Ecotricity-The Electric Highway | Fully Charged
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- Опубликовано: 10 сен 2024
- This episode is NOT SPONSORED by Ecotricity or anyone else.
Just thought I'd make that clear
A demonstration of how to use the new Ecotricity electric highway app followed by a chat with Ecotricity founder Dale Vince.
For more information about the system, please go to:
www.ecotricity...
And don't forget Patreon:
/ bobbyllew
People got upset, because Ecotricity didn't give away electricity for free, forever?
...and Ecotricity said that they'd start charging for it, from the beginning?
I'd like to say that I'm surprised, but...
Well some got angry about that, but mostly about the inflexible payment structure - only 20 minutes for £5.
It's 30 minutes for £6 but never mind
fullychargedshow Yes I actually watched the thing, and they changed the length of charging to make it more sensible for Leaf owners.
Gunnar René Øie Oh, I have no issues with those complaints.
I totally agree with those complaints (I don't really get why it has to be a set length, at all)
...not to mention the issue of them requiring that you have to use a smartphone.
I was just talking about the complaints that they charge money, at all.
That's a preposterous thing to complain about.
No. people are upset because the cost of running an ev is now compatible to a petrol car. But it's great that you're all missing the point
I say fair play to this bloke for allowing people to use the network for free for 5 years. And to all the sanctimonious tools complaining that they are now being charged £6 for 30 mins of charge, they should think about how much the coffee and biscotti just cost them in the motorway service station Starbucks/Costa and how long they lasted. The reasoning behind the charges are different to every other electricity company who are just looking after their shareholders, this guy is investing YOUR money in more stations to charge your car (at £50,000 a pop) and sourcing new renewable energy sources. I think it sort of glossed over the fact that if you take out their domestic consumer energy tariff you are able to benefit from 52 free charges per year, that's 26hrs of charging, not bad really.
mmm... Biscotti biscuits..
£6 for 30 mins is an outrageous price for the amount of charge you get out of it. They must be trying to make up for those 5 years of free charging in 6 months.
Do you really know how much amp of current a car draws when you fully charge a lithium ion battery of 72volt or 100volt in 30 minutes you sheep? Draw that much power from your home socket for 1 sec your house would burn down. Get some lessons about the topic you are about to criticize.
+Red Love Show it really depends on how many total KW you can charge in that 30 minutes...
Red Love Show Chademo is 480v DC. 24 kWh in 1/2 hr (80% of the 30 edit: for a Leaf) would be 10 amps through the output of the charging system into the battery, not accounting for losses. Lithium ion batteries are charged on a constant current/constant voltage system (CC/CV). A constant current is maintained while voltage rises up to the maximum charge voltage and then the voltage is clamped there and the current decreases until a minimum level is reached (depends upon the battery specs). The power (voltage x current) is high for the first part of the charging cycle and rapidly declines). DC Fast charging (as in Chademo) is only up to 80% capacity.The Leaf's battery is a nominal 360v.
There are new low-voltage (48v, IIRC) technologies coming online for hybridization of IC cars, but they trade off the advantages of high voltage/low current for easier design integration and lower cell count. A Leaf has a 100S battery. A 48 volt system's battery would be 14S or so with the same chemistry.
Arms and legs crossed - both of these guy's body language tells us they are honest and comfortable about the subject they talk about and they could talk about it for hours on end.
Dale Vince, a company founder who appears to have a great vision and a screwed on head.. a rarity in the corporate world and what a succinct little talk he gives here..
Well done him on getting it this far!
Now, if I could just plug my ebike into his socket that would be a great little ride out from charger to charger :D
hmm I think I'll have to have a look into this in more detail..
Excellent interview, Robert. For the people with hard of hearing Dale does answer the question about KWh. He said the only way they could get charging (£) up and running was using the method they chose. They are looking at different times for charging. Thankfully, the hubbub is dying down now and usage is going back up.
I think most of the negative comments are essentially people who are bitter because the very generous gravy-train that allowed you to travel the length of the country for free has inevitably ended. Look at the bigger picture - the charging network will have to expand lots in coming years and that needs investment, so can't be free. I'm proud to be an Ecotricity energy customer and signed up long before this because I want to support what they're doing. If you don't like the price, charge elsewhere, but you'll struggle to find another company which has invested as much in decent infrastructure.
