This Site Just Got A MAJOR EV Charging Upgrade!

[@JoeAcarnley]

Thanks Dave. I enjoy all of your blogs and I find them very useful as I got my first ev back in September 2024 on a 74 plate and still rather new to the understanding on how EV and charging works.

[@punditgi]

Jolly good news, mate! 🎉😊

[@Yeadon65]

Good example of the progress from Electric Highway to Gridserve takeover and then update.

[@electroplank587]

fantastic to see upgrades to the changing network. I'm not in a position to get an electric vehicle yet but when i can at least the public charging network would have caught up a bit. Thanks Dave !

[@markbray3038]

Thanks Dave, helpful for us disabled.

[@tonychallinor6721]

Love the channel btw Dave. Always watch immediately

[@Jaw0lf]

Great explanation for how charging should now be in the way of payments etc. I totally agree with you on picking up the charge cables if they had been left on the floor. Also, I have found several chargers not working, so a quick phone call to the number and they often do a reboot and it works. A good idea to call to advise of missing parts such as the holder. Please keep telling people to avoid the 79p chargers as many other options are now available as you point out in your monthly pricing roundups.

[@djtaylorutube]

Perhaps we should all phone the helpline and say "There appears to be a problem with the pricing..." All day... Every day 😁

[@PercyRanger]

Very informative. Thank you.

[@foxylady1048]

Good news updates Dave.

[@TheBobcatmaster]

Thanks Dave for the heads up on free charging on Christmas day from grid serve. It was free when you use the app.

[@stevenbarrett7648]

Great to see, apart from the rip off pricing !

[@Project-jf3bz]

I use Sandbach all the time, it’s a good location for charging.

[@Jeddin]

5:45 Tesla uses 480V to keep the equipment and design standard as much as possible with the USA where 480 V/3 phase is what is used for industrial and commercial applications

[@oliver90owner]

It’ll also run at lower current for any given power output - until it gets to the car , where the current and voltage will be dependent on the actual battery requirements.

[@barrymurton8988]

I saw at Franklin, while I was on the Tesla chargers, two numpties parked in the gridserv diasbled bays charging!

[@GruffSillyGoat]

Dave a quick update, 400v is the harmonised three-phase voltage in the UK - the voltage having been standardised across Europe 22 years ago, before which the UK was baselined at 415v and Europe at 380v. This is a nominal voltage with the tolerance range being anywhere between 360v to 440v. The 480v is included as a transformer tap these days to support American made power equipment (although the US three-phase supply can vary from 208v to 480v). However, in the UK these will operate at 50Hz rather than 60Hz, so will need to be uprated as the total voltage per cycle will be higher in the UK.

[@bbbf09]

..ahhh wonderful new shiny and slick charging infrastructure major upgrades. Not really being used much. But why? £0.79/kWh. Ah! Now I understand.

[@davidthomas8662]

Morning dave

[@ronaldgarrison8478]

~13:00 Probably would be best, along with calling, to loop the cable over the top of the tombstone, not just leave it on the concrete.

[@DJBaldPaul]

That would make it difficult for wheelchair users to use.

[@ronaldgarrison8478]

@@DJBaldPaul ?? It was more or less broken anyway, at least for that cable. IAC you could grab the cable at a lower place and pull it down if you wanted. But I don't know why you would.

[@robmog88]

Who said chargers are always busy, you can never get a charge?! Looked empty to me.

[@junehanzawa5165]

They should use those 50/60kW for ChaDeMo, and not waste a space on high speed chargers on a 50kW charging EV its own manufacturer never cared to support. Also, for DC charging, the charger is NOT inside the EV. That's only true for AC charging where the vehicle converts the AC to DC. On DC, the charger itself does the conversion and provides DC directly. This is why DC Fast Chargers are so expensive compared to L2 chargers.

[@williamlawrenson8345]

Higher voltage, lower current, less heat.

[@oliver90owner]

Yes, but heat generated is not actually dependent on the voltage. Heat produced depends on the current squared, whatever the voltage might be.

[@Chris-mh3vf]

Can I charge my Tesla by parking over 2 bays?

