Monthly Archives: January 2020

Electric car charging points pilot in Oxford: The results

January 11, 2020Charging, Electric Cars, News, Reviews and CommentRepost

A ‘GLOBALLY significant’ project installing electric car charging points in lampposts, bollards and homes across Oxford has published its first key findings.

The Go Ultra Low Oxford scheme saw 46 charge points installed at 28 residential sites and the use of 10 electric cars from Oxford’s Co-Wheels car club.

As well as 29 lampposts in 11 streets, three types of bollard chargers were included at four sites, five households were provided with a home charger, and the car club deployed ten electric vehicles across Oxford, each with an allocated parking bay close to a charger.

A total of 18 residents took part in the pilot from July 2017 to June 2019.

It is thought to be the first on-street charging pilot of its size in the world.

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Key findings from the report include:

• Charging habits varied widely between users, with some regularly charging overnight, and others plugging in during the day or more often on weekends. These factors varied according to how people used their cars.

• Participants’ charging practices changed over time, as they became familiar with the equipment.

• However, when asked whether they had a preference for any of the charger types, two-thirds of respondents chose the technology that they had been allocated – expressing a preference for that above the other four that were trialled.

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Nissan Leaf supply increases as price drops by £1,650

January 10, 2020Electric Cars, Leaf, News, Reviews and Comment, NissanRepost

Nissan has reduced the price of the Leaf by £1,650 across all grades and secured additional supply for 2020.

The announcement follows a previous price hike of £1,800 earlier in the year.

With improved supply of the fully-electric model, Nissan expects to cut lead times for retail buyers.

The starting price of a Leaf 40kWh is now £26,345 for an Acenta version (including the £3,500 Plug-in Car Grant), whilst range-topping Tekna models are available from £29,345.

Nic Verneuil, marketing director of Nissan GB, said: “Nissan is always improving the competitiveness of its vehicles, ensuring customers enjoy a better buying and ownership experience.

“We’ve not only secured additional factory production to make Leaf more accessible, but as a result we’ve also been able to significantly lower the price tag of the car in market, making it more affordable. If customers are ready to make the switch, they shouldn’t have to wait to get behind the wheel of an electric vehicle.”

All new Leaf models now feature two rear USB connections fitted to the reverse panel of the centre console. On Tekna versions (and optional on N-Connecta versions) the LED fog lights have also been upgraded to include a cornering function.

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Arguments Against Electric Vehicles Are Running On Empty

January 9, 2020Charging, Electric Cars, News, Reviews and CommentRepost

When a few months ago ExxonMobil’s chief executive questioned the value of electric vehicles that are powered mostly by coal, he came up empty.

His argument: if such automobiles are juiced by electricity generated by coal, then the net value to the environment is zero and the whole movement is thus a way to make environmentalists feel good. Exxon, of course, is not a disinterested party. But folks who buy into Woods’ outdated line are missing key points. Coal-fired electricity is waning, and now provides just a quarter of the power mix, down from 50% a decade ago. Meanwhile, improvements in battery technology are making EVs ever more efficient and clean.

Ryan Cornell of Harvard University says that a traditional car using the internal combustion engine (ICE) will emit about 69 metric tons of CO2 over a lifetime, or 150,000 miles. But an electric vehicle (EV) powered 100% by coal will emit 66 metric tons of CO2 over the same time period, he figures. Given that nearly every grid in America hosts a number of fuel sources, that’s a conservative figure.

“The lifecycle EV carbon emissions for a vehicle powered by the 2016 US grid is 30.82 metric tons, while the emissions for an EV powered by 100 percent renewable energy is 6.3 metric tons,” writes Cornell. “An average internal combustion engine vehicle (25.4 miles per gallon) is responsible for 68.38 metric tons of carbon dioxide over its lifetime, while an ICE vehicle with a utopian efficiency of 80 miles per gallon accounts for 25.5 metric tons of carbon dioxide.”

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Electric vehicle drivers paid to charge their cars using wind power

January 8, 2020Charging, Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, OctopusRepost

Drivers of electric vehicles will increasingly be able, not only to charge their cars for free, but will be paid for doing so because of the UK’s increasing reliance on wind power, according to Ohme, a pioneering electric vehicle charging manufacturer.

