually costing €3000 on the Y via insurance, then renewals will be up across the board for that car.

as I quoted above, Avila have specifically excluded the Y