Tesla batteries went from fully charged to fully disabled after botched patch, lawsuit claims Tesla is back in court, this time over allegations its automatic software updates severely hobbled or completely disabled the batteries in Model S and X vehicles, with the only official recourse being a $15,000 battery replacement. Four plaintiffs from California, Illinois, Michigan and Washington state who own new or used …
The solution offered seems to make it very clear why the error is being triggered. Mainly that Henry Fraud has been reduced to looking for underhand ways to keep the cash rolling in to keep his auto empire afloat.
An alternative to battery replacement...
https://electrek.co/2021/12/23/tesla-owner-blows-up-model-s-dynamite-battery-replacement/
Watch out of Elon Musk dropping by at about 4min, and the explosion around 5min 14sec
That's a fantastic bit of footage. Hearing the language reminds me of Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning :).
Yes because locking, climate control and charging is so much easier on a phone, rather than pressing the button right in front of you.
Car makers are only interested in leasing these days, but wait until dealers no longer can sell the cars after 3 years because no one wants to buy them.
THe only problem is using a phone's app to change the aircon could get you killed, while turning a knob is significantly quicker to do and also much safer.
But hey if you have a crash and destroy your car while you change the air con, will you have a car to use the next day in which case you dont really need the app in that case ?
The only successful thing about Tesla's self driving endeavours is that their actions are driving the company towards needless oblivion.
Full Self Drive, Autopilot, the fuss around the OTA updates wearing out the miserly flash storage they'd used, this stupid thing with the batteries, their not-great build quality, their substandard customer service, their immaturity at production design (anyone remember the Musk-driven farce of them trying to automate production of the 3 Series, costing $billions?); all these things are destroying what should be a successful and enduring BEV manufacturer with the best charging network.
Now one of their USPs - OTA updates - has become yet another reason to sue them, not to be thankful towards them. The very fact that it's got to court - repeatedly, in different countries - will surely be a huge red flag to absolutely anyone who hears about it. OTA update screw ups followed by effusive apologies and swift rectification - you could live with that. Having to sue to get a fix - no ****ing way.
Toyota sold their stake in Tesla years ago, apparently because they decided they couldn't work with Musk, the way Musk wanted the company to work. Well, if this is the end result of it being done "The Musk Way", they were right to leave him to it...
Great is of reference to magnitude of something relative to alternatives.
A large magnitude of wealth is a great wealth.
A person who has a vast proportion of control and influence is great.
It never had any polarity of good or bad to it.
There can be great good.
there can be great evil.
There can be great size.
There can be great miniaturization.
Great power.
Great weakness.
Etc...
Nearly every manufacturer throttles available battery capacity. They'll advertise a 60kWh pack, but install something a bit bigger so they can maintain the stated spec as the pack breaks in. It's normal for Li batteries to lose a bit of capacity early on. The software just makes it look like there is only so much capacity. Bjorn Nyland has noticed differences in what the dash displays vs. what is being shown on the CAN bus for some cars.
If somebody is crazy enough to take their Model S to Tesla for an OEM pack replacement, they get what they deserve. There are many more options to pay less for a replacement. Tesla along with most other manufacturers are well know for replacing entire subsystems rather than swapping out much cheaper failed component. The cores go back to a depot where that component level repair will be done and they'll sell that 'refurbished' item to the next sucker for a grossly marked up price. It's just the S that's out of warranty at this point and perhaps some X's, but the 3's and Y's will still be covered.
I stopped updating the software on my computer with day 1 releases many years ago. Too often there would be some bugs that crop up or a requirement that I spend another pile of money for a new peripheral to replace one that won't work anymore and won't get any updates since it's older than 6 months. The last thing I'd want with a car or my production computer is for it to auto-update and leave me stranded. I'm more than happy to wait for a bit and let others discover all of the bugs first and when that's all been dealt with, I'll update if it makes sense. I have plenty of software that does everything I need it to do so buying a new computer to be able to run the latest version does nothing for me. I expect that most of the Tesla OTA's are to fix the things that were left uncompleted at the time of production. My 2007 car has never needed a software update. Everything worked when it left the factory although it has been through 2 airbag replacements but that's a supplier issue.
