Are the days of the motorhome numbered? (1 Viewer)

[LithiumConvert]

I suggest, Yes.

Why? Because the emissions regulations (among others), mean that the manufacturers are finding it increasinly difficult to build a motorhome that complies wth the regulations and is fit for the purpose that we are looking for.

 

[Petroleumblownapart]

Hybrids produce more CO2 than a petrol engine which in turn produce more CO2 than a diesel engine. The EU are soon to increase RFL to reflect this and the UK will follow.

Forget about the planet as in truth it has nothing to do with it. It's about economics and the goalposts are changed to suit.

How can a 11 year old Euro 5 diesel 120d BMW be only £30 to tax? Politics... because it certainly isn't cleaner.

For EV's to become a true ICE replacement requires infrastructure which will cost more than HS2, It'll never happen and those areas which will see a half decent network will pay through the nose as it'll be privately owned like all our energy is.

EV propulsion requires a lot of rare earth minerals, they're rare for a reason. They're found in very small amounts. They're very hard and very expensive to mine and separate which in turn produces a lot of damage to the environment due to this process. When you only need mines for producing magnets for sensors, robotics, electronics and electric trains, the damage is low and the supply & demand chain is possible.

When you read that globally there'll be 350 million EV's on the roads by 2030 what impact will that level of mining have on our environment? The planet will become pock marked with hundreds, possibly thousands of small mining settlements which will ultimately be left abandoned as these rare earth seams are minuscule compared to the likes of gold, silver & ore.

These rare earths can't be recycled either and have a limited life as the magnetism they produce for such high temperatures in EV motors kills them.

There's a huge focus on battery life but when you couple this with motor life for the extended real world mileage we'll demand these motors will probably die before the energy which drives them does.

Today, in terms of wastage, 99% of vehicles, domestic white goods and other home tech is recycled. Waste to energy plants produce electricity which is vastly reducing landfill. This energy is fed into the national grid.

Yes we have a national grid capable of supply but the real issue is domestic, there are many, many thousands of houses and local substations which don't have the ability to cope with the power required. Houses built as late as 2015 need their domestic supply augmented to truly exploit the convenience of a wall mounted charger.

Realistic alternatives already available? Next year will see the first HVO pumps on our forecourts, pumps which are already proving popular in Ireland. For Euro 6 it's a direct replacement to diesel and comparatively priced. Using this fuel will mean your tyres and brake pads are more polluting.

Fossil fuel refining and usage will always be with us as literally the shirt on our backs relies on it and there are millions of people globally who rely on the jobs it creates. That's the bottom line and will always win the argument.

At last.... common sense.

 

[Barclaybasher]

Why tow it? Just put it underneath. The reason we don't have 200KWh batteries in EVs is down to cost and weight.

Tahe weight issue is solved as in the UK you can now drive a 4250KG vehicle on a 3500 licences if it is a commercial base vehicle EV.

Putting an extra battery in a trailer would extend the range needed for motorhomes

 

[nabsim]

It doesn’t really matter if a house has a good enough supply to charge an ev if you can’t get the ev next to the house (at least off road). The reason I went hybrid was because I couldn’t use a home charger. There are many more households in the U.K. who cannot use a home charger than those who can.
The infrastructure to support is nowhere near there unless you are charging at home and/or your destination

 

[Ernesto]

I can't quite make out if you are trying to be smart or genuinely interested? I will go with my generous side and believe that you are interested.

Why thank you .....

I find it best on here to assume people are genuine and easy-going unless otherwise proved....surely the number of posts and content already in this thread alone, shows I am interested.

I have an engineering background but local electricity supplies are not my area of expertise and I'm very happy to say that - hence the earlier questions.

I understand enough to appreciate what you are outlining....and equally I see National Grid saying and starquake saying its not an issue. My inexpert guess is both are right - there are probably some areas that will need extra investment and infrastructure - but I very much doubt EV adoption will outpace that part of the infrastructure, and that it will hold anything back

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[Ernesto]

It doesn’t really matter if a house has a good enough supply to charge an ev if you can’t get the ev next to the house (at least off road). The reason I went hybrid was because I couldn’t use a home charger. There are many more households in the U.K. who cannot use a home charger than those who can.
The infrastructure to support is nowhere near there unless you are charging at home and/or your destination

I have seen reports around 50% maybe of households can't cable charge outside ...and that is an issue with existing technology for sure.

Not sure I would bet against them developing the tech into faster charging solutions, so that gap can be plugged

 

[Mzracer]

but I very much doubt EV adoption will outpace that part of the infrastructure, and that it will hold anything back

Well it will be very interesting to see where all this ends up, from a selfish point of view I will most likely be OK as I have a lot of good luck.

However 100,000's of thousands of people in each big city are not likely to be so lucky.

