UK: Fast charging EVs more expensive than filling petrol

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/international-automotive-scene/261898-uk-fast-charging-evs-more-expensive-than-filling-petrol.html

by hitz • 3 years ago

60 119 3 years ago

team-bhp.com

madaxe_again3• 3 years ago

This is a function of the UK’s absolutely not fit for purpose energy pricing model - it is insane that generated energy should cost more than refined fuel.

The problem is that all U.K. energy costs are pegged to the most expensive option - gas - in the most expensive way - taking the highest future price in the next six months - and with the government focussed on… not much in particular… it’s hard to see any improvement in the near term, excepting a continued fall in LNG prices.

Diggsey• 3 years ago

Not sure what you're referring to? As far as I can tell the national grid operates on a 30 minute settlement period.

For each half hour, known as a Settlement Period, companies can trade up to 1 hour beforehand that time period is closed.

If you're referring to the consumer energy price cap, then that's not even relevant to this discussion, since the price cap applies to households, not commercial charging stations...

madaxe_again3• 3 years ago

No, this refers to what and how they are permitted to trade, and how the wholesale market is regulated - the rules are baroque in the extreme, and were last reviewed 20 years ago.

The intent was good - it was supposed to ensure stability and certainty of supply, and by using the highest price for the cheapest source (gas, at the time) they guaranteed a stable price and supply of energy. It was also intended to prevent arbitrage and profiteering.

The outcome is still somewhat true - except the price is sky-high, and stably sky-high for at least the next few Qs.

zarzavat• 3 years ago

The UK is at latitude too high to benefit very much from solar energy. It is not mountainous enough to benefit from hydroelectricity. Nor is there much scope for geothermal.

So we have gas, wind and nuclear, and that's it.

In the government's infinite wisdom they decided to place a moratorium on on-shore wind generation for stupid NIMBY reasons. Fortunately we have plenty of offshore wind capacity, but when the wind isn't blowing, all we have is gas turbines plus whatever scraps of nuclear France is willing to throw us.

madaxe_again3• 3 years ago

The wind is blowing pretty frequently - the problem is actually more often one of transmission - there is not enough capacity on the grid to transfer energy from the relatively remote areas it’s produced, such as the Irish Sea, to consumers.

Further investment in transmission from snowdonia and expansion of pumped storage facilities could go a long way.

kj4ips• 3 years ago

Interesting, I honestly had expected that was already the case over there, with how expensive rapid charging is compared to residential rates on this side of the pond.

I guess our cheap prices for both oil and energy (in the us) might make us an anomaly.

Moto7451• 3 years ago

I’m a new owner of an electric car. Speaking to my friends that own them, they made it clear that it’s always cheaper to charge at home (save for the first three years of my Porsche ownership where VW’s Electrify America picks up the tab). Fast chargers are convenient but resellers of municipal electricity are not going to be the most cost efficient option. The benefit you’re receiving for the premium charged is being absolved of the eight hours you’d have to spend (at 40A) at home.

DeRock2• 3 years ago

Fast charging for me at EA is about the same (and sometimes less) than my home rate (PGE E1).

EA -> 31¢ / kWh (increasing to 36¢ soon)

PGE -> 33¢ / kWh upto baseline, 41 ¢ after (and if you're charging your car, you go above baseline)

https://www.pge.com/pge_global/common/pdfs/rate-plans/how-ra...

rootusrootus10• 3 years ago

And that is with your extremely high home rates. The national average is about 16 cents. Your base rate is higher than my peak rate. My overnight rate is under 5 cents.

officeplant• 3 years ago

That seems vastly cheaper than filling up even my more economic crossover (Kia Sportage) at around $3 a gallon lately.

Even cheaper at my local electric rates of $0.15/kWh during peak demand.

Now I just need the price of EV's to come down.

mrguyorama3• 3 years ago

The rules are extremely different state to state. Some states don't allow fast charging companies to resell their power like that, so they have to charge exclusively for the time you are using the charger, rather than the actual electricity you are using.

There's like an entire order of magnitude from the high end to the low end

BryantD• 3 years ago

The graph and the article are inconsistent. The graph shows "per kilowatt home charging costs vs petrol" but the article refers to "rapid charge points used by motorists topping up on long drives."