"I spend another pile of money for a new peripheral to replace one that won't work anymore"
Now, now relax. Just because I'm using a nice 15ppm HP laser printer that I was gifted by my lawyer 25 years ago when the latest/greatest software upgrade orphaned it...My total investment, other than electricity when I turn it on, is a replacement toner cartridge (possibly two, been a long time).
"Just because I'm using a nice 15ppm HP laser printer that I was gifted by my lawyer 25 years ago......"
That's me too, except for the blood sucking lawyer part. I print so little these days that getting a new laser printer with all of the manufacturers lockdowns backed into the firmware seems like a waste. Inkjet, even worse. The thing is that when I need the printer, I need it and the library never seems to be open much anymore and I'm not sure what they have these days for computers and printers.
Bjorn Nyland has noticed differences in what the dash displays vs. what is being shown on the CAN bus for some cars.A bit of an aside but I get the impression this kind of thing isn't unusual and could even be routine. For example, when the speedometer in my particular car displays 120 km/h, an OBD-2 scanner shows 111 km/h, which can be confirmed using GPS. The sensor is accurate and the car knows exactly how quickly it's moving, but it lies to the user. I wonder how many other gauges/readouts/etc. are doing the same?
In the US speedometers are required by law to read no lower than actual speed, so most car manufacturers build in an intentional error to make sure this happens. Almost all of my cars have displayed speed 5-10% high.
Some gauges also lie for user-reassurance reasons, and this has been the case for a while. My '86 Volvo 240 had a "stabilizer" circuit that caused the temperature gauge to read exactly centered unless the temperature was above or below a certain range. Supposedly Volvo got too many warranty requests for cars that ran slightly above normal on the gauge.
"In the US speedometers are required by law to read no lower than actual speed, so most car manufacturers build in an intentional error to make sure this happens. Almost all of my cars have displayed speed 5-10% high."
If you change wheels of fit a different tire size the speedo can be affected too so the law is only going to cover accuracy on an unchanged vehicle. The maker might even fudge to account for the worst case scenario if they offer several wheel/tire options.
I go more by what the SatNav says and since it's sat up on the dash, it's easier to see.
"The sensor is accurate and the car knows exactly how quickly it's moving, but it lies to the user."
If the manufacturer is using telematics to collect data on the cars they have sold, they need accuracy. What the car tells the user (hard to call them 'owners' anymore) can be a little white lie to cut down on customer service complaints. People will be super happy if their "60kWh" battery pack is being reported as "68kWh", but will have a total meltdown if the dash reads "59.5kWh" 6 months from new.
Yes, it is common practice to report the target value if you are better than that value.
No, it is not the fault of the owner as you seem imply with "If somebody is crazy enough to take their Model S to Tesla for an OEM pack replacement, they get what they deserve.". They do not want to have the battery replaced, they just want it to work the way it did before Tesla f'd up the update.
Yes, it is unwise to install version .0 or .1 of anything. Question is: can you actually see what "version" of which part of the whole kaboodle is influenced by the update? Can you tell whether this is version y.1 or x.2 or z.whatever of some driver-thingamajiggid? Or are these updates just "a new software version with exciting features" / "urgent fix"? How do you decide which parts to accept and which parts to reject? Can you even do that? Heck, looking at Windows updates this is made ridiculously obtuse because of (sometimes artificially introduced) dependencies - why should Tesla deliver a better thought through service? Can you blame the user/owner for that? Not everybody is as computer literate as ElReg commentards.
Oh, and sure, I totally agree that a simple gas guzzler is waaay simpler, the more basic the better. Look at the engine of the VW 1200, dead simple, even I can understand most parts. And I assure you, you will never ever need an airbag replaced on those.
my problem with comments like this is the assumption that your average consumer should know about or care about when/what/if to patch and have the knowledge of your average IT bod.
I buy a car...I should have ZERO thoughts about patching it, day 0 exploits, whether to patch a week after the automated patches roll out etc. It's a CAR not a server running an enterprise grade email system.
The fact that Tesla can write off a battery pack (with the ensuing cost and environmental cost of replacing those batteries) due to a dodgy patch is something that a car driver should not have to think about.
again it's a CAR not a COMPUTER.. the average car user should not have to care or be expected to care about any of this stuff.