My real opinion is that the 2035 date will be fudged in someway and that I will unlikely see the impact of a totally EV environment in my lifetime.

 

[Mzracer]

I have seen reports around 50% maybe of households can't cable charge outside ...and that is an issue with existing technology for sure.

Not sure I would bet against them developing the tech into faster charging solutions, so that gap can be plugged

Faster charging will require some big numbers on the amp scale.

I remember seeing an advert for Hyundai car with an insanely fast charge speed but the catch was in the small print, the charger was 350 Kw, that is insane. (circa 1400 amps)

IONIQ 5 Charging | Eco - Hyundai Worldwide

With a 350 kW DC charger, IONIQ 5 can charge from 10 percent to 80 percent in just 18 minutes.

www.hyundai.com

 

[starquake]

So the current EV infrastructure is serving around 2.5% of the cars in the UK so it is fairly safe to say that we are going to need to see about a 40 fold increase in the number of charging sites to go 100% EV.

Not quite, for people with home chargers they will almost never use a public charger UNLESS range requires it. The reason there are so many being installed now is the capacity is shocking and we need 12/24 bays instead of the 1-2 they have had until now. NEC now has 200 chargers which says the intent for future! Once they there they may not even get used every time, but NEC being a site where people park all day pretty much is a perfect site for slower but longer charging.

My Dad who owned the above ix4 for a year has only needed to public charge twice in that time. We charge according to my book once a month for 10 mins on a public on average at a cost of ~ 7-10 pounds depending on the charger. Look it this way this real EV owner doing > the average mileage spends less time charging publically than you would think so public "rapid" provision is less important in some cases than "slow" cahrgeres.

It doesn’t really matter if a house has a good enough supply to charge an ev if you can’t get the ev next to the house (at least off road). The reason I went hybrid was because I couldn’t use a home charger. There are many more households in the U.K. who cannot use a home charger than those who can.
The infrastructure to support is nowhere near there unless you are charging at home and/or your destination

I agree btw, without a home charger at moment it's a potentially quite a bit more expensive, but there are schemes and there are "deals" to make it cheaper even without home charging, but to say it's not possible isn't true. I know a few EV owners with no home charging who's main charging is currently "free" when they go to the cinema as the cinema has 6 "free" cahrgers and he gets enough from his weekly movie ticket that he never needs to "pay" to charge.. And it's still cheaper than diesel if you do the research, its "not" though 100% if you exclusively rapid charge. Locally one council has chargers all over the terraced house area with a reasonable home-like rate to charge and in my town they just installed 8 chargers in a public car park for people with this need (free overnight parking). (it's a 2000 person town).

Roughly speaking the RAC numbers say however 65% of houses in England CAN use a home charger (they have the numbers on their website) so it's not a majority rule thing, just likely they will be last to upgrade.

I have seen reports around 50% maybe of households can't cable charge outside ...and that is an issue with existing technology for sure.

Not sure I would bet against them developing the tech into faster charging solutions, so that gap can be plugged

Theres an interesting scheme in London of all places, where they are putting an alternative to traditional EV points in streets after digging them up -> basically it's a pole you insert into a channel in the pavement wherever you park (on a street enabled for it), so you don't need a specific "space" for a charger, you just park as you would normally, and get your "spike" out to plug in. Means you can cope with streets without bays and parking alongside a terraced set of houses.

 

[starquake]

Faster charging will require some big numbers on the amp scale.

I remember seeing an advert for Hyundai car with an insanely fast charge speed but the catch was in the small print, the charger was 350 Kw, that is insane. (circa 1400 amps)

IONIQ 5 Charging | Eco - Hyundai Worldwide

With a 350 kW DC charger, IONIQ 5 can charge from 10 percent to 80 percent in just 18 minutes.

www.hyundai.com

Yeah those are the chargers (350kw) that are going into the motorway services, and yes, that car can go 10 ish % to 80 in near 10 mins. However again diversity rules as ever. The modern kempower chargers support 250kw charging, but don't support 250kw on every charger at same time. Because for example cars like mine and Dads start at 77 ish Kw then taper down to 45, finishing at 22 at ~ 85%, and then 4kw at 95%. Having a 250kw charger sit idle is stupid if someone charging to 100%, so those chargers allow a 1MW or 2MW grid connection to support 12-24 250kw chargers with the guys wanting 250kw only getting it, when the other chargers are not "maxing" out their share. Where the 24 250kw chargers would otherwise need 6MW of grid!

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[Guigsy]

The 2035 date is only when they stop selling petrol and diesel cars. The average age of UK cars is 8 years. At the current turnover, there'll still be pretty of dino burners on the road in 2045.

 

[Ernesto]

Faster charging will require some big numbers on the amp scale.