Great interview. Hats off to Ecotricity and Nissan on creating this rapid charging network. Without you I would not be driving an electric car today.
For the people moaning about it not being free no longer I hope this explains things better.
My only feedback is that I would love to do a splash and dash. So a 10/20/30/40 minute charge duration would be great and hopefully this will come in time.
Thanks again Ecotricity!!!
So pleased to meet today Robert , at the Electra AA event in Malvern , and many thanks for the quality of all these presentations ! 😎
How can people not like this? Surely it's a fantastic step in a better direction!
How things have changed!! Well done Dale for getting this going in the UK.
As someone who drives a petrol car (and who would love an electric but who can't afford one) I personally don't see £6 for half an hour being a bad thing.
After all, these chargers are those that you won't be using every other day, meaning you probably won't be spending more than £12 a week if you do use them frequently.
Either way, it's still waaaay less expensive than anything that comes out of a petrol pump - my little 208 is fairly fuel efficient yet I'm still spending £30-£35 every fortnight to refuel. *That* is worth complaining about.
...I long for the day that I can afford an electric motor!
i paid 6.5k for my leaf so not bad
Not bad at all! Perhaps will look into them as my next car in a couple years!
How would you feel about paying twice or sometime 3 times more to put fuel in your 208, and not knowing how much you were paying until you had started filling up? That's what this pricing method is effectively doing. Due to varying charging rates (due to ambient and battery temps) the £6 could get you 80 miles of charge, or it could get you 50 miles of charge or in some cases
That's a good point and one I hadn't even considered... I'm guessing this is then when the paying per KW/h comes into play as then at least you're paying for the energy you consume, correct?
Otherwise, yes it would be like me paying £35 for a quarter of a tank... If that.
Yes. £ per kw is much fairer and what a lot (if not most) charge point providers use in this country. Sadly, Dale doesn't see it that way and so far is ignoring our pleas for it.
Thanks Robert for such a great discussion with Dale. Very nicely done and in a friendly, sensible, manor.
I for one would like to thank Dale for having the guts to install the electric highway.
Irrespective of what people think of the costs, Ecotricity, a commercial company took the risk and have made long distance EV travel possible in the UK and for that we should all be grateful.
+pwrkiter "thank Dale for having the guts to install the electric highway. " I'm not sure thats true, as far I know Nissan and the government subsidies actually PAID for ALL the chargers, I could be wrong but I think thats what happened. Anyone got the facts? Lets not go thanking Dale just yet. It's clear in the interview he's got a tad of guilt regarding the fact the chargers went in by Nissan, labelling and functioning for a Leaf for years. Perhaps Ecotricity have inherited them but he sure never paid for those costs and people need to remember that! Tax payers paid for it.
+thebluesclues2012 Really? Don't worry, giving thanks and appreciation is not a limited resource. You can also thank Nissan and OLEV too, you won't run out of it. Since this was an interview with Dale I felt it was right to have a bit of grace and thank the man for his part in the electric highway. Go on, try a bit of gratitude, it might make you feel good ;-)
What a purile odd response? I thanked them all, you clearly have decided on ranting about thanking, people, go ahead, I just pointed out that your gratitude didn't ought to be based on thinking Dale was a god and did anything out of his pocket.
+thebluesclues2012 "Let's not go thanking Dale yet" Just saying.. But thanks for your comment ;-)
+pwrkiter, phew, you nearly had me! of course that is not what I said. ;) "insert "just" yet. But Thank you +Dale, and I'm not being sarcastic, I'm an Ecotricity customer and and have switched supplies to your lovely company three times and ditched the big six.
This was a very good piece! Thank you so much for presenting it.
Charging for charging and not a single pun!
Fully charged in fact.
What a pair of thoroughly nice guys.
Shame that Dale tries to bill you £100 a week for gas when you never even chose to be with them and notify them you are switching.
haha I saw the Leaf go past and wondered if it was setup lol.
very nice interview. Thanks!!
