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Electric cars and voltage drops and hifi

On the subject of EV's and the motoring industry.

The CEO of Volvo cars (sorry, forgotten the name) has stated that he wants laws that makes EV's mandatory and forbid new petrol/diesel cars. They want to make money selling new cars and they know they can make them with a profit.
 
I have huge respect for the huge innovations and electric or hybrid vehicles will become the norm for sure but I personally think the jump to full EV with ban on hybrids and IC is misjudged. yes the industry may just be able to cope in that time scale and produce the required tech at an affordable cost. But the infrastructure will not simply put the demand on the electrical supply network is not there yet. Simple logistics if you don't have a drive or garage where can you charge from your house? What about flats for example no way the charging from their own power supply. The infrastructure changes are far slower to take effect than technology going by recent history. Simply put I am not confident the UK can generate and supply enough electricity.
For me a ban on pure IC makes sense but allow hybrid but make mandatory changes like minimum 100 miles battery range and compulsory all battery power fully discharged before switching to IC avoid the comic short range of current hybrids and allow driver to use IC before all battery power used or using both as power boost etc
 
Just measured my voltage with a multimeter and during charging it's about 220 to 221v. It can briefly dip to 218v. The regen is reading about 4 to 5v lower. At normal loading I get a rock solid 230v on both. So it's about a 9 to 10v drop during charging but it looks like it's above the minimum limit. I expect the amp would cope with this and at the end of the day it's just crappy mains. The regen provides a roughly stable 235v to the other components. Will talk to Northern Powergrid to see if this acceptable.
 
On the subject of EV's and the motoring industry.

The CEO of Volvo cars (sorry, forgotten the name) has stated that he wants laws that makes EV's mandatory and forbid new petrol/diesel cars. They want to make money selling new cars and they know they can make them with a profit.

The manufacture of any new vehicles produces a very large amount of harmful emissions and when produced it only points to where the emissions are released into the atmosphere, so from the car exhaust to the exhaust at the power station. Battery technology is not the future, it is just a stepping stone to something better like the hydrogen fuel cell. What is so annoying is that all the cars and combustion engines in the world only equates to 12% of total CO2 emissions. Pity the world's governments aren't looking to address the other 88% of the CO2 problem, mostly produced by China and India.
 
If you regen meter matches your multimeter at 230v when the car is not charging but reads lower by 4 to 5 volts when the charger is operating it suggests that the mains waveform is being distorted by the charger. This presumably is what you have the regen for anyway. Only you can tell if it is adversely affecting your kit and the power people would have to monitor the voltage with properly calibrated equipment before they deem it acceptable or not.
 
If you regen meter matches your multimeter at 230v when the car is not charging but reads lower by 4 to 5 volts when the charger is operating it suggests that the mains waveform is being distorted by the charger. This presumably is what you have the regen for anyway. Only you can tell if it is adversely affecting your kit and the power people would have to monitor the voltage with properly calibrated equipment before they deem it acceptable or not.
My only worry is whether it impacts the amp but it likely won't. Vehicle charging doesn't coincide with listening time and it's only a problem if the supply is shared and I don't know how common that is for houses. I don't want to use any sort of power conditioning for the amplifier as it doesn't really work when the peak power consumption is 1900W. It's never that loud though. But without proper investment in the supply infrastructure we won't have the capacity to charge all these cars in the future. And run our systems on decent mains.
 
All the technology and hardware for on street charging exists, along with a grant scheme to install it. Unfortunately local authorities have spent the cash on installing chargers in car parks and at their offices instead.

I don't think the chargers draw a steady current. Two chargers can share the same supply cable by drawing current in turns which sounds pretty dodgy to me.
 
Unfortunately local authorities have spent the cash on installing chargers in car parks and at their offices instead.

My local council have just installed about eight chargers, I haven't counted them, in the main car park by the town center. The car park holds several hundred cars, read into that what you will, and they've put the chargers right at the front, next to the road. I drive past them daily and, being the most desirable parking spaces, they are always full. Full of non-electrical cars!
 
Was in vw garage today looking at the id3 on show, ( just getting a car repair ) noticed it takes 23 hours to charge off a normal socket !!! Oh my goodness..not much time for music then
 
I have huge respect for the huge innovations and electric or hybrid vehicles will become the norm for sure but I personally think the jump to full EV with ban on hybrids and IC is misjudged. yes the industry may just be able to cope in that time scale and produce the required tech at an affordable cost. But the infrastructure will not simply put the demand on the electrical supply network is not there yet. Simple logistics if you don't have a drive or garage where can you charge from your house? What about flats for example no way the charging from their own power supply. The infrastructure changes are far slower to take effect than technology going by recent history. Simply put I am not confident the UK can generate and supply enough electricity.
For me a ban on pure IC makes sense but allow hybrid but make mandatory changes like minimum 100 miles battery range and compulsory all battery power fully discharged before switching to IC avoid the comic short range of current hybrids and allow driver to use IC before all battery power used or using both as power boost etc
good point , just considering a flat to buy ....maybe not a good idea ???? Mind you many areas are ONLY flats so must be fun to consider these matters
 
I know an old man who bought one of those little BMW electric cars. Fun little car, quick, quiet and weird as hell inside. He loved it. He was big on saving money. He had solar panels on his roof before solar panels were a thing, ran his heating off a wood burner he installed under the house. He thought the car was super cool because it cost him nothing to charge it

He told me how much the BMW cost and I asked him how many miles a year he did. Not a lot. I went away and did the sums. Turned out he'd have to run the car for over a decade to get close to breaking even against a similar sized petrol hatchback!

Unfortunately that won't happen as his health deteriorated and he's not allowed to drive any more.
 
For most the cost per mile saving is wiped out by the purchase price. If that weren't enough many public chargers cost 30 to 50p per unit (compared to 5p at home), which means those charges aren't too far away from the cost of diesel (consumption is around 3 miles per kilowatt). Cheapest motoring is still LPG, particularly if you factor in the reduced servicing and extended engine life. I'm not against EV's (I bought one at work) just being realistic. The microgeneration and EV chargers will stuff mains quality and the standards will be quietly lowered to accommodate them. Time to invest in mains conditioners.
 
shame that

as sittin g here in the big freeze I know that kills the range and for me at least the journey i have to work or to see my kids I could end up stuck
 
Pity the world's governments aren't looking to address the other 88% of the CO2 problem, mostly produced by China and India.
China and India are 1/3 of the human race, about 10x the size between them of either the USA or Europe. Australia is one of the worst offenders for emissions
 
My local council have just installed about eight chargers, I haven't counted them, in the main car park by the town center. The car park holds several hundred cars, read into that what you will, and they've put the chargers right at the front, next to the road. I drive past them daily and, being the most desirable parking spaces, they are always full. Full of non-electrical cars!

Come to Milton Keynes. There are over 400 here, most of which are 7kW but here are many, many rapid chargers too. Parking is free for EVs too.
 
Parking is free for EVs too.

For now.

You know how the story goes? They'll incentivise what they're pushing until they realise it's costing them money. Then the charges come in. They pushed diesel cars, they cut tax for low emissions, not any more.
 


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