The entire system is flawed from beginning to end.  The exploitation of those mining the raw ingredients.  The costs both financially and environmentally to transport those materials vast distances to manufacturers and ongoing to the issue of disposal of spent materials including batteries.  And, of course, the electricity issue.  Sorry but I won't be persuaded that EV's is the world saviour.  It's a business involving gross political corruption and I will not be swayed.  A La the diesel project.

Posted by: @morgan

The entire system is flawed from beginning to end.  The exploitation of those mining the raw ingredients.  The costs both financially and environmentally to transport those materials vast distances to manufacturers and ongoing to the issue of disposal of spent materials including batteries.  And, of course, the electricity issue.  Sorry but I won't be persuaded that EV's is the world saviour.  It's a business involving gross political corruption and I will not be swayed.  A La the diesel project.

Whilst I wouldn't agree with you entirely, I can certainly see enough common ground to admit that there is a great deal of improvement that needs to be done.

Nonetheless, whether that's true or not, we are still faced with the choice between the devil we know of doing nothing (continue burning fossil fuels) and the devil we don't of moving to an alternative transport power source (EVs with all the political and exploitative issues that go with them or, of course, a new innovation that's yet to mature). It's not so much what's the right answer as much as choosing the least wrong.

I'm torn between the "Tesla future" which I want, and what I consider to be closer to reality - there's just not enough "Carbon budget" for everybody to achieve that future, in the way we make things now.  The UK doesn't consider upfront carbon much yet - but it should, and I think one day it will.  The CO2 cost of building my house(4 bed) is 2x a lifetime carbon budget now. All that brick and concrete adds up.  Some fancy new cars are a lifetime budget.  Treehugger has a good article:

TREEHUGGER.COM "https://www.treehugger.com/lifetime-carbon-budget-why-it-matters-5092738"

@majordennisbloodnok 

Biofuels.  The EV situation is a complete nonsense. Added to my previous comments, where is the diminishing tax revenue realised from petrol and diesel expected to come from? The EV situation and it’s future + present issues has either not been thought through sufficiently or, as I suspect, it has and therein lies the business/political criminality. 

Were I to come and stop over at your house how would you feel if I asked you in the morning for a tenner so I could get fuel to get home?  Because that will happen were I to turn up in my EV.  Sorry but nothing will convince me that EV’s is the way forward.

In the news earlier this week, parts of west London near Hillingdon have had to stop allowing new houses to be built because the electricity supply infrastructure is at 100% capacity. There just isn't enough electricity in the UK for widespread ownership of EVs and without a lot more power stations that ain't going to change any time soon.

@morgan just a note, we are using much less power than we were 10 years ago. Its the decentralised nature of the producers that's the issue. We peaked at 357 TWh of power in 2005, we are now down around 20% to 294 TWh. So don't believe anyone when we say the country cant handle some extra power. Weather isn't climate and one London borough does not reflect the country.

STATISTA.COM "https://www.statista.com/statistics/322874/electricity-consumption-from-all-electricity-suppliers-in-the-united-kingdom/"

UK electricity consumption 2024| Statista

The annual electricity consumption in the UK has declined over the past decades and amounted to 266 terawatt-hours in 2023.

@batalto

It is true that as a country we are consuming less electrical energy than before, but is that because much of our heavy industry has been shipped abroad?

Electrical distribution systems are designed using a diversification factor, which assumes that not every household will switch everything on at the same time. By encouraging everyone to have one or more EV's along with a large battery storage system, both of which they are being guided by price to switch on during a 4 hour period over night, then I suspect this could create an overload problem in more than one area.

I think we may need someone in the decision making process that has more than a sprinkling of common sense. 

Posted by: @derek-m

@batalto

It is true that as a country we are consuming less electrical energy than before, but is that because much of our heavy industry has been shipped abroad?

Electrical distribution systems are designed using a diversification factor, which assumes that not every household will switch everything on at the same time. By encouraging everyone to have one or more EV's along with a large battery storage system, both of which they are being guided by price to switch on during a 4 hour period over night, then I suspect this could create an overload problem in more than one area.

I think we may need someone in the decision making process that has more than a sprinkling of common sense. 

Between 2010 and 2021 according to statistics on gov.uk

Commercial down 17%

Domestic down 8%

Industrial down 19%

EVs are the answer to transportation solution (better to cycle or walk or public transit). 
But as we decarbonise the grid (uk only has one standby coal power station near Nottingham) with more solar and wind, so things get better. With V2G we can use EVs to balance the grid. H2 has a place in decarbonisation, but not heating or vehicles. Bio fuel is an energy non-starter - it takes too much energy to make the fuel and hence cost. So better to use the electricity in an EV. 

See you at Fully Charged Live Friday 28th April 23 to discuss 

Posted by: @transparent

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...

When I investigated VW's strategy at the end of 2021 it was clear that they were developing their own software system to control distributed storage. Ie theirs is a rival to the generic grid-connected storage control architectures being developed by Kaluza (OVO) and Octopus.

I think that approach is fundamentally flawed. Any house needs to have all its smart grid-connected devices controlled by a single universal control algorithm. Without that you can have electric storage radiators or storage batteries being switched on in response to a signal from a Time-of-Use tariff contract. Yet simultaneously, VW could then tell your ID3/ID4 to 'export to the grid'.

...

Fast forwarding two years and we're now in a position where we already have that single control; a home automation system. Everything else we've got related to "smart home" is integrated to a greater or lesser extent with, in our case, Home Assistant.

Which brings us to car chargers. Does anyone know which car chargers have integrations available for Home Assistant? Even better, is there some form of EV charger equivalent to Modbus that an HA integration could link in with? I have heard about OCPP but not seen anything tying it with any of the charging points available in the UK. From our point of view, something that can be controlled by a home automation system is going to be far preferable to something with a fully-featured app.

There is a Home Assistant integration for Myenergi's Zappi, Major.

Posted by: @ianmk13

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There is a Home Assistant integration for Myenergi's Zappi, Major.

Thanks, @ianmk13. I've also found there's an integration for Wallbox devices as well. However, both provide their functionality through the manufacturers' APIs rather than allowing some form of local access. If that's the only alternative that's not a deal-breaker but I'd prefer local control.

Nonetheless, any more manufacturers I can add to the list of potentially integratable solutions will only widen my and my wife's choice.