My old car was full of software but only got updated when I took it for it's 2 yearly service & when I get the car back it would be in perfect condition because the manufacturer knows that if 1 light pops up, I'm going to take it straight back for them to fix it.
Having to worry about over the air updates for a sodding CAR is ridiculous and yet another reason I would never buy a Tesla. Even with a normal car now, I'd disable any kind of internet connection that wasn't running through my phone and if I couldn't do it, I wouldn't buy the thing in teh first place
"again it's a CAR not a COMPUTER.. "
Are you sure? They say that about mobile phones too, but many people rarely make actual phone calls on them these days :-)
But yes, it's not a computer. It's a highly complex and quite large mobile LAN of many computers with a WAN connection, none of which YOU control. :-)
"Even with a normal car now, I'd disable any kind of internet connection that wasn't running through my phone and if I couldn't do it, I wouldn't buy the thing in teh first place"
That will become increasingly difficult over time. Probably not impossible, but difficult for what will eventually be a niche product. Like a dumb phone or a dumb TV and increasingly as or more expensive than the connected ones because of the smaller market demand.
"That will become increasingly difficult over time. Probably not impossible, but difficult for what will eventually be a niche product. Like a dumb phone or a dumb TV and increasingly as or more expensive than the connected ones because of the smaller market demand."
A disconnected car could be a niche product but something certain people will pay good money for. If I had the capital to invest, I'd start a business that specializes in disconnecting cars from the internet and scrubbing the memory of information. There are all sorts of people including and especially wealthy people that don't want tracking. If I can get a read on somebodies car from it's broadcasts and the car is always broadcasting as it looks for a connection, I can use that for tracking that car. Even if I can't parse out the data it's sending, there will likely be a header file that will be unique I can read. What a great way to be able to trail somebody that's just like sticking a bug on their car except the car's gubbins are the bug. Getting access to data is a problem too. While stealing a modern car can be hard to do, if a VIP has paired their phone with their car, there could be more value in the data that can be extracted than the car itself. Just break in, do a data dump and do an obvious rummage to make it look like a simple smash and grab. Most people won't stop and think that stored information was stolen nor might there be a way to find out. It's not like Tesla is going to let anybody know how to check the car's log files.
"The fact that Tesla can write off a battery pack (with the ensuing cost and environmental cost of replacing those batteries) due to a dodgy patch is something that a car driver should not have to think about."
Tesla won't be 'writing off' those packs. They'll update firmware or make some minor repairs and put the pack in spares if it's still physically within spec. The early Model S packs are in demand. They are very modular and sought after by many of the shops doing conversions. Don't believe anybody that tells you they are going off to landfill.
"No, it is not the fault of the owner as you seem imply with "If somebody is crazy enough to take their Model S to Tesla for an OEM pack replacement, they get what they deserve.". They do not want to have the battery replaced, they just want it to work the way it did before Tesla f'd up the update."
If you go to the doctor with a sore and they tell you that your arm must be amputated, you would want a second opinion. If Tesla was your doctor, they'd prescribe the amputation for a broken finger since that's the minimum level of work they do. Got a cracked LCD display, replace the whole infotainment unit at $3,000 rather than just the screen. If you took the car to an independent shop, they'd likely offer you a new screen or a salvaged one for less. The same goes for the battery pack. Even if it's just a contactor that's failed, Tesla will want to replace the pack. The same sort of thing happened when a cooling fitting broke on somebody's pack. Tesla would only replace the pack and an independent shop just repaired the fitting with a part from the hardware store plumbing department since getting one from Tesla was not an option.
I'm not nostalgic for old cars. Get yourself a carbureted car with emissions controls and try to drive the width of California. -100 to over 9000 feet altitude and 20F to 120F temperature in one day. Better bring a tool bag, a can of WD-40, and very carefully choose the octane at each fill-up.
My modern car does it with nothing but varying turbo lag to worry about. (This is also why All-Season tires exist)
"Tesla's newest packs are made in a way that makes repairing pretty much impossible."
