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Show HN: Open-source UK fuel availability tracker

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Re: Show HN: Open-source UK fuel availability tracker

#41

Post by onethought »

intricatedetail wrote: post #12
buro9 wrote: post #6

The fuel crisis in the UK has been great at being EV advocates out of the woodwork, but our infrastructure for charging cars is appalling and as I cycled I rather smugly saw queues at the ev chargers too. But something like this for EVs that also shows the cost of charging would be great. Yes I know about zap map, etc... But in my area the choices are poor, the availability difficult to discover (rate limited and pol…

Without a network of nuclear power plants I fear the EV revolution will not come to fruition. The government seem to have jumped on the bandwagon without thinking it through.

Standard outlet can add about 2kw/h so Rooftop solar cam more then cover most use cases if charging.

Re: Show HN: Open-source UK fuel availability tracker

#42

Post by Veen »

danjac wrote: post #36
neilsense wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, yes, the NYT, for when you really want the truth...

The NYT does not have an axe to grind with Brexit, an issue for a foreign country. Even when it does have an axe to grind, it's default flex is "to both sides" an issue to the point of parody. Yet even the NYT can see the elephant in the room the UK media refuses to address. Don't trust the NYT? https://www.vox.com/22700343/uk-fuel-crisis-brexit-covid-19-... https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/28/business/brexit-fuel-foo…

The New York Times has consistently awful UK coverage. And it certainly has an anti-Tory Remainer bias. Personally, I think the shortage is related to Brexit, and it's a short-term consequence of not being able to import cheap foreign labour instead of paying reasonable wages. We do have a driver shortage because haulage firms don't want to pay drivers a competitive salary. Plus, COVID disrupted driver testing and the issuing of new licenses. Plus, some in the media over-egged the problem and created panic buying. It's a multi-cause issue.

Re: Show HN: Open-source UK fuel availability tracker

#43

Post by dTal »

12ian34 wrote: post #10

This is great but I feel like it's more important to educate people not to panic-buy fuel since that's adding a significant strain to the problem (thanks to the media). If people filled up when they normally would have the problem wouldn't have been so huge. Also, why do I have to share my location? What happened to the good old days of just being able to enter postcode or town?!

We're a week in, nobody's "panic buying", they're just... buying. People don't - can't - have giant fuel stashes at home. You fill up your tank and that's it, nowhere else to put fuel. There's a limit to how much demand can be explained by people with jerry cans - there simply aren't that many jerry cans around.

Re: Show HN: Open-source UK fuel availability tracker

#44

Post by leoedin »

buro9 wrote: post #6

The fuel crisis in the UK has been great at being EV advocates out of the woodwork, but our infrastructure for charging cars is appalling and as I cycled I rather smugly saw queues at the ev chargers too. But something like this for EVs that also shows the cost of charging would be great. Yes I know about zap map, etc... But in my area the choices are poor, the availability difficult to discover (rate limited and pol…

We're talking about only selling EVs from 2030, but the state of EV chargers, especially in urban areas, is absolutely dire. And there doesn't seem to be enough recognition of that. Take for example the London borough of Haringey. There's 81 publicly accessible EV charging points, and they're making a song and dance about installing a further 37. https://www.haringey.gov.uk/parking-roads-and-travel/travel/...

How many people live in Haringey? 270,000. Housing is predominantly flats and terraced housing. Even if there's only a car for every 4 people, that still means 67,500 EVs.

There needs to be a couple of orders of magnitude more EV chargers to be anywhere close to "ready" for the EV transition.

Re: Show HN: Open-source UK fuel availability tracker

#45

Post by londons_explore »

alias_neo wrote: post #24
buro9 wrote: post #6

The fuel crisis in the UK has been great at being EV advocates out of the woodwork, but our infrastructure for charging cars is appalling and as I cycled I rather smugly saw queues at the ev chargers too. But something like this for EVs that also shows the cost of charging would be great. Yes I know about zap map, etc... But in my area the choices are poor, the availability difficult to discover (rate limited and pol…

The national grid is barely keeping up with current demand for electricity, I will be astounded if we manage to pull off anything nearing a reasonable solution to electrifying private vehicles. With the government imposing a ban on the manufacture of ICE vehicles this decade, we have an upper limit of what, 20 years before ICE vehicles are being run into the ground? Great for ICE mechanics in the UK I suppose. My dad…

> The national grid is barely keeping up with current demand for electricity,

Citation needed... The national grid transports less power today than it did 40 years ago, despite a much bigger population.

Re: Show HN: Open-source UK fuel availability tracker

#46

Post by 12ian34 »

dTal wrote: post #43
12ian34 wrote: post #10

This is great but I feel like it's more important to educate people not to panic-buy fuel since that's adding a significant strain to the problem (thanks to the media). If people filled up when they normally would have the problem wouldn't have been so huge. Also, why do I have to share my location? What happened to the good old days of just being able to enter postcode or town?!

We're a week in, nobody's "panic buying", they're just... buying. People don't - can't - have giant fuel stashes at home. You fill up your tank and that's it, nowhere else to put fuel. There's a limit to how much demand can be explained by people with jerry cans - there simply aren't that many jerry cans around.