Ah great, sounds like Ecotricity are going to 'do a deal' with Nissan so Leaf owners will get preferential rates or possibly free charges :) seems fair as Nissan are the only car company to have invested heavily in the chargers. As a Leaf owner I look forward to more news. Thanks Robert, love your weekly videos.
I wish we had such thing in Germany. Here, the car manufacturers are waiting for the power companies to build charging stations and the power companies are waiting for the car manufacturers to sell more cars. And when you find a station, you can never be sure if it'll work or support fast charging. And outside of big cities you're mostly SOL.
Sound like the market is wide open to Ecotricity to move into.
i really like what ecotricity have and are doing. definately advanced things forward in the uk.
Brilliant idea and interview.
I was just starting to wonder how the electricity was 'sourced ' and I'm so glad it's wind and solar.
a good video and nice to see that they are working with Nissan dealers so that Nissan owners get some free provision bundled with the cars, it's a model that they use in the states, after all how much have Mitsubishi contributed to the eh compared to the amount of outlanders that used to plug in.
Great Video! The guy who runs Ecotricity seem super clever and its great to see all these charge points running on renewables coming into place.
Great to hear more one some of the background issues from Dale. Thx!
If you can stop charging prematurely from the charging machine, doesn't this expose users to being stopped by other people. Someone maliciously could go around pressing stop charge on the posts? How can you prevent this from happening. It would be really annoying if it allowed anyone to stop charging and I'd still get charged the full £6.
Is it not like Tesla locked on charge till you unlock the car?
Never thought of that. Theoretically it could, but in practice who would go through all that for 6 quid? Would you ?
you can't if you press stop charge on the charger you have to use the app on the phone that started the charge to stop it, you only get charged after either the user stops the charge with the app or the charger stops after 30 mins.
knoxieman Must one have a phone (plus application) to use it ? Fuck that for a joke!
+SWR112 check video from 2m 15s. it shows you can end early from the machine
People are really complaining that they can't have free electricity anymore? Welcome to the 21st century guys, it's bloody expensive!
Plus.. they did say the system wouldn't remain free, they have to make money some how. They have invested millions into this just so you actually have a place to charge your car on the go, don't you owe them?
Just my 2 cents..
One deserved up tick. Great interview from Dale.
If I received this amount of flak, those "pumps" would be up for sale and abandoned. They would be run into the ground until your eyes bled.
True the price is a bit high considering the distance a half hour "rapid" charging give ~12KWH to a MK1 Leaf. Easily comparable to liquid fool prices.
Any help from Nissan would be brilliant but I imagine this is only for new cars. They are a manufacturer!
Very nice interview.👍
Wow £6 for 30 minutes? that's frigging expensive.
Still cheaper than the per mile cost for fossil fuel engines, plus you're contributing to keeping our environment safe.
I'm just getting interested in EV, currently own a new Mini that I bought as it's enjoyable to drive but returns 50 MPG on a run easy. I live to try a fully EV car round the highlands just to see how easy or hard it is to drive my most favourite road from Glasgow to Durness keeping to the west coast all the way. I think most in Scotland are Tarriff free from what I've found with the Scottish government subsidising the network. But would I swap to EV if it was going to cost £6 for thirty minutes when away from home charging🤔 probably not.
It might be more expensive then slow charging at home. BUT remember this is a quick charge system to get you on the road again. This tops you up to around 80% It gives you most of your reach again. And 6 Pound is still less then having to pour gasoline or diesel in a car.
Electric cars and their charging systems cost money. As pointed out in the video this business lost money. BUT with an actual price on the product they are now probably able to get into the black.
And as they say they didn't promise that they would stay free forever. Actually the letter that comes with it said that they would one day charge money. They ran a succesful Beta! A free beta for users, but now the beta is over it is time to get the real product out.
Not really expensive if you include the infrastructure costs. 15.000£ for each pump, it requires a lot of 6£ charges to pay that off.
Daniel Roeske Aye, that really is the gist isn't it. It is much like a city building a tram line, for the first year giving you free rides but then second year asking you to pay to enter. Because, you gotta get the cost out one or another way.
