Team completes 840-mile route in electric performance SUV, stopping for just 45 minutes to charge
The new Ford Mustang Mach-E has set a Guinness World Record for efficiency in an electric car, averaging 6.54 miles per kWh on an 840-mile route between John o’ Groats and Land’s End.
The electric performance SUV was driven by BBC transport correspondent Paul Clifton and Fergal McGrath and Kevin Brooker, who already hold petrol and diesel efficiency records between them.
Setting off on 3 July and driving through the night to avoid congestion, the trio completed the trip in 27 hours at an average speed of around 31mph. Remarkably, they stopped only twice to charge: first at a MFG EV Power station in Wigan, Lancashire, and a second time in Cullompton, Devon. The two stops amounted to just 45 minutes spent plugged in.
Ford Mustang Mach-E (Image: Ford.co.uk)
“This record is about demonstrating that electric cars are now viable for everyone,” said the team, reflecting on their efforts. “Not just for short urban trips to work or the shops or as a second car, but for real-world use on long cross-country journeys. We’ve proved that, with this car, the tipping point has been reached.
“The Ford Mustang Mach-E’s range and efficiency make it an everyday car for tackling unpredictable journey patterns. We did a full day’s testing totalling 250 miles and still had 45% battery charge on our return.”
Range anxiety is often listed among drivers’ biggest concerns when it comes to switching from internal-combustion-engined cars to EVs.
This latest feat follows the exploits of the Renault Zoe, which recently hit 425 miles of range (180 miles more than its official WLTP figure) in a record attempt organised by Mission Motorsport at Thruxton race circuit.
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A new EUPD Research report shows that a PV system can cover 39% of the power demand of an electric vehicle, but this potentially rises to 80% if storage is included.
A 7 kW PV system connected to a 7 kWh residential battery could provide 80% of the power needed by an electric vehicle with an average driving profile of 14,000 kilometers per year, according to a new report by Germany-based EUPD Research.
The market research firm said this corresponds to 2,500 kWh of electricity consumption over an entire year. It said an EV with a driving profile of 5,000 kilometers per year and electricity demand of 900 kWh could achieve the same percentage with a 6 kW PV array combined with a 6 kWh battery. It has also calculated that a 12 kW system with storage capacity would be needed for a frequent driver with 5,000 kWh of electricity needs.
Even without storage, EV drivers can use a high share of solar power. For example, with a 7 kW system and no battery, 39% of a vehicle’s electricity needs could be covered over the course of a year from solar power generation.
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Plans to significantly bolster the nation’s electric vehicle charging infrastructure were revealed this morning – and it make will plug-in vehicle ownership more feasible for an increasing number of drivers.
Gridserve, the British firm behind the UK’s first dedicated charging forecourt for electric cars opened in Essex, in December, has today announced plans to revolutionise the availability of chargers on the UK’s busiest routes, as part of its new Electric Highway scheme.
It will see every vehicle charging device at motorway services replaced with more dependable and faster-charging technology by September, but also add 50 high power ‘Electric Hubs’ – each offering between six and twelve ultra-rapid 350kW chargers – at the majority of these sites.
The hubs, which are part of a new £100million investment, will spark a significant improvement to charging on motorways, which has until recently been riddled with complaints about unreliability issues under the monopoly of Dale Vince’s Ecotricity firm.
Concerns about a lack of public chargers, especially on motorways when attempting long journeys, have been one of the biggest for motorists contemplating making the switch to an electric car before the Government outlaws the sale of new petrol and diesel cars at the end of this decade.
However, Gridserve confirmed today that it will add some 300 rapid chargers in total to 85 per cent of the UK’s motorway service stations, which will allow drivers of the latest EVs to add 100 miles of range in charges taking just five minutes.
Users will be charged on a price-per-kWh basis, though there will be a premium to pay at some service stations – as is the case when drivers of conventional cars fill up with petrol and diesel.
While it costs 24p per kWh to top up an EV at Gridserve’s first Electric Forecourt in Braintree, the price to charge at one of the new Electric Hubs is 30p per kW. This will enable a typical battery car to add 200 miles of range for as little as £15.
