Battery Vehicle Society

Looking forward to it. I live in London - if we can get some people together at the end of the BLFCC it would be great.

Hi Kevin,
I had a chat with a couple of our facilities management chaps today and they are quite keen on the idea and have suggested it might be well received by their manager. That probably means it will go on an agenda for a future meeting but it could be the foot in the door.
I will try and make a direct contact and give him your website info after my Easter break.

I'm happy to report that we are making good progress with our Charge Points Everywhere project. ZCW have announced that the first six UK locations are live and have another fifty in the works.

ZCW Charging Stations provide two or three 'dumb' sockets for simultaneous charging at 13A and 32A (for vehicles that support it). They do not require access cards and the electricity is usually free in return for payment to eat, sleep, park, shop, etc.

Here's a TATA Cableo on charge at the Arden Hotel, Birmingham (ideal for a visit to the NEC);

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.117632898325044.30513.115422645212736

If you can identify suitable Hotels/B&B/Restaurants/Pubs/Other in the locations that you wish to visit then we can try donating ZCW Charging Stations to them and help solve the charging point 'problem' for the benefit of all

Here's the latest map showing ZCW, Tesla, and Third Party sites that support 32A public charging and above;

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?hl=en&safe=off&ie=UTF8&vps=2&msa=0&msid=217609707011992405499.0004a29b337e08ab9c3cc&mpnum=3&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=13.857722,28.256836

We have set ourselves the goal of delivering 1,000 sites by June 2012 and appreciate any help that you can offer.

Coming on nicely, hopefully the lead I passed your way will add to it.

ChrisB

Not long ago my local council wanted to install 400 charge points for £4M.
Yes, you heard right.... £100,000 a socket.
http://www.wigantoday.net/news/eco_car_ ... _1_1704807

So I guess this, by a private firm in a Wigan rooftop car park cost £200,000?
http://www.grand-arcade.co.uk/news-item.asp?id=9

And to help force the issue from the council:
http://www.wigantoday.net/news/taxi_dri ... _1_3279646

As you see, there is no single National database or body of people that actively search, look find and add any and all public (and camping) charge points.

Andrew

Must admit that does seem crazy money, although depending on what they are using and how they are installing them then the costs for public on street points is huge.
Just getting a Supply Authority connection can cost thousands and diggin the road up isnt cheap and then the intellegent posts arnt cheap on their own but then they need to comply with loads of safety issues etc plus all the back office to run the system again chews up the pennies.

Regarding the whole infrastructure side of things, the problem is its still very early days, think back to the early mobile phones, they cost massive amounts and the call charges where huge and you where locked into one network and even today while it is possible to roam between networks its not encouraged, although the phones and call charges have dropped considerabley.

Given time I can see there will be two systems, you will have the likes of Kevins Zero Carbon free charge points at hotels and pubs etc bit like the free wifi we find now, and then there will be pay versions in the high street and carparks which will be owned by several different operators and to start with there will be the whole issue, similar to the old mobile phone thing as to which operator do you join, the one with the more points in your area or the one with the country wide scheme etc, over time the whole thing will join up and end up almost becoming a PAYG type system I reckon, with you being able to "roam" between operators although if your not on your regular one you will end up having to pay a little more for the right to use it.

Thats how I see it going, but I am looking upwards of 10years or more into the future (you heard it hear first )

ChrisB

Actually Chris. What's stopping the council from simply trepanned a hole in the side of a steel lampost then installing a socket or two? The infrastructure is there already. If the police were truly lawful and above board they would of rounded up those who announced this attempt and arrested them on charges of attempted fraud.

If I could charge £100,000 a socket for 15 minutes work you'll not see me in England ever again after a week.

As goes electric use. Many 'Pod Point' are in free parking locations. Never in the suburbs; the major worry would be the Vietnamese cannabis growers who might hijack the supply to grow their weed in those rented properties. If a car has a digital key on connection to a supply, it can be cloned so that might never take off.

Been asked about the lamp post thing loads of times

Cant work for several reasons, firstly the supply just isnt big enough, remember a street light is between 35-250watts so you can imagine what the size of cable and connections are like, an EV will draw upwards of 3000watts so its a non starter on that account, secondly most steetlights are on un-metered supplys which have special licences to allow this, sadly you cant just go hanging any old stuff on un-metered supplies.

TBH its not 15mins work to install a Charge point on the highway, there are many things you need to do before you even start, from a road opening notices (just to dig a hole) then you can only do that if you have a streetworks ticket, not to mention several other tickets that allow you to work on the highway and thats before you've even got the local supply authority envolved to lay on a supply to a metered feeder pillar etc etc

Putting anything on the highway takes a lot of doing these days, it might look simple but believe me when I say its not and it costs a lot of money

All the intelligent charge points now are fitted with the new industry standard high frequency RFD keys which are similar to your oyster card or other card type near field device and the encyption is pretty hard to break these days, it can be interfered with but its very hard to replicate. Infact a lot of bank cards now have NFD chips embedded into them to allow you to make small purchases just by waving it over a reader, one of the reasons intelligent charge posts mounted on the highway and public carparks are used to stop people using them when they are not entitled to


ChrisB

C'mon Chris! The mains supply to the posts and the wires feeding them are not 325 Watts. The overall bill is still paid for by the taxpayer at any level of supply..

Sure, the council will make a meal out of everything they do so in their accounts those few percents "lost" or clawed back from fixed price contracts through many sources amount to one heck of a Christmas party.

No wonder we're sinking fast as a nation on wealth stakes where we can't fit a socket for less than the cost of a Tesla, taxes paid, insured and on the road.

As goes charging costs. It takes 5.5KWH of Electricity to obtain, process and deliver a gallon of fuel. Give that 5.5KWH away directly to the vehicle instead and the middle man will have his nose pushed out. Aiding our balance of payments to such an extent, giving the juice away is actually making a profit to the Nation!

But we cannot expect any politician to understand something as simple as this nor dare speak of it..