I remember seeing an advert for Hyundai car with an insanely fast charge speed but the catch was in the small print, the charger was 350 Kw, that is insane. (circa 1400 amps)

IONIQ 5 Charging | Eco - Hyundai Worldwide

With a 350 kW DC charger, IONIQ 5 can charge from 10 percent to 80 percent in just 18 minutes.

www.hyundai.com

I charged my bog standard Model 3 LR Tesla this summer at Ferrybridge services and got 900 miles per hour peak charging - so the equivalent of a completely flat battery to 300 miles in 20 minutes.

Of course no one turns up with a flat battery, and charging speeds drop as you fill up, but how quick do people need ??
I did a quick bathroom run and bought a coffee and had all the charge I needed

The other way is different technologies - solid state batteries seem to be the most likely technology

 

[Mzracer]

Not quite, for people with home chargers they will almost never use a public charger UNLESS range requires it.

Well currently the split of home charge to public charge is likely to be well defined, all I said was that if all cars were EV then there would be a massive infrastructure increase.

EV's are currently owned by people who are not truly financially challenged, ergo those people are more likely to have homes with off road parking. When EV filters down to the masses, then this will put a higher need on public charging as these folk are more likely to live in flats and areas of dense population.

We will see but I doubt that anyone here including myself has got it right.

 

[starquake]

I charged my bog standard Model 3 LR Tesla this summer at Ferrybridge services and got 900 miles per hour peak charging - so the equivalent of a completely flat battery to 300 miles in 20 minutes.

Of course no one turns up with a flat battery, and charging speeds drop as you fill up, but how quick do people need ??
I did a quick bathroom run and bought a coffee and had all the charge I needed

The other way is different technologies - solid state batteries seem to be the most likely technology

Every time we public charge we tend to find a toilet break + a coffee gives us too much charge and has cost too much. We now just go to loo and tend to leave after we get back to car. I suppose it helps many EV chargers being at back at carpark.

Genuinely we find filling the motorhome more of a pain than the EV as it genuinely takes more time, given we rarely are stopping for a loo and we have to stop for diesel (last time took 15 mins as we had a slow pump that took 10 mins to fill the vehicle plus a big queue to pay). I cant recall stopping 15 mins once in the EV.

Well currently the split of home charge to public charge is likely to be well defined, all I said was that if all cars were EV then there would be a massive infrastructure increase.

EV's are currently owned by people who are not truly financially challenged, ergo those people are more likely to have homes with off road parking. When EV filters down to the masses, then this will put a higher need on public charging as these folk are more likely to live in flats and areas of dense population.

Oh 100% but if it helps, the boss (admittedly quite well off) in London residing somewhere in Canary Wharf area commented that all the parking in his block at least has EV charging already. And there are solutions to retrofit, probably will need governement intervention such as in Norway where flat management companys where parking offered have been given requirements to install EV chargers if tenants ask. Not one for government intervention but something like that would probably be quite equitable for tenants. (Norway is an example where 90% of new car sales are already EV so a frontrunner for such policys effectivelness)

Or they just charge when out and about as my friends already do at the movies weekly. They go every week anyway, why not get the car charged whilst doing it?

 

[Mzracer]

They go every week anyway, why not get the car charged whilst doing it?

Just a different way of living, I have not been to the cinema for many years and neither do I take a coffee when I stop for diesel, maybe I am boring !!

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[Gromett]

Putting an extra battery in a trailer would extend the range needed for motorhomes

No need to put it in a trailer. build it into the motorhome.

 

[starquake]

Just a different way of living, I have not been to the cinema for many years and neither do I take a coffee when I stop for diesel, maybe I am boring !!

I couldn't stand it with modern films myself, but they like it! Date night and such -> theres usually only one film a month that interests me max, but reality is I usually will get a messgae of "you must see film X it's really good" from my friend who does go, and tbh, that resulted in us seeing Oppenheimer in 70mm which was 100% worth the effort.

 

[68c]

Faster charging will require some big numbers on the amp scale.

I remember seeing an advert for Hyundai car with an insanely fast charge speed but the catch was in the small print, the charger was 350 Kw, that is insane. (circa 1400 amps)

IONIQ 5 Charging | Eco - Hyundai Worldwide

With a 350 kW DC charger, IONIQ 5 can charge from 10 percent to 80 percent in just 18 minutes.

www.hyundai.com

350Kw, that is around 470hp. Quite a big generator to push that out.

 

[starquake]

No need to put it in a trailer. build it into the motorhome

Exactly, no reason shouldn't have 200 or 300kwh of battery under floor. It's just the cost. The bigger issue will be how to charge it given a motorhome would only fit today into 2 EV charging stations I've been too (Gridserve main sites in Norwich and Bishops Stortford) -> there is a problem here as cahrging 300kwh from a 7kw supply is "days".