Just about all of the newest packs are under warranty unless they've been damaged/abused so Tesla would have to replace them at Tesla's cost if there is an issue. That would be one way for a new update to be sent out very quickly unless the last one absolutely bricked the car.
The glued together packs are difficult to repair from a cell standpoint, but I don't think there is much in the way of goo to battle through to get to the embedded electronics. I'd love to get my hands on some of those packs, but they go for stupid money from the wrecking yards if they haven't been melted down to slag.
"Tesla software updates, AFAIK, are not optional, nor can you turn them off. It auto updates. So your idea to not do auto updates doesn't apply."
You can, or at least could, completely opt-out of the telematics in a way that's all or nothing. If you opt out, a lot of stuff won't be updated and you lose a bunch of functionality. You'd not get OTA updates, but you may not be able to use Superchargers either as they rely on communications with the car for billing/permission. You'd have to use public sites where you can swipe a card or maintain a membership for charging. Some of the bigger charging companies in the US are adding the proprietary Tesla plug on the stands to get business from Tesla owners. I'd be very wary of using any sort of adapter on a system pushing a couple of hundred amps. A little bit of resistance turns into a lot of heat.
Refueled everywhere too, and quickly at that.
I see that as the biggest issue for EVs - the petrol station style refill is WAY too slow so something else has to be found. Just look at the queues at normal petrol stations and imagine every one of them had to hang around for 30 minutes - would make for a fun weekend..
Dunno about where you are, but there are nowhere near as many filling stations as there used to be 'round my way. And with the push for EVs, that's gonna get worse over time, especially if the country you live in has an upcoming ban on future new ICE car sales. It could see a return to trips to the local chemist/pharmacy for a few 1 gallon cans of petrol for the die-hards :-) There's already back-street dealers selling red[*] diesel in some cities around the UK, sometimes even with the red dye neutralised.
* Low tax fuel in the UK for agricultural and marine use only, has a red dye in it. Very large fines if caught using it in vehicles on the public road since, amongst other crimes, it's tax evasion.
As for the charging aspect, it's going to be a growing problem, though generally we're not there as yet. I sometimes see all the chargers in use at motorway services on normal weekdays, so imagine it being a problem during holidays even now, but I'd guess most people driving EVs are charging at home or work and maybe doing some topping off at the supermarket car parks and such-like. Rural users mileage may vary quite considerably :-)
"I sometimes see all the chargers in use at motorway services on normal weekdays"
I expect that some of that will be due to people buying an EV with no off street parking at home and no way to charge at work. Most modern EVs being sold will go 150-200 miles on up and most people aren't driving 3-4 hours over the course of one day. More and more hotels are adding charging. It doesn't have to be all that fast since guests will be there for 8-10 hours.
Where's there's demand, chargers will be installed. A big impediment is the very same governments that are looking to ban ICEV's with endless red tape and delays to get stations up and running. The fueling infrastructure we have now has evolved over better than 100 years. To expect all charging issues to be resolved in the next two years is wishful thinking. A government throwing money at it won't change anything either other than adding more to national debt figures.
"More and more hotels are adding charging. It doesn't have to be all that fast since guests will be there for 8-10 hours."
So long as they have enough of them, great. Or they may be that 3am alarm call to let you know you car is charged and you need to move it because we just gave a 3am alarm call to another guest who needs the charger now, thank you very much for staying at $hotel and we hope you are having a great night! :-)
I foresee a bright future for the old fashioned British farce, as the Vicar is roused out of his bed to charge his car, only to see that the vehicle just leaving the bay belongs to young Aubrey, who swore he was in Brighton this weekend. Gracious, isn't that Felicia, his cousin's intended, standing by the Tesla in her flimsy negligee, illuminated from behind by the flames?
"Refueled everywhere too, and quickly at that."
Anywhere there is an outlet you can use is a refueling point for an EV so they're everywhere too. One of the key benefits is that if you have access to charging at home, you never have to stop and a specialized facility to charge up. The vast majority of my travel wouldn't require stopping anywhere to recharge mid-trip. With my petrol car, filling up at home is not an option. Even if I wanted to, I'd never get a permission to install a large petrol tank on my property or it might require me to spend shed loads of cash in fees, permits, inspection and insurance to be able to do it. OTOH, adding a 50a outlet I could do without telling anybody. I would do the work to code, but nobody would ever check.