SWARCO eVolt is supplying 45 charging units, including 11 of its Rapid Chargers capable of charging two vehicles simultaneously in 30 minutes, across 28 sites in East Lothian (Image: eVolt)
Contactless payments can be made at all of the devices, rather than having to register and subscribe to the service.
The new hubs will be extensions to existing chargers that are already at sites – all of which will be upgraded by the end of the summer – and are separate from the 100 Gridserve Electric Forecourts that are set to be built across the country in the coming years.
Those behind the plans say the huge upgrade will provide drivers of plug-in cars with a ‘UK-wide network they can rely on, without range or charging anxiety, wherever they live in the UK, and whatever type of electric vehicle they drive’.
The news comes just weeks after Gridserve announced the acquisition of the Electric Highway from Ecotricity, after the Government announced plans to improve its under-performing network.
In March, the Department for Transport announced plans to break green industrialist Dale Vince’s Ecotricity monopoly on electric car charging at motorway services with legislation by 2023 that demands that all devices provide quick charge times, are reliable and can be accessed by anyone via contactless payment.
Ecotricity, until now the lone supplier of chargers at motorway service stations – has been heavily criticised by early adopters of electric cars for its unreliable and outdated hardware that has caused huge headaches for EV owners, in some cases resulting in drivers being stranded at services.
For years it has been rated the worst electric vehicle charging network in Zap-Map’s annual satisfaction rankings, including a two-out-of-five-star rating in the most recent poll – the lowest score of 16 providers, with Tesla’s Supercharger network topping the results with a 4.8 score out of five.
Commenting on the performance of the Ecotricity motorway network in the 2020 study, one electric vehicle owner said: ‘They kickstarted the market, but now they are out of date and unreliable.’
In the six weeks since Gridserve has taken responsibility of the motorway network it has installed new chargers with a minimum capacity of 60kWh at over 50 locations – an installation rate of around two new charging locations every day.
The entire network of almost 300 old Ecotricity devices at more than 150 locations on motorways and Ikea stores is due to be replaced by September, according to the British firm’s schedule.
It will mean that drivers of any type of electric vehicle will be able to charge and use contactless to pay for their charging sessions.
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Lack of electric vehicle (EV) charging points is preventing more people from adopting EVs, according to business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng.
Speaking at the Virtual Smart Transport Conference, Kwarteng said that EV infrastructure was an issue that “comes up all the time”.
He said: “Anecdotally, lots of people out there want to adopt electric vehicles. But one of the main things that is stopping people doing so is the lack of provision for charging points. And this is something which the Government is fully aware of.
“We have committed an extra £300 million on top of the initial £500 million to really kick-start the roll out of electric vehicle charging points. And this is critically important.”
There are currently more than 42,000 charging points, according to Zap-Map, and estimates vary as to how many will be required by the time the ban on the sale of new petrol diesel cars and vans is introduced in 2030 (with hybrids phased out by 2035).
Think-tank Policy Exchange believes 400,000 public chargers will be required by then but the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) puts it significantly higher at 2.3 million – equating to 700 charge points being installed daily to the end of the decade.
Much rests on the Government’s infrastructure strategy, due to be published this year, which will set out an action plan for the roll out of charging infrastructure to meet the 2030 ban.
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With any transformation of an industry – and in particular an industry that relies so heavily on consumer habits and preferences – there are a myriad of questions to be answered and hurdles to be solved. Anyone familiar the decarbonisation of transport could probably give you a list as long as your arm: the availability of chargepoints, the impact of increased use of electricity on the grid, electricity vs hydrogen, the high upfront cost of electric vehicles (EVs) etc.
Although these require long-term planning that must start now, most will not become problems unless mass uptake of EVs is achieved. However, this can’t happen without a clear, concise plan to support everyone – and not just your typical early adopter – in making the switch. Without a plan, the high upfront costs and lack of driveways for private home chargers in many communities run a real risk of remaining too prohibitive.
