Re: Power required
Well, that is genuinely interesting. It shows the problem can be addressed from the consumer POV.
But still not the general points related to scaleability of EV usage & electricity infrastructure:
Just to be clear, I actually support this. But it's going to take a lot of system engineering, massive regulation, and possibly re-nationalisation of electricity industry
"What happens when that IT stuff goes down" [or IOS updates & suddenly doesn't support the app] - Nothing much, then I'll just use a standard charging point & pay what it costs.......Errr, no you won't. When it goes down, it's down for everybody at the same time. That's a pain when only a few people have leccy cars. But it's pretty grim for society if forty million people suddenly have no means of making their cars go. And that's trucks delivering food, too. There is *no* system-wide single-point failure equivalent for a petrol station network.
"What is the financial benefit to *E.ON* vs National Grid"
- National Grid cannot depend on this app to maintain grid stability by running a distributed load-balancing algorithm on people's smartphones. That would be crazy. E.ON won't & can't provide any back-guarantee to National Grid. Moreover, E.ON & dozens of other utilities are entitled to change both electricity pricing & load-balancing algorithm in the app, without consulting each other. But without those guarantees, National Grid have to build *the same infrastructure as if the load-balancing didn't exist, in case it failed*.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
