Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by mishagale 260 days ago
Bear in mind that in the UK, a large chunk of the populations lives in either rented accommodation, high-rise flats, or both. And also, standard housing policy in London is for new developments to have fewer parking spaces than homes (to encourage public transport use over cars).

For many people in the UK, having an EV charging port on the side of your house isn't possible, because they don't have a house, or they don't have a parking space near their house.
6 comments
Quarrel 260 days ago
FWIW, rental rates are very similar between the UK & the USA.

For central London, where I've lived for most of the last decade, yeah, there aren't a lot of parking spots per household, but that's also going to be true in NYC or any other built up older city. As for newer developments, I suspect they get more parking than older ones. My Victorian block has none.

As always, London is not the UK. Outside London it seems good in well off areas for EVs, and, of course, bad in the neglected rest of the UK.

link
edent 260 days ago
Well, lots of terraced houses and flats do have a garage or off-street parking. Mine certainly did.

Depending on which research you believe, only 25% of homes don't have a dedicated space - https://www.field-dynamics.co.uk/25-drivers-no-off-street-pa... and https://www.racfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/standing_st...

Lots of local authorities are installing on-street charging.

Basically, the vast majority of people in the UK do have off-street parking. Running a cable to a garage or from a street-lamp isn't overly expensive. Those who park on public streets also have lots of options for charging.

link
philjohn 260 days ago
That's fair, but also, a plurality of households have off-street parking, so the amount we need to solve for is already lower.

We DO need to solve for it though, because it's ridiculously cheap to drive an EV in the UK if you can have an L2 charger installed (2p per mile versus 20p per mile for even an efficient diesel/petrol car) and that should be made available to all.

Is the solution chargers in every lamp post? Or on every off-street parking, with billing tied back to your energy provider (allowing you to use smart tariffs like Intelligent Octopus Go)?

link
pjc50 260 days ago
> EV charging port on the side of your house isn't possible, because they don't have a house, or they don't have a parking space near their house.

By a process of elimination, we determine that they must be using on-street parking other than near their house. Which is one of those sneaky subsidies that people don't even realise is a subsidy, a little area of publicly owned land that you can use without having to pay rent on.

link
rswail 260 days ago
Then the proposal doesn't affect them one way or the other.

But as public transport is electrified, it is perfect to be incorporated into the grid. Vehicles follow predicted schedules, they are used in a predictable way from the depots, so charging can be optimized, and knowing their schedule, the charge on the battery can be kept optimized as well.

link
subscribed 260 days ago
Very much yes, but I've seen PLENTY of the on-street parking spots around here (London), with the use of the adapted streetlamps.

Councils certainly would be easier to negotiate?

link