The Best Car Finance Blog In The World

Road safety charity Brake has welcomed the Government move to introduce life sentences for killer drivers.

The Ministry of Justice originally pledged to introduce the punishment in 2017 and it will form part of major sentencing reforms to be unveiled by the Lord Chancellor in a white paper this week.

Joshua Harris, director of campaigns for Brake, said the charity has long advocated for an overhaul of UK road law to deliver justice for victims and to help keep roads free from dangerous drivers.

He added: “Crash victims have waited three long years for this announcement. Road crime is real crime and it is high-time that the Government, and the law, recognised this.

“Years of Government inaction have added to the suffering of road victims who have not been delivered the justice they, and their loved ones, deserve.

“The Government must now implement these tougher sentences as first priority, delivering on their overdue promise to road crash victims, and then urgently initiate a review of the flawed legal framework for road justice.

“Driving is a privilege not a right and yet our flawed legal system continues to allow convicted dangerous drivers on the roads where they can endanger others.

“We all want safer roads but we will only achieve this if the law treats road crime with the seriousness it deserves.”

The measures around driving include plans to:

• increase the maximum penalty for causing death by dangerous driving from 14 years to life

• increase the maximum penalty for causing death by careless driving whilst under the influence of drink or drugs from 14 years to life

• create a new offence of causing serious injury by careless driving.

Paul Loughlin, senior associate solicitor at Stephensons, said:“The impact of dangerous and careless driving often has far reaching consequences, not only for those involved but also for their families and friends.

“Much of the criticism surrounding legislation in this area is that it doesn’t provide sufficient justice for those who are killed as a result of dangerous driving, or those seriously injured as a result.

“These proposals would transform the sentencing guidelines for this offence and go a long way to redress the balance for victims.

“On the flip side, we have often seen prosecutors taking a harder line in cases where there has been a serious injury and the driving standard would ordinarily be considered to be ‘careless’ rather than ‘dangerous’.

“The absence of the ability to charge with causing serious injury through careless driving has seen inconsistent charging decisions being made to plug a gap.

“There are clear examples of cases being ‘bumped up’ from a straight forward careless driving charge to the more serious charge of causing serious injury through dangerous driving with more emphasis being placed on the extent of the injury caused, irrespective of the fact that the standard of driving would ordinarily be considered to be ‘careless’.

“The introduction of this new offence should more suitably plug that gap and ensure more appropriate charges being laid for this type of offence.”

Department for Transport figures show 1,748 people were killed on the roads of Great Britain last year, a figure which has flatlined since 2012 when 1,754 people were killed. By Graham Hill thanks to Fleet News

A new study by Field Dynamics has found that fewer on-street electric vehicle (EV) chargepoints may be required than previously expected, to support a mass uptake of EVs.

Working in partnership with Zap-Map, the Net Zero data consultancy has found that better residential charging services can be achieved by siting chargers in more focused locations.

Field Dynamics’ managing director Ben Allan said: “Placing public chargers is a difficult process as it requires the balancing of many conflicting priorities.  But now there is a bedrock of robust data that planners can use to select their sites, placing fewer chargers at lower cost while providing a much more inclusive service”

The research found that there are around eight million households, outside of London, that do not have off-street parking and 90% of those are more than a five-minute walk from the nearest public EV chargepoint.

Field Dynamics said such proximity from a chargepoint could reduce the appeal of switching to e-mobility for those households, due to inconvenience or impracticality.

Brighton and Hove Council have achieved 67% coverage of households that require on-street charging provision by placing just 139 chargers, however.

This suggests that most councils will require a few hundred charger sites to ensure there is access to a charger within a five-minute walk for those residents who will need to access this critical service, rather than placing them on every street.

Zap Map COO and joint MD of Zap Map Melanie Shufflebotham said: “Providing convenient public charging for households with no off-street parking is a key element in the mass uptake of electric vehicles (EVs).

“This unique analysis combining the Zap-Map and Field Dynamics data sets provides both a high-level comparison between towns and also identifies down to a street level where there is a real gap in charging provision. We believe this data will be a great tool for organisations when making decisions on where to install additional charge points.” By Graham Hill thanks to Fleet News

The UK government is working on a new hydrogen strategy that will “deliver a world-leading hydrogen market”, according to a top civil servant.

During an Environmental Audit Committee session yesterday (September 10), business secretary Alok Sharma confirmed that the forthcoming energy white paper will include plans for hydrogen and that will be followed by a detailed strategy early next year – ahead of the UK hosting the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP 26) in Glasgow in November.

Julian Critchlow, director general for Energy Transformation and Clean Growth at the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), said that the strategy will bring together the supply and demand side, and answered criticism that the UK is lagging behind other countries, such as Germany, Japan and Australia, in hydrogen development.