Early adopters of new technologies are typically not your average user, and often reflect not only those who are clued up but also those who can afford to shell out on a new bit of new kit. Seen time and time again across many different sectors, the example perhaps most well known by those in the energy circles is domestic rooftop solar PV, which in the heady days of the early feed-in tariff was predominantly adopted in more affluent areas with a high proportion of detached housing, according to statistics released by what was then the Department of Energy and Climate Change in 2012.
Indeed, this is also a trend that EVs are seemingly following. A 2015 report for the Department for Transport found that most private EV owners at the time were middle-aged, male, well-educated, affluent and lived in areas with households containing two or more cars, and with the ability to charge at home.
Ubitricity Electric Avenue project lamppost charging (Image: Siemens)
Of course, this was six years ago and there has therefore, been plenty of time for the demographics to change. However a 2019 report carried out by Frontier Economics on behalf of the Environmental Defense Fund found that wealthy people were still buying EVs at higher rates than those on lower incomes, and that half of all ultra-low emission vehicles were owned by households in the richest two income deciles, compared to only a quarter for internal combustion engines (ICE). Meanwhile, households in the lowest two income deciles made up just 4% of ULEV owners, but over 10% of ICE vehicle owners.
There are a number of reasons behind this, with the upfront cost of an EV – which is higher than an ICE equivalent despite lower lifetime costs – a key factor, although it will likely change as prices continue to fall.
A second factor is that many lower income households, particularly in urban areas, do not have access to off street parking via driveways, meaning they are unable to install a private chargepoint. This either results in them having to rely on more expensive public rapid charging, or being left out of the transition completely.
In fact, the 2019-2020 English Housing Survey by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government found that in the social housing sector, just 1% of dwellings were classed as detached houses – and therefore more likely to have a driveway – while 36% were purpose built high-rise flats, a significant increase on the 11% in the private sector.
On-street charging and moving away from the early adopter
So how do you solve this, and place the entire breadth of society at the heart of this transition? It would be easy for the EV charging sector to put this problem on the backburner and target the low hanging fruit of the typical early adopter, but just a quick glance at the work of some of the well-known names – and indeed lesser known – in the sector proves otherwise.
Enter on-street charging. Enter companies like ubitricity, Connected Kerb, Source London, Trojan Energy, Char.gy and many more. Enter a different way of thinking of EV charging.
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Many motorists charging their vehicle at home don’t even know special cost-cutting deals exist
You’ve taken delivery of a shiny new electric car, and the plug-in charger is being installed next week. You’re almost ready to go – just don’t forget to switch to a specialist electricity tariff. If you don’t, your bills could end up at least £300 a year higher than they need to be.
Over the past few years, most of the big electricity suppliers have launched tariffs aimed at the growing number of electric vehicle (EV) owners who need to charge them up at home.
These tariffs, which are reminiscent of the Economy 7 deals popular in the 70s, typically reward drivers who are happy to charge their cars during the off-peak hours with the lowest prices. With most cars parked at home overnight, this is likely to apply to many owners.
Instead of the 12p-15p/kWh that most of us pay for each unit of our everyday electricity, users on the specialist tariffs can reduce the cost to 4.5p-5p/kWh at night. In some rare cases, owners will even be paid to charge their cars because there is excess capacity in the grid.
Despite the big savings, a surprising number of EV owners haven’t cottoned on to the fact that these tariffs even exist, and are therefore overpaying for their electricity as a result, say experts.
Charging with an Ohme smart charging cable
“You’d be amazed at the number of people who spend hours researching which electric car to buy or lease but don’t consider how they are going to charge it up at home,” says Laura Thomson, a co-founder of the specialist comparison website PowermyEV.co.uk. “Getting yourself on a specialist EV electricity tariff is not only one of the greenest things you can do, it will also save you hundreds of pounds a year.”
Until recently, Octopus Energy was the go-to electricity supplier for anyone charging an EV at home, with its Go tariff offering the best rate. While its tariffs will still be the cheapest deal for many EV owners, the company is facing growing competition from firms such as EDF, which has been pushing its new GoElectric 35 EV tariff.
On these deals, EV owners are typically paying a little over 1p a mile to power their cars. The last time driving costs were that low was the early 1970s, according to EDF.
So how do you find the right EV tariff for you?
