* Posts by davealford

35 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Jun 2015

Well, well, well. Internet-of-Things speaker biz Sonos to continue some software support for legacy kit after all

davealford

As more and more device get connected to the Internet it's about time manufacturers were forced to support ALL equipment for a minimum 10 years or longer. Is it really environmentally friendly to be throwing away 3 and 4 year old electronics just because the manufacture wants to sell you the latest model? Of course not. And then there is the vulnerability of equipment out of support being compromised just because the manufacturer decided they didn't want to support it any more.

Not so easy to make a quick getaway when it takes 3 hours to juice up your motor, eh Brits?

davealford

And there are lots of them using EVs ….

davealford

Re: Charging your car

You/other employees probably wouldn't need to charge everyday / all day. You connect if you need to when you arrive and move your car to another spot when charged. Majority of new EVs now come with an 'app' (doesn't everything?) that'll alert you when the battery is charged or, like myself, the vehicle tells you when it estimates the battery will be charged. It requires a bit of co-operation but, if businesses are providing charging points then they can enforce their own policy how chargers are used and ban those who abuse them. It really is pretty painless and can save you/the company on fuel … In the UK, you can still claim motor mileage at the same rates as an ICE for business use of private EVs so, you can claim back from employer up to 40p/mile for first 10000 miles and 25p/mile there after and it's not subject to tax !

davealford

Re: Charging your car

About £25K is the usual quoted price for a 'RAPID' charger NOT a home charger. Home chargers are between £400 and £600 and you can obtain a grant against that so basically, home charger costs you bugger all! I'd rather sped £3.50 to charge my car for every 150 miles than £75 every 600 … not sure about everyone else ….

davealford

Re: The fuel tank in my car doesn't shrink each time I refill it.

"they can be overhauled easily and relatively cheaply, and multiple times. Not so with batteries."

EV batteries can be overhauled and probably a lot easier than ICE! EV batteries contain many cells grouped into modules - either complete modules or individual cells in module can be replaced.

davealford

in answer to a and b -

https://www.plugshare.com/ and numerous phone apps and EVs now come with charging stations shown on their SatNav plus it'll show charging rates etc.

davealford

Re: Another stupid number

Totally depend on where you live and population density.… obviously. Have a look at the map here - https://www.plugshare.com/ …. 55miles is an 'AVERAGE' FFS

davealford

It would be good if someone could find out how many home chargers have been funded through government OLEV scheme …. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/veh02-licensed-cars shows (as of 2018) 55000 BEVs and 115000 PHEVS and another 9000 REX BEVs so, about 180,000 EVs that are capable of using chargers (there are 30 million Diesel/Petrol vehicles by the way - 400000 'self charging' Hybrids). So, lets say only 10% of those EVs have home chargers … there's another 18,000 chargers !

davealford

Re-purposed EV batteries are just as 'efficient' as a new battery - it's just they loose capacity, not efficiency. You still get out what you put in, it's just not as much as you'd like to put in in the first place ….

davealford

That's why they're investigating Vehicle-2-Grid where charged vehicles' batteries could be used to provide power back to the grid . If there were 1million vehicles connected and each could supply 1kw for 1hour during peaks in demand how much energy is that to add to supply and most vehicles wouldn't notice it. Obviously vehicle owners would want compensated for that 1kw for an hour and until they can at least sort out smart meters it probably isn't going to happen any time soon but, that's the idea …. (which is why new EV chargers that are funded by OLEV grants now have to be smart meters …. trouble is, they don't define 'smart' - does adding a time clock to a charger make it smart?)

davealford

Re: Why are batteries...

But Teslas can use standardised chargers - Type2 AC and Chademo for DC (with hideously expensive Chademo adapter). The Tesla network just incorporates higher wattage charger - hence, Tesla Superchargers. There are a number of Teslas around here but no Superchargers (West coast of scotland) - in fact the only Superchargers I’ve seen in Scotland are on the A9!

davealford

....except majority of charging is/will be done at night at home so it only takes 30seconds to plug-in when you get home and unplug when you leave in the morning 99% of the time. Majority of people drive 30 miles a day. Yes, on long trips I need to stop every 90 miles for 20minutes but I’m at the age where it’s not just to charge I need to stop for.

I can’t actually home charge easily so rely currently on public chargers. Where ever possible I’ll charge on destination chargers, if I need to, I use rapid chargers while on route....and I do 1500miles a month and never had an issue - I simply plan around it.

davealford

Re: top up a car in less than an hour

New rapid chargers are going to be >100kw so capable cars will charge near twice as fast ... so long as vehicle manufactures can design for multiple rapid charging (see 'rapid-gate' issue for Nissan Leafs)

davealford

Re: So many comfort breaks.

I think I’ve spent more money on tea and coffee while charging than I’ve spent on electricity for EV.

davealford

I think you’ll find a lot of free public charging is paid for by energy saved by councils retro fitting LED street lights .... in Scotland anyway ... where majority of public chargers are still free!

davealford

Re: Another stupid number

Simply untrue. The chargers used 'en-route' will be 'rapid' chargers >50kw. Depending on vehicle and state of charge when commencing charge rapid charger will deliver 100 miles is 15 minutes. 'Fast' chargers (<22KW) would deliver 100miles in between 30 and 90 minutes depending on the on-board charger and battery (majority of EVs onboard chargers only run at 7.2Kw as they’re single phase - some can use 22KW ie. some Renault Zoe's and some Teslas). Fast chargers are termed 'destination' chargers as their purpose is to charge vehicles at their 'destination'.

davealford

Re: A waste of time and money

I can fill my EV at home for 28x12p (night rate) or 28x21p (day rate) .... and that’ll give me 160miles in under 4 hours. Surely a BMW owner could afford to give his parents a fiver for charging his car?

davealford

Re: "The UK already has more charging points than petrol stations"

And so you can fill up with petrol at home? I think you can double the number of charging points if you include home/private chargers...

davealford

And doesn’t show private/business/home charging points so you could easily double total that I suspect.

davealford

You never heard of the national grid? Electricity is pretty simply to distribute across the country and no need to transport relatively tiny amounts of energy (fuel) to every filling point across the country. Win/win - less HGVs transporting fuel around.

davealford

Except of course it only takes 30 seconds to connect your home/work/carpark charger. Majority of time you aren't going to need rapid charging as you’ll charge on slow chargers while the car sits doing nothing - which it spend 22hours of they day doing (for the majority that is).