He said: “Far from being behind we believe that we’re actually putting the detailed and specific policy levers in place to be able to deliver a world-leading hydrogen market.”

However, for the UK to achieve its goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 it will need to achieve hydrogen capacity of about 270 terawatt-hours, up from 27-terawatt-hours today.

Critchlow said that from a transport point of view, the Government sees hydrogen “having a big role”, especially for heavier vehicles.

He highlighted the £23 million programme with OLEV, which is looking at funding vehicles and refuelling stations, and the ultra-low emission bus scheme for hydrogen buses, along with the Prime Minister’s commitment for 4,000 new zero emission buses.

Business leaders have been campaigning for the Government to clarify its future hydrogen strategy and believe more needs to be done.

Jonny Goldstone, MD of Green Tomato Cars, one of the businesses backing the Hydrogen Strategy Now campaign, said that businesses need confidence in the development of the infrastructure.

Currently, there are six hydrogen refuelling stations across the South East, with only one of those located in East London.

Goldstone, who has hydrogen, electric and hybrid vehicle in his 250-strong company-owned fleet, said: “We want London to lose its reputation as the ‘Big Smoke’.

“Our hydrogen vehicles emit zero CO2 emissions, whereas other vehicles are pumping out high volumes of carbon emissions every day. A widespread take-up of zero-emission hydrogen and battery electric vehicles is essential to improving air quality across the capital.

“We have 50 hydrogen cars and we’re looking to expand that number. But we want to have the confidence that the infrastructure will be there to allow us to operate consistently and efficiently for our drivers and customers.

“The refuelling network needs to expand to enable demand for hydrogen vehicles to increase, which in turn will lead to manufacturers producing more and greater customer uptake.”  By Graham Hill thanks to Fleet News

Two major electric vehicle charging hubs have opened at railway stations in Hatfield and Norton.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps opened a Pod Point-installed hub with 27 charge points at Hatfield Station, while RAW Charging has completed installation of 26 smart charging points at the new Worcestershire Parkway Railway Station in Norton.

The installation at Hatfield station marks a milestone in a wide-ranging station improvements programme being undertaken by Govia Thameslink Railway, which encompasses more than 230 stations and over 1,000 individual projects.

In partnership with Pod Point, Hatfield’s new hub has been opened to meet the increasing consumer demand for electric vehicles, while also demonstrating the company’s commitment to sustainability.

The EV installation at Hatfield – which sees a 150% in public EV charging devices in the Welwyn Hatfield district – will provide additional accessibility and convenience for customers using the Great Northern and Thameslink station.

As part of the project, 12 charging points have also been installed at Haywards Heath station.

Shapps said: “We’re taking great strides towards our goal of having one of the best electric vehicle infrastructure networks in the world.

“This means a network for current and future electric vehicle drivers that is affordable, reliable, accessible and secure.

“Today’s landmark announcement ticks all those boxes and will make journeys on road and rail much greener for local residents, commuters and businesses.”

The Worcestershire Parkway station was opened to increase connectivity to London, the Midlands and South Wales and is the county’s first new railway station for more than 100 years.

Neil Broadbank, key account manager at RAW, said: “We approached the project two-fold: initially by installing a larger number of charging points to meet future demand, rather than installing on a reactive basis; and secondly, configuring and trialling the combination of several different pricing and access structures on the ChargePoint platform.

“For example, we have looked at standard per kWh fees, combined with parking fees, flat rates or connection fees for extended periods of time; and different rates for customers, different groups of chargers on site, and lots of other options, all of which can be run simultaneously and changed or scheduled remotely.

Using the same EV charging platform that is tried and tested by some of the world’s largest organisations provided GWR with the comfort that this new ‘critical infrastructure’ operated without a hitch from the start.”

In another project, Swarco eVolt has installed six charging stations at a new charging hub at Strathclyde Country Park, just outside Glasgow, for Project PACE.

Project PACE represents an EV Strategic Partnership and a new collaboration approach between the Scottish Government and SP Energy Network to test a new, more efficient approach to planning and delivering EV charging infrastructure.

It is being facilitated by North and South Lanarkshire Councils which will benefit from Transport Scotland’s £5.3m funding and receive 40 new charging hubs by April 2021, starting with Strathclyde Country Park.

Project PACE is expected to deliver almost 180 new public EV charge points which will join the ChargePlace Scotland network.

The charge points will be supplied, installed and maintained by Swarco eVolt under a framework agreement that was awarded in July.

Justin Meyer, general manager of Swarco eVolt, said: “From a driver’s perspective, the network of charging hubs will provide multiple charge points at each well-chosen location, including our rapid chargers.

“This will provide better access to charging with less waiting time, which in turn radically improves the customer experience and enjoyment of driving an EV.”  By Graham Hill thanks to Fleet News

Highways England has launched a new anti-tailgating campaign to encourage drivers to keep a safe distance from the car in front.

