Slashdot Mirror
UK Wants An Electric-Vehicle Charger In Every New Home (thedrive.com)
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.
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.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Trump isn't going anywhere.
can't button his jacket any. Fat man pants. HE Kim DunceCom FAT!
Does that mean they are going to pay me to be able to afford a 'new' house with an extra room to fit a charger in?
Exactly! This is stupid. I take the bus in San Jose and I have no room for a charging station in my city home on Fruitcake.
--
I'm so fat that I have my own channel
I l'll believe it when I see flying cars.
This sounds just like L.A.'s requiring solar panels on every new home.
Seen any new homes being built in L.A.? Yeah, me either. No land, price is too high.
If anything, this will drive UP the value of existing homes since they aren't subject to this new requirement. Law of unintended consequences, or just sly political maneuvering? You be the judge, slashdot.
-
The cost is probably less than you think.
People talk about fast chargers and charging to 80% in 20 minutes but at home you're probably parked overnight so the charging rate and the equipment can be far cheaper.
Chademo charges about 100 km (60 miles) every 20 minutes which is nice but probably unnecessary for most homes. If your EV has enough range for a daily commute then then you only need to replenish that overnight, so that can be done on a conventional UK 15A circuit. Even a 10A one would probably be sufficient. All electricians can already install these.
The the power brick itself is only a few hundred dollars in price.
See this video for more https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_L2LvCvVWE
going to give every 5 grand for a charger and then raise everyone's taxes 5 grand to pay for it. This is the problem with trying to subsidize stuff for everyone, you can't.
Has family that makes the chargers.
Aside from that it's a pretty nice way to divert money that could be used for more appropriate things. (The guy who is buying a new home or building one can finance the purchase if they want or need it), oh like expanded generating capacity or beefing up the grid that will have to charge all those cars they expect.
It's an addiction. Spend to ease the pain and feel better!
The best thing about forced environmental causes is that every 10 years everything needs to be redone. A self reinforcing cycle of spending to feed the addiction!
Well, the environment takes a hit every time because of all the trash. But The Left doesn't really give a crap about the environment anyway.
Seems the English way to do things. Teach your kids to wire their own plugs.
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.
Will they also require every new home to come with a garage in which ro park the EV ?
You questioning science, citizen? Shut up and do your part to save the planet.
Maybe you can use the charging point in your apartment (as we call them here in North America) to make toast in seconds rather than minutes.
It might make more sense to require chargers in parking lots. If you charge vehicles where they are likely to be in the daytime, you can use solar power as well as wind. Of course, if you put the chargers in parking lots, the (probably quite high) costs become more visible.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
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.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Do you have a car park? Then the charge point would be there. If not, it's obviously not talking about you.
- Chuq
AC Some have new parking spaces and might even have new parking garages. Its a thing that can be done when building new.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
So they're going to mandate having a 240 volt outlet near the garage?
Because beyond that you're going to be having to support one mfg or another and their special goofy connection for that car only.
Sure it will evolve, but replacing outlets is no biggy. The main thing is getting the wires into the walls. As long as they put a good minimum amperage requirement on the wiring, it'll be good.
The amount of electricity these cars use per mile of charge is pretty consistent. Even if it doesn't exist, you could calculate how many kWH need to be delivered overnight to charge a 450 mile range car that is on empty 10 years from now and you'll be pretty close. Design the wiring to allow that, and you're good. Faster charging is not a necessity, just a luxury.
Hopefully, they'll also require it for every parking space. A two-car garage should have provisions for charging two cars.
Maybe they shouldn't require the actual charge port at this point though. Just getting the cable into the walls during construction is all that is needed. Most homeowners could then put in the actual port themselves when they need too.
You mean like ISA cards? Industry 'Standard' Architecture? Engineers are no better at seeing into the future decisions of future engineers than anyone else.
IMHO, the future electric car will be refuelled by pre-charged liquid electrolytes. The discharged liquid will pumped out, the charged liquid pumped in.
This is how high capacity industrial batteries work, the working part of the battery is electrodes and charges liquid, and as the charge is reduced, the liquid is swapped out into a tank.
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/...
https://hardware.slashdot.org/...
https://hardware.slashdot.org/...
https://hardware.slashdot.org/...
https://hardware.slashdot.org/...
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Are 80A 240. I doubt many homes in England have 200A service. To charge two cars you'd need 160A, which in reality is 200A because Tesla's own manual says the charger needs to be on a 100A circuit.
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.
Just as likely to happen.
Along private gentrified streets and in new dwellings with their own parking space.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Do you have a car park? Then the charge point would be there.
No but I live near a dog park. There's also a kids' playground a couple of miles down the road.
Nobody is this dumb and a real person.
... so what could your point possibly be?
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.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Great idea but I can see some problems.
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 ?
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.
3) See 2). The current grid infrastructure in many areas may not be able to handle the increased load over time.
4) Vandalism - in many parts of the UK there are lots of little scrotes who will vandalise/destroy this kind of stuff in a day or two. Not to mention various gangs around the county who make a tidy living stealing cables along railway lines/motorways etc. Even if it's bolted to the ground in the UK someone will try and steal it.
It's almost as if you didn't read that they'd said charge points would be required "where appropriate"
On drives yes this will work, but most new houses have public parking only in the street. If you place the charging station there you have to allocate that spot to the home it is next to, trouble is, in UK law you can park anywhere on a public road, and in fact it is quite unusual to park outside your home as the spot is usually taken so you have to park nearby. Supposing you need to charge but your point is taken? What is stopping me from plugging my EV into someone elses charge point?
