back to article London to become Europe's e-car capital, says Mayor

London Mayor Boris Johnson has announced plans that he hopes will make the city the electric vehicle capital of Europe. boris_001 Boris Johnson announced his EV plans for London in Seoul How will he achieve this miracle? Essentially by encouraging 100,000 EVs onto the city’s streets “as soon as possible” and by rolling out …

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  1. Tim

    Excellent News

    That's a pretty bold commitment. I just hope they have decided where in London they will build the new power stations to run all the chargers.

    Tim#3

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @tim

    Given than most of the charging will be being done during the day outside of the evening peak power requirements I doubt any extra power stations would be required?

  3. Stephen Lacy
    Go

    If he sticks to that..

    If he sticks to that then it will be an example to the whole world as to how to fight climate change and deal with upcoming oil shortages.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    More subsidies for the rich

    Great! So the poor city bankers will be able to fill up their subsidised Teslas at the expense of the rest of us who are struggling along on the pitiful public transport infrastructure.

    BoJo - what a tosser.

    Boycie

  5. Andrew
    Happy

    Cracking the chicken and egg

    In the development of a new energy distribution and usage system, the private sector is far too slow - the chicken and egg situation means nobody will buy electric till the charging infrastructure is in place, but nobody will build the infrastructure till there is a demand.

    This is a pretty impressive commitment to creating a viable infrastructure. Once that's done, the market (perhaps with continuing subsidies as the technology matures) will develop and grow rapidly.

  6. this

    round and round

    So now, not only will you have to drive round looking for that elusive parking place, you'll now have to search for even longer to find an empty parking place with a flippin charger.

  7. michael

    good

    I like the idar it is importent that some public boady jump starts the hole "no cars cos no charging points/no points cos no cars thing"

    but

    "Finally, we have rapid charge points: 200A, 500V three-phase supplies able to top-up your Tesla S in five minutes flat. However, the potential of these posts is still being “investigated”."

    I did not think battry tech in cars could do 5 mins charging?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    ffs... @Boycie

    Come on.. It's a good idea, and I'm sure with people like you around it'll fail miserably.

    Talk about encouragement... Pah!!

  9. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Boffin

    500V?

    Ouch! Anyone want to guess how many Londoners will fry themselves either (a) playing with the recharging stations whilst drunk/stoned, or (b) whilst vandalising them? Just a few weeks back there were some stupid little thugs round our way that decided to vandalise a substation and didn't get a second chance to think it through. I'm sure the PC brigade will be out in force to ensure there is an equal distribution of charging points to all parts of London, including the grotty estates where any car, electric or otherwise, will be sitting on bricks after five minutes. For the fast charge and rapid charge it would probably be better to have them in manned electric forecourts.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    100,000 EVs, 25,000 charging points

    Unless the charging points can do 4 cars at a time this seems a little short sighted, Clearly it's not a big issue for the points that can charge in 5mins, although most petrol stations have 8-12 pumps and can still have queues, but the several hours and 30mins ones will be problematic.

    as an excercise, imagine what it would be like if it took 30mins to fill your car with petrol.

    this will only be practical if every parking space has a charging point that you can leave it connected to.

  11. Ian Rogers
    Boffin

    500V

    The new "standard" euro e-plug - http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/05/21/rwe_plug/ - only goes up to 400V...

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    (Untitled)

    Whilst applauding the attempt to get the country's car fuel problems solved, I'm unconvinced this will be the solution.

    For me it's no help as the type of journeys I do tend to be hundreds of miles on the motorway. For commuters with small, slow, short range requirements it may work better, but if the nearest point is within 3 miles, then presumably one is in the queue with everyone else in that 3 mile radius. Could be waiting all day.

    32A is going to need hefty cables, but 200A, that sounds really large to me. And I'm unsure your batteries won't go pop.

    And if they pull it off, there's still the problem of finding sources for generating the power, and coping with the pollution it causes at the power station.

    Here's hoping it proves the start of something better, but time will tell.

  13. Kit Temple
    Thumb Up

    Excellent Advertising Oppportunity

    Once the GLA gets things going, I think there will be an excellent opportunity for some companies to put up some solar panels on their roofs and offer their own free charging points. It will only work when it's daytime, but in this way after the panels are bought it will cost the companies nothing to offer the electricity - and a nice way to do brand building for the next 30 years as the panels continue to churn out free electricity.

    The price of solar panels has dropped 40% since the financial crisis, so a great time to go out and make some free 'leccy points.

  14. ian

    Red Ken != Blond Boris?

    By my calculations 25000 charging points is equivalent to 6250 ev's (at 4 charge point per vehicle). If only ev's are allowed in the city, that will clearly solve all of the problems! Bravo Boris!