The company is using the well-known Space Invader video game character to alert drivers to the anti-social nature and risks of tailgating, and to give the message: Stay safe, stay back.

Mark Byard, director of Health, Safety and Wellbeing at Highways England, said: “We’ve got used to social distancing during the pandemic. Now we’re reminding you to also keep a safe distance from the vehicle in front.

“Good drivers leave plenty of safe space for themselves and others. But driving too close is dangerous, can be intimidating and can cause collisions that could be avoided.

“We want everyone to travel safely, so we can all get home safe and well. Our advice is simple: stay safe, stay back.”

Tailgating is a factor in around one in eight casualties on England’s motorways and major A roads, with more than 130 people killed or seriously injured in incidents involving people driving too close in 2018.

While a small minority of tailgating is deliberate, Highways England says most is unintentional by drivers who are simply unaware they are dangerously invading someone else’s space.

And a survey for Highways England found that while more than a quarter of drivers admitted to tailgating, nearly nine in 10 people say they have either been tailgated or seen it.

The Highway Code states that drivers should allow at least a two second gap between you and the vehicle in front on roads carrying faster-moving traffic, and the gap should be at least doubled on wet roads and increased further on icy roads or when visibility is poor. Dependant on the vehicle type, a greater distance may be necessary.

Tailgating is an offence of driving without due care and attention, carrying a minimum £100 fine and penalty points and in some cases more severe penalties or court appearance. But more so, it is unsafe, and a factor in around one in eight road casualties.

Katie Shephard, corporate partnership manager at Brake, added: “Brake is pleased to support the campaign Highways England are running to raise awareness about the dangers of tailgating.  We work with families affected by road crashes and know first-hand the vital importance of all drivers taking care and being safe on the road.”

The campaign is also supported by the Professional Recovery Operators Federation (PROF).

Further results from the survey show more than two thirds of people think tailgating is a serious problem and that more can be done to tackle poor driver behaviour, with almost 80% agreeing that they would favour a clampdown on drivers who drive too close to the vehicle in front.

If you are tailgated, Highways England advises that you avoid speeding up, slowing down or staring in the rear-view mirror. It says reduce the risk to yourself by driving normally, signalling clearly and allowing people to overtake. By Graham Hill thanks to Fleet News

The UK economy could be boosted by £1.6 billion a year if it met World Health Organisation guidelines for air pollution, a report by CBI Economics has found.

Meeting these guidelines, which are stricter than current UK legal limits, could also prevent 17,000 premature deaths per year, and prevent the loss of three million working days which can be attributed to air pollution.

As a result, Clean Air Fund, which commissioned the ‘Breathing Life into the UK economy’ report, is urging the Government to include a legally-binding commitment to meet WHO air pollution standards by 2030 in the Environment Bill, which is due to be debated in Parliament in the autumn.

Jane Burston executive director of the Clean Air Fund, said: “We know clean air makes us healthier, but our research shows it can make us all wealthier too. If businesses and government work together to ensure clean air for all, we can protect our health and re-energise the economy at this critical time. Ministers must commit to binding targets to cut air pollution in line with WHO guidelines by 2030.”

The Clean Air Fund is echoing calls by 16 other campaigning groups, part of the Healthy Air Campaign.

Currently, the Environmental Bill mentions ‘a target’ for particulate matter (PM2.5), but does not specify what that target will be, or when it will be met.

Other pollutants, such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) are not mentioned in the Environment Bill and the target for PM2.5 will only be presented to parliament in October 2022.

Studies have found road transport is responsible for 27% of the UK’s CO2 emissions, with cars and taxis accounting for 55% of that.

The Government is banning the sale of any new petrol, diesel or hybrid car or van by 2040 in its Road to Zero strategy, and recently held a consultation about bringing that date forward to 2035.

Some local authorities have announced the introduction of Clean Air Zones with the aim of improving air quality locally.

Clean Air Zones were due to be launched in Bath, Bristol, Birmingham, and Leeds in 2020 but have since been postponed until at least 2021, possibly indefinitely, while Greater Manchester’s plans have been delayed until 2022.

Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, said: “I am doing everything in my power to stop Londoners breathing air so filthy that it damages children’s lungs and causes thousands of premature deaths.

“The Ultra Low Emission Zone has already cut toxic air by a third. We want to go further and will be expanding the ULEZ up to the North and South circular roads in 2021.

“We know there is still more to do. Pollution isn’t just a central London problem, which is why I have consistently demanded that the government match my ambition and improve the Environment Bill to include legally binding World Health Organization recommended limits, to be achieved by 2030, and to give cities the powers they need to eradicate air pollution.

