UK Wants An Electric-Vehicle Charger In Every New Home (thedrive.com) 254
A new government proposal included in Road to Zero, a report on climate-change related policies, would require all new homes to be fitted with electric car charging points. It follows a commitment made last year by the UK to end sales of new gasoline and diesel cars by 2040. The Drive reports: "It is our intention that all new homes, where appropriate, should have a charge point available," a government statement said. "We plan to consult as soon as possible on introducing a requirement for charge point infrastructure for new dwellings in England."
To help achieve that goal, the U.K. will reportedly establish a 400-million-pound ($531 million) fund for companies that manufacture and install charging stations. The government is also reportedly looking at integrating charging stations with newly-installed streetlights, as well as wireless-charging technology. A new Automated and Electric Vehicles bill will also give the government power to mandate installation of charging infrastructure at highway service stations.
To help achieve that goal, the U.K. will reportedly establish a 400-million-pound ($531 million) fund for companies that manufacture and install charging stations. The government is also reportedly looking at integrating charging stations with newly-installed streetlights, as well as wireless-charging technology. A new Automated and Electric Vehicles bill will also give the government power to mandate installation of charging infrastructure at highway service stations.
Potential Debcale (Score:4, Interesting)
This sounds like one of those situations where they install charging stations all over the place, then in ten years there is a new standard and all the old charging stations are now obsolete.
Re:Potential Debcale (Score:5, Insightful)
I've heard of this special type of person called an "Engineer" who designs systems such as the electrical installation in a residence.
These "Engineers" are very clever, very clever indeed! They've come up with a method by which it doesn't matter which sort of connector is used. Incredible I know! I was hesitant to believe such a thing possible when I first heard it myself!
They call it "modularity".
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Any engineer worth his salt can tell a salesman to go F themselves if the salesman comes up with stupid ideas.
Re: Potential Debcale (Score:5, Funny)
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Indeed. That's why I'm still using my 20 year old mobile phone charger on my new phone.
Re: Potential Debcale (Score:2, Funny)
Inasmuch as your spelling is indubitably poor, I shall indeed use these words and any others I may chose to deploy from my extensive lexicon.
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Or, we find an energy storage mechanism that doesn't use a high voltage charger. This is extremely short-sighted. However, just having high voltage to the right place and done in a way that it could be accessed/upgraded easily would be a great idea. Just don't require the actual charger to be installed, because it will be obsolete far too quickly.
Re:Potential Debcale (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, we find an energy storage mechanism that doesn't use a high voltage charger.
Ohm's law isn't changing any time in the next century. If you want lots of current (120kw+) into a storage device it either needs to be very high amperage (low resistance giant fat cables or room temperature super conductors) or high voltage or both.
Tesla Superchargers are high voltage and high amperage (480v and 250A).
If the UK's power mains are 230v and that's a constant that isn't going to change any time soon. So all that this law requires is that a high amperage cable be run from the circuit breaker to a place in the garage where an adapter can be wired up.
Adding an extra 30A circuit is around $50 in parts. The expensive part is just running cable in a home with drywall and studs. It only takes a minute to run the cable while the house is under construction.
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Pretty sure anybody buying a new built house in the UK doesn't care about their house costing $50 more to build.
For the record, I had a 50A circuit installed in my garage last month by a licensed electrician. The cost including materials and labor was $150.
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Pretty sure they'll already have one there doing the other 40 minutes of work. Now they'll do 41 minutes of work and still charge 1 hour.
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If you are lucky the minimum is 1 hour - they may also charge you for the distance and time traveled.
Re: Potential Debcale (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're building a house you will already hire an electrician to do many hours or even days of work, an extra few minutes to install a car charger isn't going to make much difference when he's already wiring up lighting and multiple power sockets to every room. You'll already be paying whatever charges for distance and travel they request in either case.
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Do you want to have an electric dryer, water heater, or arc welder?
Lots of uses for a 240V 40A circuit in the garage. Housing stock that should last for generations should not be crippled by your 10-second imaginationless brain fart.
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I'd like to get a 400V 3-phase charger, that would be optimal. Then add to it that every new building also should have solar panels that could be used to balance the added power needed to charge the vehicles.