As ever with energy deals, the best deal will vary according to your circumstances and consumption requirements. The Power My EV website is not perfect but it’s a great starting point that will calculate which tariff is best for your particular usage.
To find a deal you need to input details of your car, how much you drive, and your other home energy use, and the site does the rest. For ease, we found that it was better to exclude gas usage from the calculation.
We found a Renault Zoe owner who drives 10,000 miles a year, including a commute four days a week, and charges up at their Hertfordshire home would save more than £330 a year by being on the cheapest EV tariff.
PowerMyEV calculated that Octopus Energy’s Agile tariff at £617 would be the cheapest option – this compared with £950 a year on their supplier’s standard tariff. These figures assume a medium-sized home, with average electricity consumption apart from EV charging.
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The big worry for most people thinking about buying an electric car is how to charge the thing.
But the real question you should be asking is how you’re going to refuel your petrol or diesel vehicle if you don’t go electric.
That’s because electric cars are going to send the petrol station business into a death spiral over the next two decades, making electric vehicles the default option for all car owners.
Why? Because charging electric vehicles is going to become much more straightforward than refuelling petrol and diesel cars.
This isn’t just because the government has banned the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030.
Imagine we were going the other way, replacing electric cars with fossil fuel power.
You are writing the risk assessment for a new petrol station. You want to dig a big hole in the ground in the middle of town, put in some tanks and fill them up with an enormous amount of highly flammable fuel.
Then you’re proposing to attach a really powerful pump and invite in random members of the public.
They’ll arrive in vehicles with hot engines. You’ll hand them the really powerful pump that sprays the highly flammable liquid.
Without any supervision they’ll use it to transfer large quantities of the highly flammable liquid into their hot vehicle, they’ll pay you and drive off.
Electric car sales are expected to overtake petrol by 2040
Are you OK to sign off on that? Do you think Health and Safety will give it the green light?
My point is that fuelling cars with petrol and diesel is dangerous, which is why we do it at specially-designed centralised refuelling points.
Ubiquitous power
Electricity, by contrast, is pretty much everywhere already. Where’s your car now? Do you think it might be near an electricity cable? Exactly.
The only challenge is how to bring that electricity a few feet to the surface so you can start getting it into your battery.
And you don’t need to be Thomas Edison to work that out.
If you live in a flat or a house without a drive, don’t worry. The aim is to have an electric vehicle (EV) charging point at virtually every parking place.
Erik Fairbairn’s electric vehicle recharging company, Pod Point, wants to be part of this effort to rewire the UK.
“You’ll get to a point where you barely ever think about energy flowing into your car again,” he predicts.
Of course, we’re a long way from that utopia, and that should be no surprise.
We’re just at the beginning of the electric revolution: just 7% of new cars are electric and they make up a tiny fraction of vehicles on the road, so there isn’t a huge market.
But, as I argued in my previous piece, change is coming fast and investment in charging infrastructure is coming with it.
There will be good profits to be made when millions of us want to recharge, just as there was a boom in petrol station construction at the dawn of the age of the car a century ago.
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Following the acquisition of a 25% stake in March, GRIDSERVE has now fully taken on Ecotricity’s Electric Highway electric vehicle (EV) charging network.
When it took its initial stake in the network, GRIDSERVE announced it would be replacing all existing Electric Highway chargers, as the existing infrastructure had become outdated in the decade since it was created. In fact, it was ranked the worst public charging network in a survey of Zap-Map users in January, with common complaints including that the chargers are old, poorly maintained and frequently out of service.
GRIDSERVE said it is “ramping up investment” in the network through the replacement works, with the new chargers to feature all the latest advances including contactless payment. Indeed, last month the first high-power charging facility was opened at Moto’s Motorway services at Rugby, with this site featuring 12 350kW chargers.
Speaking to Current± following the initial replacement works being announced, Toddington Harper, CEO of GRIDSERVE, said the company was “moving heaven and earth as fast as possible to get new chargers in place in hopefully every location”.
The Electric Highway offers an 80% charge in half an hour for compatible vehicles
Having now completely handed the network off to GRIDSERVE – who Ecotricity founder Dale Vince described as the “ideal company to hand the baton to” as the network needs an owner with “access to serious funding” – Ecotricity is now able to focus on its core green energy business, with plans to bring forward a series of solar and battery storage projects to be built without government support.
