Many EV commuters are suddenly affected by orders to stay at home and, if possible, to work from home.

With the electric car parked for extended times, what’s the best strategy for not damaging the battery?

The general advice hasn’t changed much over the years, and it just requires knowing a few key pieces of information about your car.

Both internal-combustion and electric cars are designed to be driven regularly, which is why leaving them stationary for long periods of time can cause problems.

Electric car owners need to keep track of the state of charge of the main battery pack and understand that there’s probably a clunky 12-volt accessory battery, too—yes, even if you get a Tesla Model Y.

While the battery pack provides power to drive the car, the 12-volt battery often powers other electrical components, including battery-management systems and telematics, Transport Evolved notes. That means it’s very likely to get drained if a car is parked for too long.

The lithium-ion cells in the battery packs of most modern electric cars don’t like to be kept at a full state of charge or a very low state of charge for long periods of time.

So if your car allows for preset charging to a specific state of charge, it’s best to set that to roughly half battery capacity, rather than a full recharge—and limit any charging sessions to an 80% ceiling if your car permits that. Some cars may also have “sleep” or “transport” modes for long periods of inactivity.

Read more: Green Car Reports

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Work has started on an electric vehicle charging forecourt that will be able to charge 24 cars at once.

It is being built on a 2.5 acre site at Great Notley, near Braintree, Essex, by sustainable energy company Gridserve.

The company hopes the roadside forecourt, which will use solar power, will “solve the challenge” of where to charge electric vehicles.

Chief executive Toddington Harper said it was “updating the petrol station model for a net-zero carbon future”.

It is set to open in the summer and is due to be the first of more than 100 similar sites around the country.

Conservative MP for Braintree James Cleverly said it was part of the “charging infrastructure that we need to support [the Conservative government] policies”.

Red more: BBC

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The number of electric vehicle (EV) charge points at supermarkets has doubled in the last two years, according to data analysed by Zap-Map and the RAC.

Some 542 EV charger units were installed by supermarkets from the end of October 2017 to the end of 2019, taking the total on their sites to 1,115 – a growth of 95%. This means 6.5% of all the UK’s public charge points are located at supermarkets with growth in-line with the overall growth of public charge points.

The number of stores offering charging facilities has also doubled with 608 supermarket sites now catering for battery electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles which equates to 5% of all supermarkets – while this appears low it is no doubt in part due to a considerable proportion of smaller supermarket sites not having car parks. Between 2017 and 2019, 313 stores added chargers with, on average, two charging units being installed per site.

The RAC and Zap-Map have both long advocated the importance of supermarkets offering customers charging facilities due to the fact that customers spend 45 minutes on average in their stores – a more than reasonable amount of time to top up an electric car.

Asda and Morrisons have the greatest proportion of stores with charge points

From 2017 to 2019, the proportion of the UK’s 11,979 supermarkets which have EV charging facilities has increased from 3% to 5%. When looking at each supermarket’s store portfolios Asda has the greatest proportion of locations where an EV can be charged – 122 of its 633 sites (19%).

Morrisons is in second spot with EV charging available at 89 of its 494 stores (18%), while Waitrose comes in third place with 14% – 49 of 349 stores.

While Tesco currently only has 4% of stores with charging capability, it has highest total number of stores with charging facilities (142 of 3,961 stores).

Read more: RAC

A consumer code for installers and suppliers of electric vehicle (EV) charge points has been launched by Renewable Energy Assurance Ltd (REAL).

REAL also operates a number of other codes and certifications, including the Renewable Energy Consumer Code (RECC). A 50% discount on membership of the Electric Vehicle Consumer Code (EVCC) will be offered for the first year for installers who are already RECC members, with Joju Solar and Caplor Energy the first two EVCC members.

The EVCC applies to suppliers and installers of domestic EV charge points whether acting on their own account or as a sub-contractor.

It spans pre-sale activities, contracts, installation and completing the work, after-sale activities and complaints handling and the dispute resolution process.

It has been designed to dovetail with the Institute of Engineering and Technology’s Code of Practice for Electric Vehicle Charging Equipment Installation (the IET Code), as well as the current Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme.

Read more: Solar Power Portal

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Residential street chargepoint funding doubled and plans increasing access to real-time information released.

Charging and driving an electric vehicle will be easier, cheaper and more convenient in the future, thanks to double the funding for more chargepoints on residential streets next year and new plans to make sure drivers can easily access real-time information about places to charge their electric car.

The Transport Secretary today (21 January 2020) announced that government funding will be doubled to £10 million for the installation of chargepoints on residential streets next year. This could fund up to another 3,600 chargepoints across the country and make charging at home and overnight easier for those without an off-street parking space.

The government is also looking at how to make information about all public chargepoints including locations and power ratings openly available in a standard format for the first time. The Department for Transport will look at how real-time information could be published, showing whether chargepoints are in working order and currently in use, which could then be used by developers and incorporated into sat navs and route mapping apps

Ensuring that charging an electric vehicle is a convenient and simple process is crucial to meeting the government’s ambitions of phasing out petrol and diesel cars.

Read more: Gov.uk

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With the exception of Brexit, hanging over the market like a malevolent storm-cloud, the biggest issue facing the UK car industry in 2019 has been electrification.

The issue of climate change has shot up the political agenda, and the question of electric vehicles has shifted from “if?” to “when?”.

Looking at the market data, it would seem that the flood of EVs is still some way off, but we are now seeing the first cracks in the dam. Market share of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) increased by 125% YTD (see table, right), although a cynic might say that 125% of nothing is still not very much. Hybrid sales are also increasing steadily, but plug-in hybrid sales have temporarily faltered since the Government decided too many of them were being bought as a tax-dodge, and were not actually being plugged in.

The first issue to address with hybrids is to establish what sort of hybrids we are talking about. There are broadly five types: micro, mild, full, plug-in and range-extender. Over the next 10 years, all petrol and diesel engines will move to some form of electrification – micro at the very least, but most will have mild hybridisation at a minimum. From 2021, virtually all new petrol and diesel premium models will be mild hybrids, and the technology will steadily move down to the rest of the market.

Most independent forecasters (e.g. Ricardo Consulting) expect that, by 2025, of the three main types of electric drive, battery electric vehicles (e.g. Nissan Leaf) will account for about 60% of the total, plug-in hybrids about 30% and full hybrids only about 10%. That would seem logical – as the cost of batteries falls, one would expect cars to use larger batteries. It seems unlikely manufacturers will go to all the cost of engineering a hybrid drive system in 2025 and then use a small, non-plug-in battery to power it, when larger batteries cost very little more.

Read more: AM Online

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