I actually agree with the view (even more so as it allows everyone to have a good chuckle about the impracticability of electric cars). If they are going to let her charge her car at work then surely everyone else should be entitled to a contribution to their commuting costs too? Everyone else is paying for their own petrol or diesel to get to and from work so why shouldn't she? No idea how much electric these things use on a charge but I'd think it's a reasonable amount. We had a problem some years back about tax in kind for us engineers who have a company vehicle which we keep at home. They had to re-arrange everyone's work area so where you live is part of your work area otherwise the taxman wanted us to pay tax on the travel between home and work area. They were classing it as home to office mileage so a benefit in kind.
Sorry Gilbertd, I meant the kind of meter you (ie. she) would have to put a token/card in to charge, and so paid for by Electric Car owners themselves of course.
I realised a long time ago they the VAT/HMRC/etc folks like to make things unnecessarily complex so companies get overwhelmed by all the rules/paperwork rather than spending time developing the business (and thus paying more tax..). Don't get me started on R&D allowances though !
OB's comments made me think of something too: When ("in the near future......") we are ALL driving Electric cars cars perhaps we can play the sound of a nice V6/V8 etc through the car's Sound System (sychronised to the speed/acceleration etc). A "hum" just does not do it for me....
davew wrote:
OB's comments made me think of something too: When ("in the near future......") we are ALL driving Electric cars cars perhaps we can play the sound of a nice V6/V8 etc through the car's Sound System (sychronised to the speed/acceleration etc). A "hum" just does not do it for me....
I know someone who normally drives big V8's (or, in one case, a W12) and he bought a BMW i8. When I said that if I had a car that produced 350 bhp, I'd want the soundtrack to go with it and apparently BMW have thought of that. The stereo system can be programmed to give engine noises and you can even choose what you want it to sound like. But, as he pointed out, only the driver can hear it so you can't open the windows and floor it through a tunnel just to listen to, and give everyone else, the benefit of the noise it makes. After a couple of weeks he decided he didn't like it so has gone back to using his de-catted, mapped to 720 bhp, Audi RS7 with it's adaptive exhaust that opens up to straight through pipes when given some welly (and sounds absolutely glorious).
Makes me think....
The DSP system in the black car has speed (noise) dependent volume control. All I need to do is load a wav file of a Griffon at full throttle and I get the perfect in-car soundtrack :)
Speaking of "1.5L engines with twin turbos"..... the i8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6KIBFiIOjw
"Sound effects" are available indeed (from about 4.40), wonder if you can also load a bunch of MP3s in there though.... ?
eg. from a Saturn 5 rocket engine....
Alternatively, I am pretty sure this is just a 1.5L with twin turbos...
Like the first comment about that too !
Seems fairly silly to assume you could plug your car in at work and charge it without checking first... they do suck down a lot of power. Bearing in mind plugging into a 13amp socket is the slowest way to charge, that could be drawing 3kw constantly, which is like having your kettle boiling constantly.
Our MD has a Tesla, naturally. We fitted a proper charging point for it - its 32amps, 3 phase. Now the car doesn't max that out, and it depends on the vehicle and number of battery chargers it has fitted as to how much it actually it will draw when given plenty of power to play with. But it goes to show, charging points are not simple things to just put anywhere, getting enough power to them can be quite problematic.
Our unit is on an industrial estate and we have 400amp/three phase to play with. We use a considerable amount of that already, so if we wanted to go fitting even a small number of charging points, it would take a bit of planning. And as Dave said... I know my employer wouldn't be coughing up to pay the bill to fill up employee's cars, so we'd need some pay as you go type metering...
Ooops. guessing your Tesla man does not pay for his 'refuelling' either then Sloth.....?? Don't tell the tax people now, will you ?!
I have had a couple of near-incidents as a pedestrian with the Tesla S in towns... they are like a milk floats - in stealth mode.... deadly.
Think they need a man with a red flag (again)... or a 'Beep Beep Beep' like fork-lift trucks do (or via a P38 dash for that matter.... !!)
I have no idea what the arrangements are for that thing... not my problem.... but I guess as he technically pays the eleccy bill, it probably doesn't make much of a dent :)
They are kinda cool, though.... certainly given the electric car thing a much needed practical, if not expensive option.
Remains to be seen though how the batteries fair long term, and what happens when they need replacing etc. Interestingly, he may not be replacing it for a newer one, but going back to something 'normal'.
Seeing as I work at a visitor attraction this is going to be a real issue. At some point we will have to dig up our car park and provide maybe 500 charging thingies. How are we going to pay for that? How will we support large events when we could have 20,000 people on site?
We have 450 amps of three phase to play with. What is going to be needed in terms of the national grid to cope with all these random loads in weird places?
Massive diesel generators.
Oh wait...
Well as we 'all' start to buy Electric vehicles the National Grid won't be able to cope (of course) and the Government will then say "we need to dig up all the roads to put better cables in etc" and "guess what, you're paying for it ".... Hmmm... do you think that's actually their plan ?...I think I will just buy a massive diesel generator instead.....