“We’ve reached an interesting point in the electric car revolution, exponential growth is just around the corner, the technology for charging has evolved with one standard and an incredible rate of charging now being possible – using an electric car is almost on a par with using a fossil powered car, where you can just top up once every week or two,” Vince added.
In January, the energy supplier signed a power purchase agreement with Geothermal Engineering, becoming the first UK supplier of geothermal electricity.
It is also looking to expand its Sky Mining facility, a world first carbon capture and storage process that turns atmospheric carbon dioxide into diamonds.
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Increases in home working have influenced the electric vehicle (EV) charging plans of businesses, as 34% say they plan on putting chargers in employee’s homes.
This is according to a new study from Centrica Business Solutions, which also found that 81% claim the increase in home working as a result of COVID-19 has driven them to consider installing chargers in employees homes to support flexible working.
The study found that COVID-19 has accelerated 20% of businesses’ existing plans to invest in EVs, while 13% have cancelled their EV plans as a result of the pandemic.
Indeed, barriers to EV adoption for businesses are still present, with 42% of businesses reporting that one of the biggest barriers is managing the complexity of employees charging EVs at home and at public charging points.
A number of services have been launched in the UK to tackle this problem, with apps such as Octopus’ Electric Juice – which is targeted at fleets – offering drivers a single way to pay for charging across both home charging and public charging with costs appearing on a single bill.
Zappi 2018 EV Charge Point (Image: myEnergi)
Meanwhile, in March Centrica launched a Fleet Charging Management System which acts as a virtual fuel card, allowing drivers to plug into any standard EV charger while also offering payroll integration, meaning the driver is automatically reimbursed while fleet managers receive monthly statements showing all charging transactions.
Other barriers identified in the company’s research were the upfront cost, with 53% of the businesses not looking to install remote chargers citing the operational challenges (41%) and a lack of knowledge about installation partners (35%) as preventative.
While the increase in EV charging installation plans was praised by Centrica, it did also warn that a third of drivers don’t have access to off-street parking and therefore businesses will need a balance of home charging, workplace charging and a public charging network.
“With the ban on traditionally-fuelled vehicles inching ever closer, and on-street charging costs prohibitively expensive, it’s likely we’ll see more employers offering to install home charging, alongside systems to help them manage the chargers and the energy they use,” Greg McKenna, managing director of Centrica Business Solutions, said.
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Rapid charging company InstaVolt has launched a new app to help combat range anxiety.
The app is designed to offer additional functionality to electric vehicle (EV) drivers, including a live map of InstaVolt’s charging network, a loyalty scheme that allows drivers to earn credits when they charge and the ability to track charging history.
The launch follows recent concern around the uptake of EVs, and the widening rollout of charge points across Britain. A report from the Public Accounts Committee earlier this month for example said the government has a “mountain to climb” to reach its goal of phasing out new petrol and diesel cars by 2030 and for all new cars to be zero-emission by 2035.
Pointing to the criticism, Adrian Keen, chief executive officer of InstaVolt, said while it appreciates the concerns raised, “we would argue a huge amount is being done to improve charging access in the UK and fight range anxiety amongst drivers by networks such as InstaVolt”.
Instavolt rapid charger at McDonalds (Image: Instavolt)
“Our newly designed app – which is entirely optional – will help motorists quickly locate rapid charge points, wherever their location, and our loyalty scheme will incentivise and reward our regular customers.”
The app will additionally be used to promote InstaVolt’s partnerships and offer deals. Its launch follows a flurry of recent partnerships signed by the company, including with Costa Coffee to install rapid-chargers at 200 drive-thru sites and car subscription service Onto, as well has having ongoing partnerships with the likes of KFC and McDonalds.
InstaVolt now has over 600 chargers on its network nationwide, and in March celebrated a record breaking month of installations with 62 rapid chargers set live.
Current± recently caught up with Keen to discuss the company’s work rolling out public rapid charger motorway hubs and its increasing number of partnerships.
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