Cost of Living

[Johnny75]

There are OG Leafs out there still on their original batteries, in fact there is a large market of people actively trying to buy old leaf batteries for home use.

What would they use them for?

 

[BillyDee]

Draw power at overnight rate, use it during the day? House batteries are the future I'm told, presumably this is why.

 

[Kenny]

Man cuts his energy bill to £0 thanks to his car - as price cap to hit £3,000

One electric car driver has managed to knock hundreds of pounds off his energy bill by using his car like a giant battery and selling power back to the National Grid

www.mirror.co.uk

 

[Keef]

Draw power at overnight rate, use it during the day? House batteries are the future I'm told, presumably this is why.

A lot of the older off grid solutions for electric storage were submarine batteries charged by solar panels similar solution I guess

 

[pr0sl0]

Yeah there's a lot of stuff happening around figuring out how to use EVs as essentially full-house batteries, kill two birds with one stone.

On fusion, we should (touch wood) see ITER turn on within the next decade, which'll provide a proof of concept for it at scale. Realistically it'll probably be another 10-20 years after that before the first commercial plants open, but in the long-long-term - the long-term of centuries rather than decades - fusion is almost certainly going to be the eventual winner, with other renewables relegated back to specific niches.

 

[lemonjelly]

No.

Yes!

 

[The Bear]

With Tesla you can buy their PowerWall which is a battery that goes on the side of your house and stores electricity from the solar panels to charge both your car and use in the house at peak times.

That way you can pretty much power your house and car purely from solar and sell back any excess to the grid.

 

[Tredman]

You can get simailr batteries for a lot lower cost elsewhere. Got my eye on GivEnergy battery.

 

[Johnny75]

You can get simailr batteries for a lot lower cost elsewhere. Got my eye on GivEnergy battery.

Like the look of that coupled with solar panels

 

[Tredman]

Like the look of that coupled with solar panels

Yeah, that's my thoughts too - challenge for us is the RoI doesn't stack up very well as our cars take the excess solar. Where it might make more sense is if we can use our cheap overnight tariff to charge it up in the winter. Need to run some figures.

Plus they're based in Stoke too I think

 

[machin05]

I have concerns about the millions of cars that are parked on the roadside - what's the solution here if they're all EVs (which is the utopia we're dreaming of, right?)?

Not every house has a driveway, a hell of a lot of houses have multiple cars, house shares, flat conversions etc.

 

[Tredman]

I have concerns about the millions of cars that are parked on the roadside - what's the solution here if they're all EVs (which is the utopia we're dreaming of, right?)?

Not every house has a driveway, a hell of a lot of houses have multiple cars, house shares, flat conversions etc.

There a lot of options coming though (lampost charging, modular pavements etc). None are ideal though, ideal solution would be less reliance on cars

 

[machin05]

There a lot of options coming though (lampost charging, modular pavements etc). None are ideal though, ideal solution would be less reliance on cars

Well, yeah, that's where I'm coming from, tbh.

 

[Keef]

E cargo bikes could help with school runs, shopping and general nipping about cars get used for, of course the big problem with that is the mindset of bikes are ridden by poor people, teenagers and Lycra clad dickheads riding two abreast on main roads on a Sunday, so will just be dismissed out of hand by most

 

[Kenny]

E cargo bikes could help with school runs, shopping and general nipping about cars get used for, of course the big problem with that is the mindset of bikes are ridden by poor people, teenagers and Lycra clad dickheads riding two abreast on main roads on a Sunday, so will just be dismissed out of hand by most

People can get one of these instead - Citroen AMI

Should start seeing these appear on the roads of the UK soon. Hugely popular in France and launched in the UK earlier this year and the first orders are about to be delivered. I think in France you don't need a drivers license to whizz around in one but here you do

 

[EpsomWolf]

There a lot of options coming though (lampost charging, modular pavements etc). None are ideal though, ideal solution would be less reliance on cars

We’re in danger of creating a situation where motoring is just for the wealthy. I don’t think anyone used to shelling out 30/40/50k plus on a motor is going to use their car any less, just do so in a more environmentally friendly way. It’s a fairly straightforward transition over to electric for those fortunate to have the resources but a nightmare for those that don’t. It’s hard to see it’s anything other than divisive and when someone able to fund a 50k motor for example, can have free road fund licence yet someone barley able to keep their old car on the road might have to pay £100’s.

There are an awful lot of people running about in old motors struggling to keep them on the road that have absolutely no chance of finding the resources to go electric. Those are the first people effectively forced off the road. That has obvious environmental benefits but I don’t think a situation where motoring is the preserve of the wealthy because the poorer have been beaten into submission is a good thing at all

 

[AndyWolves]

i've got 4.8 kWh solar panels on my house and i'm using Octopus energy. We're currently exporting around 20kwh per day at an average price of 28-35 pence per kWh. We're getting around £100 - £120 per month for the electricity we're exporting. What we're exporting is what's left after we used what we need. We're pretty much exporting 10 times what we use, we probably over provisioned in terms of the amount of the panels, but with the way energy prices are going the ROI is only going to become shorter and shorter.

 

[Keef]

People can get one of these instead - Citroen AMI

Should start seeing these appear on the roads of the UK soon. Hugely popular in France and launched in the UK earlier this year and the first orders are about to be delivered. I think in France you don't need a drivers license to whizz around in one but here you do

still a car, and problems of where to charge it if you park in the street, and will there be enough charge points

 

[Tredman]

Perhaps we're just going to have to accept things are no longer going to be the way they were.

 

[sycophantia]

Perhaps we're just going to have to accept things are no longer going to be the way they were.

Nooooooo