regularly? I've owned one for three years, I motorway drive maybe twice a month and the only time I've ever had to wait is twice at Scotch Corner. Whenever I'm at my usual stops there's plenty of empty charging bays and of course there are usually plenty of other empty bays for other providers which I can use too.
I pay 45p per KW. Still not ideal compared to home charging but not too bad
This doesn't sound right. I do the same mileage per year as you and supercharge about 4 times a year. I think that's the problem some have with EV. Not using them properly. For exmaple you REALLY shouldn't be fast charging all the time. It's terrible for the battery. Find an AC charger you can charge from. The ones at Teesside park are good.
Sadly yes, regularly - I drive London to South Wales every fortnight and Reading and Membury are always jammed up - especially on a sunday afternoon when Im travelling home.
I live in central London mate, sadly its not an option for me. I get your point about fast charging but its a lease car so its someone elses problem later down the line...
OH you live in London. Get yourself a source membership. That's what I do. Your car and your wallet will thank you for it. If you have to charge on route can I recommend Cheively? we stopped there on the way back from Wales this weekend. Easter Sunday, massive queues to get into the service. It couldn't be busier. And there was loads of chargers free.
Hydrogen won't really work for cars, not anytime in the next couple of decades at the very least. It would need the grid to be 100% green and with an excess green production on the grid where it makes sense to put it into hydrogen storage, which is probably 15-20 years away. There will be other storage methods we need to use first, for grid balancing though etc. All the hydrogen we do make will probably end up going in boats by then and maybe HGV's and Buses, but battery tech will possibly solve the latter two before hydrogen really becomes nationally viable.For the record I don't like ev's and suspect we will move from electric to hydrogen, and I am not sure I will like those either.
Yeah I wouldn't have an EV in your circumstances, probably another 2-5 years before I could make it make sense if I was in your position.
Toyota are very close to getting petrol level efficiency from hydrogen, they say.
Petrol level efficiency? That's still 4 times less efficient than EV. Batteries will get cleaner, they have already removed cobalt from them, probably not to the same extent but they have a had start, given how bad it is to produce hydrogen at the moment. The difference, of course, being that batteries are created once, and last the lifetime of a vehicle. Hydrogen must constantly be being created. I honestly don't get it? We are being told the grid can't cope if eveyrone has an EV. We know this is untrue but surely the grid will cope less if we are using electricity to create hydrogen? Given you need 4 times as much to power a vehicle?
So, is £30 the average for a fast charger, to fully charge up to the 260 mile range? I'm just trying to work out rough costs.
if you are, then ignore fast charging costs. You so rarely need to use them it's no point. Oh and you don't charge to "full" on a fast charger. Never do that. I thionk this is goign to be the biggest hit to transitioning. People need to learn how to refuel again. It doesn't take long once you have one but it is a change. It's the only reason I think battery swaps, range, people asking how long and how much to "fill up" and hydrogen are even talked about. People want things that mirror their current experience not a change. Once you learn how to refuel them they are simple and usually way more convenient.
Depends on the car as they have different battery sizes. 80p per KwH is the typical rapid charge price. My battery is 74KwH so 100% charge would be £60.
44p/KwH works out about 9 miles for a £1 of supercharger top up, but I always top up at home, and my solar batteries dumping in then topping up with octopus energy overnight tarriff can be really low, I haven't worked it out, but it must be about 1p/KwH
Haven't they been saying that for years?
I wouldn't be surprised if French prices are much lower, their domestic electricity costs are a 1/4 of ours, surely commercial EV chargers can't be 8x more expensive than charging at home, or nobody would use them.
definitely check, I know you're Kia, but as an example French Tesla chargers are about 25% cheaper than UK ones
Remmber to include the cheap miles in your calculation. When I go to visit family, 200 miles each way (plus weekend driving around) I have to fill up 100% (usually over 2 charges) for the trip. It costs me the £10 or whatever at home plus the £60 rapid so total cost of the 400 miles is £70. If I use the petrol car I get 30mpg and I need 8 gallons of petrol which at £1.50 per litre is about £90.
Different companies have been saying this for quite a while. Toyota not so much until recently with the testing going on in california. The Toyota miria has just managed 1k km on a single tank.