Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by steve_gh 197 days ago
Don't know about heavy trucks, but I can say this. I'm currently looking after a house being renovated in rural and hilly Northern England. There are a lots of trade folk coming by doing various things, all in the UK ubiquitous white vans. The decorator has an EV van. The sparky has an EV van. The groundworks folk have an EV van. When tradespeople are voting with their feet and buying EVs, then a shift is really happening.
2 comments
tpm 197 days ago
> When tradespeople are voting with their feet and buying EVs

And I'm glad they are using EVs, but also wondering if it's not mainly the tax writedown rules (in our country EVs are written down as investment to lower your taxes in 2 years vs. the standard 4 I think, and this can dramatically lower your tax base). But perhaps I'm overly cynical.

link
rsynnott 197 days ago
> The sparky has an EV van.

This one I'm always a bit dubious of, because, well, they're likely to have a lot of emergency callouts after a blackout. How are they charging their van?

ESB Networks, the Irish state grid operator, increasingly uses electric vans. I suppose maybe they have a backup generator wherever they keep them? On the face of it, it seems like they'd be the _last_ thing you'd want to electrify.

link
Kirby64 197 days ago
You’re optimizing for the 0.01% here. Also, cars don’t lose their charge completely just because a blackout happens. Unless you pull in to the depot/charging area low on charge and then immediately a blackout happens, and then you need to go out while it’s still happened… driving it around shouldn’t be an issue.

Then, the other 99.9% of the time you get cheaper, quieter driving.

link
rsynnott 197 days ago
Oh, yeah, definitely, but specifically for electricians it's a really _important_ 0.01%, I'd have thought.
link
Kirby64 197 days ago
Most electricians don’t do this type of work, I’d say. For a grid operator, sure. For the standard guy coming to your house to do some wiring? No way.
link
rsynnott 197 days ago
After a major blackout, I think it's fairly common for electricians to have a lot of work on; distribution boxes etc often don't take it well.
link
Kirby64 197 days ago
Is this something common in Europe? We’ve had our fair share of blackouts in the US, some lasting days, and I’ve never ever heard of someone’s breaker panel (I assume that’s what you mean by distribution box) needing any service as a result of the blackout.
link