Please, get away from imagining everyone rapid charges all the time - simply not so.

davealford

Re: 30m quid on removing greenhouse gases?

Which is why Europe is going CCS .... even Tesla. I’ve yet to come across a charger that wasn’t compatible with new vehicles. CCS for rapid DC charging and Type2 for home/destination AC charging at 7.2Kw or 22KW if car can take 3phase AC.

davealford

Charging in work, home, car parks (using destination chargers as they’re known) are generally only 7.2kw (same as electric water immersion heaters) and charge battery over several hours. Rapid chargers (50kw +) are for simply that while on longer journeys. It’s envisaged majority of charging will be done on destination type chargers at home and/or work. It will probably come around that all new construction (houses/business/shopping centres etc) will have to have charging facilities as part of planning.

davealford

Re: The fuel tank in my car doesn't shrink each time I refill it.

Yes you can ....

davealford

Re: The fuel tank in my car doesn't shrink each time I refill it.

EV batteries can also be overhauled. The batteries are made of many cells (90 in my 29kwh battery). When battery 'degrades' it’s usually down to one or two cells which can be removed and replaced. No need to replace entire battery. If too many cells degraded then the battery can still have value by using cells in power walls, standby power stores etc.

Please do your research before making comments!

davealford

Re: Charging your car

I think you’ll find you take more than 5 minutes to fill your car. If home charging, it only takes 30 seconds to connect charger in the evening and it’s at 100% if you want in the morning. Most EVs will also pre-condition the car at a set time so the cabin is at 20degC, steering wheel and seats warm, and (if necessary) battery warm too.

Driving long distance in EV doesn’t take much longer. I’ve done 600 mile round trips and found stopping every 90 minutes for a 20minute charge, rest break, coffee not much of a problem. I also find I arrive at destination less tired and less stress along the way.

davealford

Re: Why are batteries...

Manufactures have different ideas - different shaped batteries, different battery technology/composition, different capacities, different management systems, cooling etc. Not quite as simple as changing AA batteries!

davealford

Not sure where they got their timings from but 50kw charger will give me 160 miles of charge in 30 minutes. 4 hours charge on home 7.2kw charger takes 4 hours from 0% for 160 miles on my EV. The newer 120kw public chargers would be proportionally less (for vehicles that can charge at that rate).

Electric cars can't cut UK carbon emissions while only the wealthy can afford to own one

davealford

And petrol isn't dangerous?

davealford

Have a look at GridCarbon or even https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/our-green-energy/energy-independence/uk-grid-live and weep …. (and today is a bad day) 43% Gas, 17% Nuclear, 15% wind, 10% solar, 6% biomass, 1% Hydro, 2% Coal, 5% imported and some <1% 'other'. So durning daytime, near 50% renewable ….

davealford

Re: 400,000 miles

… and average diesel / petrol engines last how long? How much oil (synthetic or otherwise) (engine and gearbox/transmission) will they use throughout their life? Most vehicles aren't scrapped because of their engines 'fail' anyway - more like they fail their MOT and are uneconomic to repair .. engines will still run but there's no second use for them. EV batteries will be able to be repurposed (not recycled) if vehicle is otherwise un-economic to repair. And the difference between running an EV as a city run-about is different from an ICE how? I'd rather have an EV used around town for the school run / commute ...

Tesla’s Autopilot losing track of devs crashing out of 'leccy car maker

davealford

Re: Autonomous driving is months, years, or decades away

…..and every pedestrian, dog, cat, bicycle et all transmits it's real time location down to the nearest foot ….. yea right …. have you guys watched people in 'real' driving situations trying auto pilot? While it may work on well marked/delineated highways, on your everyday rural/urban roads it can't cope and it's going to kill more people (and no, you can't just blame the driver for trusting it, it's being miss sold and over hyped)….

Microsoft middlemen rebel against removal of free software licences

davealford

Re: Slippy slope

Excellent - I think MS have forgotten exactly how many licenses small business buy because they're recommended by smaller support companies.

Anti-TV Licensing petition gets May date for Parliament debate

davealford

If you don't watch live TV, live streams from Internet or iPlayer you don't need a license. END OF. If you're fined then you're finded for watching live TV, live stream or iPlayer -there is no 'getting away' with it. If you're not watching live TV, live streams or iPlayer you don't need a license and you wouldn't get 'caught' and fined as you wouldn't be watching them !

Sysadmins rebel over GUI-free install for Windows Server 2016

davealford

Re: Growing up is tough

As someone who works solely with SMBs a GUI is an absolute essential. Talk of 'back end servers' really shows no knowledge of how SMBs work (and I mean SMALL - like less than 10 users). They can't afford cloud services - it's still cheaper for them to install a server (yes, get some contracted support) and run multiple services on it (exchange, file and print, active directory, etc). I won't even go into the problems that cloud services have with the limited connectivity option for SMBs (try running a cloud based email solution for 10 users and cloud storage on an ADSL - even with 1mbs upload bandwidth - it sucks). That's not going to change anytime soon ....