If you need to refill then you are wasting too much time driving...get a life stop driving and walk or ride a bike. If you need to drive 500kmh theres something really wrong with what your doing. If you are going on holidays the question remains why live in a place you dislike so much that you want to run away for a day off ?
Funnily enough I own an EV (not Tesla!), and by my calculation based on local petrol prices, and my house energy prices, I save about €20 per "tank" in comparison to my previous car (a Skoda).
We've not had any problems with updates or with the batteries (although you do notice a definite difference in range in winter when all the heating is on). We're super happy with our car (VW ID3).
And since we're saving a significant amount of money over the course of a year, SHOULD something go wrong, which I dont expect since we're actually driving a proper carmaker's car, we'll have the money to fix it.
So your complaint about EV's seems to centre on one manufacturer who has been known to be crap for a long time. Try looking at proper car manufacturer's EVs, you wont find anywhere near the level of complaints or problems...
Of course, everyone's situation is different, I never said otherwise.
I'm lucky enough to be able to charge at home, and live in a country where the network of charges has been excellently rolled out.
But dear God, you pay 79p/kWh???? €0,91/kWh!!!! Even using the 300kWH chargers on the Autobahn near us doesnt cost us more than €0,45/KWh. At those prices, you are getting massively screwed! Wow no wonder EV take up is so low in the UK...
Prices went up during the autumn energy prices, and haven't come back down. Either the charging companies hedged their electricity at a high price, or they're creaming off big profits (For re-investment I'm sure..)
The best priced "mainstream" charge provider is Gridserve at 69p/kWh. Nobody has blinked and cut their prices yet, but I suspect once one does, they'll all come tumbling down
Tesla superchargers today are are approximately 40p offpeak, 47p on peak (varies by location), most are still open only to Teslas, but other vehicles are welcome at a small portion for about 10p/kWh extra on the Tesla price, or £10/month. Telsa didn't hedge, and they've passed on a fair price to their customers. It's curious how they can do the decent thing in some scenarios, and yet in others royally screw over the customers
"It's curious how they can do the decent thing in some scenarios, and yet in others royally screw over the customers"
It could a corporate cultural thing. There was a big story on BBC news yesterday regarding supermarket food prices. They told the viewers everything they needed to know, including the "hedging" supermarkets do by buying on term-contracts so there will be lag in price falls. They also mentioned at least twice in the report that prices were lower and falling faster in Europe. They even finished on that line. What they didn't mention is that in Europe, supermarkets buy on current spot price or fairly short term contracts such that their prices roll up and down with the seasons and markets. The UK is the outlier where the supermarkets all work on the premise the customer is happier with long term stable prices, not the seasonal or market rates at that moment. It almost felt like the BBC was blaming Brexit for higher prices here than in the EU :-)
Anyway, that's just a long winded way of saying maybe Tesla don't see the point in hedging on electricity futures when they have a fairy captive customer base and whatever Tesla pay per KW/h will be passed on with a markup anyway, so why bother? Most of their customers can afford a very expensive car and won't be bothered about a few pence per KW/h price variation anyway. When prices rise, non-hedged suppliers prices rise first, but if the high prices last long enough, the hedgers prices stay high for longer when the non-hedgers can drop more quickly and steal customers.
"Depends on personal situation for costs - I can't charge at home, I do 700 miles a week. 2 fast charges at 79p/kWh means will cost me roughly £30 more a week to run a BEV,"
My standard advice would be to put off an EV until you are in your own home with off-street parking. There are more and more options for people that don't have off-street parking, but it's not anywhere near universal. Paying 79p/kWh is expensive which goes to show that relying on fast charging for daily driving isn't worth it.
Save the money you'd spend on a new EV and put it in the kitty to buy a house instead. It's been over a year since I've paid my one off and I'm still dancing every 1st of the month (no payment).
"I am in my own home. You think I should move house for the reason of buying a _CAR_?"
Yep. If you are against EV's due to your not being able to charge at home, that's your problem, not a good basis for a condemnation of EV's in general.