The force is strong with this one
Thank you for helping clearing up a few points that worried me about this, as a Zoe owner I regularly have to use the Oswestry point and take two charges to fill my car to get to north wales so I was reassured that other charge options will be coming on line and the wifi idea is a good one but I feel that the RFID cards would be good as fall back if we don't have a working phone or a dumb phone
Congrats for the show...
Regards from Portugal!
And at 10:30 as they talk about Nissan a white Nissan Leaf passes in the background lol
*insert joke about kryten and electric sockets here*
jk! Was really informative. Been mulling this whole electric car thing over since I noticed charging stations at my college. It is a dual benefit, cheap 'fuel' for my ride, and closest parking space on campus ;) I wonder who offers the recharge stations here; they also allow for google pay and such. Always fascinated by this stuff! Love the show! Here's to further success to you and your channel!
Pity Robert did not allow him to answer the question about why not charging by kWh.
Also question why he is charging between 300% and 400% of the price of peak electricity in a CHAdeMO monopoly on motorways
And before I get any comments about "why not be an Ecotricity user" - they quoted me £750 pa more to be their customer than the competition - I do not mind being green but that is taking the mickey
Thanks for posting Robert ;0)
Great news from Ecotricity and some hard and fast realities of creating a new network ;0)
I lol, when you both mentioned a wifi hot spot around each charger and crowds of people surfing the net free! lol :0D
Great insight to the technology.
Bob you legend.
I hope the good work all you guys are doing is noticed by the Queen or the soon to be King. Well overdue for a commendation.
I like this video, it answers a lot of questions. The ones it didn't they're trying to answer. I wish he would have answered these on day one, maybe then they'd come in for less slack.
Flak*
After getting my BMW i3 last September and then looking at the charging methods away from home. I looked at the price of what I called Ecotrickery and thought that's a lot for just a bit of electrons. But now having seen the owner explaining about their cost and loss. I'm now able to understand the situation a bit more. In the three months I've had my car, it has not had a successful paid for charge. It's had a few free charges. I did think that the charge stations would have their own local Wifi. after all even my GoPro has that, and it was nice to hear that they are thinking along the same lines as it is a nuisance to be at a carpark in the dark and not be able to initiate a charge.
Does he use ecotricity to recharge his hair clippers?
The thing with quick chargers is that it's not just electricity, it's also a convenience. Sure it might be as expensive as petrol but on the other hand you mostly charge at home for much cheaper. In the long run it will average out to much less than petrol. You really only use quick chargers when you want to boost the range of your car, which will happen less and less as EVs get longer ranges.
your pov is very wrong, it is not convenience. Yes, it is for you, but in that case your comment should sound as an opinion instead of a statement. I'm traveling daily with my e-nv200, doing 200-600 miles a day, and for me it's a MUST, not a convenience. How would you describe automated petrol station where you're coming and there is only pumps with card payment only, near your home, no people working vs. petrol station in motorway services where you need to go and pay? which of them is convenience in this case? and why? personally for me - home charging is convenience - plugging in, and coming back - it's full in less than 4 hours
Ahh! So you are the mystery e-van driver! Noted your hundreds of inputs on plugshare all over the UK.
Maybe you should get on bended knee and request a business rate.
I don't need special rate for myself, all I want is the fair rate for all. I'm all in to pay for a charge, but not that amount. Thanks for noticing, but I'm not mystery, just ordinary plugshare user as most of us
vladzis You are very much the exception, the extreme end that Vince talked about. If you have a situation where you must travel 200-600 miles every day maybe an 80 mile vehicle isn't the right tool for the job?
+FDK it was right, but I still need to pay the credit back for 4 years. So far I'm still able to survive without Ecotricity, covered 13k miles since they introduced £6/30min sessions and used just 4 from 52 charges. I'm not an exception, met a lot leaf and BMW drivers at the chargers who are covering more miles than I do, especially in Scotland. 52 is a joke, even from the casual driver side, I would say 200-300 would be fair use, as Nissan's fair use is 3 times a week, which comes out a bit less than 200 charges at one site in a year (plus warm inside, waiting area, toilets and free coffee+free Wi-Fi). For £6 I'm not even getting a shelter from the rain; i-miev/c-zero/iOn became just a city/town car, probably newer Zoe can fall in to the same category now after £6/30min.
most of my charges takes (took?) 10-15 min to reach next charger, so for me the best would be to pay per kWh, get annual (even monthly) subscription with unlimited charging, or split that £6/30min into 3 £2/10min blocks
Honestly, all sounds very reasonable to me. Interesting to hear from someone who should really know, saying that national fast charge networks aren't economically viable yet (I've been saying as much for ages). I think it'll be a very long time before profit can be made from them. The best idea IMO is to link the fast charing to something that people are willing to pay for, like their car for instance. After all, an EV without quick charging is basically half a car!