This doesn't mean that the assertion is wrong, but the data provided seems less relevant than one might hope.

I'll also note that as an EV owner, when I bought a home charger I didn't even consider a rapid charger, because I don't need it -- charging at medium speed is just fine. In retrospect I could have done OK with a standard outlet and slow charge, but the thousand or so it cost me for the charger and installation was worth it for convenience. I think I'm the norm. That would mean the graph showing high prices for rapid charge at home is not terribly important -- the key metrics will always be standard charge vs. petrol for at home charging.

Vvector• 3 years ago

I discussed this with an Uber driver with a rented Tesla. I asked him how much it cost to charge at home. He said he doesn't, he only uses pay chargers $10-$20 per day.

Some people don't charge at home, even if it would save them money long term

bombcar4• 3 years ago

He also has a defined usage case where time charging is money lost; it's worth $10-20 a day to get him back on the road as fast as he can, and it's likely that he doesn't live anywhere close enough to the "active uber areas" to make it worthwhile to even install a charger.

mcguire• 3 years ago

The Telegraph article is a bit of a mess. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/new-peak-...

"Topping up the e-Corsa’s charge by 80pc on a slow charger at peak times results in a cost of 16.18p per mile.

"The AA said: “A continued fall in the pump price of petrol now places the running costs [of a petrol Corsa] at around 14.45 pence per mile, meaning that a petrol combustion engine vehicle is cheaper to run per mile than an EV.”"

Some more info here (https://www.bbc.com/news/business-63029226) from 2022.

"The RAC said its research showed the cost to charge an electric car on a pay-as-you-go basis at a publicly accessible rapid charger had increased by 42% since May to an average of 63.29p per kWh.

"The hike in price means drivers who only use the public network to charge vehicles pay around 18p per mile for electricity.

"That is just 1p less per mile for a petrol car, based on someone driving at an average of 40 miles to the gallon, the motoring group said.

"The cost per mile for charging electric vehicles at home is around 9p per mile for the average-sized car. The BBC has been told most EV drivers charge at home overnight."

msh• 3 years ago

UK energy prices must be insane. I am from Denmark where energy is pretty expensive and even if I did all my charging on superchargers it would still be cheaper than gas (and waayyyy cheaper with home charging).

It cost at the most expensive 40% to charge my model y on superchargers (approx 500 km range in real terms) compared to my 2018 gas car (citroen c4 space tourer) that drove approx 600 km on a full tank

manscrober2• 3 years ago

tesla superchargers are generally cheaper than standalone charging network providers, UK energy prices are indeed insane, UK consumer rights are abhorrent now that they've left the EU, and teslas are more efficient than most other EVs

michaelt• 3 years ago

If you charge at a Gridserve fast charger, as you might find at a motorway service station, you can look forward to paying 66p/kWh [1] for electricity.

On the other hand, an industrial user of electricity might pay 22p/kWh [2] so these fast chargers have a big profit margin.

[1] https://www.gridserve.com/our-pricing/ [2] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

Symbiote5• 3 years ago

Britain's prices shot up with everyone else in Europe's when Putin reduced the gas supply, but Britain is more reliant on gas than many other countries so the price hasn't come back down.

Sjælland's overnight price last night dropped to about 0.75kr, but in Britain it was 2.10kr! The peak prices today were similar, 2.70kr and 2.80kr, but Britain had that for most of the day, and Sjælland just 4 hours.

Britain also has buildings with worse insulation, fewer people living in apartments, and much less use of district heating.

https://andelenergi.dk/sel/timeenergi/

https://agileprices.co.uk/

https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/GB (40% gas right now for GB vs 4% for East Denmark and 2% for West.).

blitzar• 3 years ago

UK electricity prices blew out in 2021, fortunately, we are now back below the September 2021 prices - at least for wholesale electricity.

Consumer, however, are paying 3/4/5x what we were in 2021 thanks to - well absolutely no idea.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/electricity-pric...

Mountain_Skies• 3 years ago

Best to look at commercial fast chargers as a convenience service. You pay more for a 1/2 liter Coca-Cola at the gas station than you would for a two-liter bottle at the grocery store. You pay extra for the convenience of it being right there as you get gas and for it being pre-chilled. For most people's daily use, charging at home will fulfill their needs. If you take a long trip, then you will end up paying convenience rates. But unless you frequently take long trips, it's a small share of the annual cost of using the vehicle. And if you do take frequent long trips, perhaps an EV isn't the best choice for you at this time.