That should be fixed as the HGV chargers come online though. The drafts I saw at a Scania I think it was presentation indicated their trucks will want 2x 350kw CCS connections.

 

[starquake]

350Kw, that is around 470hp. Quite a big generator to push that out.

Remember 350kw charging is at 800V too, so it's actually "around" 400A, even at that levels the chargers have to water cool the charge cables or they melt. It's why 350kw chargers have such heavy cables and are so desirable to theives.

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[Gromett]

I have seen reports around 50% maybe of households can't cable charge outside

I have seen reports that state 50% but on closer inspection it includes inner city flat owners who do not driver and rely on public transport.

The more reliable figures I have seen from independent sources give these figures.

22% of households do not have any cars at all. [source]
25% of car owners (not households) do not have offroad parking. [source]

To get to that 50% figure you have to count ALL households including those that do not own cars.

 

[starquake]

I have seen reports that state 50% but on closer inspection it includes inner city flat owners who do not driver and rely on public transport.

The more reliable figures I have seen from independent sources give these figures.

22% of households do not have any cars at all. [source]
25% of car owners (not households) do not have offroad parking. [source]

To get to that 50% figure you have to count ALL households including those that do not own cars.

RAC put it at 65% in England who could have a charger (offstreet parking effectively).

 

[Gromett]

Exactly, no reason shouldn't have 200 or 300kwh of battery under floor. It's just the cost. The bigger issue will be how to charge it given a motorhome would only fit today into 2 EV charging stations I've been too (Gridserve main sites in Norwich and Bishops Stortford) -> there is a problem here as cahrging 300kwh from a 7kw supply is "days".

That should be fixed as the HGV chargers come online though. The drafts I saw at a Scania I think it was presentation indicated their trucks will want 2x 350kw CCS connections.

Early days yet. Until battery production has ramped up and the panel van market for delivery drivers is saturated I do not expect to see any made for motorhome vans with 200KWh batteries. But we have decades before it becomes an issue for most of us.

 

[Gromett]

RAC put it at 65% in England who could have a charger (offstreet parking effectively).

But are they counting those who do not own cars again? That is the KEY thing.
You have to count households who own a car and can have a charger. If you remove the flat dwelling, city centre, public transport using households from the total then the percentage rises above that 65%.

 

[starquake]

Early days yet. Until battery production has ramped up and the panel van market for delivery drivers is saturated I do not expect to see any made for motorhome vans with 200KWh batteries. But we have decades before it becomes an issue for most of us.

Oh indeed, agree, and the strategy amazon, DPD following of local panel van deliverys with EV's makes sense, stop start PVC deliveries use way more fuel than the depot->depot supply runs in HGV C1/2's. Reduce their highest cost in fuel first, then worry about the hub->hub bits.

Apparently the EV charging at some of the Amazon hubs is literally amazing from what I've heard.

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[Gromett]

Oh indeed, agree, and the strategy amazon, DPD following of local panel van deliverys with EV's makes sense, stop start PVC deliveries use way more fuel than the depot->depot supply runs in HGV C1/2's. Reduce their highest cost in fuel first, then worry about the hub->hub bits.

Apparently the EV charging at some of the Amazon hubs is literally amazing from what I've heard.

I posted a video about it recently. Really cool.

 

[Gromett]

starquake here it is again.
Broken Link Removed

 

[Barclaybasher]

No need to put it in a trailer. build it into the motorhome.

Towing the extra battery instead of in the van gives more payload

 

[starquake]

starquake here it is again.
Broken Link Removed

Oh thats neat, Amazon are not using the Arrival vans (yet) in UK around here so I've not seen them in flesh, they're using similar PVC convsions to DPD from various brands around here. WOuld make a great motorhome if amazon ever get rid of them ... I suspect they'll run into ground as they'll last a LOT longer than a diesel though. (With Tesla batt/drivetrains lasting 350k miles it'll be longer I'm sure).

 

[Gromett]

Towing the extra battery instead of in the van gives more payload

But adds to the complexity massively in multiple ways. If you have a motorhome and you want that range then build it into the van.
Remember commercial vehciles can go upto 4250KG not 3500KG. More than enough to fit 200KWh of batteries in.

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[Gromett]

Oh thats neat, Amazon are not using the Arrival vans (yet) in UK around here so I've not seen them in flesh, they're using similar PVC convsions to DPD from various brands around here. WOuld make a great motorhome if amazon ever get rid of them ... I suspect they'll run into ground as they'll last a LOT longer than a diesel though. (With Tesla batt/drivetrains lasting 350k miles it'll be longer I'm sure).

Erm... It's Rivian not Arrival? Arrival have deals with Uber and UPS from memory not Amazon?