EV opposition in the media is ramping up

[Rolfe]

Honestly, even if there were no environmental considerations at all, I think it would inevitable that EVs would take over from ICE cars. I've heard it said that the ICE is a triumph of development over a not terribly good idea, and that EVs are fundamentally a better idea whose time has come.

I got into an argument with an idiot on Twitter, after I had said something bland about having a new EV and what a great drive it was and so economical and so convenient to fuel. The idiot told me I had been deceived and sold a pup. I asked in what way.

He started banging on about all the things we've been talking about, EVs are more polluting, they won't help with climate change yadda yada. I protested that I'd said nothing about pollution or climate change, only that the car was great to drive, very economical, and convenient to fuel. Cue a ramping up of the rhetoric about how I'd been fooled. I asked if I was mistaken about the car being a great drive, or how much it was costing me, or how convenient it was. He also kept saying that EVs weren't a new idea, they'd been tried a century ago without success. I remarked that the idea was waiting for battery technology to catch up with it and now it had.

He shifted to declaring that the most environmentally friendly thing to do was to keep running an old ICE car as long as possible. I pointed out that I'd reluctantly had to get rid of my 14 year old car because someone ran into me and wrote it off. I think his next gambit was that I should have bought an ancient ICE car to replace it!

I reminded him that I'd said nothing about pollution or the environment, merely that the car was great to drive, very economical, and convenient. He ended up calling me selfish for choosing a great car to drive, rather than prioritising the environment! (After beginning by assuming I'd bought it because I as prioritising the environment.)

It got me thinking. You could sell these cars on their own merits, as the natural successor to the ICE car, simply on their performance. Just like people shifted from rolls of film to digital cameras when the technology made digital photography cheaper and easier and eventually better.

The environmental argument is almost a red herring, although it's a very real concern.

 

[Paulie68]

Look slike Trump is on the anti ev train

Trump calls Biden's EV push a 'ridiculous crusade'

www.politico.com

I don't think we'd ever expect him to be on the side of anything that may actually improve the planet!

 

[Ian Key]

From The Fully Charged Show's website:

"The Fully Charged SHOW and FairCharge are coming together to #StopBS and to combat this ‘fear, uncertainty and doubt’ through *fast-turnaround infographic rebuttals, proactively placing spokespeople on mainstream media, and engaging with political influencers. Your financial support via Patreon can make a material difference, as we persuade people to #StopBurningStuff."

 

[Robf]

All deisel vehicles are in danger of spontanious combustion say experts. Once on fire, they are almost impossible to put out. Many lives could be lost

Thames Travel bus driver praised after double decker blaze

The A4074 in Nuneham Courtenay, Oxfordshire, was closed while crews tackled the blaze on Saturday.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Gadget Geek]

I just watched this pod cast from Fully Charged. A great phrase to use is "non factually based opinions" . . . Love it.

 

[Ruislip Resident]

Sunak may be wobbling.

 

[JimD]

EV programme on BBC1 tonight 8pm - Electric Cars: What They Really Mean for You.

"Michelle Ackerley presents the first of two programmes exploring aspects of modern life that need to change to protect the environment, which focuses on the switch to electric cars. The programme explores the obstacles in electric vehicles becoming the standard, from cost to the difficulty of charging, while BBC Climate Editor Justin Rowlatt explores if the UK is on track to hit the government's targets to stop emitting greenhouse gases by 2050"

Followed up next week with a similar one on heat pumps. I'll be interested to see if this is a genuine and unbiased report or yet another salvo in the fossil fuel lie (sorry - 'misinformation') campaign.

 

[boomish]

Great thread, I had no idea anti-EV propaganda was so widespread but then nothing surprises me in this age of viral news stories made by people calling themselves journalists.
As a complete novice EV owner it is interesting to discover the world of EV ownership, it might be worth mentioning a few deciding factors to my choice of buying an EV, the most important & mentioned here a few times is charging from home, we live in a terraced house in Brentford, no charging point or cable run is allowed, however a neighbouring couple both well educated doctors have had an EV for a few years, encouraged us to not think of this as a problem, there are a few chargers around our streets and plenty of local supermarkets with high speed chargers & our council who has installed 400 points in the borough have completed an EV strategy last year to roll out an extra 2000 points with installation to start any day now, that and the low price of my MG5 swung the decision for us to make the jump to an EV.
I do understand some might think it might be a nightmare to not be able to charge at home but I would encourage them not to put off others who don’t have this option. Lots of factors come into play, as well as sufficient local charging points our daughter has a property with a driveway where we stay at least once a month & that’s where we plan to do our granny charge & equalisation charge. Though I’ve only just discovered you need to leave it plugged in once it gets to 100%

 