Of course it's only a few years since the massive oil boilers were replaced with ground source heat pumps which need 80A of phase each...
There was a recent article in the Institute of Engineering and Technology magazine that said that if the takeup of electric cars goes at even 50% of the rate some people are predicting, the UK power infrastructure will collapse by 2022. That isn't all that far away either, only 5 years time.
Gilbertd wrote:
There was a recent article in the Institute of Engineering and Technology magazine that said that if the takeup of electric cars goes at even 50% of the rate some people are predicting, the UK power infrastructure will collapse by 2022. That isn't all that far away either, only 5 years time.
What do you think the whole smart meter program is actually about - Its how to enable them to charge more for electric at peak demand.
davew wrote:
Gilbertd: Could your place of work not 'just' offer a pre-payment type meter for your Leafy colleague/s ? ( I couid also suggest her keeping a petrol generator there, that should also prove popular..)
I have noted that lots of folks have been attracted to Electric/Hybrid cars because of reduced "Road Tax" (and/or 'congestion charges')... and then seem displeased when I say, yes, for the moment. And are we all supposed to believe that the Government will actually stand by and watch petrol 'duties' simply evaporate? (Sorry).
Politicians are universally clueless about cars... Michael Gove's announcement that we won't have ICE after 2040 is an absurd 'Crowd Pleaser'
(Even thoufg the French started this particular rumour.....) Pretty sure we won't have Gove in office much longer either, though....)Really want to 'Save The Planet' Michael ? Then ensure cars are designed to last 200K miles in the first case......
To be fair they are clueless about a lot of things - Look at the end to end encryption nonsense they keep spouting, whilst I suspect the majority of them wouldn't know the difference between end to end encryption and a cheese sandwich.
Gilbertd wrote:
Not a problem she thought as we have charging points for some of the specialist vehicles with auxiliary batteries to keep them topped up when not being used so she figured she could plug her car in there during the day. First time she did it someone queried it and that caused all sorts of discussions. Upshot is that she has been told that under no circumstances can she plug in to charge it during the day. The argument being that nobody else gets their fuel costs for commuting to work and back reimbursed so why should she?
I'm definitely not pro electric vehicles but couldn't the firm just charge her a quid a day?
Orangebean wrote:
The joys of working in the public sector- true equality gone slightly mad. I used to work for a government agency and their rabid adherence to "benefits" rules, on-site employee car parking as a benefit and thus declarable, and their opinion that if they provided charging points for some employees they'd have to provide fuel pumps for the others (Union would have got cross otherwise), meant that even though they'd considered charging points as part of their environmental responsibility, they couldn't.
And ensure common sense prevails?
Different point - If I were forced to go full electric next month I'd make sure I had unlimited range anyway (in a fashion).. I fixed my mates 5kw genny ages ago and he hasn't collected it yet. I'd carry that in the boot with suitable exhaust system etc, probably hard wire it. See where this is going already - Go on to upgrade to a much bigger genny, bigger electric motors for the car, convert the genny to LPG, don't worry too much about the battery aspect. Unless illegal, in which case it might be a stealth install, maybe not hard-wired / hard plumbed... There might be cause to shut-off the genny before stopping for a blue light, much like some people put on their seat belt before an officer appears alongside ;-)
Simon
BrianH wrote:
What do you think the whole smart meter program is actually about - Its how to enable them to charge more for electric at peak demand.
That's the follow-up of what's happening over here these days.
The government wants us to install solarpanels on every roof, the powercompany pays you some pennies for the returned power to the net.
Therefore you need a new smart meter.
So that is the futere then, charges go up at peak demand and in winter, refunds go down when the sun shines.
There is just one way to benefit from solar panels, store the power in a form of hot water for bathing or floorheating, just keep it inside the house.
The concept of charging a different rate for electricity depending on time of day has been fairly mainstream since 'Economy7'. I'm probably a bit young at 47 to have been directly affected but over the years governments and various energy firms have tried to push some implausible schemes on the public including Economy7, 'Come home to a real coal fire', 'Heat electric', 'Save it', etc. But I was under the belief smart meters were a necessity of the solar panel electric sell back to grid scheme, and solar panels partly due to the Kyoto Agreement. Another one of those types of agreements UK governments sign up to and then stick to when other country governments sign up but don't stick to the agreement unless it works in their countries interests. I remember when coke (from coal) was seen as the way forward - It did improve air quality in a lot of areas but too bad for those living near coking plants lol.. 7 Miles from me there was a coking plant and when the wind was in the wrong direction, the plant working in a certain way, it stunk from that distance. When I first started driving and went anywhere near it I'd put my car heater on recirc (Cortina, no aircon). All this leccy has to be made somewhere and (as Gilbert mentioned) it has to be shifted via better electrical infrastructure than we currently have...
Simon
maybe this is an obvious question but i'm gonna ask anyway.
Why can't you put an alternator on an electric car? It would be self charging wouldn't it? Never need charging again.