[@djtaylorutube]

Yes, that's my new plan at V2 sites. A wrong sider gets to reserve both bays and gets the full 150kW, why should I split it?! We were at a 20 bay V2 site in France, I was the only car there, until a French guy pulled onto the adjacent stall, splitting power. Unbelievable! 🤷

[@andybell6463]

Why don’t all makers use 800V architecture? Is it simply a cost issue or is it more complicated than that?🤔

[@GruffSillyGoat]

R&D time/cost and platform engineering, plus it's a price point differentiator. Kia/Hyundai reserve 800v for their premium models for example, with the Kia EV9 and EV6 being 800v and the EV3 and EV5 (and forthcomming EV4) being 400v architectures.

[@junehanzawa5165]

For Tesla, it's because they began the whole thing at a mass scale, and they faced a ton of opposition even going as high as 400V at the time. For the legacy automakers, it's just their business model. Where they provide lower end features for their lower end products, even though 800V is cheaper to manufacture than 400V. They don't want to be selling an 800V vehicle for under $30,000 since that would really hurt the sales of their higher end, costlier vehicles.

[@GruffSillyGoat]

@@junehanzawa5165 - yes and no. The battery wiring on 800v can be a thinner guage as less current is required to be carried. However, the battery parallel/series setup for 800v differs, the on board charge controllers and BMS's differ as well as the motors and they use high power capacity battery cells (i.e. more expensive), as the charge rate is much faster at 800v. For example, the 400v 81.4kWh EV3 will charge 0 to 100% in 50 minutes (at a max of 150kW), whilst the 800v EV6 84kWh battery will do the same 0 to 100% in 28 minutes (at a max of 260kW). The EV6 splits the 84kWh pack into two 800v 42kWh ones and charges both at 130kWh in parallel (as the packs are smaller with fewer cells they have to be more costly higher power rated cells). Also, when charging at 400V chargers (such as on Tesla chargers) the EV6 uses additional electronics to step up the voltage to 800v to charge the batteries. The additional and uprated electronics (the EV6 uses expensive silicon carbid mosfets for example), higher spec batteries and specialist motors make 800v platforms more expensive than 400v ones to produce, on top of which some mechanism for supporting 400v only charging (a boost circuit or battery-splitting like in the Taycan and Cybertruck) has to be implmented.

[@tobycolin6271]

Be interesting to see how all these chargers provide power when they’re all on. I wonder what the KVA rating of the step down transformers are on this site. I estimate there is a 500kVA (1.8m x 1.2 x 0.9) transformer in the cabinet. Which means it can only supply a maximum of 100Amps per charger . If all chargers had empty EVs on them the power would be disturbed evenly at a charge rate

[@davetakesiton]

Strange that we talked to the installation engineers while it was being built and they said there was plenty of power to supply full power to each charger. Sorry, but I will go with the installation engineers facts instead of your guesses

[@tobycolin6271]

@ then why did the BMW charge at 60kWh when the Batterry would be in its optimal charging zone charging from 20% when there was only 2 cars on charge. These chargers are probably throttled to 80kWh because of the size of the transformer in the box. Dave next time your on location the kVA rating will be on a label on the outside of the cabinet. But the size of the transformer is proportional to the power output. It’s not a very big cabinet so it can’t have a very big transformer inside and the BMW charging rate supports this. The BMW in shot should have been charging at 150kWh and reached full charge in 20 to 30 minutes it was charging at an average rate of 60kWh. Funny that with so few cars on charge.

[@GruffSillyGoat]

At the size of the container 'shed' and minaturisation of switchgear these days there are 5000kVA units that would fit in that space these days. Plus the charger cabinets appear to be fairly large units, with one per charge point device, that could acommodate an internal battery for peak charging. So in short speculating what the site power rating and charging capacity on the basis of an image is pretty meaningless.

[@tobycolin6271]

@ it’s the size of the green transformer unit. You can’t shrink a transformer. There will have been a calculation by the utility company based on cost and probability and the green transformer locker that feeds the AC to the chargers looks about 1.8 m high and 2m wide so have a look and see what the biggest transformer you can fit in the box. If you look at the BMW it averaged 60kWh charging from about 20 to 100% if the charge was 25kWh at 98% it probably didn’t get any where near the 150kWh charge rate that this car is allegedly capable of charging at. This is another example of you expect 230 miles in 20 minutes and get 120 to 160 miles in 39minutes.