[Les burrows]

Hi Jim thanks for the heads up.

interesting article on BBC Breakfast this morning 08:14 get it on IPlayer now with good and not so good content
Les

 

[Ruislip Resident]

Great thread, I had no idea anti-EV propaganda was so widespread but then nothing surprises me in this age of viral news stories made by people calling themselves journalists.
As a complete novice EV owner it is interesting to discover the world of EV ownership, it might be worth mentioning a few deciding factors to my choice of buying an EV, the most important & mentioned here a few times is charging from home, we live in a terraced house in Brentford, no charging point or cable run is allowed, however a neighbouring couple both well educated doctors have had an EV for a few years, encouraged us to not think of this as a problem, there are a few chargers around our streets and plenty of local supermarkets with high speed chargers & our council who has installed 400 points in the borough have completed an EV strategy last year to roll out an extra 2000 points with installation to start any day now, that and the low price of my MG5 swung the decision for us to make the jump to an EV.
I do understand some might think it might be a nightmare to not be able to charge at home but I would encourage them not to put off others who don’t have this option. Lots of factors come into play, as well as sufficient local charging points our daughter has a property with a driveway where we stay at least once a month & that’s where we plan to do our granny charge & equalisation charge. Though I’ve only just discovered you need to leave it plugged in once it gets to 100%

This is what I have been saying. Rather than saying to someone considering an EV ( who does not have home charging possibilities) it would be a nightmare without home charging, say I don't have any experience of owning an EV without home charging and that it would be best to read / follow the experiences of those who do. If you give out any negative information, for something you have no experience of, it will be pounced upon as being fact for all.

 

[Gomev]

EV programme on BBC1 tonight 8pm - Electric Cars: What They Really Mean for You.

"Michelle Ackerley presents the first of two programmes exploring aspects of modern life that need to change to protect the environment, which focuses on the switch to electric cars. The programme explores the obstacles in electric vehicles becoming the standard, from cost to the difficulty of charging, while BBC Climate Editor Justin Rowlatt explores if the UK is on track to hit the government's targets to stop emitting greenhouse gases by 2050"

Followed up next week with a similar one on heat pumps. I'll be interested to see if this is a genuine and unbiased report or yet another salvo in the fossil fuel lie (sorry - 'misinformation') campaign.

Justin Rowatt, the BBC Climate editor that travels by plane to conferences about the climate, was on radio 5 this morning, and unfortunately wasn't clear on his facts about electric cars. Apparently batteries last 10 years and soon they will be able to be recycled.

I'm not too hopeful about this program, prove me wrong please.

 

[Gadget Geek]

If you give out any negative information, for something you have no experience of, it will be pounced upon as being fact for all.

Non factual based opinions. That's my favourite phrase now. (Nuffbo for short)

 

[Les burrows]

Well for anyone who can’t wait you can watch the very program right now on IPlayer
Les

Your right Gomev not much help to the cause really for a lot of it I have just watch it.
BBC yet another to add to the list of downers
Les

 

[Rolfe]

Great thread, I had no idea anti-EV propaganda was so widespread but then nothing surprises me in this age of viral news stories made by people calling themselves journalists.
As a complete novice EV owner it is interesting to discover the world of EV ownership, it might be worth mentioning a few deciding factors to my choice of buying an EV, the most important & mentioned here a few times is charging from home, we live in a terraced house in Brentford, no charging point or cable run is allowed, however a neighbouring couple both well educated doctors have had an EV for a few years, encouraged us to not think of this as a problem, there are a few chargers around our streets and plenty of local supermarkets with high speed chargers & our council who has installed 400 points in the borough have completed an EV strategy last year to roll out an extra 2000 points with installation to start any day now, that and the low price of my MG5 swung the decision for us to make the jump to an EV.
I do understand some might think it might be a nightmare to not be able to charge at home but I would encourage them not to put off others who don’t have this option. Lots of factors come into play, as well as sufficient local charging points our daughter has a property with a driveway where we stay at least once a month & that’s where we plan to do our granny charge & equalisation charge. Though I’ve only just discovered you need to leave it plugged in once it gets to 100%

Great post. It's great to hear how well you're managing, and it seems to be down to the availability of chargers close to home. Do you walk home, leaving the car on the charger, or stay with it while it charges, or go into a shop? Do you have any trouble finding a suitable charger when you want to do this? Do you mostly use rapid chargers, and just trust to your monthly visit to your daughter for balancing?

Do you have any problem with time limits on chargers meaning that you don't get as much charge as you want? Or meaning that you have to run back to the car when it's not convenient?

I'm interested because I have a friend who lives in a terraced house who would like an EV, but neither of us can see how she would manage, as there are no chargers anywhere near her - certainly none within walking distance, and none at the supermarket she uses. I've advised her to hold on to her Polo and write to her council asking about plans to make EV charging possible for people like her.