“The CBI’s new report shows that cleaner air could boost the economy by £1.6 billion – we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rebuild our cities and economies to be greener, fairer, and more sustainable.”  By Graham Hill thanks to Fleet News

There are now more than 30,000 charge points across the UK in over 11,000 locations – that’s more public places to charge than petrol stations, with around 10,000 charge points added in 2019 alone.

There are thousands of free electric car charge points in the UK, often located in supermarkets, shopping centres, public car parks, hotels and sometimes service stations.

Be aware there could be restrictions such as a set period of time or a requiring a purchase in-store, so it’s best to check.

There is an app called zap-map.com that shows all of the charge-points in the UK and also allows you to plan journeys if you are concerned about the range of your car and your ability to reach your destination without charging your car en-route.

How long does it take to charge an electric car?

How long it takes to charge an electric car is one of the most frequently asked questions. Whilst filling up with gasoline takes a few minutes, the time it takes to charge an EV from low to full is much longer.

However, it can be more convenient. Typically electric cars are charged when the car’s not in use, like overnight at home, in the same way you would a mobile phone, or during the day whilst you’re working.

How much you charge, or need to charge, will also change – with gasoline, the majority of people drive their cars until the fuel gauge shows low on fuel and we fill the tank up to full again.

This behaviour stems from the inconvenience of having to go to a petrol station. With electric cars and the convenience of charging at home, you may find you ‘top up’ the battery each day as it’s used rather than waiting for it to get low – again similar to a mobile phone.

Another factor that may impact the number of times you need to charge your electric car or van is temperature.

Lithium-ion batteries perform better in warm weather, so you might notice a slight drop in the range your EV can travel in the colder winter months.

In summary, how long it takes to charge an electric car depends on:

• Your car’s battery size
• How many miles you do between charges
• Your charging behaviour, i.e. topping up often vs charging from low to full less often
• The power rating of the charger you’re using – you can read more below on different types of chargers and their kWh ratings

To give you an idea of how long it takes to charge a specific car’s battery from zero to full, try this handy charging calculator:

Did you know?

Electric vehicles often come with battery warranties based on the number of charging cycles (1 cycle is equal to 1 full charge and 1 full discharge), with many manufacturers offering anything from 60,000 to 100,000 miles on their battery warranties as standard.

Half price evenings and weekends

Exclusive to electric car drivers, the 100% renewable(1) GoElectric tariff offers half price electricity evenings and weekends for both your household and your electric car.

This is a scheme offered by EDF Energy, there will be others available if you shop around.

Charging Point Socket Type And Speeds

Slow chargers

Slow chargers have a maximum of 3.6 kW available, and typically take between 6-12 hours to recharge a pure electric car. These chargers are ideal for overnight charging.

Fast chargers

Fast chargers are rated at 7-22 kW and usually take between 3-7 hours to recharge an EV depending on the battery size of the car.

7 kW chargers are a popular choice for the workplace and at home and there are several models available to buy and lots of different installers who can fit them for you.

It can be confusing, but all you need to do is decide what power rating you want and choose either a tethered or socketed charge point.

Rapid chargers

Rapid are the quickest (43 kW+), generally capable of charging cars to 80% in 20-40 minutes, depending on how big the battery is and how much charge it’s holding to start with, so they’re a great way to top up during long journeys.

You can often find them in motorway service car parks, petrol stations, larger shopping centres and supermarkets.

Wireless chargers

Wireless charging is super convenient and allows for the transfer energy between a pad on the ground and a compatible EV – no need for cables at all.

While it’s not in the UK yet, Norway will install the world’s first wireless electric car charging stations for Oslo taxis and BMW is due to release their new wireless charging solution with their new plug-in hybrid 530e iPerformance very soon.

What power rating should I use for my home socket?

When it comes to home charging, 3-7 kW chargers are the most popular and are widely recommended for the UK market.

Many UK households have a single-phase (AC) electricity supply and can support the additional 7 kW load. Some households, with three-phase (AC) supply can support a more powerful fast charger up to 22 kW.

However, this is far more common in countries like Germany with a more robust electricity network.

Always check with the installer that your fuse board has enough spare capacity to support the additional load of a home charging station.

If there is not enough spare capacity, then you may have to pay to upgrade your distribution board.

Rapid chargers offer you a much quicker charge, perfect for longer journeys, when a quicker charge is needed, but it’s not advisable to only use rapid charging because this can increase the degradation of your battery over time.

Electric car charging cables

Charging cables have connectors you plug into the vehicle and/or the charge point. The type of charging connector depends on the vehicle and the power rating of the charge point.

Electric car charging points grant

The Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme (EVHS), contributes up to 75 per cent towards the cost of buying and installing an electric charger, up to a maximum of £500, if you have a home with off-street parking suitable for an electric car charger and an eligible electric vehicle.

Similarly the Workplace Charging Scheme (WCS), contributes up to 75 per cent to a maximum of £500 for each socket, for up to 20 charge points across all of the sites they operate.

