Bandersnatch

1 hour ago, VocalNeal said:

Just read that Formula E racing are looking at hydrogen fuel cells for the Gen4 car.
EVs may be an evolutionary dead end unless battery tech makes a huge leap soon.

I am currently charging my EV at home from my solar panels  - can't make Hydrogen at home

V2L vehicle-to-load

V2H vehicle-to-home 

V2G vehicle-to-grid

Coming to an EV near you soon.  

I have solar and home batteries but this month has been very wet and I have used 2 kWh (units) from PEA. If I had a 70kWh wheeled battery with V2L I could trickle  charge my home batteries on a particularly wet day. I don't have V2L currently but it will definitely be on my next EV

The deal I got was completely free servicing for 5 years. I have had one service so far and it cost nothing - they washed the car inside and out and left the car on a charger (for free).

At home I was able to monitor the state of charge on the app on my phone and when it had sufficient charge to get home I got a lift down to the dealer to pick the car up. 

I for one will never buy another ICE car and why would I as all new development is being put into EVs and not ICE:

Six major automakers — including Ford, Mercedes-Benz, General Motors and Volvo — and 30 national governments have pledged to phasing out sales of new gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles by 2040 worldwide, and by 2035 in “leading markets.”

No Price on the Thai website for Mercedes EQS that I could find

https://www.mercedes-benz.co.th/en/passengercars/mercedes-benz-cars/models/eqs/saloon-v297

I think the Chinese made BMW iX3 would probably be better value

55 minutes ago, JAS21 said:

For anyone interested Nick O’Leary has just released his Mercedes EQS  … basically … a first look and drive video.

 

For those who don’t watch his videos… they are easy to find on youtube.

This one?

9 hours ago, Klonko said:

Do you think it possible to open a separate thread for discussing  Thailand specific BEV and  related subjects such as charging at home and on the road without being highjacked by the fossils?

Great idea - if you make this very clear in the opening post we can all block the fossils and continue with the discussion without them 

As my profile picture attests. I am happily living in Thailand and driving a car powered by sunshine.

I am no longer going to waste my time fact checking anti EV/Renewable rubbish. Instead I will continue to block anyone who demonstrates that they are in fact an idiot   

43 minutes ago, Ralf001 said:

Full credit to the Chinese, this MG Cyberster concept is half decent, greenlit for production !!

 

You can reserve one here:

https://www.mgcars.com/th/Promotion/Detail/prestige-reservation

51 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

Yes, and the cost is so low the cost to the consumer has doubled and restrictions have to be implemented. How funny is that? 

 

But the intelligentsia love it, their end game is to get the hoi polloi out of cars and private homes. 

 

get the middle class out of cars and private homeshttps://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/11/you-need-to-make-350000-a-year-to-live-a-middle-class-lifestyle-today-heres-why.htmlqs=n - Search (bing.com)

 

Luckily most of us on this forum live in Thailand where ฿350,000 a year makes a middle class lifestyle eminently achievable

If the definition of intelligentsia is the ability to post an internet link correctly, then consider me a member. 

On 10/31/2021 at 11:47 AM, ThailandRyan said:

Sure go EV. Tell me how I charge it in my condo's parking garage where there are no chargers, and parking is first come first serve.  Even if there was a charging station some tool would park his/her car in the stall because it would be open.......now if it was assigned parking and the Juristic office would allow a charger to be placed into your stall, who would be paying for the power use as it would have to be wired separately to be charged to the stall owner. 

Agreed charging at Condos is difficult, but not impossible.

When I was on a condo committee in Thailand we received many requests from Condo owners and we always considered them on how they would impact the other owners and particularly what the financial impact would be. 

If I was was still living in a condo and wanted to charge my electric car I would make a proposal something like:

Owner agrees to pay for the wall charger, it's installation and maintenance

The wall charger becomes the property of the building when the owner sells his unit

The building can charge the owner double the MEA electricity rate plus B100/month admin fee

The owner gets a reserved parking space with his number plate clearly visible

There is ฿1,000 clamp release fee for anyone else parking in the spot (split 50:50 owner and building)

The building agrees to transfer any profits from the program into a sinking fund to be used for the upgrade of the common area electrical system

58 minutes ago, JustAnotherHun said:

So, If you want millions of EVs and even if you can produce enough electric power, then you first have to update your infrastructure.

Electricity infrastructure originally consisted of a few giant coal power plants producing all the power and stepping up the voltage to avoid power loss on the long journey to substations close to where it was going to be used, at which point the voltage was stepped down to a usable voltage for busines or household use.

The problems with this system are obvious:  - a break in the long distance cable or problem with the power plant plunges large parts of the country into darkness - just see what happens when it snows in Texas.

