Cars (all fuels and electric)

Graham wrote:

but there is no way that public chargers in the rest of Europe are on average ‘filling’ up EVs in 20-60 mins.

Then make it happen. That’s the main difference here!

The statistics for Norway shows that each EV on average uses 2560 kWh per year. That’s roughly 7 kWh per day, or 0.3 kW on average continuously when charged at home. Let’s look at what this means for the UK (even though the in Norway the average person would use the car more due to longer distances and poor collective transport)

According to google there are 33 million cars in the UK. Let’s say every single one of those by a miracle became EVs over night. 0.3 kW times 33 million is 9.9 GW. That’s what would be needed in terms of power in total. This is 6-7 normal sized nuclear reactors, or 2-3 plants.

A typical modern EV can fast charge at about 120 kW (giving 500 km in 30-40 minutes). But, as explained, this would be needed only max 5% of all charging. This means the slow charging would be reduced to 9.4 GW and 0.5 GW for fast charging. Now, fast charging could of course peek much more than 0.5 GW, but typically no more than 3 times. This means that the entire UK car fleet can switch to electric by installing a base load of 9.4 GW and 1.5 GW of faster acting power.

Norway with it’s 5.5 million citizens has 40 GW of installed electric power, so 10 GW spread out on 70 million is nothing. It’s 143 watt per person, more like the consumption of a PC.

Obviously the entire fleet will not switch over just like that. It will take time, and a large percentage will never switch over. Some will install private solar panels, some will insulate, some will install heat pumps (real ones, not the UK toys ) and so on. Much less than 10 GW would be needed. Perhaps nothing, perhaps only 1 GW, who knows. But no matter how you look at it, it’s peanuts in the big picture, and certainly no more difficult in the UK than in Norway or Sweden or Finland or Iceland or ….

Emir wrote:

Living in Norway and traveling in 200 km circle is scenario for any technology works. Of course you didn’t take in account the scenario I described, a person traveling from Germany (or Netherlands or Sweden which is pretty common in summer) to Croatia (or Italy or wherever 1000+ km) trying to reach destination with modest infrastructure (or at least not able to facilitate two times more traffic) without 3 to 5 one-hour long stops.

It was more than 500 km travel. A very typical scenario here. It could easily be 1000 km (not with my car at the moment, but a newer one), it doesn’t matter. The point was that charging infrastructure existed at the parking lot at the hotel, I didn’t need to stop at a fast charger. Besides, my home county, a small part in the middle of Norway has about the same area as the entire Croatia. You can drive all over Croatia without charging. 1000 km is one or two charges for a modern EV. In all honesty, I couldn’t care less about people feeling sorry for themselves because they have to stop for an hour and charge their Tesla. Like that hour was the end of the world for them. I mean please.

Emir wrote:

It’s easy to forget how poor Norway was before oil was found.

Ha Before oil, Norway was one of the leading shipping nations in the world. Lots of money from shipping, and ships were built all over the coast. With oil came easy money, which also has replaced almost all of the shipping industry along with most other industry as well – for oil industry, and made us lazy at the same time The surplus money from oil is invested in funds, almost nothing is spent. 150-200 years ago Norway was a poor nation, so poor that 1/3 of the population emigrated to North America, but that’s a long time ago.

The oil fund can be seen here.

Graham wrote:

because even with all the EV advantages you enjoy in Norway my ICE vehicle is still much more capable than your EV and costs me much less overall. :-)

Certainly not! At the moment I pay 0.0026 € per kWh Tomorrow I will pay on average 0.0017 per kWh

This discussion is not going anywhere it seems. Let’s conclude that the UK is habited by a race of Hobbits that refuses to change their habits even though the entire world around them is in free fall (well, unless cornered into a very tine spot). “Stay on path, never walk alone” (I’m in the midst of watching the Ring of Power series on Prime TV. The resemblance simply cannot be coincidental )

Graham wrote:

I’m more likely to conclude that you’re being rude, and it’s pretty well known why people resort to rudeness when debating.

I was trying to be funny actually (and end this fruitless conversation with self proclaimed naysayers from my part at least, for some time)

But, lets look at your arguments, for decency sake:

Graham wrote:

1. Unlimited space (nearly everyone can charge at home)
2. Hardly any people (what does have to be done, in terms of infrastructure, is very small scale)
3. Unlimited money (you just pay whatever it costs without having to think about whether the money would be better spent elsewhere).

No, we do not have unlimited space. Land in rural areas is very expensive. Flat, fertile land is mostly untouchable due to laws about farming. It has something to do with self sufficiency, similar to Switzerland. 80% of the land is mountains and stone and woods. Not somewhere people usually live. It’s very expensive to build roads and infrastructure here. At many places it is impossible, and we have to drill/blast through mountains. Almost everyone can charge at home because this is how we want it to be. That’s the reason, and there is nothing more to add. Those chargers I posted a while back from Oslo, don’t just grow up from the earth by themselves.

We are 5.5 million that has to share the cost of infrastructure many times higher per capita than the UK, due to distances and terrain, and weather not the least.

We certainly do not have unlimited money. We have money – yes, but as everybody else, we think about how to spend it. Hence the oil fund. And that’s the whole point. Do you want to spend money on the past, or on the future? Or do you want to spend it nonsense? Norwegians are deep down extremely opportunistic. Inherited through millennia of fishing, whaling and shipping, I’m sure. Where there is a big catch, we go for it, no hesitation. But at the same time we are also one big family, far north, all alone in the world. Often called the last Lenin state Like a big fishing village is perhaps a good description Very similar to Iceland, perhaps also Ireland, Scotland, don’t know. Sweden and Denmark are similar (same language after all, more or less, and the same basic culture), but where Swedes have a much higher nag of building “stone by stone”, Norwegians would rather go “all in” if there’s an opportunity in the horizon. But I mean, people are people after all, we are all different.

I’m sorry if I don’t take your arguments more seriously. I just don’t. It’s about priorities. Creating a “EV society” is peanuts compared with other stuff like school, health, train, aviation, public roads, electric grid. It’s a low hanging fruit. Low cost, all R&D is done, or is being done. The entire concept can piggyback on existing infrastructure with minimum of changes, and the cost is in large part taken by each individual (for whatever personal reason that may be). This is no different in UK.