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Smart spaces will fine petrol car owners illegally parking in electric bays

thetimes.co.uk

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Re: Smart spaces will fine petrol car owners illegally parking in electric bays

#41

Post by SteveGerencser »

maxerickson wrote: post #17
olivermarks wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most petrol/gasoline stations make the majority of their money selling other products, particularly in non urban locations. Milk, newspapers, magazines etc. This business model makes refuelling stations a viable business since the margins on fuel costs are so slim. One of the challenges with the crude political attempts to force EV usage (carrot/subsidies, Stick/fines) is the lack of coherent planning behind it. What…

The story here is an example of how electric vehicle charging happens. Dedicated charging spaces all over the place instead of service stations. As long as the percentage of spaces roughly corresponds to the percentage of electric vehicles, it shouldn't be real disruptive.

The nearest charging station to me is 45 miles away. I don't have an EV because it doesn't make sense for us living where we live. But I do end up driving by that one from time to time and it is always full.

Re: Smart spaces will fine petrol car owners illegally parking in electric bays

#42

Post by chrisseaton »

sofixa wrote: post #40
chrisseaton wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany seems to run an entirely independent and parallel cards and payments system to the rest of the world. Really frustrating.

Really? I've had no problems with regular Visa and MasterCard debit cards, while at the same time the in the Netherlands non-Maestros are barely accepted outside of ATMs, even in huge stores ( that's gotten better in the last 2-3 years).

Last time I was at a German train station I didn't recognise any of the accepted payment cards as a visitor from elsewhere in Europe.

And I note you mention you were specifically ok using debit cards - credit cards are even more problematic than debit cards in Germany. They really don't like accepting them.

And try to use an American Express for anything and you will just get a puzzled look!

Re: Smart spaces will fine petrol car owners illegally parking in electric bays

#43

Post by sandworm101 »

Scoundreller wrote: post #32
sandworm101 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> What happens when/if there are huge numbers of EV's? The strange thing is that there is a model for this already. I live in a rather cold part of Canada. My apartment block has AC outlets for each parking spot. So too does my work, and all local hotels. These are meant to power block heaters, something that doesn't really exist in the UK, but in recent years some people have been using them to charge their EV/hybr…

Are your outlets continuous? I’ve heard of ones that cycle through different chunks of the lot, so half (or a third or 2/3) are powered at a time.

Some cycle on and off but the ones on my building don't. A 50/50 on/off cycle is still going to keep the engine warm enough.

The truth is that modern engines/oils/batteries do very well in the cold. A battery heater is probably of more use than a block heater. But I like having the conventional outlets whenever I have to work on my car. A Tesla fast charging point cannot power my vacuum cleaner.

Re: Smart spaces will fine petrol car owners illegally parking in electric bays

#44

Post by sandworm101 »

olivermarks wrote: post #31
maxerickson wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story here is an example of how electric vehicle charging happens. Dedicated charging spaces all over the place instead of service stations. As long as the percentage of spaces roughly corresponds to the percentage of electric vehicles, it shouldn't be real disruptive.

'all over the place' - what do you mean by 'place'? If we fast forward to a world where the majority of vehicles are electric, this would mean vast parking areas with a smart grid underneath that meters charges to users. (Once ICE has been vanquished vast tax revenue will be gone, someone has to pay for the power, it will be you). In an urban environment presumably every lighting pole will have a charging point since…

>> presumably every lighting pole will have a charging point since they are on the last century grid.

The new light poles in my area all have solar panels. The solar+battery kit is cheaper than the cost to run the underground wires. The real jokes is that with the days so short, and the nights so cold, some poles are running out of power just before dawn. There have been experiments with running intersections (traffic lights etc) on solar as that can really reduce installation costs at remote locations.

Re: Smart spaces will fine petrol car owners illegally parking in electric bays

#45

Post by jtsiskin »

orangeshark wrote: post #37
hannob wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's surprising because car drivers are used to the fact that rules are not or rarely enforced. Just think about it: Technically it would be no big problem to enforce speed limits widely. The technology for speeding cameras isn't exceptionally complex, you could mass-produce them and deploy them basically in every street. I'm not aware of any country doing that.

See red light cameras. You recieve a ticket through the mail and you get pictures and a video of the violation. There is a lot of people against it and some governments have legistation against the use of it.

I thought that was mainly because red light cameras often lead to an increase in collisions because a driver is more likely to stop unsafely if they are worried about the light changing

Re: Smart spaces will fine petrol car owners illegally parking in electric bays

#46

Post by gambiting »

88 wrote: post #33
gambiting wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still eagerly awaiting explanation on how this is going to work with terraced houses where there's about 40 houses on each side and people park how and where they want, and most importantly where the local council barely has enough money to fix the worst potholes. But suddenly they are going to dig up a 300 year old street to put down enough cabling and charging points for every car. My question is "with what mon…

So charge your vehicle at your workplace, or at the shops, or at a dedicated charging station? In the medium term, if this becomes a real problem, properties will be devalued and owners can decide whether it’s worth contributing to the cost of installing the infrastructure. In the long term, most people won’t have private vehicles, so there won’t be any need to store and charge them on public roads.

