a lot of caravan parks have or are installing EV chargers,

https://www.caravanclub.co.uk/uk-holidays/...-charging/ ... - .- -.




Y. O. L. O.
.

I love driving my PHEV in electric mode - it's sublimely quiet and relaxing, and suits the FFRR well.

My most recent trip to the French Alps however highlighted that having to find somewhere to charge the car would completely ruin that journey. Admittedly it was the school holidays, but the queues for the limited number of electric charge points were huge, and of course you have to wait for the car to charge once you plug it in. 2024 Range Rover P550e AB

I think you may have inadvertently answered your own question, in my view EVs are only any good if leased and you don't do long journeys, as the long term maintenance costs are prohibitive and in my view it's a replay of the government saying everyone should buy a diesel (that went well!!!) I do smile when i pull into motorway services and see the ques of teslas waiting to charge given the number of cars vs chargers (esp working ones!)

Captain doom here, In my view EVs are a short sighted vision, especially given the damage caused by mining lithium etc and then the disposal costs and environmental impacts, plus the added manufacture costs and impacts.

Only my Wednesday rant!! but I will forever be Petrol I am afraid, I now do very little mileage so my carbon footprint is very low and I intend to keep my cars. So buy once, buy right, and maintain well, is my mantra.

Rant over

Have to say I agree with you. In my circle of friends, everyone who has an electric car, also has a ICE car as well. Hybrids solve that problem to an extent, but you are carrying a lot of weight that you don't use most of the time.

I'm holding out for some sort of synthetic fuel that I can then also keep using in classic cars. 2024 Range Rover P550e AB

I agree I am waiting for P1 to be available, wont be long.

Long live the ICE

P1 fuels are available now, but currently only for racing applications as far as I know, I assume you'd have to have quite a serious remap to be able to use that in a fatty.

But you'd be quite smug knowing your potentially producing about 80%+ less CO2.

The downside, you have to buy it privately, it's not available on the street so that's a bit of a problem, as is storage, if you travel any distance from home. Also 255 Euros for 54litres, means 4.7 Euros per Litre is not unreasonable but tax will be high. I don't think you can use it on the road legally though as tax need to be applied, similar situation to red diesel..

Anyone knows differently I'd be interested. Fuji White / Jet 2012 4.4 TDV8 Westminster

Here is an interesting website - https://grid.iamkate.com/

It shows the Nation Grid demand/generation.

It refreshes a few times every hour and gives you an idea of where the grid's electricity is coming from.

As I type our demand is 36.7GW but our generation is only 30.5GW. The other 6.2GW is getting imported. In a nutshell, if the wind isn't blowing, we have to burn a lot of gas and then import the rest.

We can't rely on the weather, Solar doesn't generate at night and cloud cover is an issue. When the wind is good it can generate over 22GW alone. Nuclear supplies 5-6GW without any sites being down for maintenance or repair. I think we had four nuclear sites down recently, so imagine that with no wind and no sunshine and a queue of EV's waiting to charge their 80+kWh batteries.

So after reading these figures, where is the capacity going to come from if we have an influx of new EV's? 2024 P550e Autobiography
2016MY TDV6 Autobiography - Gone
2011MY 5.0 SC Autobiography Black - Gone
2005 TD6 Vogue - Gone

If you fancy zapping about in an electric car, I'd say leasing is the way to go. The tech—especially those batteries—is bounding ahead faster than a cheetah on a treadmill. Splashing out on buying one outright? Well, you're basically just throwing your cash into a great big science project. Stick with leasing—keeps you current without the commitment. For me, it's V8 for the foreseeable future.

JackRegan wrote:

It shows the Nation Grid demand/generation.

It refreshes a few times every hour and gives you an idea of where the grid's electricity is coming from.

As I type our demand is 36.7GW but our generation is only 30.5GW. The other 6.2GW is getting imported.

So after reading these figures, where is the capacity going to come from if we have an influx of new EV's?

Hi Stan, regarding the Caravan Club link.

On a visit to a CC site last year I was instructed to plug my Hybrid Defender (previous car) into my caravan external 3 pin socket to charge my battery, as stated on the CC website. Unfortunately this wouldn’t work as it kept tripping the caravan electrics. I’ve also read that this practice is highly dangerous as caravan wiring isn’t designed to take such loads and it cause a fire. Fortunately our caravan electrics (Adria) prevented such a scenario.

The CC are planning to install dedicated chargers but in limited numbers, a situation which probably cause lots of angst for those staying onsite and trying to grab a free charger when required. CC sites are by default usually in rural situations where public charging stations are few and far between so alternatives to the CC chargers are readily available.

The only practical solution as I see it would be for each pitch to have a dedicated charging port and that isn’t going to happen anytime soon I fear.

In addition to all of the above it would appear that most public charging stations are unsuitable for car and caravan outfits to use without having to unhook the caravan and park it elsewhere whilst charging. Can’t see how this would work when you observe the current situation on your average motorway services. 2019 L405 SDV8 Autobiography
2023 Defender P400e HSE X-dynamic - gone
2020 Defender P300 SE - gone

2019 Jaguar F-Pace SVR - gone
2013 SDV8 Autobiography - gone
2011 L322 TDV8 Vogue SE - gone
2006 L322 3.6 Vogue Se - gone
1999 P38 4.0 se - gone
199? Classic 3.5 - gone

Practical points Buz1500

Installing charging points at every pitch would force most sites to have to upgrade their electric supply. The nature of campsites being away from built-up areas and substations often means expansion of their current supply isn't straightforward.

Installing several 7.4kW charging points would require an additional 100-200A supply. Although installing slower 2.3kW charging points may be a better idea. However, either option isn't going to be cheap.

Installing a few fast 22kW chargers is also an option, but not all cars can accept 22kW charging and marshalling and metering visitors' use may be tricky.

With some EVs now having 96-99 kWh batteries, charging a low battery to 80% at 2.3kW would take over 30 hours, although a 22kW charger would only take just over 3 hours.

Local generation of solar and wind could help, but generation levels cannot be guaranteed and storage of any excess energy in batteries is currently expensive and relatively small. 2024 P550e Autobiography
2016MY TDV6 Autobiography - Gone
2011MY 5.0 SC Autobiography Black - Gone
2005 TD6 Vogue - Gone

Towing with an EV is a non-starter, under 100m range would kill a holiday quicker than knowing you’ve got to sleep in a caravan.

The viable points,

* when you arrive at the site, your battery is likely to need a charge.
* When you come to leave the site, you need your battery to be at full or 80% charge. 2024 P550e Autobiography
2016MY TDV6 Autobiography - Gone
2011MY 5.0 SC Autobiography Black - Gone
2005 TD6 Vogue - Gone

Future advancements in battery technology might just crack the nut on electric car range woes and the environmental scourge of mining for fancy metals. But honestly, a car that whirrs like a cartoon spaceship? No thanks. I need the throaty roar of a Jaguar V8—that's proper driving.

Battery tech does seem to be improving, but the pace of improvement seems a little pedestrian to me. The hybrid still feels like the better option for now. Even if it feels incredibly wasteful to be travelling with one redundant and heavy power unit for most of the time. 2024 Range Rover P550e AB