Random EV thoughts.....

Well their hearts in the right place, and there's been a few people on this forum asking about EVs that can be modified for wheelchair users

If if we're eventually going to all be driving electric, then it's a bridge that will need to be crossed at some point

There does need to be a bit more thinking applied though. AC chargers like the ones pictured are probably straightforward enough, but imagine someone with a walker and arthritic hands trying to plug in a heavy cable from a HPC.

You'd want some kind of crane mechanism like Kempower to hold the weight of the cable

I just think with such a scare resource (with a blue badge holder in the family) of the wheelchair spots shouldnt be further constrained with having some only for while charging too. The subset of blue badge holders with EVs is quite small. We're one! So it's actually to our benefit to have these spots as if policed correctly they will likely always be free. but that's not the point.

I wonder if we're coming at it from the wrong viewpoint, it could be said the space is primarily a disabled parking bay and a charging bay second

I like that Aldi are trying, but I agree that the main issue is that chargers are a scarce resource.

I mean they could put 8 HPC spaces in the car park, and just ensure that there's enough space around all the parking bays for a wheelchair users.

Maybe put some signage up on a couple of chargers indicating people should let a blue badge holder go first, and possibly have a call button so that a driver with mobility issues could ask a staff member to help them plug in

Tbh, if I had mobility issues I'd question the usefulness of a 7kW AC charger at a shop. They're barely useful for most people anyway

When someone who has to treat moving around as a limited resource, I'm not sure grabbing 10kWh or so from a weekly shop is going to be worth the hassle

This is the spot. I'm not sure of the legalities of parking where the little jeep is and running your cable from there.

I would say you wouldn't be operating in the spirit of the rules even if you're not exactly breaking them

Again, I question the usefulness of the spot in that picture. IIRC that car park is more used for some overnight parking so I guess it's useful for anyone in the apartments that doesn't have a home charger.

Basically useless for anyone visiting though. I assume parking is free if you have a disabled sticker on your car?

I'm the same. I'd do without rather than use it. Again I'm not sure of the legalities but it would be bad form to use it, unless you parked where the jeep was and sat in your vehicle incase someone disabled did need it!!

I think disabled ev charging spaces absolutely have a place

It would be shameful for us to leave them to the very end, life is hard enough being disabled without our new energy transition making the mistakes of the past.

I would go a step further and say these ac spots should be tethered with a supported cable from above that can be used from wheelchair height.

True, but there also needs to be industry support as well, particularly around DC chargers which I think are more critical.

I would say that many chargers were not tested for accessibility during design. Even the screens look like they're too high to be used by someone in a wheelchair

So there needs to be some accessible design standards applied here.

I would even say that inductive charging could be an answer here, since it doesn't require any cables

Lots of EV news getting published recently

Looks like Volvo are giving customers the option of AC or DC V2L on the EX90

11kW V2L in either AC or DC mode. I'm guessing the 11kW in AC is 3 phase, so in reality it's 3.6kW for most applications. Still plenty for most uses IMO

Could be a winning formula I think, looking forward to seeing more

In other news, get ready for the fines...

I imagine several EU states will veto this plan, but the EU parliament definitely seems to have the idea that charging networks are critical to EV rollout

And finally, boat...

I know it's a rendering, but somehow they've managed to make a car ferry look cool. Interesting that the ferry will be remote piloted with the crew as backup.

I'm guessing the range will only be a few kilometres, but if it manages to take a few wasteful diesels off the water then it's good news to me

small point of clarification its not diesel its bunker fuel, up until recently it would have been Intermediate fuel oil (380), its now mandated to be low sulphur, but the stuff is literally sludge, you can only imagine how polluting it is,

there is a push towards LNG in the industry

from wiki:

"Because of the low quality of bunker fuel, when burnt it is especially harmful to the health of humans, causing serious illnesses and deaths. Prior to the IMO's 2020 sulfur cap, shipping industry air pollution was estimated to cause around 400,000 premature deaths each year, from lung cancer and cardiovascular disease, as well as 14 million childhood asthma cases each year.[4]

Even after the introduction of cleaner fuel rules in 2020, shipping air pollution is still estimated to account for around 250,000 deaths each year, and around 6.4 million childhood asthma cases each year.

The hardest hit countries by air pollution from ships are China, Japan, the UK, Indonesia, and Germany. In 2015, shipping air pollution killed an estimated 20,520 people in China, 4,019 people in Japan, and 3,192 people in the UK.[5]

According to an ICCT study, countries located on major shipping lanes are particularly exposed, and can see shipping account for a high percentage of overall deaths from transport sector air pollution. In Taiwan, shipping accounts for 70% of all transport-attributable air pollution deaths in 2015, followed by Morocco at 51%, Malaysia and Japan both at 41%, Vietnam at 39%, and the UK at 38%.[6]

As well as commercial shipping, cruise ships also emit large amounts of air pollution, damaging people's health. The ships of the single largest cruise company, Carnival Corporation & plc, emit ten times more sulfur dioxide than all of Europe's cars combined.[7]"

Interesting fact, the bunker fuel is so bad that it doesn't flow, it's like tar in consistency. They need to preheat the fuel before it'll even combust

Now it's worth saying that bunker fuel tends to be favoured by cargo ships. They sort of plod along at the same speed and so they can use bunker fuel efficiently

Well, when I said efficient, I mean cheap, not as in good fuel efficiency

Ships that operate at more variable speeds like ferries and cruise ships often use low grade diesel or gas

Or electricity, which looks to be gaining popularity among the short range routes

True, unfortunately we're a bit far from big ships yet. They'll probably have to use hydrogen for anything with more than 100km range

But, we're getting closer every day

The ulysess has a flyer onboard advertising the amount of marine diesel it uses per round trip as if its actually proud of it.

Couldn't believe it when I seen it earlier this year.

And yeah the slow ferry belching out smoke was mad to see.

We cruise with NCL and any ships we've been on are diesel electric.

I think you got the acronyms confused. Is it BIK you think of?

So the VRT relief is due to expire at the end of next year is up to 5k for cars with Open Market Selling Price up to 40k and reduced up to 50k. Zero above that.

Open Market Selling Price is determined by Revenue and not necessarily the price on the invoice.