A lot of the new homes being built here in Manchester seem to be multi story blocks of flats.Not sure how useful it will be on the 20th floor.
No.
So not "every" new home then.
It won't be in the flat, it will be by the mandatory parking space that is almost always required for new developments.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
With a few specific regional exceptions (London, central Manchester etc), all new flats/apartments are already required to have a dedicated parking space. At the moment, there's no requirement that it has power or can ever be wired. One of the reasons I left my last apartment was that I wanted to future proof for electric cars, but my parking space wasn't adjacent to the building, so getting a charger installed would require getting the estate management company to dig up the road.
That is going to mean a huge jump in toxic waste. Where are they going to put all those wasted batteries going into the next century?
http://www.mrbrklyn.com/amsterdam.html http://www.brooklyn-living.com
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..
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 been millions of dollars wasted. Finis!
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. 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.
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 for at least a decade. From a grid perspective, development has had a tendency to plan for smart solutions leading to broad distribution rather then yet more high loading of existing infrastructure or capital-intensive new infrastructure.
Electric vehicles have been seen as a potentially important way to offset the variability of alternative sources, and to move peak supply closer to peak loads, essentially augmenting existing time-leveling ideas with spatially distributed leveling.
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.
...car charges you.
How will the newly EUSSR-free, turnip-based economy of Great Britain support this?
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 problems. There also will be the human psychology issue to work out. People don't like change and this would be a pretty major lifestyle change for millions.
I think if you live in an area where taxis are a daily reality then it might make sense for that locale. I don't really see it working out in suburbia or rural areas though. Demand would be very inconsistent (rush hour twice daily then... ?) and it would have a large number of vehicles sitting idle just like they do now. Hard to see where the profit to a company would be in doing that. But in a place like Manhattan where things operate a lot more 24/7 and with a high population density and limited garage space I could see it being a pretty useful technology.
If the future that eventuates is that most people own their own electric cars, this policy will save money.
Seems substantially more likely but you are right that there is still a non-negligible uncertainty involved. But I think if they require the garages to be wired for new construction and major renovations that's pretty minimal cost for pretty substantial long term gain.
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 for the last several decades has a 200A drop to the house which is more than adequate. The Level 2 charger I am currently adding to my house draws 32A max so even if I had 100A service that would still probably work. Three phase to the house isn't necessary or especially beneficial. Odds are all the equipment in your house already is single phase and it works fine. Most of the upgrades would really be the back end stuff the power company has to worry about anyway.
3) See 2). The current grid infrastructure in many areas may not be able to handle the increased load over time.
That's only a problem if we place demands on the grid for EVs faster than we can upgrade the grid. I see no evidence of that becoming a problem any time soon.
4) Vandalism - in many parts of the UK there are lots of little scrotes who will vandalise/destroy this kind of stuff in a day or two. Not to mention various gangs around the county who make a tidy living stealing cables along railway lines/motorways etc. Even if it's bolted to the ground in the UK someone will try and steal it.
There are well understood solutions to this too. Not as if cars and other stuff doesn't get stolen today. Worrying about vandalism and theft isn't something that should deter us from working towards a future with EVs.
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.
Why the fuck do they want to install chargers inside homes? The chargers should be installed outside!
Idiots!
#DeleteFacebook
Just built a new home in Canada (Ontario), new for code in 2018 was that a conduit be installed from the electrical panel to the garage for a future electric car charger. No infrastructure other than the conduit and junction box were installed, but it's nice to have it for some point in the future.
x86, oh yes, I'm pro.
And if one wants to be really eco and not own any car, and use public transit, cycling, etc. instead? This is the case for many people in cities. Then you're stuck paying for this device you don't need. Sounds horrible.
It is because of stupid fucks like you that we can't have nice things. You guys get so butthurt about technicality that you ignore the obvious stuff directly in your face. The 5th floor apartment won't have it LITERALLY in the 5th floor apartment, dumbass. But it would have one wherever the designated parking area. If a high rise has 50 apartments, then they have 50 parking spaces with 50 chargers end of story. Fucking obvious. The truth is, you don't like the idea, which is fine, but just fucking say that instead. Be a man, say what you mean, mean what you say.
Is there any fucking thing else you need me to explain? Should I give you Captain Obvious' cell number?
I like how both of you dumbasses think that dude was talking about Britain. Did you even read what he typed? Did it even sound like English to you? Did you notice any bloke, mate, hob, boot, bonnet, crisps, torches, prams, trolleys, lorries, or fuckwits? No ya didn't. He was typing in American and he is the usual shitposting liberal hater. Most likely a bot. Doesn't matter what the subject is, it's the goddamned liberals fault. You limey cocksuckers might remember it best as "Thanks Obama". My cat on fire? Thanks Obama. The tax man got ya down? Thanks Obama. You're a drug addicted redneck in a trailer in Arkansas? Thanks Obama. You get the point, I hope.
Now go argue about something useful, you dumb bastards.
That was Slashdot, not the government. The government said "where appropriate"
But cars plugged into high rise apartments will charge faster - and therefore those higher storey dwellings will be more desirable - the electricity will charge a car on the ground faster since it flows quicker downhill.
Just get an extension cable. - Sorted.