An electric Tesla Model 3 has completed JOGLE, John O-Groats to Lands End, with only one and a half hours spent stopped and charging, breaking the previous record easily. This is enabled by a network of high power chargers which can charge electric cars at up to 250kW.
The carbon impact of electric cars depends on the carbon content of the electricity used. The UK electricity grid has changed a lot in the past 7 years because more renewable energy generation, such as solar and wind energy, is available. Coal power has almost been completely phased out. In mid-2020 no electricity was generated from coal for a 67-day period.
The reduction in carbon content of grid electricity means that electric vehicles can be very low carbon, and even less polluting as the grid carbon reduces over time.
For example, here is the carbon impact of the record breaking JOGLE journey above:
Compare this to the average internal combustion car, 120 gCo2/km (Source Jato Dynamics, 2018)
Zapmap is a website used to find a charger for your electric or hydrogen car. There are over 33000 chargers in the UK, with over 10 new ones being added every day on average. You can plan a long distance route using Zapmap, or other sites like “plugshare”. Some cars offer route planning in the car, and can show live availability of chargers. Soon electric vehicle-only service stations will open in the UK with 30 high power chargers at each site, run by Gridserve. They will also offer battery storage, to support the electricity grid at times of peak evening demand.
A few companies promote hydrogen as a fuel for cars. Who might do this?
Hydrogen cars consume a lot more energy compared to battery cars because of the energy required to extract and compress the gas. Most hydrogen comes from fossil sources.
Here are the hydrogen filling stations. The red locations are not working today:
simonselectriccar 