By Graham Hill with huge thanks to EDF Energy

Electric cars are ever more appealing in a world where reducing carbon emissions and pollution is a growing concern for many people.

Research has shown that electric cars are better for the environment. They emit less greenhouse gases and air pollutants over their life than a petrol or diesel car.

This is even after the production of the vehicle and the generation of the electricity required to fuel them is considered.

Since interest in electric cars is growing all the time, there are many questions about how green and clean they really are.

From manufacturing concerns to the way in which electricity is generated, we look at some of the facts surrounding electric cars and their environmental impact.

1. Are electric cars better for the environment?

The major benefit of electric cars is the contribution that they can make towards improving air quality in towns and cities. With no tailpipe, pure electric cars produce no carbon dioxide emissions when driving.

This reduces air pollution considerably. Put simply, electric cars give us cleaner streets making our towns and cities a better place to be for pedestrians and cyclists.

Over a year, just one electric car on the roads can save an average 1.5 million grams of CO2. That’s the equivalent of four return flights from London to Barcelona.

Whole country behind electic cars

According to the Mayor of London, road transport accounts for around half of the capital’s air pollution. It’s no wonder that the UK government and local councils want to accelerate the number of electric cars on the roads.

The UK government has set a target that the sale of petrol and diesel cars will be banned by 2040.

Electric cars can also help with noise pollution, especially in cities where speeds are generally low. As the cars are far quieter than conventional vehicles, driving electric creates a more peaceful environment for us all.

Compare an electric vs petrol car yourself

The Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology have put a fabulous tool together to help you compare the overall environmental impact of electric cars vs internal combustion engine (ICE) cars.

The main aim is to let users understand why, how, and in which cases electro-mobility is actually performing according to its green image, by cutting per-km emissions from its fossil fuel-based counterpart.

A second objective is to show in which conditions electric vehicles may “counter-perform”: what happens when the battery size changes? or the background electricity mix? the battery lifetime? what about winter conditions affecting battery performances?

2. How does electric car production affect the environment?

Making electric cars does use a lot of energy. The emissions created during the production of an electric car tend to be higher than a conventional car.

This is due to the manufacture of lithium ion batteries which are an essential part of an electric car. More than a third of the lifetime CO2 emissions from an electric car come from the energy used to make the car itself.

As technology advances, this is changing for the better. With more efficient manufacturing techniques, the amount of emissions created during the production of batteries will improve.

Reusing and recycling batteries is also a growing market. Research into the use of second-hand batteries is looking at ways to reuse batteries in new technologies such as electricity storage.

One day we could all have batteries in our homes being used to store our own energy. Opportunities like this will reduce the lifetime environmental impact of battery manufacture.

Even after taking battery manufacture into account, electric cars are still a greener option. This is due to the reduction in emissions created over the car’s lifetime.

3. What about the electricity required to fuel an electric car?

Many people question how green electricity production required to power an electric car really is.

Research by the European Energy Agency found that, even with electricity generation, the carbon emissions of an electric car are around 17 – 30% lower than driving a petrol or diesel car.

The emissions from electricity generation are also dramatically improved when low carbon electricity is used.

That’s good news for our customers. Here at EDF we produce more low-carbon electricity than any other supplier in the UK(1).

The GoElectric tariff is also generated from 100% renewable sources, helping electric car drivers to make more informed choices about how they charge up, maximising their environmental impact whilst driving.

4. Are hybrid cars just as good for the environment?

Plug-in hybrids combine an electric motor with a traditional fuel engine and produce some emissions during a drive.

The green credentials of a hybrid depend on how much of the journey is driven on electric miles as well as the way in which the vehicle is charged. 

This is why it’s important for hybrid drivers to consider how their electricity is generated. Choose a form of renewable energy, like the GoElectric tariff, and you’re making your contribution to reducing emissions.

All this shows that electric vehicles have a big role to play in reducing transport emissions and being a major factor in cleaning up the air we breathe. By Graham Hill With huge thanks to EDF Energy

One of the most interesting and informative articles I’ve ever published on my blog!

Learn about electric car batteries, how they work and how they’re recycled.

How do electric car batteries work?

Where internal combustion engined cars get energy from burning petrol or diesel, an electric vehicle gets its power directly from a big pack of batteries.

These are much like a scaled up version of the lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery in your mobile phone – EVs don’t use a single battery like a phone, they use instead a pack which is comprised of thousands of individual Li-ion cells working together.

When the car’s charging up, electricity is used to make chemical changes inside its batteries. When it’s on the road, these changes are reversed to produce electricity.

Electric car battery technology

EV batteries undergo cycles of ‘discharge’ that occur when driving and ‘charge’ when the car’s plugged in. Repeating this process over time affects the amount of charge the battery can hold.

This decreases the range and time needed between each journey to charge. Most manufacturers have a five to eight-year warranty on their battery.

