Re: Vehicle ID based charging
I'm an angry, resentful luddite and I say no to this silly shit, period. I'll be driving a gasoline vehicle for the rest of my lifetime.
I mean, yes to the first bit - just let me plug in and wave a contactless credit or debit card at the reader, just like at a petrol pump. Job done. Totally agree that all the data collection bullshit is exactly that - bullshit.
Trouble is, you then just go right off the rails with major, huge inaccuracies...
Electric vehicles are impractical. They don't have the power, speed or acceleration that I want.
Given that even a Telsa mom-and-pop-mobile has been shown to have more power, more speed and more acceleration than a supercar, I have to conclude that you're full of it here. So let's put numbers to it. Tell us your current car, so we can get power, top speed and acceleration. I presume you're driving on racing tracks for fun a lot, though, because otherwise "top speed" is a bit pointless given 70mph limits on the fastest roads in the UK.
They are expensive to purchase
That is true. While the prices are dropping, it's going to be a very long time (if ever, since the industry sees an opportunity to price gouge for increased margin) that they'll drop to ICE prices spec-for-spec.
and to service
That is absolutely untrue, and is one of the principle reasons so many commercial outfits are changing their van fleet over to electric. Electric cars are dramatically simpler than ICE and have a correspondingly lower service cost.
and batteries have a finite life
They do, but EVs don't have a clutch, gearbox or combusion engine, and your clutch, gearbox and engine all have very much a finite life and cost a great deal to service year-on-year and even more to replace. I think you'll also find that the "finite life" of a battery for a modern (say, post-2020's design date) EV even in heavy duty commercial use is order-of-a-few-decades, which would be a good lifespan for any personal vehicle with any powertrain.
The Leaf, while being a useful pioneer and still a good car, caused a lot of the misconceptions here as it basically has no battery management at all to speak of - no active cooling or heating, very little lifespan management as far as I can tell. Very few other EVs, even "budget" models, have such limitations.
Teslas have been around easily long enough for numerous owners to report 100,000 mile (one hundred thousand mile) updates for batteries and the TL;DR is it looks like the overwhelming majority, without doing anything special, of late-2010s Tesla owners expect their battery to retain useful range for around 500,000 miles - half a million miles! - you want to try and tell me that ICEs are good for half a million miles, now?! (Typical report is of a ~10% range loss at the 100,000 mile point with rate of loss reducing thereafter).
Also, now that charging stations are neither plentiful nor free, it's laughable how people have to structure their whole lives around charging these vehicles.
Surely you're not that blinded by your combustion engine life? Most people visit a charging station rarely; some people, never. The idea that EV drivers "structure their whole lives" around charging their cars is absolutely absurd, to the point of laughing out loud that you'd state such a thing. In your ICE car, you must drive to a petrol station whenever it's running low on fuel - you've absolutely no choice in that - yet I'd never state that ICE vehicle owners structure their whole lives around going to petrol stations.
Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of trips are far, far shorter than the EV's maximum range, with no charging required at all. At home, the EV is topped up overnight. With an EV, you have the option of never visiting the equivalent of a petrol station, ever should you choose. You can even generate your own fuel via wind generators or solar on your own home. None of that is possible with ICE vehicles.
This automated, induction charging sounds good in theory, but good luck with that.
Oh for sure, it's total nonsense. People have looked at this before numerous times but it's just wildly inefficient and causes all sorts of unacceptable risks due to the magnetic fields involved. In particular, got a pacemaker? Ah, shit...