VHS or BETAMAX the battle of two technologies relived.

[MikeSharp01]

Can you even imagine what a new windscreen will cost when you crack it!

[PeterW]

7 hours ago, MikeSharp01 said:

just invested in some electric vans for his team to use in the new London low emmission zone (it appears a no brainer as the fleet hire and electric cost is less than the zone charges after about the first two weeks of the month - some incentive that!

 

Not sure who did his sums but Euro6 diesel is ULEZ Compliant. Is he talking about Congestion Charging and CVD discount that makes it zero CC for his vans during the day ..??

[MikeSharp01]

41 minutes ago, PeterW said:

Is he talking about Congestion Charging and CVD discount that makes it zero CC for his vans during the day ..??

Yes he used the difference in cost between his 3 year old diesel vans and an all electric fleet going into the zone every day. TBH the new vans are much smaller than the old ones but he and his team seem to have that sorted by being a bit more organised.

[PeterW]

Makes more sense now - it’s the CC exemption that is giving him the benefit. 

[Ferdinand]

13 hours ago, K78 said:

The one good car investment I made (not knowingly) was a gt4. Really regret selling it but circumstances dictated it had to go. Biggest hit I took was on a alfa Brera. 

 

The one Alpha I would have liked to have would have been the Zagato, but funds etc.

 

Had to look up the Brera ... had nevr heard of it and it made me think about rabbits.

[Ferdinand]

10 hours ago, PeterW said:

 

... or the people having to buy new charging cables every 6 months as the ends fell off ...

 

Or if the battery did a Samsung.

[SteamyTea]

14 hours ago, AliG said:

The government needs to mandate all new homes, particularly apartment building to have charging facilities. They already have electricity so adding this is a minor extra cost.

That is quite expensive.  Basically means running in a second supply just for charging, and a larger local substation.  More than just a socket on a wall somewhere.

14 hours ago, AliG said:

Fuel cell cars would definitely be lighter, but in fairness you have to add the weight of the hydrogen tank and the fuel cell not just the hydrogen.

I have not seen any figures for the mass of suitable fuel cells and storage tanks.  Mind you, current battery packs have ancillary heating/cooling fitted, so they are not as light as they seem.

15 hours ago, ProDave said:

Can Hydrogen be burned as the fuel for an IC engine? 

Yes it can, but why would you.  It would still cause air pollution because most of the air we have is nitrogen.  ICEs are very inefficient and mechanically complex.  They also have gearboxes, which just shows the short comings of the engine.  When you think about it, the modern car is really a very good compromise considering all the issues they have.

15 hours ago, ragg987 said:

I cannot argue with that as far as the medium is concerned, but mastering is a factor. LPs made prior to about the mid 1990s were not compressed as badly as CDs, and most new releases of old recordings (so called remasters) have been compressed to death and are not fun to listen to. So my record player still has a place. Don't have any VHS, though.

I thought that it was the sampling rate that was more important than the compression.  If things are sampled at a higher rate than we can hear, then in practicality, it is original sound.  I am not talking about highly compressed mp3s here, just the difference between CD quality and grooved quality.  But it is odd that DAB radio is a compressed format and it is considered better than traditional broadcasts.  But then I only have 50 quid ears, so not really bothered.  I just wish that my local DAB transmitter was reliable.

[Jeremy Harris]

18 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

That is quite expensive.  Basically means running in a second supply just for charging, and a larger local substation.  More than just a socket on a wall somewhere.

 

 

Not really.  A 7 kW destination charge point meets the needs of the vast majority of people, as that will charge at around 30mph.  There aren't many people that need more than a couple of hundred miles a day of range from a home charger, so an overnight charge at 7 kW is more than enough for the majority.  As home destination charging is mainly at night, the impact on the grid or local distribution network isn't that massive, either.

 

Much of the time I don't bother running my charge point as high as 7 kW, especially from around March through to October, as charging during the day at a lower rate, to take advantage of PV generation, seems more sensible, mainly because it's free.

[SteamyTea]

12 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

A 7 kW destination charge point meets the needs of the vast majority of people

I tend to agree, but I think it would be a hard sell to the general public.  But even at a 7 kW charge, there would need to be a significant upgrade as housing is now legislated to be all electric in the near future.

Personally I think it is just a cost that we will have to swallow.

One advantage of installing secondary supplies is that the DNOs can have fine control over the system.  I don't think we can rely on two-way smart metering and altruistic users to help balance the loads.

[ProDave]

Isn't the "VHS / Betamax" issue with EV's currently that different makes of car have different types of charge socket, so you have to find a charger that has the one that fits your car?

 

And the charging networks require you to pre register?  Why do you need to do that? Surely you should be able to turn up, plug your car in and insert a credit card to pay for the charge. Why does it need to be any more complex than that?

 

Imagine if you had to choose a particular pump to suit the petrol filler on your particular car, and you could not use a Shell garage unless you had previously registered with Shell and had a card from them?

[SteamyTea]

2 minutes ago, ProDave said:

And the charging networks require you to pre register?  Why do you need to do that?

I think that is barmy too.  I blame the marketing people and their desperate desire to get market share.

I have also heard that the charging stations are not that reliable, though that may just be the press playing on peoples fears.