However, the current prediction is that an electric car battery will last from 10 – 20 years before they need to be replaced.

How a battery and the car’s electric motor work together is surprisingly simple – the battery connects to one or more electric motors, which drive the wheels.

When you press the accelerator the car instantly feeds power to the motor, which gradually consumes the energy stored in the batteries.

Electric motors also work as generators, so when you take your foot off the throttle the car begins to slow down by converting its forward motion back into electricity – this happens more strongly if you hit the brakes.

This regenerative braking recovers energy that would otherwise be lost, storing it in the battery again and so improving the car’s range.

Electric car battery lithium-ion

A Lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery is a type of rechargeable battery used in electric vehicles and a number of portable electronics. They have a higher energy density than typical lead-acid or nickel-cadmium rechargeable batteries.

This means that battery manufacturers can save space, reducing the overall size of the battery pack.

Lithium is also the lightest of all metals. However, lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries contain no lithium metal, they contain ions.

For those wondering what an ion is, an ion is a an atom or molecule with an electric charge caused by the loss or gain of one or more electrons.

Lithium-ion batteries are also safer than many alternatives and battery manufacturers have to ensure that safety measures are in place to protect consumers in the unlikely event of a battery failure.

For instance, manufacturers equip electric vehicles with charging safeguards to protect the batteries during repeated rapid charging sessions in a short period of time.

Battery capacity explained

Electric car battery life

Once an EV battery loses its capacity to power a vehicle, it can be used to power a home or building by contributing to a battery storage system.

A battery energy storage system stores energy from batteries that can be used at a later time.

If you power your home with renewable energy such as wind or solar, you can also pair it with an EV battery.

You can store it up to use throughout the night when wind and sunlight is reduced. Or even during the day alongside the solar or wind energy.

This method of generating energy can help you save on bills and reduce the amount of energy you use from the grid.

The battery on an electric car is a proven technology that will last for many years. In fact, EV manufacturers guarantee it. Nissan warrants that its electric car batteries will last eight years or 100,000 miles, for example, and Tesla offers a similar guarantee.

This might seem remarkable when the battery in your mobile phone begins to wear out after only a couple of years, but during that time it might be fully charged and discharged hundreds of times.

Each of these so-called charge cycles counts against the life of the battery: after perhaps 500 full cycles, a lithium-ion phone battery begins to lose a significant part of the capacity it had when new.

While that might be OK in a phone, it’s not good enough for a car designed to last many thousands of miles, so EV manufacturers go to great lengths to make electric car batteries last longer.

In an EV, batteries are ‘buffered’, meaning that drivers can’t use the full amount of power they store, reducing the number of cycles the battery goes through. Together with other techniques such as clever cooling systems, this means that electric car batteries should give many years of trouble-free life.

In fact, in order to preserve the life of an electric vehicle battery, manufacturers ensure that there is additional spare capacity to compensate for degradation over time. So as an electric vehicle ages and the battery cycles, the additional spare capacity is used up.

This allows the range of the vehicle to stay the same throughout the life of the battery. Once the battery capacity falls below 80%, drivers may start to notice a fall in the range and performance of the battery.

Electric car battery replacement cost

When it comes to replacing an electric vehicle battery, you need not be too concerned as many manufacturers provide a warranty of up to 8 years or 100,000 miles.

Meaning that even if you did need to replace it in an unfortunate event that something did go wrong, then it could well be covered under this warranty.

Remember to always check the type of warranty offered by your chosen electric car manufacturer.

Also, the cost of batteries fell about 80% between 2010 and 2016 according to McKinsey, from $1000 to $227/kWh. Therefore, a new 40kWh battery in 2016 would have cost just shy of £10,000.

Some predictions estimate that prices are set to fall below $100/kWh by 2030, around the same time as the government are aiming for 50% of all new vehicles sold in the UK will be electric.

Electric car battery leasing

With any new technology, there is always a fear that things won’t work as expected. So some electric car manufacturers and leasing companies have a solution, to provide customers with reassurance about battery degradation.

For instance, Renault offer a finance package, allowing customers to buy a Zoe and lease the battery, which reduces the upfront purchase price and guarantees battery performance up to 75% of the original capacity.

Electric car battery recycling

Many manufacturers are researching how EV batteries can be repurposed once they have hit retirement age.

One idea that is proving to work well is repurposing EV batteries to power homes and buildings.

However, there are no definitive answers as to what will happen to EV batteries once they’re no longer recyclable.

The time that batteries spend in an EV is often just the beginning of their useful life. Once removed from a car, most batteries will still be fit for other demanding jobs like energy storage in the electricity network, or in the home – a growing area of demand.

When batteries do reach the end of their working life, they’ll be recycled, which typically involves separating out valuable materials such as cobalt and lithium salts, stainless steel, copper, aluminium and plastic.

