Do we now need an electric boat forum???

[Bouba]

I bet he does secretly just not telling ,

Sometimes you need something just to convince yourself....an electric leaf blower, an electric bicycle, an electric outboard....something that you enjoy using and gets you thinking that maybe an electric car isn’t such a bad idea

 

[ontheplane]

I think a fair bit of qualification is needed on this one. Around 2.8% of cars on UK roads are EV's. The National Grid only in the last week were looking at discounting some electric supply to people if they cut usage at peak times due to supply concerns during winter months. We are not a nation in any way able to significantly increase our electricity demands..

EV's 'running successfully' depends really on your usage patterns. Home charger, and predominantly short urban use? Probably working very well. Regular longer distances, relying on public chargers, certainly a different story with much more varied experiences. An interesting recent challenge in two youtube channels GeoffBuysCars and MacMaster did an old BMW diesel vs a Porsche Taycan EV from John O'Groats to Lands End. Very interesting outcomes and highlighted some serious EV issues.

Electric cars currently work to some degree because there are so few of them. Without a complete usage culture change, make EV's even 10 or 20 % of the car network and watch the deck of cards fall down.

Another issue to consider is price per KWh. The nearest car EV charger to the marina is 49p/kWh for slow. 57p/kWh faster and 67p/kWh very fast. That's way way above even top electric supply tarrifs. Looking at those two Youtube channels, leaving aside the EV driver ending up in tears and had a nose bleed AND being over 4 hours late on a 7 hour journey (2nd leg from midlands to LE) it cost the diesel £122.08 in fuel and the EV £259.87 in electricity. Add in smart charging at the marina, what rate will the electricity be at?

Battery life. The average EV battery is estimated to last 10 years. Put some sizeable EV batteries into a boat in let's say some of the harshest environmental conditions, cold, damp, salty air. How long is the battery going to last? How will it be fitted in the boat with a good centralised position for stability? e-Golf in the US, $23000 for a replacement battery. Tesla - $12000-$22000. How will you get it out of the boat?

Yes large diesel boats do have failures and tank failures etc but there are a huge number running 30 year old engines and 30 year old fuel tanks.

Going back to Artemis, the EV work boat. It's 12metres in a workboat layout. How was it charged at the marina? With a diesel generator. That's one single EV workboat.

I can only look at the environment that I tend to work in so this is UK/Ireland specific but shifting to electric in both size of boat and volume of boats is full of issues compared to the novelty one offs and little handheld outboards that can mask the issues.

Yes, you are right on one single point - there are a lot of moronic YouTubers out there that love to post a good video of how dreadful EV charging is in order to get "Hits"
"EV's will destroy the earth" will get a lot more views (for which read money)

Than

"Did a really easy and uneventful road trip in my EV" - I have watched a load of these videos, and without exception the people trying to make a point actually had to go out of their way to make it hard for themselves. One prat I saw was in a Audi E-tron GT that can charge at 350KW - pulled up at a single trickle charger (7.2KW) plugged in and wondered why he was only adding a couple of miles in range every few minutes and then proceeded to jump up and down about how awful it was - when he was the problem!


Many EV's now can add 200+ miles of range in 20 minutes or so - and yes, you CAN find the chargers - the country is littered with them now - so actually long trips in those cars are a doddle. I have done many long trips now in mine (and it's a bit of a slow charger the EV I have) and it's still a piece of cake.

Anyone can set out to fail to make videos that make a statement - I could make a video showing how we need to never buy cars with petrol engines because if I fail to fill it up properly and douse myself completely in petrol and set myself alight with a match I could get hurt!

There is too much big money at stake here - BP, Shell and others have been shown to be paying people to make some of these "look how awful EV's are - you shouldn't buy one" type videos - hell BP even bought a large EV charging network and then ran it into the ground to reduce EV take-up, but even they now admit that the EV strategy means it's worth them investing in the chargers, and as they have thousands of sites, they can become huge players almost overnight just by switching to better software they already have.... clever.

And there is substantial proof that actually if 50% of cars were EV the drain on the grid would actually be a lot less than now....... HOW ??

EV's are now bi-directional capable. Currently with solar and wind, we often have to turn off the wind generators because we have TOO MUCH power for some periods. If all that excess power could be stored in millions of car batteries when generation is good and released again when it's bad (overnight, no wind etc) then it could actually mean we need LESS energy overall than now... I know at least 3 people who already have gone off-grid using their car battery as home storage and solar. They top up the car during the day and the car powers the house at night....

 

[ontheplane]

This is of course complete dribble.