> nobody's "panic buying"

Whilst I cannot find empirical evidence illustrating the amount of "panic buying", it does seem to be quite widely accepted (across the government, media, general public and oil and gas industry) that people are panic buying. Unless you have evidence to support your claim I'm inclined to believe all the sources I've read.

Re: Show HN: Open-source UK fuel availability tracker

#47

Post by leoedin »

alias_neo wrote: post #24
buro9 wrote: post #6

The fuel crisis in the UK has been great at being EV advocates out of the woodwork, but our infrastructure for charging cars is appalling and as I cycled I rather smugly saw queues at the ev chargers too. But something like this for EVs that also shows the cost of charging would be great. Yes I know about zap map, etc... But in my area the choices are poor, the availability difficult to discover (rate limited and pol…

The national grid is barely keeping up with current demand for electricity, I will be astounded if we manage to pull off anything nearing a reasonable solution to electrifying private vehicles. With the government imposing a ban on the manufacture of ICE vehicles this decade, we have an upper limit of what, 20 years before ICE vehicles are being run into the ground? Great for ICE mechanics in the UK I suppose. My dad…

> The national grid is barely keeping up with current demand for electricity, I will be astounded if we manage to pull off anything nearing a reasonable solution to electrifying private vehicles.

That's simply untrue - National Grid don't forsee a problem. [1] Peak power usage in the UK was in 2005 - energy saving measures have been reducing it ever since. [2] The grid is today only delivering around 70% of the power it delivered in 2005.

Electric cars individually may have high peak charging loads, but if you calculate the total average power draw per car over a years driving, it's only about 200W. We may have to implement some level of demand management either in the cars or car chargers, but that's not particularly complicated - all the infrastructure already exists.

I do agree that the charging infrastructure is a long way off. Every street of terraced houses needs to be dug up and wired up with regular spaced charging points.

[1]: https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero-sto... [2]: https://theconversation.com/britains-electricity-use-is-at-i...

Re: Show HN: Open-source UK fuel availability tracker

#48

Post by alias_neo »

onethought wrote: post #40
alias_neo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The national grid is barely keeping up with current demand for electricity, I will be astounded if we manage to pull off anything nearing a reasonable solution to electrifying private vehicles. With the government imposing a ban on the manufacture of ICE vehicles this decade, we have an upper limit of what, 20 years before ICE vehicles are being run into the ground? Great for ICE mechanics in the UK I suppose. My dad…

To combat your anecdata: I have an ev, and a pile of solar, I charge at home on a standard plug that goes into a wall socket. I don’t use any grid power and my car stays charged. I don’t put any strain on the grid. Pretty obvious how ev ownership will play out. More chargers, more pv.

I'm not sure what "more pv" means here, apologies.

I see your point, in your situation that's great, but I live in an Nth floor apartment in a London borough, I don't have an option for solar, nor for a wall socket to power an EV, nor do any of my neighbours. We're entirely at the mercy of Freeholders to consider putting EV charging in and _only_ charging us the price of a small motor vehicle for the privilege, if they'll do it at all.

I suspect a significant percentage of the population, who like myself live in large cities or suburbs are in a similar position.

Someone told me recently that a mandate is now in place for new-build to at least build infrastructure to support EV chargers in bays, even if they're not built ahead of time. Of course given the racket that is property development, they'll not put them in and charge you a pretty penny to add it after the fact.

Re: Show HN: Open-source UK fuel availability tracker

#49

Post by 12ian34 »

smcl wrote: post #26
lol768 wrote: post #3

Suggestion: allow override of the geolocation-derived search epicentre, it's not always (read: has never been reliable for me, unless I'm using a device with a GPS chip). I do appreciate that's the primary aim for this project, rather than desktop, though. Also, perhaps display where it thinks you are too, so you can determine if it's massively off.

Or provide a fallback for when you don't want to share location - like manual postcode entry

Agree. I think this should be the default option.

Re: Show HN: Open-source UK fuel availability tracker

#50

Post by alias_neo »

leoedin wrote: post #47
alias_neo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The national grid is barely keeping up with current demand for electricity, I will be astounded if we manage to pull off anything nearing a reasonable solution to electrifying private vehicles. With the government imposing a ban on the manufacture of ICE vehicles this decade, we have an upper limit of what, 20 years before ICE vehicles are being run into the ground? Great for ICE mechanics in the UK I suppose. My dad…

> The national grid is barely keeping up with current demand for electricity, I will be astounded if we manage to pull off anything nearing a reasonable solution to electrifying private vehicles. That's simply untrue - National Grid don't forsee a problem. [1] Peak power usage in the UK was in 2005 - energy saving measures have been reducing it ever since. [2] The grid is today only delivering around 70% of the power…

Fair points. Perhaps I was a little overzealous with that statement, I'm not going to change it as it's critical (by incorrect) to this discussion.

The problem, as I understand it, is with the condition of the grid, not its capacity. I know homes in London who literally have flickering lights and power issues as a regular occurrence, I've experienced it myself, it's large cities like London which would benefit most from complete electrification of vehicles and the supplies and equipment is ageing.

With tenders being awarded to those who claim to be the most carbon-neutral (National Grid's words) as opposed to actually providing high quality equipment (warning: my opinion), I foresee the problem worsening.

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