At the moment, only about half of the materials in an EV battery pack are recycled, but with EVs expected to undergo an explosion in popularity over the next decade or so, car manufacturers are looking to improve this.

VW recently announced a pilot plant for battery recycling which will work towards a target of recycling 97% of battery components.

In this process, batteries will be shredded, dried, then sieved to recover valuable materials that can be used to make new batteries.

Electric car batteries environmental impact

Are electric car batteries bad for the environment? Well, we’re here to tell you that the future of EV batteries looks bright.

EV batteries can be fed back into the energy cycle for factories, and homes once its life powering a car has come to an end. Repurposing EV batteries could create a closed-loop system for recycling.

Meaning that the factories that produce the batteries could eventually be powered using the repurposed batteries once their lives powering vehicles comes to an end.

Large car manufacturers have already begun to repurpose EV batteries in other areas. For example, Nissan plans to use retired EV batteries to provide back-up power to the Amsterdam ArenA – the world-famous entertainment venue and home to Ajax Football Club.

Toyota also plan to install retired batteries outside convenience stores in Japan in the near future. The batteries will be used to store power generated from solar panels.

The energy stored will then be used to support the power of drink fridges, food warmers and fresh food counters inside stores.

Renault also announced that the EV batteries from the Renault Zoe EV will be repurposed to generate power to the Powervault – a home energy battery storage system.

With more of these opportunities arising, there will clearly be life beyond an EV. Once a battery has finished powering a electric vehicle, it can be used to power our homes and businesses.

Electric car battery disposal

So what happens when electric car batteries die? Batteries of all forms can prove difficult to dispose of without harming the environment. The same goes for EV batteries.

However, EV battery life cycle management works towards solving expensive and toxic disposal of the batteries.

As well as being used to support the use of renewable energy, EV batteries can be refurbished to help power more vehicles in the future.

Volkswagen Group has plans to start a recycling project that will see batteries assessed on their quality to determine their future. The batteries with some power left will be given a second life as power packs for mobile vehicle charging.

The others that have little to give, will be ground down to fine powder to extract raw materials such as lithium, nickel, manganese and lithium. The materials can then be rebuilt into more EV batteries.

Electric car battery manufacturers

There are a large number of electric car battery manufacturers. Some are well known such as Tesla and Nissan, while others such as BYD or LG Chem, may not be as well-known around the world, but are nevertheless, significant players in the electric car battery manufacturing space.

LG Chem for instance, supply electric vehicle batteries for the likes of Volvo, Renault, Ford and Chevrolet.

Not only that, they have also signed an agreement with Telsa to supply all Telsa produced in China with batteries.

Another major electric vehicle manufacturer BYD are China’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer and are now selling more electric vehicles than they are fossil fuel powered vehicles since the turn of 2019.

Not only are these battery manufacturers focusing on electric vehicles, but they are also working on battery storage of electricity for residential, commercial and industrial applications.

Electric car battery charging

How far can one charge go?

Just as conventional cars have big or small fuel tanks, lithium-ion batteries for electric cars come in different sizes. Rather than litres of fuel, their capacity is measured in kilowatt hours (kWh).

A typical 40kWh battery pack from a mainstream electric car might be enough to power it for 150 miles or more, while Tesla’s biggest 100kWh battery is good for 375 miles according to the WLTP standard – which aims to give a realistic estimation of cars’ real-world range or fuel economy.

WLTP is an abreviation of the Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure, which came in to effect in 2017 and was set up to measure fuel consumption,CO2 levels and other pollutant emissions from passenger cars.

It replaced the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC)

You might recognise the kilowatt hour from your electricity bill – it’s the industry standard charging unit. A 40kWh battery holds enough energy to power a typical home for four days!

How do you recharge an electric car battery?

You’ll get the fastest charge from a designated EV charging socket. These are rated in kW from about 3kW up to about 50kW – or 120kW on Tesla’s supercharger network. The higher the rating, the quicker they’ll restore your EV’s range.

The chargers most commonly fitted at a home or workplace are either 3kW ‘slow’ units, or 7kW ‘fast’ chargers capable of recharging an EV in 6-12 hours. The UK also has a growing network of public charging stations.

These are typically either fast chargers rated at up to 22kW, or ‘rapid’ chargers capable of delivering up to 50kW.

The fastest public charging stations can top an EV up to 80% of its range in as little as an hour – the last 20% is usually a bit slower, to prevent damage to the batteries as they get near to full charge.

Where no designated charging point is available, you can charge an electric car from a 13-amp domestic plug socket, but this can be very slow.

Because charging demands lots of power over a long period there may also be a risk of overheating or fire, so if you must do this you should have an electrician inspect the socket and wiring first.

How safe are electric car batteries?