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The AC mains voltage has nothing to do with the DC fast charge voltage. There is an AC to DC converter that can take 240V and produce 400 or 500V DC. In fact it has to be flexible enough to produce a variety of DC voltages as each car requires, based on its battery pack configuration and state of charge.
But all that is irrelevant anyway because for home use we use 240V/32A AC connections similar to the ones used for electric cookers. The cable is quite easy to handle. Max charge rate is about 7.7kW, around
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There might be something better but the old ones will still work,
The electrician is the expensive bit (Score:4)
However, just having high voltage to the right place and done in a way that it could be accessed/upgraded easily would be a great idea.
That's called an electrical socket [wikipedia.org]. You may have heard of them. Neat thing is that you can plug anything you want into them.
Seriously, run the high voltage line to where it needs to be and allow for the charge station to be installed/replaced later. The expensive bit is the electrical contractor's time. Putting a charge station on the wall is easy and trivial. I'm in the process of doing that to my house this very week. I need a 240V line for a level 2 charging station run in my garage for my Bolt EV. Once the line is run, installing the charger itself is childs play. If someone had already installed a charger there so much the better even it it wasn't the latest tech. The electricians time is costing me more than the charger.
Basically it's easy and cheap to install the power lines when building a new home. It's a lot more expensive to do it after the fact. I don't know that it's necessary to actually install a charger but it might be reasonable to require that the house be wired to accommodate one.
Just don't require the actual charger to be installed, because it will be obsolete far too quickly.
Not very likely. It doesn't have to be the latest or greatest to be useful either and there is nothing prohibiting people from upgrading them in the future if necessary. Installing an actual charger is probably not sensible but running the lines to permit one seems like a very good idea on new construction.
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The expensive part is wiring for the power supply. You can just install a power point of the required capacity. Power point connectors have been standardised (within each country, at least) for decades and aren't changing. If someone wants to get a dedicated charging unit with extra functionality installed later, they can do that.
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Or go for a 400V 3-phase solution.
The high amp/low voltage used in the US was good at one time in history but is starting to be a problem with all the electric devices now in use.
Re:Potential Debcale (Score:4, Informative)
three-phase isn't actually 400V RMS between the phase and neutral, it's 400V RMS between phases.
Most UK domestic properties aren't hooked up to all three phases of the grid. Typically, each house along a street will take a different phase from the grid, so my house would have about 240V from phase 1, my neighbour to my left is on phase 2, my neighbour to my right is phase 3.
In the UK, the phase-to-neutral voltage is notionally 230V with a tolerance of -10% +6% but that only came in with international harmonisation, in reality, UK domestic properties tend to be about 240V, because that's what was designed into the grid before the international harmonisation. Having this harmonisation is good - it means that aside from a different connector, you can use an appliance bought in Ireland and use it in Russia.
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If only there was a continent wide standard...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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If only there was a continent wide standard...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Well there's ChaDeMo, J1772, CCS, CCS with the extra testicles and Tesla.
From an engineering standpoint, ChaDeMo wins. One connector, 'DC fast charging' - which actually means the charger is outside the car and so can be much more capable, canbus for negotiating the charge, high voltage support allowing thinner, more flexible cables and a clever name. But it's Japanese, comes on Japanese cars (my Leaf has it) and chargers are few and far between. I only ever used one (at my local airport). Being the best so
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There are multiple technical standards. But in Europe, the government mandated Type 2.
https://www.autoblog.com/2013/... [autoblog.com]
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There are multiple technical standards. But in Europe, the government mandated Type 2.
https://www.autoblog.com/2013/... [autoblog.com]
And so creating a third zone of differentness, instead of the USA, Japan, China and Europe all getting together at ISO and picking a single one.
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There are multiple technical standards. But in Europe, the government mandated Type 2
You were linking to a GDPR blocked site.
However it's not "the government", it's "The EU" that has put the demands on the various governments to enforce it.
Re:Potential Debcale (Score:5, Informative)
Many of the things you've said are technically true, but are worded in such a way to make it sound bad. There is a mix now worldwide, but if you look at a continent/regional level there is a clear preference for one system or the other going forward.
