UK's first electric vehicle battery recyling plant?

[Stuart]

Thought this might be of interest to some - Veolia in plans for EV battery recycling plant

[Richard (OldStager)]

Well something had to be done, but I still have my reservations on how the UK is going to roll out the full infrastructure for EV's to be able to function as an ICE one does. Many houses in my street alone have no off road parking, so how will they charge up over night etc. And then you have the folks in high rises, going to have to link a fair few extensions leads together if you live on the top floor...

😗

Time will tell I guess.

[Kit Car Electronics]

Why would everyone need to charge at home though? We don't fill with liquid fuel at home normally? 

[Richard (OldStager)]

No, but it does not take you an hour or more to refuel though does it, recharging from home makes far more sense given it will charge  ( at hopefully ) cheap rates overnight, unless you plug in at your local charge centre and walk home...

[Richard (OldStager)]

Only applies to new builds, but it's a start at least.

https://www.which.co.uk/news/2021/11/new-homes-in-england-to-have-electric-car-chargers-by-law/

 

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

1 hour ago, OldStager said:

Well something had to be done, but I still have my reservations on how the UK is going to roll out the full infrastructure for EV's to be able to function as an ICE one does. Many houses in my street alone have no off road parking, so how will they charge up over night etc. And then you have the folks in high rises, going to have to link a fair few extensions leads together if you live on the top floor...

😗

Time will tell I guess.

Not just high rises. Opposite me, is a block of nice apartments, three story, built on three sides of a large communal car park area in the middle. It is a private car park for residents, with allocated spots, but I dread to think of the disturbance and cost, when such spots need to be dug up to fit charging points to the bays.

 

Then there’s the mass of housing stock in the UK, that has no off street parking, just none controlled/allocated curb side parking.

 

Charging else where will work for some, but there’s a large number for whom it won’t. It doesn’t help over the last decade+ that businesses have often reduced the amount of car parking spots for employees that could possibly have points fitted, thanks to various money/tax grabs.

[Kit Car Electronics]

2 hours ago, OldStager said:

No, but it does not take you an hour or more to refuel though does it, recharging from home makes far more sense given it will charge  ( at hopefully ) cheap rates overnight, unless you plug in at your local charge centre and walk home...

It did take an hour or more during the recent fuel shortages, yes 🙂. Even at commercial charge station prices (which will become more competitive) it's cheaper than petrol/diesel and typical charge times will reduce to below 30mins for most people

[Mark (smokey mow)]

4 hours ago, OldStager said:

Only applies to new builds, but it's a start at least.

https://www.which.co.uk/news/2021/11/new-homes-in-england-to-have-electric-car-chargers-by-law/

 

It also applies to the conversion of existing buildings, non-residential buildings as well as dwellings but there’s a lot of exemptions in the regulations.

 

 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1040938/ADS.pdf

[Rhett Turner - Black Country AO]

On 14/01/2022 at 19:09, Kit Car Electronics said:

typical charge times will reduce to below 30mins for most people

That will only apply to the very latest tech in the top of the range cars in the short term. My wife now has an i3 and my understanding is the best that could do the 20-80% charge in is 2 and a half hours. That's not an issue for us as it's a second car (though it's the one that get's used the most now) so charging away from home is not something we've had to do yet. Charging times aside when we've undertaken longer journeys since having it I've looked at what changing has been available when we've stopped off or at the destination and any charging points we could use have either been occupied or out of order so we'd have been stuck has we been driving an EV. If I was looking to replace my (ICE) car at the moment, I'd only consider Tesla at the moment as their charging infrastructure seems to be sufficient to allow long distance journeys to happen with out too much effort.

[Kit Car Electronics]

Yes, infrastructure needs enormous investment, but it will come. 

 

The most significant new VW MEB platform already supports 125kW charging rates where available, so 30-40min 20-80% charge

 

https://pod-point.com/guides/vehicles/volkswagen/2020/id-3

[Richard (OldStager)]

Not that I have looked into this, but are full electric cars still road tax free - they used to be I think. So what maybe needs to happen is that the cars are now taxed, and that cash goes straight into building the network that is plainly needed. Having said that, the Gov don't exactly have a good track record in distributing all the tax from cars and maintaining what we have already.

[Nemesis]

With regard to infrastructure and a subtle lack of vision from the nanny state.... I worked for ten years putting Bradwell power station into a state of care and maintenance (C&M), they spent an outrageous amount of money putting the power supply transformer outside the perimeter fence, to allow easy access for the power companies maintainers, so no support required from Magnox. Great idea, the place will be in C&M for at least 50 years before any attempt at final site clearance, have a wild stab in the dark at guessing how many EV charge points were installed ??

 

Nem......    

[Richard (OldStager)]

Wild guess - None.

 

Having worked on sites requiring onsite power, I would have said it serves things like power supplies for tools, lighting etc.

 

There is also the current requirements in the supply of electric recharging for cars, can our power stations actually meet the demand of this given most folks who have at-home charging facilities will more than likely all plug them in as soon as they get home at 6pm?. Then you come onto what powers the power stations, coal, nuclear. As far as I am aware they all need to generate steam in order to turn the turbines which in turn generates electric, hardly green if a coal powered station then goes onto charge an electric car.

[Blatman]

On 17/01/2022 at 14:48, Kit Car Electronics said:

Yes, infrastructure needs enormous investment, but it will come. 

 

I am reminded of how long it has taken to electrify the railways. It's been a century and they're not finished yet...

 

Quote

 It means that 6,045km of Britain’s railways are now electrified, equivalent to 37.9% of the country’s railways.

 

From https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/sluggish-reality-of-electrifying-britains-railways-revealed-15-10-2021/

 

Do we think the electrical infrastructure for cars will be easier and quicker than for railways? I can't see it...

[Richard (OldStager)]

I can’t see it either, no difference to me be it cars or trains, same electric same cables,same supply.

There was a chap on a motorbike YT channel ( apparently electric bikes are a thing these days as well), that said the Gov are leaving the infrastructure down to either private companies or individuals, certainly seems like that to me so far.