[@GruffSillyGoat]

@@tobycolin6271 - yes aware, it's the large 'shed' style container behind the smaller brown fire hydrant 'shed'. The size of the green container would fit most of today's 1MVA to 5MVA pad mounted transformers. These sheds tend to be used it tight spaces with nearby pedestrian access, where a chainlink fence and separation space would take up too much area or would be an eyesore. One cannot project based on one car's current charge screen status, the site could have been busier earlier in the charge cycle but cleared out as Dave started to film with the BMW not getting the full power requsted till later in the charge sessions. Or perhaps the site is partially provisioned, happens quite a bit these days due to DNO bureaucratic process delays. As this site has two pre-existing fast and one slow charger, the site's supply agreement might have reflected that plus any forward provision (likely fast/rapid given the sites age) put forward by Electric Highway at the time of the original install. A new request to the DNO could have been put forward to uprate the site for ultra-rapids and is going through the process. There are a fair number of sites where this is happening, which is why the government put forward new policy a few days ago to speed up the connection process. The new ultra-rapids could have been installed on the previous sites electricity provision, with an uprated transformer and ultra-rapid chargers waiting for the supply upgrade to go live; perhaps assisting to accelerate the request process by collecting data on usage (I believe active major routes requests get priority processing).

[@tobycolin6271]

Anyone explain why the BMW that is on charge has only charged at an average of 60kWH. Dave tells us that it has charged 39kwh in 39 minutes averaging 60kWh. It was still charging at 24kWh at 98% there’s no way the charger delivered the 150kW that this car is capable of charging at. 20 to 80% 231 miles of charge is achievable in 20 minutes on a 150kWH these chargers aren’t delivering that with 33% occupancy.

[@GruffSillyGoat]

As your other post on the same subject: One cannot project based on one car's current charge screen status, the site could have been busier earlier in the charge cycle but cleared out as Dave started to film with the BMW not getting the full power requsted till later in the charge sessions, at which point the car's battery state of charge had ramped down the 24kW at the 98% as shown on the screen. Or perhaps the site is partially provisioned, happens quite a bit these days due to DNO bureaucratic process delays. As this site has two pre-existing fast and one slow charger, the site's supply agreement might have reflected that plus any forward provision (likely fast/rapid given the sites age) put forward by Electric Highway at the time of the original install. A new request to the DNO could have been put forward to uprate the site for ultra-rapids and is going through the process. There are a fair number of sites where this is happening, which is why the government put forward new policy a few days ago to speed up the connection/provisioning process. The new ultra-rapids could have been installed on the previous sites electricity provision, with an uprated transformer and ultra-rapid chargers waiting for the supply upgrade to go live; perhaps assisting to accelerate the request process by collecting data on usage (I believe active major routes requests get priority processing). This would mean the site is currently supply limited with respect to charging capability.

[@James_Howarth]

Not the first time you've been a bit off but the first time I've mentioned it 🙃, for DC Chadamo/CCS2 the car does not have an onboard charger, that is all managed by the charger/cabinet, the car tells the charger what it's requirements are and the charger gives the car as many amps as it's able to (upto the cars max) directly into the battery, I believe you are mixing up the AC and DC charging processes 👍

[@salan3]

I thought that they still (even though DC) still go via the BMS and not the internal charger? The BMS sorts out balancing of cells etc.

[@oliver90owner]

@@salan3 That ‘etc’ includes all the charging/discharging requirements of the battery depending on battery temperature (high or low), maximum current curve, cell/battery voltage and probably a few others.

[@GruffSillyGoat]

It seems Dave is seeking to simplify things for his audience and explain how he understands chargers work, introducing his own terminology (e.g. dispensers) at the same time. He should really caveat this is his own way of describing things else may cause confusion. With DC the role of 'charger' is split between the car - which has a demand side charge controller and battery management system - and the charger cabinet, which has a supply side charge controller and variable voltage/current power supply. The cabinet is more akin to the 'charger' meaning we're used to with mobile phones or 12v battery chargers. Whats more since most chargers are now part of a smart grid system, the electricity supply grid can also dynamically instruct the charger cabinet to vary the current drawn to balance local energy demand levels. In effect there is a constant communication exchange between the grid, the charger cabinet and the car as to the level of voltage and current available, supplied and requested, respectively. Dave is just simplifying things to what he believes suits a more digestable description for his videos.

[@salan3]

@oliver90owner All the bms's I have used in charging ccts do that and they are usually in the battery assy.

[@Un-Apologetic]

​@GruffSillyGoat no it's Dave thinking he's an expert on the subject when, in fact, he gets a lot of what he says wrong.