NegativeK2• 3 years ago

This also means that EVs aren't ready for people who can't charge at home, like most apartment renters or people in rental homes who drive too much for whatever outlet is available in their garage.

mellosouls7• 3 years ago

In the UK it also includes the many, many people living on terraced streets with no off-road parking.

seanmcdirmid6• 3 years ago

At least in Europe if they have access to any outlet at all, they can usually get much better charging than we do in the states (240V vs 120V).

rootusrootus10• 3 years ago

Yes, continue to build out overnight grid access for the segment of the population that does not currently have it. That is a good idea. Are you suggesting otherwise that we all continue to drive gasoline cars until that happens, then it'll be okay to switch to electric?

seanmcdirmid6• 3 years ago

A lot of fast charging networks offer memberships that make frequent usage more economical. Though I'm not sure how that works for commercial users (including Uber drivers with Teslas).

mellosouls7• 3 years ago

For most people's daily use, charging at home will fulfill their needs

Right, so not fit for the massive constituency with no access to home charging then (in addition to their many other problems as a realistic transport option for many).

As much as I like the idea of electric cars, the complacency of those championing them in the light of the lack of suitability for a huge part of the population is really frustrating.

rootusrootus10• 3 years ago

Is anybody advocating for leaving them out? Most EV enthusiasts that I know are all for extending overnight grid access to people who don't currently have it (which is a big number of people, to be sure, but still less than half). It's an important problem to solve, the solution is not to give up on efficient cars and stick with gasoline.

arsome• 3 years ago

I'm not sure I see your point, the only way to get to a world with L2 chargers at apartment buildings and such is to have demand for it or legislation supporting it, the best way to get that is to champion EVs.

jdeibele• 3 years ago

I took a trip to Fairbanks in February a few years ago. I was warned to plug in the engine block heater whenever I could. There were outlets many places. There was no charge for using the outlet but it was just the typical 110 volt US outlet.

If people would aim more for that kind of infrastructure - really slow but "too cheap to meter" - it would be more widespread. No need for the expensive upgrades to the electrical system, no need for cabinets with cooling systems, no internet, no computers at all.

You could put all the EV slots in one part of an apartment or shopping center parking lot, like now. It'd be nice if there was a proportional circuit breaker, so that if every EV was charging they'd get half charge instead of tripping the breaker.

mrguyorama3• 3 years ago

Most people I see championing them 1) own one and use it daily 2) understand that overnight charging is a blocker to mass adoption and aggressively push for better access for renters and business owners etc to add normal outlets and 3) openly advocate for people who don't think electric cars work for them to not get them.

Remember that you don't necessarily need to charge AT HOME. If you drive yourself to work and sit there for 8 hours, your employer should be encouraged and subsidized to set up 15 amp charging for some of their employees.

antisthenes• 3 years ago

Right, so not fit for the massive constituency with no access to home charging then

There's another massive constituency that has access to home charging, but can't afford the EV itself.

E.g. I can afford to pay the mortgage on my home, but not a $50,000 EV car, because I don't want to pad the pockets of dealerships and greedy manufacturers.

I want my $200/kWh car or I'll keep using the car I already have.

theironhammer• 3 years ago

Totally agree. Also what will this demand for electricity created by EVs do to the price of electricity for ordinary household devices? Already in the UK people are turning off their fridge because they can't afford to run it. This is due to Ukraine crisis affecting electricity prices, so what effect will EVs have on the price of electricity? It's all just assumed things will be wonderful. Blinkers on as usual.

officialjunk• 3 years ago

i know many that charge with a standard outlet at home, including myself. for many, maybe most, that's enough.

jwestbury• 3 years ago

I've just moved from the US to London, and one interesting approach I've seen here to EV charging is adding it to municipal infrastructure. In many London boroughs, there are now EV chargers built into the street lights. You simply scan the QR code at the device and the charge point unlocks for use.

Whilst I think QR codes are maybe the wrong choice for this because of the security implications, I think the idea of integrating chargers into existing public infrastructure is quite a good one, and applicable in many places where you'd otherwise have issues with EVs.