Really what I'm saying is if you don't have the ability to charge at home, an EV could be a very poor choice right now. It's also better financially to not buy an EV if you are a renter since the price can be quite a premium over a good quality used ICEV and put that the saved money aside to buy a home which can be a much more solid investment. Car's are an expense, not an investment.
A car may not be an overriding feature of your life, but it is for many people and many of them fall into the trap of buying an expensive car and continue to flush the rest of their money on a rented home. Building net worth should be a goal for everybody. It's security in older years. I know that my friends that bought homes when we were much younger are all in much better financial shape than I am since I learned the lesson rather late in life. None of them drive particularly fancy cars and live comfortable but not extravagant lives. All of them will retire well insulated financially from the winds of government incompetence.
"I read it as "don't buy an EV if you don't have a house with off-road charging". Not "you must move house"."
That's ok. I meant it both ways. I can't describe how good it feels to have my home completely paid off and that's on top of how good it felt to finally get into the home in the first place. My unsolicited advice is get only as much car as you really need and put the rest into buying a home. Once the home part is taken care of, look at the budget to see if an EV is a good move. I get that many jobs that pay well are in large cities, but the cost of living and the limited chances of building wealth can mean it's mo betta to make less and live someplace with a better cost of living so there's more left at the end of each month. It's what you keep, not your gross salary that's important.
So, here's the rub.
If you charge at home in the UK, there is no 'fuel duty', and currently VAT is at a reduced rate for domestic users.
Are they going to force home owners to have a second electricity meter so they can measure how much of the electricity was used for a vehicle for tax purposes, and how much for domestic use, and mandate by law that they cannot charge off their normal domestic supply?
Or will they push up VAT on all electricity, and put a 'car levy' on people who charge cars at home (interesting observation, when buying electricity at a public charging point, you pay the full 20% VAT, which is one of the drivers keeping electricity from an EV charging point more expensive that charging at home).
Maybe they ought to colour the electricity for the lower tax uses red, like they do with agri-diesel.
As it stands, the UK government are going to take a huge hit if everyone buys an EV and charges at home.
I imagine per-mile road charging will be phased in as electric-car usage rises. Combine this with charges to enter cities (just look at how many were "under consideration" before the last batch of council elections) and ULEZ zones, and the Government's tax take should stay high enough.
And not forgetting that London first called it a "congestion" charge, and made exceptions for EVs. As more " clean air" and ULEZ appear, they can easily be charged into congestion charge zones. They are all ANPR monitored. It's just a tweak in the s/w deciding on who gets charged and how much. I suspect that's one of the reasons our company switched from company cars to car allowance, ie non-privately owned vehicles are likely to be next on the hit list after lorrys/vans/buses/taxis. My car, now privately owned, is currently exempt, but for how much longer I wonder?
The problem with ANPR based charging is that it makes it trivial to evade. Just get a cloned plate. People already do that, and never seem to get caught.
Energy taxation at source is a good way of taxing usage. You can't get the petrol without paying the tax. As soon as they try things like ANPR, or a special meter for the car charger at home, or GPS logging in the car, you're handing opportunities to those minded to evade paying and you have very few means of stopping them. The sneaky thing to do would be to introduce GPS logging based taxation, but the government has shares in the company that sells GPS jammers (which are commonly available anyway...).
"I imagine per-mile road charging will be phased in as electric-car usage rises."
That could be hard to implement and monitor compliance on. In the US, many states are adding an EV fee to annual registrations and it's higher than what a person might be paying in fuel taxes using a moderately efficient car. Charging by the mile would also penalize people that live in more rural areas and need to travel further for necessities, school, etc.
Nope. You may not have noticed it, but average speed cameras are appearing all over Europe and the UK, as well as ANPRs.
As far as I can tell, what you're actually looking at is covert preparations for road taxation. They won't tell you this, of course, but it's really only a software update away.
Not that that was hard to predict: there is no politician in the world who would voluntarily cut him- or herself off from money they could waste on things like their own salary..
"what you're actually looking at is covert preparations for road taxation. They won't tell you this, of course"
Unless you live in London, in which case we already know that if, god forbid, Khan gets re-elected next year, then the existing ULEZ cameras WILL be repurposed as part of his publically announced plans for per-mile charging once the revenue stream from ULEZ dries up...