A micro-grid is a local grid, so if I am feeding power from my solar/home-batteries or EV back into the grid it is being used by my neighbours. Such a system is far more resilient and does not need a massive infrastructure upgrade.   

1 hour ago, JustAnotherHun said:

What it proves? If laughable 400k EVs are a danger to overstretch the system at peak hours, what will happen if there are millions?

In 2021 GB had more than 1.6 million new car registrations.

GB announced the end of burners for 2035 and BJ even came up with the plan to set the date to 2030.

That's what I would call  "act first, (maybe) think later"-politics.

 

At least, GB is not crazy enough to force the end of the conventional cars and simultaneous shut down the nuclear plants followed by all coal plants in the coming years, like the German brain athlets do. These idiots are driving the society straight to power-blackouts and think they fight the climate change by shutting down the plants and then importing the missing energy from France (nuclear) and Poland (old and dirty coal plants).

 

And who will pay the bill for this BS? It's not me, it's those on the lower end of the income range who do not know how to pay for their high priced electricity and how to afford an EV.

As previously stated  - I am an active member of EV forum in the UK and there is much discussion about the the best Time of Use Rates. EV owners are already charging over night when demand is low and supply is high, but that is only part of the way that EVs can help to stabilize the grid. As V2G (Vehicle to Grid) becomes more widespread that 80kWh battery sitting on your driveway or parked up at your office can be used to supply power back to grid at times of peak demand or charging up excess supply from the grid when it's cheap.  

If you want to know more about virtual power plants:

6 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

Are there not already Teslas in Thailand?

Private imports yes, but I am waiting for a more official arrangement 

Hundreds of Teslas waiting in shanghai for shipping overseas - how long before they start shipping to Thailand?

Back to EVs

Don't want to be seen driving a Chinese EV?

Then you could be leasing a BMW iX3 for ฿30,000 a month (It's made in China but the neighbours won't know that)

Let’s blame all the electricity price rises on renewables ????

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-30/europe-has-never-paid-so-much-for-power-as-2021-costs-hit-record

“Europe’s energy crunch was a result of shortages of natural gas just as demand rebounded following 2020’s lockdowns. The crisis was also aggravated by lower than normal wind speeds and nuclear power outages that have strained power grids, forcing the region’s energy companies to burn polluting fossil fuels”

1 hour ago, JustAnotherHun said:

Renewable energy is not a stable one you can count on.

One of the reasons for me installing an off-grid solar system was due to the number of brown-outs and black-outs experienced in rural Thailand. My experience is my solar system is far more stable and reliable than PEA here. 

I was challenged by the installer of my home charger who claimed (out of ignorance) that solar would damage the charger. I showed that PEA voltage fluctuated between 190-250v and my pure sine wave inverters produced a rock steady 220v.    

1 hour ago, JustAnotherHun said:

Promoting EVs in the existing infrastructure of most countries is a very good idea:

In GB from May 2022 on all new private charging stations will be disconnected from 8-11 am and 4-10pm.

Reason: They fear, the net will be overstrained by too many charging EVs at the same time.

GB now has about 400.000 EVs. What will happen, if there are a few millions?

Anybody wanting to read the background to this https://insideevs.com/news/537120/ev-chargers-switched-off-uk/

To quote from the article above:

"The government argues that the new legislation could help drivers of electric vehicles save money by pushing them to charge their EVs during off-peak night hours, when many energy providers offer “Economy 7” electricity rates that are far below the 17p ($0.23) per kWh average cost.

In the future, Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology is also expected to mitigate strains on the grid in combination with V2G-compatible smart chargers. Bi-directional charging will enable EVs to fill gaps in power when demand is high and then draw power back when demand is extremely low."

I am an active member of a UK based EV forum. The price of UK electricity has doubled over the last 10 years and is expected to increase by 50% in April. Many on the forum are considering adding solar and certainly everybody seems to be very aware of time or use rates so I doubt if it will be much of a problem as very few EV owners would be stupid enough to charge at peak rate prices.  

12 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

think solar is great, but the roof of that charging station would likely not provide enough current to quick-charge more than one car or two cars. 

In the report I quoted it states “Elon Musk said that Tesla plans to add solar and batteries to all Supercharger stations and eventually disconnect most of them from the grid.”

11 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

And once the $8.7B in EV charging stations are brought online, because these will be powered by fossil fuels, these will also be considered fossil fuel subsidies, yes? 

https://electrek.co/2021/04/27/tesla-power-all-superchargers-with-renewable-energy-this-year/

11 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

About 80% of the electricity in the US is generated using fossil fuels, yes? So I'm guessing about 80% of the power used to charge EVs come from fossil fuels.

Many EVs including mine are charged from solar