What Dale has achieved is nothing short of visionary and he deserves a great deal of respect for that. Of course electricity is not free and hence of course charges at some point were inevitable... But I do have concerns that at the current price point the cost is similar to the cost of running a small diesel and currently the government has little interest in imposing any kind of 'fuel duty' on electricity... What would happen if there was a huge take up of EV's and the govt decided to put some fuel duty on electricity? Of course there is the 'green' element but for most they will just be concerned about the basics of how much it costs to run... For my usage profile the network still suits me (being an Ecotricity customer) - I ma nay charge at work or at home and use the Electric Highway occasionally for leisure use... My recent EV road trip to and around Scotland used 18 credits mind (CYC are free in Scotland currently thanks to a govt subsidy) - but without the Electric Highway this would not have even been possible...
Robert you didn't ask why it was priced so it was more expensive than fossil fuels.
He avoids any opinions or actual questions people want answers to in his videos
+Mark Perrin Yep, tis a shame.
+Mark Parrin be prepared to be called names and funny words being thrown at you for daring to question the authority of our star host - all lefties hate being asked uncomfortable questions.
Wow, don't lose your balance with that chip on your shoulder, Chief.
Taking the new Leaf model (30kWh), then 80% charge is around 124miles. £6 for 124 miles is about half what the same journey would cost in a 50mpg car at a fuel cost of £1/ltr.
Plus, if you recall, an Ecotricity customer has 52 free charges a year! - I think most petrol/diesel drivers would like 52 free fill ups a year!
I'd be interested in a discount as a Nissan Leaf driver :)
Grats to Nissan for supporting the infrastructure in real terms (take note GM) and to ecotricity for being true champions of GREEN!
101 views in 6 min. Wow, congrats Bob!
Makes TOTAL sense !
I liked the interview. A couple of questions I would like to ask are: 1) would it be possible to install these charging stations under a shelter (like a bus shelter). It's not always sunny when it's time to charge. 2) are other charging options being considered? such as a credit or debit card (the chargers already have RFID chip readers) or set up a credit account with the car ( much like my mobile phone has). All the pump would have to do is identify the car and then debit the credit account. Keep up the good work. Great series.
Would be lovely if the pumps were under a small shelter just big enough to cover me whist standing at the pump touch screen and connecting the charge cable to the car.
It's something that you almost take for granted at an old school petrol station.
+Phil Cole yep I agree it is a pain but I just use a low tech solution, an umbrella ;-)
And that shelter could have solar panels too... or a wind turbine or both...
Many charging stations in Europe are under canopies and they have solar arrays on top of these.
Nice video.
Yes I noticed the white Nissan Leaf cruise by.
"...or tea, or even water"
Wow, the great options you get, from Ecotricity ;P
A great video but still some unasked questions.
A tesla is a fast charging car. Everything else is fairly slow by comparison yet a tesla is limited by the inability to supply more than 40kw despite the advertised 50kw headline speed. When are they going to increase the speed/upgrade the existing pumps?
What to do when the pump fails before the 30 minutes? Should we pay the full amount for only 10 minutes of charge before the pump gives up? Surely the app should deal with that without the need to phone customer services.
When will they provide 24/7 support for the network? Arriving in the evening or at the weekend outside of office hours can leave you stranded with no way of contacting anyone to get a pump working or rebooted.
How much has usage dropped since charging has started? I've noticed a complete lack of EV's when passing by their chargers since the fee was introduced. This isn't making good use of the system if the chargers aren't being used.
it started at 358V and 67A, which means it was dispensing at .358*67=24kW. In half an hour this would deliver 12kWh, which means that they're charging 50p/kWh, which is about 3-4 times domestic electricity costs.