With the amount of cameras in London you'd only need to add facial recognition or pickups of people's credit card RFID or Bluetooth to even tax pedestrians for pavement miles.
I can't remember where exactly it was, but a long while ago I came out of a tube station somewhere in North London, I think far out, zone 6, and while I was waiting to be picked up I counted all cameras in the vicinity out of boredom.
I got to twenty three. Somewhere out in the sticks. Unbelievable.
You could always just work out how much fuel duty income is lost each year due to the adoption of EVs, and then increase the RFL charge for EVs so that the total income from that balances out the loss of fuel duty income... No need to get clever with chargers, metering or any of that stuff.
Might not be particularly fair, especially not if you're an EV owner doing below-average mileage whos fuel duty contribution would also have been similarly below average, but since when has government cared about treating motorists fairly when it comes to extracting the maximum amount of revenue from them?
You missed out one. Smart meter required for EV charging tariffs. The car talks to the meter so it knows exactly what is going to the BEV, and what is "normal" use. This is how the low tariffs work: the car gets say 10p/kWh to charge for a few hours, while anything else is charged at your normal rate at the same time.
"You missed out one. Smart meter required for EV charging tariffs."
Now what do you do when people are charging from their own solar panels? In theory, the fuel taxes should be going to build and maintain roads and public transportation, but they aren't. The amount of added tax on petrol/diesel in the UK is even higher than what's charged in the Peeples Republik of Kalifornia and that's saying something. You'd expect that potholes wouldn't last more than a day with that sort of revenue dedicated to upkeep.
"You think the smart meter can't tell when the power isn't being drawn from the grid?"
It can tell that power isn't being supplied from the grid, but it can't tell why that might be. My house draws around 50W when the fridge isn't running and nothing else is on. It might be that low most of the day if I'm not home. If I were home all day, charging a car and running appliances but with solar taking up all of that load, the smart meter can't tell the difference.
> Are they going to force home owners to have a second electricity meter so they can measure how much of the electricity was used for a vehicle for tax purposes
Ye this is effectively has already happening!
Whilst you can trickle charge via a 13A outlet, all the new dedicated EV charging points are “intelligent”. Basically, they are controlled by a cloud service and an app. You register you car on the charging point, so it only charges registered EVs and the app and central server manage charging (both of EV and your bank account). As part of the smart grid, EV charging is treated differently to domestic usage, so can be separated. It is only a (intentional) small step to introduce differential pricing and taxation.
I expect using a public charging point will always cost more than an at home point. Near me a big charging centre has been built, obviously it has fast chargers 20~30 minutes for a “charge”. The thing that amuses me is there is a 6 foot fence between it and the neighbouring Costa coffee franchise and no space on the charging plot for a similar franchise.
>> Whilst you can trickle charge via a 13A outlet, all the new dedicated EV charging points are “intelligent”. Basically, they are controlled by a cloud service and an app. You register you car on the charging point, so it only charges registered EVs and the app and central server manage charging (both of EV and your bank account). As part of the smart grid, EV charging is treated differently to domestic usage, so can be separated. It is only a (intentional) small step to introduce differential pricing and taxation.
- Nothing stopping you having you having the mobile charger connected to a 32a IEC connector
- Some energy companies have offered discounts if you let them control your charging, but that's really up to you to agree
-- Generally the intent is to push charging away from peak times, which is good for the grid and bills overall
- They almost all use wifi, so change your wifi password and they're dumb chargers again
- The built in meters (Effectively embedded clamp meters) aren't calibrated, and you'd struggle to justify using them for billing
- The way a lot of chargers have been installed would make it physically difficult to retrofit a meter
- You can program them to connect to your own local control server if you wish
On the other hand, car odometers are recorded annually as part of an MOT. Thus far the Australian states which have implemented per mile tax have used this, with a few difficulties
- Can't differentiate in/out of state driving
- Clocking some cars is pretty trivial
"On the other hand, car odometers are recorded annually as part of an MOT. Thus far the Australian states which have implemented per mile tax have used this, with a few difficulties"
The problem I have with that lash up is privacy. The next step will be to track where those miles are being driven in general terms and then much more specifically to the point where they can map every meter of travel you do. Were you driving in downtown Sydney or way out in the bush? Would it be fair to assess the same per mile tax on somebody in Alice Springs as you would in Melbourne? A successful argument could be made which would then mean that they would indeed have to know where every km was driven and massive databases would need to be built to store and process all of this data requiring higher taxes to be collected to pay for all of that as well.
