Inspired by Insiders and Michalea Cash it occurred to me that an electric Ute would be a perfect tradies vehicle. Jaguar/LandRover have already figured they make great four wheel drive platforms for cross country gear, strong torque motors for carrying around gear, cheaper to run and maintain and will probably get some government subsidies.

But the killer for me was tradies usually carry around generators anyway for remote location work, and even if working in a powered area they usually run a lead out from the house to run gear, that’s an eight hour day of free fuel…

And the beauty part, tradies have shed loads of battery powered gear, a car is just one more, and with a bit of smart design you could have your Ute recharge your batteries whilst you drive between jobs or even run tools by plugging them into the Ute.

In short for for a tradie around the suburbs an electric Ute would be perfect.

>>Inspired by Insiders and Michalea Cash <<

I hadn’t seen that footage. She is shrill, isn’t she. And Morrison stood behind her smirking.

>In short for for a tradie around the suburbs an electric Ute would be perfect.

I too reckon probably would be

electricity’s always been sort of perfect though, really, hasn’t it. Apart from when something breaks, but it’s always been magic enough, and reliable enough, to grow fond of.

it’s a Borg love that’s expanding across the globe, out into space too.

Yeah, there are lots of plusses for electric utes for tradies. Even the higher initial cost isn’t a huge problem, with costs distributed over the vehicle working life.

Just needs someone to start selling them really. (Plus some charging stations would be handy).

The Rev Dodgson said:

Yeah, there are lots of plusses for electric utes for tradies. Even the higher initial cost isn’t a huge problem, with costs distributed over the vehicle working life.

Just needs someone to start selling them really. (Plus some charging stations would be handy).

Yes, manufacturers need to get together on a shared socket design. In one of my car mags a long term car test is London talked about the many problems of different protocols at charging stations and how the card payment systems aren’t shared so you might find a compatible charger but not have an account with that company. Also the problem of finding cars unattended and charging forcing you to go to another station.

That latter problem I think can be easily fixed, at the moment it seems to be one charge station per car, a simple redesign might have a single charger at the centre of two adjacent parking bays so it can charge four cars at once. Wouldn’t take much for supermarkets to plumb that into existing car parks and have another revenue stream.

The infrastructure certainly needs to be sorted out and it’s probably more difficult than just throwing some chargers around. A fast/supercharger uses a shitload of power and four of them together is going to take about half a megawatt of power to run. Start putting a heap of those around the place and the electrical backbone becomes insufficient.

sibeen said:

The infrastructure certainly needs to be sorted out and it’s probably more difficult than just throwing some chargers around. A fast/supercharger uses a shitload of power and four of them together is going to take about half a megawatt of power to run. Start putting a heap of those around the place and the electrical backbone becomes insufficient.

I wonder what the ratios are of people charging at home overnight and those supercharging during the day at service stations. There might already be some stats from locales where electric vehicles are already prevalent.

AwesomeO said:

Wouldn’t take much for supermarkets to plumb that into existing car parks and have another revenue stream.

My local shopping centre has a couple of charging stations set up in the car park.

Never had a close look at them because I don’t have an electric car of course.

Agree with you on the tradie utes though, I can see an electric car becoming a power station for running tools, like a dropsaw or welder on site.

sibeen said:

The infrastructure certainly needs to be sorted out and it’s probably more difficult than just throwing some chargers around. A fast/supercharger uses a shitload of power and four of them together is going to take about half a megawatt of power to run. Start putting a heap of those around the place and the electrical backbone becomes insufficient.

probably true, and I notice (not that i’ve seen) nobody’s talking about the efficiency losses from fast charging shitloads of batteries.

sibeen said:

The infrastructure certainly needs to be sorted out and it’s probably more difficult than just throwing some chargers around. A fast/supercharger uses a shitload of power and four of them together is going to take about half a megawatt of power to run. Start putting a heap of those around the place and the electrical backbone becomes insufficient.

I thought the reason that our power prices have gone through the roof was that we were paying you lot to upgrade the grid to del with all this stuff? :)

I guess you’d see a shift toward cafe/recharge stations for electric vehicles. If they take 20 minutes to recharge then sit and have a coffee while you wait. Maybe a haircut or get your nails done.

party_pants said:

I guess you’d see a shift toward cafe/recharge stations for electric vehicles. If they take 20 minutes to recharge then sit and have a coffee while you wait. Maybe a haircut or get your nails done.