Great to see the rapid development of the EV-charging network. May be a good idea to offer a choice of a flat rate (¤6 for 30') or a variable rate (market price per kWh of eco-power + Ecotricity's margin)? For sure, ¤6 for 30' is far too much for lower capacity and slow charging PIH vehicles.
Since they already keep track of sessions, maybe they will launch something like 10 prepaid charging sessions for £50, valid one year from purchase?
Very nice, I wish we could pull off something like that in Switzerland. Too many skeptics for that...
Robeeeertttt!!! can't wait for the premier of Red Dwarf XI......
It was a bitter disappointment to find that petrol was now cheaper than Ecotricity electricity for our hybrid. My instant reaction; "it just shouldn't be this way" so it was good to hear an explanation of the thinking behind the decision. I mean it makes sense. Still a bit sad that for the foreseeable future charging won't make sense for me though. Sad as much as anything because for a brief, fleeting while it felt like progress.
Great interview! Dale is a very smart man, although his choice of hairstyle is very distracting.
Im so happy that I live in California. The infrastructure here is so much better than the UK. So many free DC fast chargers and the most expensive is only like $3 for 30 minutes. Im sorry you guys have to pay 6 pounds for 30.
Hi Robert,
Would it be worth doing a follow up to the ecotricity figures a year on from starting charging for the use of their rapid chargers? I'd be very interested to see if the financials are working well for ecotricity (and therefore by implication all the other networks who will probably be a lot less forthcoming than Mr Vince). Keep up the good work! MW
Great interview and useful demonstration +++ I would like to see more of this kind of videos. it makes sense to see how it works and to get told about the maths behind it. EV are expensive and... after you buy one you still meet a large diesel SUV at the traffic light@£%##@£*
Awesome 👍🏽
Interesting interview, he really appears onboard, one thing not directly mentioned is credit card payment option , therefore no need for phones (that have been known to go flat never mind signal drop out). Also never quiet worked out Nissan Renault alliance where Renault appear less involved or maybe that's not the case, only one ecotricity device in ikea Belfast which is unlikely to be used much as all esb devices still free and uses a card at present
SHOULD OF ASKED HIM WHY THE CALL CENTRE IS CLOSED AT THE WEEKEND !
Yes, should of...
Hi Robert, love the channel. Can you or anyone else give the charge rate for fast AC from the pump? ie the kWhr rate and how many kW for 1/2 hour?
Talking about Nissan Leaf... drives by right on cue at 10:30!!!!!
With shell announcing that they are putting chargers in garages now, Ecotricity may have to up its game, and look at other sites say supermarkets or retail parks to grab extra customers
Does it charge when your charging, or only not charge if you are customer but you get charged anyway and your normal charging rate. so how do know your are being charged if your being charged?
Best haircut ever on Fully Charged. Punk Rock + Donald Trump
VERY interesting body language going on...
my thoughts exactly
Yup. Dale didn't look to happy to be answering questions at the start did he...
Dale Vince does nonchalant very well, and rarely does excited in any interview.
Would you buy petrol by the time the pump is running? probably illegal !
What is with people from abroad? I mean how can I charge there? My Zoe does only support 22kW charging - means I need to pay 0,54 GBP (which is 64 ct) for one kWh? This is really rather expensive ....
Why doesn't the Zoe support faster charging?
+flinx it depends which model you have. The so called Q210 can charge up to 43kW and the newer one R240 only up to 22kW. Means when having a time model the price is twice as high.
Some help. Ecotricity have some 22KW Three phase posts and they only need the old charging card..
+m1aws Yes. I've seen at least one services with the 22kW charging stations, which are still free to use. Dale mentioned that for slower charging they may look at expanding availability of these much cheaper units, which I think is a good idea.