I just gaily bought my MG4 because I have a garage with power points. I thought I'd get a wall box in due course, but the granny charger is working out so well I haven't made any moves to get one installed. Unlike my friend I do have a public charger within walking distance too, which is handy (especially as it's a cheap 30p/KWh rapid charger), and I use that if I feel like it, but I'm likely to stop feeling like it when it's raining and a 5-minute walk each way stops being attractive.

Balance charging is the interesting wrinkle. You're lucky you have your daugher's driveway. I realise that my SR likes to balance whenever it can, and it will do it every single time I take it to 100%, even if that is on five consecutive days (as it was once). I think it would be difficult for me to manage just on the public charger, without the granny lead, because the SR likes to balance at least once a week. There is an AC connector on the charger, but the time limit of 55 minutes still applies, and I think getting a car up to 100% and then letting it sit there for half an hour would be a difficult operation with that time limit. (There is also a no-return-within-90-minutes rule.)

I've noticed though that in some of the larger villages ChargePlace Scotland has installed a couple of type 2 chargers next to the all-purpose ones, presumably with longer time limits, and that obviously makes all the difference in that respect. We don't have that though.

I think the need to have an AC charger of some description where you can leave the car for long enough to get to 100% and then balance is important, and not something people necessarily think about before they buy an EV. If you don't have either home charging or a convenient AC charger you can walk home from, a LFP battery in particular could be problematic, and you'd be far better off with an NMC one that only needs balancing once a month. I'm happy with my SR for lots of reasons, but I didn't have a clue about this when I bought the car!

 

[Les burrows]

Hi Rolfe, I think you have a couple of things wrong above or have been misled or misinformed somehow or you meant AC
First of all you cannot balance an EV battery on DC, that’s a rapid charger and it is not a good idea really to fully charge in that way unless your on a journey or you are going to drive the car right away the advice given is to charge to around 80% with NMC unless you you are going to use it right away
One of the good points about the LFP batteries as fitted in you and our SESR is they can be fully charge when ever you want to and can be left in that state for far longer.
We have the MG4 SESR LFP and the MG5 trophy they are different in the way we use and charged them the 4 being the shopping trolley and general run around and the 5 for longer distance and that then being use on a DC rapid if need be.
Les

 

[Rolfe]

Sorry, my brain wasn't working! I'll edit the post. I can't believe I typed that.

What I was meaning was that if you have home charging the SR is just fine, and very easy to manage because you just charge when you want to and let the car balance. If I take mine to the public charger I just take it home and put it on the granny charger to get to 100% and balance right away. I never partially charge it. To do that you need an AC charger you can leave the car on at least to finish the charge, if not for the whole thing.

On the other hand the NMC seems happy enough being run up and down between 20 and 80% for multiple charges. So you could get away with only using rapid chargers most of the time, then making the effort to do a balance charge on a type 2 charger just once a month. So the NMC might be the better choice for someone who doesn't have convenient access to an AC charger.

Does that make sense?

 

[Les burrows]

Absolutely and thank you for the edit, the reason I commented on it was I knew you where on the right track but I was worried someone with Less experience or even totally new to EVs might get the wrong idea, we all make typo errors I do it all the time as many have commented.
So Thanks Again
Les

 

[Rolfe]

I actually blinked at what I'd typed and thought "is that right?" but went right ahead anyway.

Believe it or not, the problem is the close similarity between the letters D and T. DC and Type 2 seem linked in my mind because of this.

This point is something I only just realised, although I've been discussing the same issue with QLeo, who doesn't have home charging and whose nearest charger is 7 miles away (along an an absolutely incredible single-track road). Depending on what sort of charging appears near my friend's house I'll use it to modify any advice I give her. If she can have a Gul-E or a Kerbo then maybe it's as good as having home charging, but even there, it's more hassle to lay the lead out to the car every time, compared to just backing the car into the garage and plugging it in.

Although I'm a big fan of the LFP battery, I can see a very strong argument for choosing NMC if you're charging mainly at public rapid chargers and then you only have to find a type 2 or somewhere to use your granny lead once a month.

 

[Gadget Geek]

Well for anyone who can’t wait you can watch the very program right now on IPlayer
Les

Your right Gomev not much help to the cause really for a lot of it I have just watch it.
BBC yet another to add to the list of downers
Les

I just watched it on i-Player. Overall, I felt it was well balanced and highlighted the issues of the charging infrastructure as it stands.

For balance they could have interviewed people who have traveled the length and breadth of the country without any issues, but instead decided to focus on the minority who had experienced problems with chargers.