* You need AC charging so that you can charge from any power point, anywhere on the planet. This makes any home a potential charging location and is vital to the success of EVs because 90% of the time you don't need anything else.
* You need DC charging so that when travelling long distances, you can charge at 50kW, even up to 150kW or 350kW, which is effectively the same time as you would stop on a road trip if using petrol/diesel. Some don't support this, but will be a necessity for mainstream acceptance.
So, for the most part, each car is going to need to support two standards, one AC and one DC.
AC - most countries have chosen one standard or another - USA and Japan are predominantly J1772, Europe is predominantly Type 2.. however in any case, it isn't much of an issue, you can get adaptors to go from one to the other and in some countries the standard is that the charging unit has a socket only - so your carry your own cable which is suitable for your car. So while there are different plug types the electricity is all "compatible". On a purely technical basis, Type 2 is superior - it allows rates up to 22kW or 43kW.
DC - the three public standards are Chademo, CCS1, and CCS2. Chademo, a big plug on it's own. CCS1 and 2, combine one of the two AC standards mentioned above with 2 pins for DC. The bonus here is that the car then only needs the one socket which can take an AC or DC plug. Again, most countries have chosen one of these as a standard, a small number have chosen two (with a preferences towards one for future vehicles). DC fast charging equipment has two plugs in the same way that fuel pumps have 3, 4 or 5 types of fuel.
CCS2 is the format being used for IONITY and other 350kW charging networks in Europe. So every big European manufacturer is now going to use it. I think it will be the eventual winner. As a result, Type 2 will follow on as the AC standard.
Tesla is a strange one, but I'm going to guess you are North American - because almost everywhere else, Tesla uses the Type 2 socket which makes it compatible with many other public charging stations. It is speculated that the Model 3 outside North America will have a CCS2 port, which would make it compatible with both public Type2 and CCS2, as well as existing Tesla chargers/superchargers. It's a shame they didn't go down this route in North America, because they've now backed themselves into a corner due to how many cars and chargers use the existing North American socket type.
Re:Potential Debcale (Score:4, Insightful)
Tesla is a strange one, but I'm going to guess you are North American - because almost everywhere else, Tesla uses the Type 2 socket which makes it compatible with many other public charging stations. It is speculated that the Model 3 outside North America will have a CCS2 port, which would make it compatible with both public Type2 and CCS2, as well as existing Tesla chargers/superchargers. It's a shame they didn't go down this route in North America, because they've now backed themselves into a corner due to how many cars and chargers use the existing North American socket type.
It's not an odd connector. It's a NEMA 14-50 socket, which gives you 240V @ 50A. It's a common household plug, used for electric ranges. It's also used for RVs that want 50A service. And thanks to that, there are common adapters to NEMA 14-30 (dryer plug).
So it's somewhat interesting, given you can go into an RV park and charge your Tesla as well (most RV parks provide a choice of 15/20A @ 115V, 30A and 50A service)
Most homes will have 1 or 2 of each plug, and an electrician can easily add more - the plugs are cheap. so they're one of the few EVs where the charger is practically free compared to the electrician.
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For home and public AC charging in Europe Type 2 is the standard. All cars come with a cable to charge from type 2.
You don't need DC fast charging at home.
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In Europe you have the IEC 6039 [wikipedia.org] standard.
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Why should someone pay for an electrical outlet to charge a vehicle, if they ride a bike or plan on buying a car powered by dilithium crystals?
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This was my first thought. If all they require is wiring and a socket, then this won't be a problem - at worst, you need to replace a plug or socket, and even that is unlikely, as the 10-years-from-now-technology should be able to plug into a commonly installed socket.
It isn't clear from TFA that a socket is all that will be required, but they promise to consult before setting the rules, so hopefully the people they consult will be aware of this potential problem.
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The connecting plug perhaps. The station not.
Electric power is electric power.
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Electric power is electric power.
USB us a good example of this. I can charge a nice new tablet with a MicroUSB charger off a Motorola Pebl that I haven't seen for a decade. It's a bit slow but a handy spare.