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Kenneth Williams: "frying tonight"

    200A, 500V , and 3 phases to boot, all charging one car.

    wow.

    A total wattage (assuming a power factor of 1 ) of a mere 300,000W (equivalent to boiling 100 3Kw kettles, or approximately the peak electrical supply to about 15 - 20 houses ) being dumped to one car battery in 5 mins. That's going to generate some SERIOUS heat. I suppose they could always supercool the batteries during charging.

    Otherwise just think what'll happen when a Li-ion battery being juiced up by that starts to fry .

    Sony laptops will look tame in comparison.

    I'm waiting for the first youtube video of one of these going up in flames.

    However If I'm a betting man, I'd bet this kind of supply to charge a single car will not happen anytime soon.

    flames , well because that seems appropriate !!

    KAABOOM !

  16. Hugh McIntyre

    Re: round and round

    Probably the parking spaces with chargers will be EV-only, so this will only be a problem

    a) when there are lots of EVs

    b) for non-EV drivers who will have fewer parking spaces.

  17. John Smith Gold badge
    Thumb Up

    Lets hope they all use the same plug

    Otherwise we are looking at 3 *separate* charging networks across London. A complete mess.

    While on the subject I hope Bozzer will ensure that a map of where these charge points are is readily available. Ideally for download to satnavs. But putting *some* of them at railway stations may be the most important part. Allowing people who don't have allocated off street parking (or a house) access to charging at work or at railway (or bus) station may be the key in getting people to take them up quickly. Making them a requirement for new developments will only help longer term (and it's likely developers will whine about the cost and try to avoid the obligation in the way they have with allocating some of their units for key workers)

    Of course making cars that people want to buy or lease with a battery pack that can last 5 years (that's c3654 cycles given a 2 way trip each and every day ) is another.

    But thumbs up for maybe getting something done.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Trucks and Vans

    "...private users to swap their petrol cars and vans for e-cars and leccy trucks."

    Has anyone done any efficiency studies on larger vehicles with electric motors? Or are we just pushing this for other, more political reasons? True, newer battery technology is making the electric passenger car more feasible, but what about vehicles which require hundreds of times more torque? (Trucks, vans, semis, trains) I am, as of yet, unconvinced.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Electric is fine, but...

    ... they really need to use a pantograph system. Having each car fitted with a battery is just lugging extra weight around unduly in a city environment. I can see batteries for non-urban areas, but in a city, why not just power everything directly?

    Actually I know the answer to that; they're hoping we'll all charge at night to even out the electricity usage patterns.

  20. Throatwobbler Mangrove

    isn't this all window dressing?

    Reducing emissions is great but not at the expense of sacrificing the congestion gains we've made over the last few years. Free parking and free congestion charge is just going to re-incentivise people to drive into town.

  21. John Smith Gold badge
    Happy

    AC@21:59

    "but what about vehicles which require hundreds of times more torque? (Trucks, vans, semis, trains) I am, as of yet, unconvinced."

    You are, as of yet, uninformed.

    The torque curve for an electric motor can be a lot steeper than that of an IC engine. The mass of the rotor of even a large motor is likely to be substantially lower than the rotating bits of an IC engine (pistons, crankshaft, piston rods), much better balanced and therefore accelerate its vehicle better than an IC engine. The GM "Impact" project was designed to demonstrate that an EV could be a sports car even with lead-acid batteries.

    Regarding trains pretty much every underground system in the world is electrically driven. Large locomotives typically distribute motors over several or all of their carriages.

    It might help you to know that the UK has 4 companies either making electric commercial vehicles or electric vehicle conversions. IIRC One of them Smiths of Luton is in line to supply most of what will be Ford's US electric truck offering. Ford will no doubt do enough in country to earn the Made In USA sticker and attached federal funding.

    AFAIK anything up to a large panel van (including pickup truck size) is available in some form of EV. No one has done an EV HGV. But then what is a goods train?

    You may still be unconvinced. Your a little less uninformed.

  22. Danny Thompson
    Thumb Up

    @Trucks and Vans

    Pah! TNT have a couple in use in London already. I regularly see one around the Whitechapel/Aldgate area as I commute to work on my Vectrix electric scooter (not been in a petrol station on two wheels since June 2008). The tech works, and it is improving all the time. See here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/england/london/6199081.stm

    What is disheartening about this London plan is that, yet again, it only focusses on Cars. PTWs do exist also and solve other problems than just pollution! But thumbs up to Bozzer for making the first steps, and throwing down the gauntlet. I've already picked it up, what about you lot?

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