This of course doesn't solve apartment buildings, but new apartment buildings should be required to provide EV charging infrastructure, and grants to implement it in existing apartment buildings would go a long way, too.

jackmott42• 3 years ago

Many apartments already have slow chargers installed, many more are working on it. The world rapidly built a massive network of gas stations to make gas cars work, requiring massive underground tanks full of toxic chemicals and pumps and machines to pump them into cars.

For EVs we need to run some wire, its way simpler, its already happening, rapidly. It doesn't even put more net load on the grid, since it takes the same amount of electricity to refine a tank of gas, as to fill a "tank" of an EV.

monkeynotes2• 3 years ago

Rubbish, fast charging is essential to long distance drives else now you are paying in time.

hoseja• 3 years ago

How many people need to make regular trips beyond EV range though?

jeroenhd• 3 years ago

I can't charge at home. I don't have a garage or driveway and the municipality forbids extension cords spanning across the pavement.

If home charging is a necessity to use an already twice as expensive electric car, I can't be an EV customer realistically.

radicalbyte• 3 years ago

That is one of the reasons I moved house.

borissk2• 3 years ago

Municipalities will change their rules when enough people request it.

Another option is to charge at the office and/or at the free chargers at the supermarket car parks.

neals• 3 years ago

As owner / operator of a small network of fast chargers, I can tell you, that delivering that kind of power to a vehicle isn't cheap either. Especially infrastructure cost.

cayleyh• 3 years ago

This is super interesting. Can you share some details on how you got into this and what the setup and operations was like?

jeffbee2• 3 years ago

I think this is often overlooked by EV boosters, and pointed out by people who think massive investment in EV infrastructure is a mistake. Even a small charging station with half a dozen slots will need a 10-ton transformer on a pad, a bunch of waterproof, tamperproof AC-DC power supply cabinets, and the 6 dispensers, plus bollards around everything because drivers are so stupid. The material investments are immense.

rootusrootus10• 3 years ago

That is a good point, though you're overstating it slightly. My local EA station is that size and the transformer isn't even remotely in the 10 ton size range. It is three cabinets surrounded by arborvitae and takes about the same space as 1.5 parking spots, complete with the bollards.

pinkbeanz2• 3 years ago

Forgetting the home vs fast-charger nuance here, important to remember than electric vehicles have no spark plugs, no muffler, no engine oil, and a very simple coolant system.

My Volvo XC40 Recharge has a 2-year/20,000 mile maintenance cycle, the only work it needs is a check of the coolant and brake fluids and replacing cabin air filters.

Having suffered through broken engine mounts, torn exhaust flex pipes, painful spark plug replacements, coolant leaks, pump failures, and countless other issues with ICE engines, the simplicity of electric is a breath of fresh air.

Of course there’s the question of what happens to the battery over the long term but i’ll take that trade over what ai had before any day.

rootusrootus10• 3 years ago

I tend to agree, though on the flip side there's things like the octovalve, which is a construction that doesn't really exist on an ICEV. I think there are some trade-offs, though I expect that over the long haul we'll see that EVs are generally more reliable. For certain I think that the norm will be the battery lasting the life of the vehicle, and when it does get replaced it'll be about as bad as replacing the drivetrain in an ICEV. So a wash in that regard.

bluGill4• 3 years ago

Any ICE car only has in addition 2-3 oil changes in that 20,000 miles maintenance cycle. Spark plugs are 100k miles.

Your car doesn't have an engine mount, but it has a motor mount that could fail. You have already admitted to coolant, which implies it could leak and it has a pump that could fail.

Most people who complain about how bad EVs are seem to be comparing a new EV to a very old ICE, or memories of their parent's generation which wasn't as good as modern ones. New ICEs are reliable and have been for a few decades.

pinkbeanz2• 3 years ago

I’m really comparing it to my previous ICE cars, both an Audi sedans and a Mercedes. All built in the last 10-15 years.

100,000 miles for spark plugs is extremely rare. I just pulled up a 2022 A4 and it’s 30k. Transmission fluid is 40k miles. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the heat, vibration and weight from an ICE engine wears down parts faster. Add in complexity from turbochargers and there’s even more parts that can fail.