The only proviso is that I don't own any Apple devices.
Re:Potential Debcale (Score:4, Insightful)
This sounds like one of those situations where they install charging stations all over the place, then in ten years there is a new standard and all the old charging stations are now obsolete.
Meh.
The charger isn't the expensive part of adding a charging station, it's getting a high-amperage power line run to the right place. Done during new construction, that costs very little. Done after the fact... it can be cheap or it can be really expensive, depending.
If I were advising the government, I'd tell them not to bother with the chargers, just add a requirement to the building code: a 240V 50A outlet should be provided in the parking lot area (in the US, it would be a NEMA 14-50 outlet; not sure what the UK equivalent is). With the power available, you can always install a charger. They don't cost much.
If they must install chargers, J1772 is standard enough. And if something else is needed, most likely you can just slap an adapter on it (I charge my Tesla with a J1772 plus a $35 adapter).
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The size of a plug is more due to amperage than voltage. A higher voltage means lower current so the wiring will not be as bad as if you have the US style of wiring. Using a 3-phase solution would be better from the perspective of grid load (better balancing) but then you'd need a 5 pin connector (3P+N+G) so then the connector would be larger.
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Twaddle. The size of the conductors is determined by the current.
A higher voltage can jump further, so the voltage determines the distances of the pins from 1) each other and 2) the outside world, i.e. your fingers, the dog's tongue. That effectively sets a minimum size for the plug.
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British plugs are large because of their safety features. They're the safest in the world
https://www.fastcompany.com/30... [fastcompany.com]
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They're the safest in the world
Not to your feet. The little buggers always sit prongs up.
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Ha! true
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1. The biggest cost is getting the high-current wiring to the place where you want to install the charger.
2. There is little reason to change the J1772 standard. It delivers enough energy overnight. I think it is little more than a switched 220/240V supply (switched by low voltage control connection).
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Except that J1772 is a single phase solution.
Homes are single phase (mostly) (Score:2)
Except that J1772 is a single phase solution.
So are most homes so your point is what exactly? Yes three phase has advantages but very little equipment in most houses is designed for it. You can get it if you want but it's extra hassle in a lot of cases.
Re: Potential Debcale (Score:2)
For quick charging maybe. For home charging itâ(TM)s a standard industrial plug used by pretty much all heavy equipment in Europe and unlikely to change, itâ(TM)s just been unusual to have one at home.
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240V AC isn't going away. It's been here for getting on a century. Maybe the socket might need changing one day, but all you need is the right cable for your car. For example Type 2 is the standard for AC charging in Europe and every car comes with a Type 2 to whatever-the-car-has cable.
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Obviously they are - you will have to have a garage in order to own a car in the future.
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1. Chargepoints can be fitted outside. Mine is
2. UK domestic charging can be 7kW (single-phase, 32A) or 22kW (three phase, rare but feasible esp for new build)
3. UK is 230V not 240V
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You are both correct:
1. UK equipment is rated (as per the mains specification) at the nominal voltage of 230V AC +/- the tolerance.
2. Put a voltmeter across a UK socket and you will measure 240V AC and this inside the tolerance of point #1.
Therefore, both statements are consistent with each other.
All European 230V AC rated equipment will work anywhere in Europe.
Will they have to wire their own plug? (Score:3)
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Fortunately we adopted EU rules that required a fitted plug on all consumer electronics decades ago. Maybe after Brexit we can repeal those rules.
My home charger recently had an issue. It's a Rolec model and the RCBO (circuit breaker) is known to be flawed. Sure enough mine had burn marks around the neutral wire, the same fault they all develop. It was a ten minute job to replace it. Car chargers, at least the basic ones without all the stupid IoT stuff, are very easy to maintain yourself.
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Fund? (Score:2)
To help achieve that goal, the U.K. will reportedly establish a 400-million-pound ($531 million) fund for companies that manufacture and install charging stations.
Uh, why would these companies, that have just been handed a government mandate that everybody use their equipment, need more funds? They should be making money hand over fist once this requirement goes into effect.