It could be far easier to add a per annum fee to registration based on average driving distances and what the fuel tax might have been if the driver had a similar ICEV. As a flourish, the fee could vary based on where the car's owner lives. It's not a bad thing for countries to have people living in the out of the way places. Run the costs up and many won't be able to afford to pay all of the extra taxes to live in smaller villages (it's already bad enough) and that could lead to much higher government costs that have to be spent in the name of the people that remain. IE, more money is spent in the area than what revenue is generated. They'd have a hard time going in and turfing out a bunch of pensioners so they can "close" the village.
I think this was largely why the road charging scheme back 15 years ago didn't make it past debate. There is a natural aversion to having your car monitored in all locations, and it's not like they wouldn't hand the job over to Capita for them to leave it on an open S3 bucket...
Definitely no answer here which makes everybody happy, I'm just pointing out that retrofitting meters on every EV charger would be hard to do, and that Australia is already taxing EVs based on mileage (despite the obvious flaws, which would generally be less of an issue in the UK as it's unlikely this would be implemented in only a fraction of the country. Would make a European road trip a little less attractive, but edge case..)
My home EVSE has an ethernet port but it's not connected to anything, because I couldn't see any reason I'd want that.
I intentionally got one that didn't need any connection to a network. If it hadn't been possible to buy one that didn't, I'd just roll my own with something like OpenEVSE.
The local utility board can't tell the difference between a car and a dryer.
is a YouTube channel from a guy in Oz that's put in some power management equipment I first saw on The Fully Charged Show. He has solar and built most of his own battery storage. The management system shoves power from his solar system into the hot water heater and now his car preferentially before exporting anything to the grid. I don't know exactly how his battery storage ties in, but it's some fascinating stuff to see. He has the sort of system I'm looking at installing at my house. With such low feed-in pricing where I am, I want any solar I install to be stored in some fashion on site to offset my power bills.
An EV makes no sense for me - at least one that relies on OTA updates.
I live off-grid on solar power and a generator for 2 months out of the year. Cell service is but a dream.
I'm 13 km from the nearest hydro pole, and 50km from the nearest charge point (at a GM dealership), so an EV makes no sense. Especially since -40 to -50 is common in the winter. I'd have to run the generator for almost a week straight to get enough charge to get to the closest charge point.
Which defeats the whole point of an EV.
I've driven a Tesla and while the acceleration is a riot, a full EV does not make a lot of sense in lot of Canadaland if you're outside a city. The road are shit because it goes from -40 to +30 every year and there's very few public charge points even on the major cross-country highway. If I drive two hours west on the main highway, there are two signs. One is "350 km to the next gas station" (and there are no charging stations for at least 600 km) - and you lose cell service shortly thereafter.
The other sign tells me that it's 515 km to the next McDonald's.
There's a lot of work to do to make EVs work in this country cost of charging notwithstanding.
Many people out in the sticks with off-grid power generation prefer to have EV's. If it's really far to the nearest power pole, I'd expect it's also a distance to the nearest petrol station. Maybe a hybrid or plug-in hybrid is a good option if you are making 600km trips and there's nothing along the route at all.
If you are running a generator continuously, your best approach will be to have the load maxed out (80% or so of rated output) the whole time it's running for the best fuel efficiency. There are load management products that can use an EV to take up excess capacity and put it in the battery. Some newer EV's are capable of supplying power so while they won't power a whole house, they will give you some power if your generator decides to squirt a connecting rod out the bottom of the oil pan.
While cold temperatures reduce the available energy you can get from an EV battery, the car still works and heating up the battery pack will get you some of that range back. The question is whether you would need the full range of the car in the dead of winter.
Unless you only have a 2kW generator, you might be exaggerating the time it would take to charge an EV.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