The coolant system on an electric vehicle is extremely simple. There’s no radiator even. An ICE coolant system is far bigger and more complex.

kazinator• 3 years ago

cheap, fast, saves planet: pick two?

ankit70• 3 years ago

On a side note - TeamBHP is my next forum after HN where I spend a good chunk of lesuire time.

somat3• 3 years ago

I think the great failure of the electric car industry is how little effort was put into replaceable batteries.

Imagine if all the cars used a set of standard sized battery packs, engineer an interface where they can be easily replaced, size them so they can be easily manhandled(about 10 kilograms 20 pounds). Then you could stop at the service station, pay the fee, pull your empty packs, and replace them with charged packs. you would be on your way and the service station would charge the packs for a future customer. Something like the batteries for power tools.

The main point is that battery packs would become a commodity, easily acquired interchangeable and everywhere.

LoganDark• 3 years ago

Like the hot swappable server power supplies?

alliao3• 3 years ago

at current energy density 10kg probably only good for 10-15km... and that's without any additional overheads in packaging so one day perhaps with higher energy density batteries?

somat3• 3 years ago

So your car would have 10 slots for packs, and go ~100 Km.

conductr2• 3 years ago

Agree. We shouldn't be purchasing the infrastructure components but instead using it as a consumable. The same thing bothers me about putting solar panels on my house (they should go in solar farm somewhere else, I still depend on grid but that I'm okay with (could buy batteries if I had reliability concerns)).

Much easier to do with scooters https://www.gogoro.com/ but I don't think it would be too hard to engineer a connector/robot that basically did the heavy lifting/swapping from underneath the vehicle

bluGill4• 3 years ago

You should put solar panels on your roof just because the sunlight hitting your roof otherwise goes to waste. If you put solar in a field that competes with any other sunlight uses of the field. (solar over a parking lots makes sense)

davidgh• 3 years ago

This is the way China is going [0]. Based on success there it seems it will follow in other places.

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/inside...

bluGill4• 3 years ago

That keeps coming up, but it is a bad idea in general.

Batteries are big and heavy. However they are made up of lots of individual cells. So as a car designer you really want to place individual cells around other parts of the car that cannot go anywhere.

You cannot put the front wheels of a car in the trunk - no matter how much better you think the car would look, there are physical reasons for where they go and how much space they take up... Place the cells around all the big things where they fit, and you can get a lot more in.

There are a lot of other design considerations for a car that are helped by the ability to put cells where you want.

For the average person the engineering advantages of not having a standard pack are better handling, more cargo space/legroom, and longer range: this is more valuable than the ability to swap batteries.

somat3• 3 years ago

I would make the packs about the size of an ammo can, put nice handles on them, little doors to automatically cover the terminals. integrated charge/status display and make the car fit 10-20 of them, half in the back of hood area, and half in the front of the trunk area.

On the subject of replacing them, while I would not mind shifting a couple of hundred pounds of batteries 20 pounds at a time, I can see how that would be hard for many people, I expect there would be many station attendants who would go home at the end of the day complaining about their minimum wage job shifting batteries.

alliao3• 3 years ago

I think this was always bound to happen, rent seeking behaviour you know. customers used to pay $3k on petrol let's say customers do 80% of charging at home, and as result say they "save" 2.7k per annum. fast chargers knows they have this pie and they want it. so they'd rack up prices potentially beyond petrol costs, since they know customers are paying way less 80% of the time, and they want to eat that pie. competition can drive it down, but only if competition are introduced. local gov or any private bodies able to identify positive externalities will need to introduce a 3rd party to keep fast charger prices slightly closer to cost. otherwise I'd be seeing two fast chargers at all choke points, profit sharing; duopoly charges monopoly prices, and every choke points are monopolistic.

0cf8612b2e1e• 3 years ago

Considering how much revenue gas taxes currently generate, I am not sure why you would expect the government to mandate price controls or competition for charging.

TheLoafOfBread• 3 years ago

Ionity in France, same thing. Taking charge is more expensive than taking gas into ICE. And as an insult to injury, it takes much longer to charge a car.

I just don't see those rosy predictions about BEVs filled future to ever become a reality. And I own Skoda Enyaq, if somebody would like to slam me for being anti-BEV.

UK: Fast charging EVs more expensive than filling petrol

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