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Land, dwelling to code, car park and charger.
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The fund is for public charging stations, the mandate is for home charging.
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The AC plague (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Read the one sentence summary "charger in every new home".
2) Don't bother to read the fine article, which includes words like "where appropriate" and "consult".
3) Assume that "charger in every new home" will be applied rigidly even when it makes no sense. This will be a regulation which will probably run to hundreds of pages, but pretend that one sentence says everything you need to know about it. Also pretend that the people writing regulations are drooling idiots.
4) Conclude that the policy will lead to idiotic outcomes, rather than realizing you are making idiotic interpretation
5) Post as AC about how idiotic this policy is
6) ????
7) Profit!
https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
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Read: "I found a bunch of people who made straw man arguments, therefore, it's a good idea to force this! What could possibly go wrong!"
Re:The AC plague (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, you just broke my irony meter with your straw man argument.
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Well it wouldn't make much sense to install one on a 5th floor apartment.
We won't own cars by then anyway??? (Score:5, Interesting)
In one alternate universe nobody owns cars anyway, just autonomous rides requested by us from A to B. Then the shared car goes off and charges itself up in the nearest distributed charging station.
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After so many stupid objections, it is pleasant to find a smart one.
If the future that eventuates is this car-summoned-on-demand one, then yes, this policy will waste money. (The EV recharge circuits could find an alternative use for in-house battery storage, but it is also uncertain whether that will turn out to be economic.)
If the future that eventuates is that most people own their own electric cars, this policy will save money.
I don't have the knowledge to judge the cost, benefit and risk of this policy
Shared versus owned (Score:3)
If the future that eventuates is this car-summoned-on-demand one, then yes, this policy will waste money.
I think the probability of this is remarkable low for most of the globe. Presuming the technology works (not yet a given but good chance of it happening), the economics of "summon on demand" cars manifestly dictates you need to live in an area with a certain population density. There probably are other second order problems too like theft, vandalism, hacking, etc (remember nobody is guarding the vehicle) that people aren't really paying enough attention to yet but may/will turn out to be significant probl
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We don't need a car every hour of every day, but we do all need cars at about the same time: the time slots at the start and end of a work day. So the number of cars we'd need in total doesn't drop by much.
I'd also be reluctant to share a car because I see how people treat their cars.
I like getting into my own car at the end of the work day. I may not be home yet, but it feels like a piece of home: my car, my choices exclusively.
Getting into a rental means being in someone else's environment for another hou
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TANSTAAFL [wikipedia.org]
Yup... it's fairly standard around here now... (Score:2)
Any new builds have infrastructure set up for handling the charging of electric cars.
It totally bites if you live in an apartment that was built more than about 20 years ago, however... there is simply not enough interest by the owners to invest in the necessary upgrades.
Oh dear... (Score:2)
The first thing I thought of was "poor energy grid"
One of the daily peaks in power usage is when people get home from work and start cooking dinner.
They want everyone to drive electric cars and charge them at home.
That's going to add "plug in their car to charge" around the same time of day they turn on their oven/stove and in winter, heaters..
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Obviously the grid needs to be upgraded, not only increased in overall capacity, but also enhanced with smart solutions and dynamic rates. During cooking times, the cars could choose to pause their charging cycle, or even discharge their battery to help the grid, if they have enough charge left to do so.
EVs as storage, long planned (Score:2)
Yes, ideas such as the ones you describe have been in the plans for years. Dynamic price signaling has been considered as a primary mechanism (from the power company perspective) and information source (from the load perspective) for automated, distributed decisionmaking.
The company I worked for 6-10 years ago was one of many studying the logic of using electric vehicles for load leveling, including pulling from the vehicles during peak loads. I believe every grid operator has had plans on the drawing board
What's Really Going to Happen (Score:2)
They will get all those battery chargers installed. Then, in 10 - 20 years, storage enabling practical electric cars for all situations will finally be perfected. It will be not batteries, but supercapacitors, that will run most efficiently at several thousand volts and draw very high initial currents. The battery chargers will be capable of neither the high voltage nor the surge currents that the supercapacitors will want to draw, and require complete replacement. In twenty years there will have bee
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The proposal seems more about getting proper wiring to homes and garages, so they can accommodate whatever charging methods will be around in the near future. The grid will still provide around 230 V, and the charging station will need its own converters and capacitors/batteries anyway. I also presume that a lot of current (pun intended) cars will be around after 10 years, and a couple of different charging standards will coexist.