Robert, most interesting interview. The charging model definitely needs looking at it's not been well thought through, personally I don't like apps, like how many "apps" do you need on your phone? What's wrong with contactless credit cards and Apple Pay along the line of Oyster/TfL travel even Airport car parks are doing this now. PAYG is great for the very occasional using an EV, but right now in our BMW i3 REX it is cheaper to run the REX than to stop at the Electric Highway. Manufacturer deals similar to the Tesla Supercharger model will also be important in accelerating EV uptake. However EH should also consider a subscription model, say £120 PA to begin with for an all-you-can-eat approach, this would have the dual benefit of bringing in cash up front and getting the utilisation of the infrastructure up. The other issue is the 30 minute maximum, which will be as good as useless for the longer range EV's around the corner at 40kW charge rate and of course Tesla's that might want to stay for an hour to get a reasonable fill when outside of Supercharger range.
The way I see it, the best option is to charge per minute. When you charge per 30 minutes, most people will stay for the time they've paid for, this will cause unnessecary cue.
Is there a Rapid charger at Ecotricity Headquarters as there is no mention on Zap Map or Plugshare?
I saw on a previous episode of fully charged, the use of charging pads. Could charging pads be used by ecotricity in the near future.
So are the chargers still free in Europe? Why do they charge to charge (pardon the pun) all of a sudden?
There's nothing to stop them from adding different charging times and costs within the app, thereby making it usable for PHEV as well as EV users?
Problem is, when the load factor is profitably higher, queuing to charge could make the service impractical for many. Do Ecotricity think that load factors can be sufficiently profitable whilst still offering minimal duration needed to get the car sufficiently charged?
34% to 96% in half an hour is pretty impressive. I've heard that an i3rex only attained ~15% in that time. Is there variability in the stations or just in battery capacity?
So the 1st 52 charges per year are free for Ecotricity customers and then they pay the fee? Can they buy a package of 10 charges or some other bulk use
Did he answer the question about why not charge by the KWh? I didn't hear one.
Suggested future improvement for the app: let waiting customers know how long the current customer will be there?
So why not just charge by the Kilowatt hour? I still dont see what the issue with that pricing method is
They will be from 26 June 2017 (bar £3 a 'connection fee') - 17p/kWh.
"The problem with paying per KW/h is that someone could turn up with a car that charges very slowly and prevent anyone else from charging for hours by blocking other people from using it. Meaning that they would be costing the company money if they paid per KW/h by preventing other faster sales." -Aljowen in a comment above
If only Ecotricity had said _this_ in their press release and made it clear that they *are* intending to expand and fill the network.
Some funny flip flopping on whether the £6 covers the costs. Especially since FT say that renewable energy costs 5.7p/kWh to generate, the average EcoT rate is 13.5p/kWh, and the cost at pump is 33.3p/kWh (6× generation cost, 2.5× home cost).
Also, the Ecotricity consumers get _inclusive_ charges as if these charges were free they would be available to non-Ecotricity consumers.
But yeah, next time be straight up and honest that you made this emergency jump in cost because you're looking at going bankrupt otherwise, rather than just trying to play it cool 😊
Edit:
Update from Malvern ElectrAA, Ecotricity are looking at replacing all their chargers with the upcoming CCS 150 and 300kW standards.
Nothing is free. The low costs of renewables at one particular power station don't correspond to a whole country. After that, you have all the costs of operating the pumps, the costs of staff, expanding the network, paying off debts, etc. I don't see how you could possibly think it would only cost them 5p per kWh..
Durand D'souza FT were talking about how the cost to generate renewables was down to 5.7p/kWh and how it was trouncing other generation.
I know what you're referring to but that's not as simple as that. Generating costs are only one part of the equation. Costs of the electricity grid, investment in future renewables, paying down debt, etc, all of these add to final price. I feel like I'm just repeating myself but wholesale prices don't translate directly to household prices in the same way that oil prices don't translate to petrol prices at the pump. I'd guess that debt would be a large part of the extra costs because ecotricity and other green energy companies probably had to pay a lot more in the past for wind turbines/solar panels so despite current costs being low, they have the cumulative debts to pay for as well. If you look at the ecotricity business model, they tend to invest in new green energy with most of their revenue rather than just supply people with 100% renewables.
EDIT: I understand your confusion. I guess I misspoke earlier about it being one power station! Sorry.
I'm going to make some assumptions here.. and the biggest one is that the DC rapid charger is the equivalent to a supercharger. 30 minutes of charge being something like 180 miles.. ish.