[@Un-Apologetic]

The last thing someone in a wheelchair wants is to be turning up to chargers that don't work. 79p = The EV experiment killer. You're flogging a dead horse Dave.

[@sargfowler9603]

Yea, long journeys in an EV are expensive

[@solentbum]

@@sargfowler9603 When I am told this I always ask a simple question. How many Long journeys did you drive last year, or the year before. What does you ICE car cost per mile/ How often in reality did you exceed the range of most current EVs in one day? My own EV , a humble 62kw LEAF , is good for a journey within a 100 mile radius without needing to charge away from home. Or of course on a 200+ mile journey I only have to top up with enough to get home. For some an EV does not yet have the range for their life on the road, but for the majority of drivers, who have a commute of less than 100 miles, or who drive to the supermarket 20 miles away once a week. an EV charged at home is very cost effective.

[@mrpauly01]

Got to agree.. EV sales are slowing and the rhetoric is changing from “poor EV infrastructure” to “to expensive compared to petrol /diesel“ and that is true. EV sales will stall until prices come down for a) those that can’t charge from home or don’t want the expense of a home charger installation and b) EV depreciation for none lease or company scheme buyers is not so wild and/or c) interest rates drop for used EVs. ‘Just my observation’… happy new year !

[@mrpauly01]

@@solentbumyour points raised are correct, there is however a segment of the population that is often overlooked and that is we pensioners. I bought an EV convinced it would be cheap motoring and great for my desire to do UK & European road trips at leisure and on a pensioner’s budget (state pension only being received), however the reality is it’s costing much more than my previous diesel SUV, the insurance is 50% more also, So, I for one and I’m sure not alone would dearly (no pun intended) would like to see these costs come down, that said I understanding the scale of investment involved and the need to recoup some if the cost, however I’m convinced that even Tesla owners would charge at nine Tesla charging stations if prices were competitive. Happy motoring..

[@oliver90owner]

@@solentbum Spot on Sir/Madam. These individuals who spout rubbish about EVs, and attempt to denigrate them, are actually few and far between. Same ones on several channels. Always the same rubbish arguments of why EVs will fail. Wrong on all counts. 2030 for the exclusion of new ICE cars from the market (unless the government do a U-turn) is getting ever closer.🙂🙂🙂 I’ve not charged at a public charger, even once, this year - and only once, overnight using a granny charger, at a house where I was visiting. I was quite happy to pay better-than-tesla rate for that over-night charge (better for the money to go somewhere more needy, than one of the really expensive CPOs). Over-night charging at a supercharger would be very little more expensive than most home charging during the daytime peak rates. Both of those are still far cheaper, per mile, than burning polluting fossils.

[@starlord8973]

I was on the M25 in the UK for 2 Hours on Boxing Day 4- Lane Motorway I was Courting EV Cars and there where Thousands of Car and i Counted 15 EVS in 2 HRS The PEOPLE who wanted a EV have Now BOUGHT one it's CONVECTING the REST of CARS BUYERS to buy EVS and WELL there NOT ??

[@oliver90owner]

Ha ha, maybe EV drivers are more sensible - and drive at less-busy times?

[@simonpettit8548]

Perhaps you and they will be persuaded by FSD? 'Black Tesla' is one of the early You Tube recipient/testers of software {only 6 or so of them). He has several videos of the new software which went on general release to the newest cars before Christmas. His video 'Tesla's FSD 13.2.2 First Impressions Drive' gives a flavour of what is coming.. If that doesn't convince you then watch the ones in the heavy rain and traffic in the centre of New York. The future is bright, the future is FSD.

[@crm114.]

The affordable EVs are only just beginning to arrive. Do your experiment again in a couple of years.

[@Un-Apologetic]

EV cars only make up 3.6% of all cars on UK roads. EV vans make up 1.4%. Both are falling in numbers. The incentive for business users is wiped out by the eye wateringly expensive, ridiculously unreliable charge network. Private buyers aren't buying them in enough numbers. Because of cataclysmic depreciation most private buyers are buying used which isn't helping new sales. That's why lots of manufacturers are on the verge of bankruptcy.

[@oliver90owner]

@@Un-Apologetic The reason why legacy car companies are struggling is because they ignored the writing on the wall re climate change, etc. The percentage of EV cars will most certainly balloon after 2030.🙂🙂🙂