Windy weather conditions meant that the UK’s windfarms generated a record 16GW or 45% of the UK’s electricity on Sunday 8th December, at times this was more renewable electricity than the electricity grid needed.

This meant that for the first time, drivers who have an Ohme charger and are signed up to supplier Octopus Energy’s Agile time-of-use tariff were actually paid to charge their vehicles. Ohme’s app alerted their customers to the opportunity in advance to encourage them to plug in. This also helped to balance the load on the electricity system.

This news comes on top of Ohme’s proven ability, when combined with a time-of-use energy tariff, to deliver savings of up to 75% of fuel costs to EV drivers versus a petrol or diesel vehicle. In comparison to charging with a standard variable tariff, Ohme can save drivers £250 – £400 per annum.

Consumers who benefitted from the surge in wind power were informed that they would receive up to 5.6p for every kilowatt-hour of electricity used which equates to 1.8p per mile. A Nissan Leaf driver charging the battery from empty to achieve its maximum range of 168 miles would have been paid up to £3.02. The owner of a Jaguar i-Pace would have received £5.25 to charge their battery to max.

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Tesla’s Musk says solar, energy storage will grow faster than electric cars, and there’s some truth to it

January 7, 2020Electric Cars, Energy and Climate Change, Energy Storage, Model 3, News, Reviews and Comment, Solar Power, TeslaRepost

Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently said the company’s solar and energy storage business will grow faster than its electric vehicle business.
With Tesla making progress on Model 3 production efficiency, Musk said on the most recent earnings call there will be more focus on solar and the broader Tesla Energy business, which includes aligning intermittent solar power with battery storage.
Tesla and Musk have faced criticism, and a shareholder lawsuit, over the solar business, the controversial acquisition of SolarCity, and issues at the company’s solar panel plant in Buffalo, New York.

A Model 3 ramp-up that resulted in a quarterly profit was a sign that Tesla’s automobile business finally may be financially stable. If so, it is a good time for Tesla to turn its attention to the energy business — encompassing solar and energy storage — that has for long taken a backseat to getting the electric vehicle assembly line in order.

Elon Musk has been broadcasting this message since Tesla reported a surprise profit in the third quarter. On the call with Wall Street analysts after the earnings in November, the Tesla CEO said, “For almost two years we had to divert a tremendous amount of resources.”

Now Musk claims Tesla is poised for “the really crazy growth for as far into the future as I can imagine. … It would be difficult to overstate the degree to which Tesla Energy is going to be a major part of Tesla’s activity in the future,” he said.

Never one to shy away from bold claims or ambitions, Musk said Tesla Energy could grow to roughly the same size as Tesla’s automotive business, and solar would grow, on a percentage basis, the fastest of any, with storage second.

“I think both over time will grow faster than automotive,” Musk said. “They’re starting from a smaller base.” He added, “I think, especially, if you look at sort of — if you look at, like, year-over-year growth, it will be absolutely incredible … over the course of, say, a year, gigantic increase.”

In a recent internal email to Tesla employees, Musk outlined two critical year-end priorities: delivering all cars to their customers and boosting the rate of solar deployments by a significant degree.

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8 lessons about EV battery health from 6,300 electric cars

January 6, 2020Charging, Electric Cars, News, Reviews and CommentRepost

A persistent concern among some EV drivers is the long-term health of the battery.

All batteries lose some storage capacity over time. But how might that degradation affect your driving range a few years down the line? To help answer that question, we can now look to Geotab, a leading telematics-fleet-management company with access to a lot of EVs. Lo and behold, the losses are minor.

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Here’s a quick rundown of what the data revealed:

If current degradation rates are maintained, the vast majority of batteries will outlast the usable life of the vehicle.
The average decline in energy storage is 2.3% per year. For a 150-mile EV, you’re likely to lose 17 miles of accessible range after five years.
EV batteries decline in a non-linear fashion. There’s an early drop, but the rate of decline slows down in subsequent years.
Liquid-cooled batteries decline slower than air-cooled packs. Geotab saw that a 2015 Tesla Model S with liquid cooling had an average annual degradation rate of 2.3%, compared to an air-cooled 2015 Nissan Leaf’s rate of 4.2%.

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