I don't think it's realistic to have a supercharger at every home, most pe
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All new construction I see is made with hollow tubes where wires are pulled through later. Once these tubes are in place inside the walls, it's fairly easy to pull out the old wires, and replace them with fancy new high voltage wires. That's still cheaper than not installing anything at all, and having to retrofit these high voltages wires when the time comes.
We could even make the tubes oversized, to give us more options later.
Re:Just political grandstanding, folks! (Score:4, Informative)
if anything, this will drive UP the value of existing homes since they aren't subject to this new requirement.
FFS, installing a home charger costs about $250 in parts including the plug. It's about $50 in parts if you just want to install a high amp circuit 20 feet from the circuit breaker.
It's a few hundred extra bucks to have an electrician and install it once your house is prebuilt. This will drive down the price if anything of existing homes since a new home will include a charger that cost the developer maybe $300 (on top of $700,000) but an existing home will cost $800 for an electrician to come out for 3 hours and run cable through a finished wall.
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The government really needs to get on top of installing public charging infrastructure for residences where they can't have their own personal one, e.g. houses without a driveway or flats without dedicated parking spots. Otherwise in a short time those properties will be worth a lot less because you can't charge your car at home, costing out potentially thousands of Pounds a year and limiting your choice of vehicle.
Re:Just political grandstanding, folks! (Score:4, Informative)
Not so here in the UK - we get ripped off for everything.
Right now, if you buy an electric car, you can get £500 towards the purchase of a charge unit (from the government). Guess what!? all charge units magically cost £499. After that you need to fit the thing, and for that you'll need a 16A armoured cable from a dedicated RCD on your fuse board. We got ours fitted for free by Mitsubishi, but they'll only really run the cable and connect it up - if your fuse board isn't new enough, isn't big enough or accessible enough, then you'll need your own spark to come and fix up all of that before the "free" connection comes along (our "free" guy said he's move the stuff off the RCD he used "on the quiet" because he's not even supposed to do that - the RCD has to be literally empty when he shows up). Our install was simple, but I'd say you could get charged a couple of hundred quid for it, if you got your own spark to do it.
If this regulation mandated that you had to have a 16A feed to your garage or driveway or to your allocated parking space or whatever then it would make a lot of sense. The cost of the charge units would come down to real levels rather than inflated ones, and people would be free to buy a good looking charge unit rather than the utter mingers a lot of the companies force on you. Further, you'd get the charger right for your car, could get a 'smart' one if you want, can get one that will alternate between two cars or whatever.
If the regulation went further and said you need a 32A feed, then things get really funky. The usual properly-wide fuse in the UK is 60A, so if your car is pulling the full 32A, you can blow the fuse by boiling the kettle while straightening your hair (pretty much). Some newish properties in the UK have no gas, so they use electric heating - again, that 32A feed is going to be a real problem there. I seriously doubt any of the grid can really cope with 50% of the houses pulling the full 60A at the same time, never mind all of them doing so. In practical terms, the only way we're ever really going to have 32A feeds is if we have some sort of battery storage for it - and there's no way these regulations will demand all of that.
So... expect some terrible legislation that will be (ab)used by the charge point manufacturers to inflate their profits, whilst charging the house-buyer and consumer for it. Expect the regulations to be woefully out of date in a matter of years, but not updated to reflect that, so you'll have to have a charge point you can't use as well as putting in one yourself that you can. Can't wait.
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From TFA:
"It is our intention that all new homes, where appropriate, should have a charge point available," a government statement said.
Civil servants aren't idiots. They won't require car recharging in a 14th floor apartment.
"We plan to consult as soon as possible on introducing a requirement for charge point infrastructure for new dwellings in England."
So even if they are idiots, non-idiots will get to tell them so before regulations get made.