I see it going another way, charging stations where people already park cars. I get what Sibeen is saying but if you are going to be a charging business you don’t want to get involved in hair dressing and coffee shops, you scope out where people are already parking and put them there.

party_pants said:

I guess you’d see a shift toward cafe/recharge stations for electric vehicles. If they take 20 minutes to recharge then sit and have a coffee while you wait. Maybe a haircut or get your nails done.

Whooaa, twenty minutes. Ever time you shorten the recharge time you increase the upstream infrastructure requirements. Tesla superchargers take about an hour on their S model according to the internets.

one of the biggest problems will be all the overhead lines sagging, you know you’ll be able to reach up and grab them.

sibeen said:

party_pants said:

I guess you’d see a shift toward cafe/recharge stations for electric vehicles. If they take 20 minutes to recharge then sit and have a coffee while you wait. Maybe a haircut or get your nails done.

Whooaa, twenty minutes. Ever time you shorten the recharge time you increase the upstream infrastructure requirements. Tesla superchargers take about an hour on their S model according to the internets.

I thought they were talking about 8 minute rechargers the other day.

AwesomeO said:

party_pants said:

I guess you’d see a shift toward cafe/recharge stations for electric vehicles. If they take 20 minutes to recharge then sit and have a coffee while you wait. Maybe a haircut or get your nails done.

I see it going another way, charging stations where people already park cars. I get what Sibeen is saying but if you are going to be a charging business you don’t want to get involved in hair dressing and coffee shops, you scope out where people are already parking and put them there.

I’d be concerned at the security aspect of leaving my car unattended on the charger like that in a public place.

I guess I’d go for a slow overnight charger at home in the garage as the primary recharging point, and only use the servo type fast recharge if I was going on a long trip or feared getting caught short.

party_pants said:

sibeen said:

party_pants said:

I guess you’d see a shift toward cafe/recharge stations for electric vehicles. If they take 20 minutes to recharge then sit and have a coffee while you wait. Maybe a haircut or get your nails done.

Whooaa, twenty minutes. Ever time you shorten the recharge time you increase the upstream infrastructure requirements. Tesla superchargers take about an hour on their S model according to the internets.

I thought they were talking about 8 minute rechargers the other day.

People can talk a lot of shit. An eight minute charger could easily be built, that’s really trivial. Engineering the thermal management of the batteries to remain within tolerances during the recharge cycle that’s hard, but doable.

Putting in the upstream infrastructure capable of providing the power – well that’s not a car manufacturers problem.

Above is a photo of a stock standard 315 kVA transformer which are fairly ubiquitous around the suburbs. If we had an electric vehicle with a 100 kWh battery and we wanted to charge it in 8 minutes we’d require 750 kW of supply, excluding losses; so even two of those transformers couldn’t supply enough power.

The idea is that you charge the vehicle overnight at home, then whenever you park during the day (supermarket, etc) you plug in and ‘top up’ the battery. This top-up time can be quite short and you are then unlikely to be caught with a flat battery.

sibeen said:

party_pants said:

sibeen said:

Whooaa, twenty minutes. Ever time you shorten the recharge time you increase the upstream infrastructure requirements. Tesla superchargers take about an hour on their S model according to the internets.

I thought they were talking about 8 minute rechargers the other day.

People can talk a lot of shit. An eight minute charger could easily be built, that’s really trivial. Engineering the thermal management of the batteries to remain within tolerances during the recharge cycle that’s hard, but doable.

Putting in the upstream infrastructure capable of providing the power – well that’s not a car manufacturers problem.

Above is a photo of a stock standard 315 kVA transformer which are fairly ubiquitous around the suburbs. If we had an electric vehicle with a 100 kWh battery and we wanted to charge it in 8 minutes we’d require 750 kW of supply, excluding losses; so even two of those transformers couldn’t supply enough power.

So what we really need is an alternative liquid fuel derived from renewable sources?
Or better still a direct plug-in diesel, kerosene or gasoline fuel refined from some source that is not a fossil fuel.

Home would be the preferred option for convenience and also, from what I read, the fast recharges (and discharges) are not good for battery life.

In 1808, François Isaac de Rivaz designed the first car powered by an internal combustion engine fueled by hydrogen.

Why wouldn’t the supermarket (or whatever) have an onsite storage facility? They could collect power from the grid during offpeak times and distribute it back out to recharge cars during opening hours? That way there is less infrastructure upgrades needed, plus the supermarket has a backup powersupply on site.

I’m not sure localised solar panel systems are up to the task, but this would be a way to minimise infrastructure upgrades as well.