>>In the long term, most people won’t have private vehicles

You see, I don't believe this point at all, and I'm yet to see a convincing argument why it would be true. It would already be cheaper for me to take an Uber to work rather than own my car yet the convenience of having your own personal space that is mine far outweighs the savings. Also anyone who has children and knows the insane amount of stuff that babies require would laugh at the mere idea. Autonomous vehicles can be fanciest robo taxies(and they won't be, if normal taxies are anything to go by) but the hassle of moving stuff from and out of each for a baby each time one arrives(car, not a baby) would drive you mad.

Re: Smart spaces will fine petrol car owners illegally parking in electric bays

#47

Post by notauser »

olivermarks wrote: post #10
SteveGerencser wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People treat gas pumps as parking spots all the time. It's even more frustrating when you are driving a diesel and the only diesel pump at the station is blocked by a gas car and the owner has wandered off to get a coffee or use the restroom, all while multiple gas pumps sit empty.

Most petrol/gasoline stations make the majority of their money selling other products, particularly in non urban locations. Milk, newspapers, magazines etc. This business model makes refuelling stations a viable business since the margins on fuel costs are so slim. One of the challenges with the crude political attempts to force EV usage (carrot/subsidies, Stick/fines) is the lack of coherent planning behind it. What…

The cycle lane on Kensington High Street (a major London East-to-West route) actually sped up car journeys.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jan/01/removed-lond...

When it was removed the study "calculated that average trip times eastbound increased from 5min 39sec to 8min 14sec, with those westbound rising from 5min 48sec to 6min 27sec."

Re: Smart spaces will fine petrol car owners illegally parking in electric bays

#48

Post by sandworm101 »

hannob wrote: post #26
ultimoo wrote: post #2

Not sure what's so surprising/interesting about this (I don't have a subscription to read the full article). This nugget in the introduction seems to summarize the tech behind this -- > Sensors installed in electric bays can be used to detect the presence of a vehicle and whether it is being used to recharge the car battery.

It's surprising because car drivers are used to the fact that rules are not or rarely enforced. Just think about it: Technically it would be no big problem to enforce speed limits widely. The technology for speeding cameras isn't exceptionally complex, you could mass-produce them and deploy them basically in every street. I'm not aware of any country doing that.

>> The technology for speeding cameras

Speed cameras are not the go-to tech. Nearly every car on the road has a GPS, either organic to the vehicle or inside the driver's phone. If we wanted to actually enforce speed limits it would be a trivial matter to have google forward the relevant information.

This was done by a few rental car companies many moons ago (circa 2001). Speeding laws don't know how to account for such data. Should someone speeding continuously over many miles be fined more or less than someone who speeds twice, each time only for a short distance? Traffic laws are premised on the systems by which people are caught (cops, traffic cameras etc). They are not adapted to the perfect knowledge that modern tech can provide.

https://www.drivers.com/article/428/

Of course, if we really care, it would be trivial to limit all cars to a particular speed while on public roads. Japanese motorcycles are already limited by industry agreement, iirc 300kph (see the Hyabusa fiasco). Merc/BMW cars are limited to 250kph. Those limit could be lowered via a simple software patch.

Re: Smart spaces will fine petrol car owners illegally parking in electric bays

#49

Post by dodobirdlord »

choeger wrote: post #34
hannob wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's surprising because car drivers are used to the fact that rules are not or rarely enforced. Just think about it: Technically it would be no big problem to enforce speed limits widely. The technology for speeding cameras isn't exceptionally complex, you could mass-produce them and deploy them basically in every street. I'm not aware of any country doing that.

The same holds for a lot of other rules, from public transportation tickets over legal fireworks and drinking age to softer drugs and taxes. Society as a whole seems to be generally fine with smaller infractions and I consider this a good thing, tbh. I would be perfectly fine with a similar scheme for traffic laws. The thing with speeding cameras is that they could easily be adjusted to allow for 20% (say at most 20k…

Unsafe driving is a real cause of a substantial amount of death, and unlike most causes of death it is not over represented in the elderly, giving it a massively outsized impact in terms of reduction in expected years of life. Motor vehicle collisions are reliably the leading cause of death of teenagers and young adults in many parts of the world. People are bad at appraising events that are rare with high negative impact, so most people, who have never experienced the consequences of unsafe (or drunk) driving consider it a minor issue.

Re: Smart spaces will fine petrol car owners illegally parking in electric bays

#50

Post by sandworm101 »

notauser wrote: post #47
olivermarks wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most petrol/gasoline stations make the majority of their money selling other products, particularly in non urban locations. Milk, newspapers, magazines etc. This business model makes refuelling stations a viable business since the margins on fuel costs are so slim. One of the challenges with the crude political attempts to force EV usage (carrot/subsidies, Stick/fines) is the lack of coherent planning behind it. What…

The cycle lane on Kensington High Street (a major London East-to-West route) actually sped up car journeys. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jan/01/removed-lond... When it was removed the study "calculated that average trip times eastbound increased from 5min 39sec to 8min 14sec, with those westbound rising from 5min 48sec to 6min 27sec."

Trip times, but how many trips were taken? Make the roads painful/expensive enough and the one car still using them will have a very quick journey. Conversely, filling up the bike lakes with lots of bikes will increase bike trip times. I prefer to measure the efficiency of a road by the number of people it carries across all types of vehicles. Bus lanes over bicycle lanes imho as buses can more more people per hour down a single lane than anything else.
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