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Do you have a car park? Then the charge point would be there. If not, it's obviously not talking about you.
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It's almost as if you didn't read that they'd said charge points would be required "where appropriate"
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It won't be in the flat, it will be by the mandatory parking space that is almost always required for new developments.
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From TFA:
"It is our intention that all new homes, where appropriate, should have a charge point available," a government statement said.
(emphasis added.)
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From what I understand the base Model 3 only charges at 40 amps anyway. The model X and S are about 72 amps but the literature I've seen is that the charger will run on as little a 15 amps. It will take forever to get a full charge that way, but that's all that's required. If you were to go with 40 amps, the Model 3 charges at a rate of 30 miles per every hou
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TFA is an announcement of intention to consult before making the regulations. If they do this consultation competently, they'll consider the implications on the power connection to the houses, and make some compromise between required current capacity of the EV charging circuit and the required current supply to the house. They might only require a 20 amp or 40 amp charging circuit, or require different current limits in different locations, depending on the state of the local electricity grid. It is also
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Teslas charge fine on a 7kW supply (230V 32A) and that is a completely normal supply in the UK.
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Outdoor ones come in both wired and plugin versions. It's purely a preference.
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No, it means that you can't buy a car unless you have a garage to charge it in.
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1. What is the problem you're trying to solve here? Why woul you need to know who is parking where? Recharging of the electricity bill? There are low cost solutions for that (Ubitricity) or you simply recharge via the service charge. The costs of the power are low anyway, so it's not crucial to get the recharging absolutely right.
2. Supply cables will *not* need to be upgraded. Why would they? The max draw is 7kW, which is well within safety limits. Maybe an isolator will need to be fitted at each house, bu
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Lots of people will plug their car in when they arrive home from work.
Lots of people work 9-5 and get home at similar times.
When it's cold, they also turn their heaters on when they get home.
A lot of people cook their own dinner too, which they start soon after they get home from work. Lots of those people have electric ranges.
My house could easily draw 10kW when the hot water cylinder if heating (it's about 3kW) because the kids are in the shower, the oven and cooktop (the whole oven/range is rated at 240V
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Um. They just put in an isolator switch. Sometimes they'll bump the fuse up from 60 to 100A. No new supply cables, no new meter. I know this because they did it in my house.
Future proofing (Score:2)
The house main fuse is 60A, so anything over 15kW is going to risk popping it.
Sounds like they didn't really plan for the future so stuff will need upgrading. We did this in the US a long time ago. I have 200A service to my house (standard these days) and even older houses in the US rarely have less than 100A service. Sounds like the UK needs to get started sooner rather than later on this project. The longer they wait the more expensive it will be.
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For newly build infrastructure, the extra cost of providing more capacity is small. The biggest part of the cost is digging trenches, not the thicker copper. It would be much more expensive to install traditional wiring, and then having to upgrade later.
"how do you work out who is parking where without expensive infrastructure for telling what vehicle is plugged into where ?"
Easy and already solved. Plug in your car, and present chip card/bank card/smartphone to turn on the power.
"Even if it's bolted to th
Non issues (Score:2)
1) Not all houses in the UK come with a parking space right outside or garage. A lot are apartments or communal parking - how do you work out who is parking where without expensive infrastructure for telling what vehicle is plugged into where ?
Figuring out where a car is parked is a trivial exercise when they are plugged into an electric charging port. If you are going to install the charging equipment anyway then it is pretty much a non-issue at that point. Heck I have an EV and it has both LTE and WiFi and putting GPS on it would be a trivial exercise. Wouldn't be hard to pinpoint at all even if I wasn't plugged into something.
2) It's not just the cost of the charger - The supply cables going to the house will need to be upgraded along with ALL the infrastructure right back to the grid transformer - that isn't cheap. 3 phase to each house would be a good idea as it would solve the voltage issues but 3 phase to new builds is not common in the UK and I suspect the cost would be exorbitant.
Most houses can accommodate a car charger without any upgrades to service at all. Here in the US all construction f
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"Where appropriate"
If there is no space to park a car on the property, how is it appropriate to have a car charger?
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