6pounds is something like $8 US dollars.. or so. Correct me if either of these is inaccurate... but that seems a little steep.
What is it in Brittan for a standard level 2 charger? The usual going rate is basically $.50 per 20 miles of range.
Is your electricity also at a rate as high as your gasoline?
Addressing one other thing mentioned in the video about the supercharging being "So not free".. at a one time investment of $2,500.. that's only 315 charges at $8 a pop.. and that's not even for a full charge.
I've had my car a year. Admittedly I treated the supercharger as a way to meet other Tesla owners for the first 6 months.. so I charged at them more often then perhaps I have since.. but I would still say that I charge 40-50 times a year. So if I own the car 6 years.. that's my break even point.
I do intend to own my car longer than 6 years. Matter of fact at this point I intend to own my Tesla till the wheels fall off. And then put them back on again.
Would a one time model perhaps be something they might consider as a way to get working capital?
Is this usable without a smartphone?
I think do still need to adjust as 30 minutes does not provide 80% charge for many EVs such as Renault Zoe and Renault Kangoo so I think in effect Nissan drivers are already getting a benefit in comparison with Renault drivers
Why does nobody install a charger that can take payment via a credit / debit card? Its not difficult. The technology is out there on thousands of petrol pumps.
Your question about those who do not have smartphones wasn't answered though was it, Robert?
No it wasn't. I'm not a journalist, I failed and the comments here verify that, however I thought overall it did shine a light on some of the decisions Ecotricity made.
I don't think you failed at all Robert - you did ask the question! It was a *very* useful insight on a topic of considerable interest right now and I'm sure everyone thanks you for getting the interview. The matter of those without a smartphone, is however an important one in Ecotricity's plans. I guess we'll just wait and see what happens.
I really really hope they will build PHEV dedicated points as £6 for 30 miles is not worth it for us PHEV drivers, unless we are Ecotricity customers.
So what happened to the Nissan leaf deal ? its been a year and no deal that I know of.
A lot makes sense but no answer on the 'no smartphone' problem. Which as a non android/apple owner IS the problem.
Amazing technology for England
He didn't answer the smartphone question - what if you don't own one?
is that new Leaf a replacement for your original one?
maybe this interview should have been done at an earlier date, it makes a lot of sense.
That all makes sense, but still doesn't answer the question about people who don't have smart phones. I believe you can call them during the day, but you still have to have a mobile phone there.
As far as I know smartcards still work and are a backup option for you in case both your phone and car are out of juice.
+Veritas Vincit The RFID cards no longer work on the rapid chargers; they are only good for the original slower (22kW I think) charge points, which do still exist at some services alongside the bigger rapids.
You're right, it doesn't cover smart phones. But if you're technologically savvy enough to buy an EV, a push to buy a phone isn't pushing things too far is it?
I don't have a smart phone, and don't particularly want to have to get one and a data contract just for one app, and then have to update it every time the old one stops being supported. I don't have a tinfoil hat or anything, it's just a personal preference.
Your concerns are valid, however I think there are ways around them.
You can get a good smartphone for around £100. You can also get a lesser quality smartphone for £40, both will run the app just fine. Either way this is an initial cost higher than a RFID card.
You would not need a data contract. If you wish to use your mobile signal there are networks like '3' that offer pay as you go where its 1p per MB of data (2p per text and 3p per minute of phone call). Its unlikely the app will use 1MB of data so you will likely be paying 1p extra per charge. Once again it is an added cost, but not a huge one. Other networks are not as cheap but still less than a contract if you are only using the data to initiate car charging.
Although as he said they are planning on adding wifi hot spots to charging points (exclusively for use of the app). So when this is sorted there will be no need for data anyway. Equally if you have a tablet based device you could use the app on that using their wifi removing the need for a smartphone if a tablet is preferable.
My last phone which was a galaxy S2 lasted 4 years and 6 months before I updated to a new one. Equally just because your phone stops receiving software updates does not mean that you should get a new one. In the same way that most feature phones never receive a single software update in their entire life.
However personally I use unofficial updates when a phone stops receiving official updates since I am tech savvy enough to do so. But its not required.
Great guy