Joined up? I think not....
And just where is the electricity going to come from - windmills?
Californian company Evoasis has announced that it's going to build a network of electric vehicle charging stations in and around the central London. The charging stations – called UpStarts - will all be placed on the sites of disused petrol stations, the first being a 12-bay layout destined for Grosvenor Road in Pimlico, SW1. …
The last time I read a dictionary, London was the Capital of England, not the Capitol!
Evoasis may be an american company, and their press release may have been spelt in american, but neither London or the Register are american. Please get the Moderatrix to discipline Alun forthwith!
Thank you.
Oh, and the artist's impression of the charging station seems to have missed out the charging posts - they're red in the first diagram, but no red in the second.
I hope the roof is made of PV cells.
And, in common with all artist's impressions and architects drawings, they've missed out the urban tumbleweed, vagrants, dog crap, pavement pizzas and other urban accoutrements which will inevitably surround the place.
So it still takes 10 times longer than filling my tank with petrol then.
Ok it's cheaper, but take away the tax from fuel and it'd be about the same. If in 20 years everyone is driving leccy cars do you really think the Government is going to be happy about having no fuel tax income and no road tax income?
No. They'll just tax the shit out of you in some other way, so you might as well enjoy driving a proper car whilst you can.
This post has been deleted by its author
The Achilles Heel of EV is the charge time. If you're running low on juice and need to be off somewhere quick, you're not going to want to wait 20 minutes (and I bet that's an average as surely it varies per battery, car make and manufacturer. Or are they limiting it to 20 mins, so you it won't necessarily be a full charge?).
Then you've got all the home charging. That'll obviously be slower and likely you have to charge overnight, but do you really want a cable running out of your house overnight? Or if they provide charge points outside each house, what's the betting some little runt will mess with the cable, or your neighbour nicks your connection and thus charges on your leccy bill?
And then of course, we're being warned that we won't have enough power production in a few years time. Where's the juice going to come from?
Flawed idea. Hybrid with regenerative breaking charging and similar is far more sensible so the car can charge on the move. Either that or fit all the roads with a massive induction network!
This is blinking typical of the UK: *Here's a good idea. How can we completely miss the boat and ensure our economy and workforce don't get any benefit? Ooh. I know. We'll outsource the solution to an overseas company..!*
What we need is some frigging UK investment. Are we so TOTALLY rubbish at engineering that we can't even design and build charging posts?? Do we HAVE to go outside of our own workforce and ensure other countries' economies benefit? for God's sake, does the government have NO idea that we people in this country who actually WANT to work..?
Nothing against the Americans for getting the contract - perhaps they can make a Brown-shaped attachment and a lead long enough for me to take to his house and stick it up his effing blowhole!!
... and zero thought for EV PTWs. Effing typical then. Just when the metropolis cannot take any more congestion, of any kind, the golden opportunity to further PTW use in lieu of The Car is missed yet again.
In respect to that 20 minutes for £2 - that would be of limited, if any, use to today's batteries. We do not yet have access to the new MIT battery technology that requires mere seconds or minutes to charge to full capacity from empty. Its coming, but not yet a while. So 20 minutes would seem to be a bit premature.
Ditto the earlier poster about why the Brits cannot manage this without having to go outside of the country to find backing and capability. Maybe it is time we burned Parliament down to the ground, put our politicians heads on pikes across Westminister bridge and got down to some serious regeneration. All of our incumbents are completely incapable so we're doomed ..
That the connectors on this thing *might* match those on the planned roll out in the North East? In fact can I hope for a national design that matches all over the country?
Infrastructure development can be incremental, even piecemeal, provided its compatible.
@Luis Ogando
"What we need is some frigging UK investment" The bulk fo the UK banking system is geared to 2 kinds of customer. Large numbers of apathetic personal customers and foreigners. "Set up a new chip company in the US (LSI logic in fact). No problem"
In one case I am aware of having a monopoly on the market with an 18 month lead on the nearest known competitor was still not enough to raise funding. For a UK company.