The manufacturers of batteries for electric cars go to great lengths to make sure EV batteries are safe, fitting smart management systems to prevent overheating and other problems.

Batteries do get warm as they charge and discharge, but cars are designed to keep them cool – high performance EVs sometimes have liquid cooling systems to help.

Despite this, there have been some cases of electric cars catching fire, but very few  of these incidents have been caused by battery failures.

More typically they’ve resulted from accidents or incidents that might have caused any vehicle to catch fire – such as the 2013 case of a Tesla Model S which hit a large piece of metal at high speed.

Commenting on that incident, which resulted in a limited fire, Tesla CEO Elon Musk pointed out that EV batteries contain only about a tenth of the energy of a tank full of fuel, limiting the danger they pose in an accident.

In fact, a 2017 study by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that the likelihood and severity of fires from lithium-ion batteries was comparable to, or slightly less than that from conventional vehicles.

As more electric vehicles take to the roads, we can be increasingly sure they’re as safe as the conventional cars they replace. By Graham Hill with huge thanks to EDF Energy

The possibilities of connected consumer vehicles are wide—and maybe a bit overwhelming. How can all these needs and wants be met at the same time?

One of the key challenges, if we are to move to driverless cars, is to enable the car to ‘think’. Whilst we may not be able to get a computer to think we can increase the speed of transfer and processing of data in order for the car to decide on a course of action without the involvement of a human brain.

So with the help of Ericcson let’s see how 5G can move the industry further.

5G Is Unbelievably Fast

Let’s start with the simple facts first: from a peak speed perspective, 5G is 100 times faster than 4G. This means that during the time it took to download just one piece of data with 4G the same could have been downloaded 100 times over a 5G network.

 You can just imagine how this speed is important for a connected car when it comes to the amount of data that will need to be shared.

According to Dr. Joy Laskar, CTO of Maja Systems, future autonomous cars will generate nearly 2 petabits of data, which is equivalent of 2 million gigabits. “With an advanced Wi-Fi connection, it will take 230 days to transfer a week-worth of data from a self-driving car,” Laskar said.

With 5G, that time would go from 230 days to just over 2 days.

Lower latency

5G also means low latency, as in a matter of milliseconds.

Latency is the amount of time it takes to send information from one point to another. We encounter it everyday when we drive, and make a decision to break suddenly: latency is the amount of time between our brain sends the instruction to our foot to push down on the brake in this example.

When it comes to networks, we usually talk about the difference between the 20 milliseconds of our current 4G networks to the 1-5 milliseconds of the 5G network.

However, there’s even a larger difference when it comes to self-driving cars.

Human reaction speed is a bit above 200 milliseconds, leading to accidents every day. 5G’s 5 millisecond latency is practically real-time, which can be used to provide the user with additional safety information before it is visible, for example roadworks, fast moving emergency vehicles and visually hidden pedestrians about to cross the street.

These cooperative Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) will help the driver to drive safely and avoid accidents.

5G’s increased reliability

Reliable communication means guaranteed delivery of time-critical information. For example, for remotely driving an autonomous vehicle in real-time in case its autonomous function fails.

There is no other alternative than cellular networks for enabling such services. 5G cellular technology is designed from day one for ultra-reliable communication with low latency to enable complex machine centric use cases, including autonomous cars in dense urban as well as high speed scenarios.

We expect adoption of fully autonomous capabilities in limited areas initially leveraging 5G signal coverage, with long-term evolution towards fully autonomous transport eco-system for maximizing safety, efficiency, and sustainability.

Exciting new case stories & innovation

Thanks to these three elements—increased speed, lower latency, and increased reliability—a whole new generation of exciting use cases can be unlocked.

In Europe, the 5GCAR project, led by Ericsson, is helping to develop an overall 5G system architecture.

As part of their work, they identified a number of new use cases that need 5G to unlock the future of transportation, from lane merge coordination to long range sensor sharing and increased protection for pedestrians.

Industry 4.0

5G won’t just make connecting cars easier: it will make manufacturing cars easier as well.

5G is about to change manufacturing as we know it through secure and almost real-time connectivity that will result in transformative productivity, speed and efficiency improvements. The car industry will be among the first to benefit.

But don’t just take our word for it: ask Mercedes-Benz. We recently teamed up with Telefónica Germany to enable 5G car production via a private 5G network for Mercedes-Benz at the company’s Sindelfingen plant in southern Germany.

Jörg Burzer, Member of the Divisional Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz Cars, Production and Supply Chain, said: “With the installation of a local 5G network, the networking of all production systems and machines in the Mercedes-Benz Cars factories will become even smarter and more efficient in the future. This opens up completely new production opportunities.”

So why should you care about 5G? Well, 5G connectivity has the potential to allow accident-free, stress-free and emission-free driving…and we think that’s a future we can all be excited about.  By Graham Hill Thanks To Ericcson