[Jeremy Harris]

16 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

I tend to agree, but I think it would be a hard sell to the general public.  But even at a 7 kW charge, there would need to be a significant upgrade as housing is now legislated to be all electric in the near future.

Personally I think it is just a cost that we will have to swallow.

One advantage of installing secondary supplies is that the DNOs can have fine control over the system.  I don't think we can rely on two-way smart metering and altruistic users to help balance the loads.

 

The bottom line is that 7 kW is the maximum that AC single phase vehicle chargers can support, and I doubt this is going to change any time soon, as there isn't really any need for destination charge points to have more capability than this.  Some vehicles will accept multi-phase AC, mine will use 2 out of the 3 phases, if available, to charge at 11 kW, but 3 phase capable destination charge points are rare, as few homes in the UK have 3 phase.  3 phase AC charging allows, in theory, up to 22 kW, but there are very few cars made that have 3 phase on-board chargers that can handle this sort of power.

 

Fast chargers, like those on major routes, are all DC 400V and connect directly to the vehicle DC battery to allow partial charging (usually no more than about 80% to 90%, as they cannot cell balance), but they have all the charger electronics in the charger kiosk, rather than just being dumb AC switched supplies, that use the vehicles own on-board charger.  The latter is really the limit on AC charging rate, as manufacturers don't want to fit large AC driven chargers to cars, as it adds expense and takes up valuable space and weight lugging the thing around.

 

Fast chargers do have a direct grid connection, as they typically run at around 100 kW (newer ones are more powerful, 150 kW is becoming more common, and 500 kW is on the horizon).  The advantage of DC fast charging, apart from faster charge times, is that the vehicle doesn't need any power electronics, just control signalling to tell the charger when to ramp down and shut off.

 

12 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

I think that is barmy too.  I blame the marketing people and their desperate desire to get market share.

I have also heard that the charging stations are not that reliable, though that may just be the press playing on peoples fears.

 

It is barmy, as there are well over 20 different charge point networks, few of whom use compatible charge initiation methods and most of whom require pre-registration and a subscription.

 

Reliability of fast DC charge points seems OK, with the notable exception of the really appalling Ecotricity network on the motorways.  Most Ecotricity chargers are either permanently broken or very unreliable, the only upside being that they are often on free vend because they default to that when they crash (which is very often).

 

The reliability of AC destination charge points is variable.  Those provided by hotels, restaurants, etc seem to be fine, it's the crap ones put in by local authorities that are often either broken or useless.

 

[jack]

7 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

I thought that it was the sampling rate that was more important than the compression.  If things are sampled at a higher rate than we can hear, then in practicality, it is original sound.  I am not talking about highly compressed mp3s here, just the difference between CD quality and grooved quality.  But it is odd that DAB radio is a compressed format and it is considered better than traditional broadcasts.  But then I only have 50 quid ears, so not really bothered.  I just wish that my local DAB transmitter was reliable.

 

"Compression" in this context is waveform compression rather than data compression. Look up "Loudness War".

[ragg987]

4 hours ago, jack said:

"Compression" in this context is waveform compression rather than data compression. Look up "Loudness War".

Yes. See the example with Abba here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

 

The first LP I bought with my pocket money was by Abba - now what an admission in a public forum! Digital audio did not exist then.

5 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

DAB radio is a compressed format and it is considered better than traditional broadcasts

I still use FM for improved audio quality. e.g. my car can tune both DAB and FM, FM sounds much more natural to me, even in that noisy environment.

[AliG]

Reliability of charging points is appalling. When we couldn't use our home charger because of building work we gave up trying to use nearby chargers and just drove to the nearest Tesla supercharger which in our experience always works. The vast majority of electrical devices very rarely break down, I am not clear why car chargers are so much less reliable.

 

In Scotland almost all chargers are in the Charge Place Scotland network so there is not the multitude of different networks to sign up with. Still, however, I found when trying to use it that maybe a quarter of the time the chargers were broken. On top of that some people just use them as their own personal free parking spaces. Further there is a free app you can sign up to or a RFID card which costs £20 a year. Many of the chargers have poor network connections forcing you to pay for the card even if you only use the chargers a couple of times a year. I think the poor signal partly explains some of the unreliability.

 

Some chargers have also been installed in corners of car parks where you either struggle to get in or some cars cannot connect to them depending on where the charge ports are. There are some chargers owned by the council in Edinburgh where I can only use them when parked at a 90 degree angle to the charger due to the length of the cable. Basically they can only be used on a Sunday, the rest of the time council staff block the charger.

 

This continues to mean that the Tesla  network is pretty much the only reliable option for long distance travel. Partly it is a marketing issue. Most people would rarely have to use the network, but they like to know it's there if they need it. It will be interesting to see if some of the mooted new high speed networks manage to do a better job than what has been done so far.

 

All new public chargers now have to have CCS plugs and/or type 2 plugs for DC and AC. This is the de factor standard in Europe. The Tesla Model 3 has moved across to CCS and Tesla have started to install new cables at their chargers, even though their chargers are not covered as they are not public, but this allows the cars to also use public DC chargers. I would expect all new cars in the EU to be CCS. The Leaf is a notable standout and charging older cars that don't use the standard system could become problematic over time.