The newspaper columnist they interviewed was a typical newspaper columnist, who was being alarmist and negative, because that's his job. Even the program presenter questioned his opinions.

There was a lot of time dedicated to the current battery chemistries, without any mention that technology doesn't stand still and other chemistries are already finding their way into new vehicles which are cheaper and more energy dense.

I did start to lose it a bit when they started going on about synthetic petrol and hydrogen. By the time you've used mega-Watts of electricity (and money) to produce these fuels, you might as well have put it directly into a battery and use it first hand. Also, there was no mention that 90% of the hydrogen produced today comes from steam reformation of natural gas. (I wonder who is promoting that particular fuel?)

 

[boomish]

Great post. It's great to hear how well you're managing, and it seems to be down to the availability of chargers close to home. Do you walk home, leaving the car on the charger, or stay with it while it charges, or go into a shop? Do you have any trouble finding a suitable charger when you want to do this? Do you mostly use rapid chargers, and just trust to your monthly visit to your daughter for balancing?

Do you have any problem with time limits on chargers meaning that you don't get as much charge as you want? Or meaning that you have to run back to the car when it's not convenient?

I'm interested because I have a friend who lives in a terraced house who would like an EV, but neither of us can see how she would manage, as there are no chargers anywhere near her - certainly none within walking distance, and none at the supermarket she uses. I've advised her to hold on to her Polo and write to her council asking about plans to make EV charging possible for people like her.

I just gaily bought my MG4 because I have a garage with power points. I thought I'd get a wall box in due course, but the granny charger is working out so well I haven't made any moves to get one installed. Unlike my friend I do have a public charger within walking distance too, which is handy (especially as it's a cheap 30p/KWh rapid charger), and I use that if I feel like it, but I'm likely to stop feeling like it when it's raining and a 5-minute walk each way stops being attractive.

Balance charging is the interesting wrinkle. You're lucky you have your daugher's driveway. I realise that my SR likes to balance whenever it can, and it will do it every single time I take it to 100%, even if that is on five consecutive days (as it was once). I think it would be difficult for me to manage just on the public charger, without the granny lead, because the SR likes to balance at least once a week. There is an AC connector on the charger, but the time limit of 55 minutes still applies, and I think getting a car up to 100% and then letting it sit there for half an hour would be a difficult operation with that time limit. (There is also a no-return-within-90-minutes rule.)

I've noticed though that in some of the larger villages ChargePlace Scotland has installed a couple of type 2 chargers next to the all-purpose ones, presumably with longer time limits, and that obviously makes all the difference in that respect. We don't have that though.

I think the need to have an AC charger of some description where you can leave the car for long enough to get to 100% and then balance is important, and not something people necessarily think about before they buy an EV. If you don't have either home charging or a convenient AC charger you can walk home from, a LFP battery in particular could be problematic, and you'd be far better off with an NMC one that only needs balancing once a month. I'm happy with my SR for lots of reasons, but I didn't have a clue about this when I bought the car!

Hi Rolfe,
Thanks for the quick reply, I'll try & answer all the questions, I have to say firstly what an amazing community & resource this is, it's a great help for us as novice EV owners.
We've only had the car a week so it's early days on local charging but I did research it before hand & with my neighbours encouragement I simply accepted that I would have to walk from the car locally or travel to a supermarket & wait. I like walking so it's all good, I get your point it might not be fun in the rain but we used to have a dog so thats just part & parcel of it, I'll happily walk rain or shine now I realise there may be problems chargers not working or I have timing to get back to the car. I'm self-employed & mostly work from home so thats fine, again something I'm prepared to accept as part of EV charging.
We don't have that many CP's in the area but my neighbours says she pops out in the morning and charges, which suites me fine. I did discover a new car park today that has 30 charging points in it, less than a few mins walk from home, however it's in a car park , it was built a few years back but has sat closed for ages whilst re-development of the high street goes on, might not be ideal for us as wed have to pay to park but I've emailed the council to ask if it is in fact open (not sure it is I noticed plenty of non-EV cars sat in the charging points) , but would make a great resource for local residents to charge overnight if we got some kind of parking concession. However it is encouraging that councils are making provision & we have one of the worst in London!
I see your point on your friend with a Polo, thats not encouraging to EV ownership if there is no charging nearby, they should def contact the council or look up their website, I am presuming there must be a government rush for all council to have an EV plan in place now, especially if ours is doing one .Hopefully she can a solution , maybefind a neighbour that might share a driveway etc.
Your right we bought the car knowing my daughters driveway would often be visited by us and they are happy for us to use it. I need to calculate a rough cost so I can pay for the elec I presume people do this all the time.
Sorry long post & a little off-topic, but hopefully encouraging to those without a home charger.