Thousands of people do those distances daily in EVs. I've done it multiple times, and I've never stopped more than I would have anyway for a coffee and a pee. If you aren't a moron then getting your charging stops to the point where you plug in, have a wee, buy a coffee and then the car is ready to go again is just easy. An 18 minute stop is a long one. The chap in that video was either a moron who hadn't read the slightest thing about EVs, or out to deliberately make it look hard. Back when this video first appeared on "that thread" I posted a video of someone doing JOG to Lands end in a Tesla with no hassles in about 15 hours. The guys in that video quite clearly set out to make it look hard. Or are morons.

On the infrastructure point - of course more needs to be done, but the issue at the moment is the distribution side, rather than the generation side. I could tell you all about the issues I've had connecting my new solar farm to the grid....

Again, we've done the maths a dozen times.... Even if every car in the UK was EV and doing the same mileage as now, the amount of power the UK would need annually would be less than the historical peak. We are currently 24% below that peak in 2005, and the trend is down, not up, even with all the EVs on the road...,
United Kingdom Energy Information.

Shall I do it again for you? 32 million cars, doing the UK average of 7k miles at 3 miles / KWh (a bad average) is 75 Terrawatt hours if my maths is correct. The UK demand in 2005 was about 350TWh. Last year was just over 250TWh.

In the last year there were about 350k new EVs. So by the same maths, that's About 0.8TWh of new demand.
Meanwhile in the last year we have installed 3GW of new renewable generation, mostly offshore wind. Roughly speaking for wind 1GW of installed capacity will produce 2000GWh over a year. Or 2 Terrawatt hours. So you can see that currently installation of new renewable capacity is far outstripping new demand due to EVs.
And of course despite that extra 0.8 TWh of demand, national demand fell.

Sure, it's not that simple as there are issues of timing of demand and supply. But please stop with the "can't be done" narrative. It's plainly bollocks as it is being done.

OMG

So hang on

We have Electric cars and know about this stuff and are telling people who DON'T own EV's how easy it is - but they think they are right because they have read in the Daily Fail and the SUN that it's all cr@p and won't work.....


Here is a map of just a small part of the UK literally about 5-10 miles radius of Bristol - please note the complete lack of chargers - given most EV's have a range of 200+ miles and there is a charger about every 5 - 10 miles or so I don't know why all my long trips are so crazily easy!





Or here are the super-rapid chargers with multiple heads slightly further afield - note I could reach ALL of these from home without dropping below about 30% range






Yeh - that infrastucture - just not there is it....

 

[oldgit]

Do you remember CB radios….. see if you can spot one now

Excellent choice of example , first used in the USA at the end of the 1940s and first used Illegally in the late 1970s in UK. We used to sell em .
Ancient history replaced in very short order due to technological progress.
A need for a method of communication solved by advances in technology.
First replaced by the expensive house brick mobile phone, the nay sayers bleated then about cost and coverage ,now of course those dinosaurs all have a smartphone of some sort and probably a cell mast at the end of the muddy path near their cave as well.
Cannot remember the number of times told .....Cannot see the point it will never catch on.
We loved selling them money for old rope.
The cost of the Cellphone/TV/ Satellite receivers and video recorders/ cameras plummeted in very short order.
Thousands of pounds to Hundreds in less than a decade.

On a very recent boat trip to a channnel port was noticeable that virtually all the new(ish) craft .moored nearbye were lightweight small fast craft with a couple of token berths and two enormous outboards.
They were not long distance cruisers.
The EA on the Thames will be installing a couple chargers in the new year.
Why Henry ever persisted with the model "T" would have been their favourite conversation to all who would listen and not able to run away.
It will never catch on. No Range or infrastructure.
Where will they fill up with that err "petroleum its called" as well.

Their sage advice...invest in Oats and Hay, Mate.

 

[ari]

I think those marinas that need expensive work will knock on the head...and tell their clients to fill up at the next marina...eventually fuel docks will be further and further apart. Think of it this way....why is petrol so scarce in some area ?...it’s only for economic reasons....it wasn’t worth stocking it back in the red diesel day

Any particular actual reason why you think that? Or you just do?

 

[Bouba]

Any particular actual reason why you think that? Or you just do?

The uptake of electric is happening really fast.... I guess I just do

 

[ari]

Which is sort of my point. Once this [generally old] boating generation leave the game, who is going to buy outright the mass produced stuff?

The same sort of people who have always bought used boats. What do you think is going to change?

 

[ari]

At Sainsburys today there were 10 Ultra Rapid chargers (well 150kw anyhow) - one in use - that means 9 free - as most people have one car, I reckon 9 is enough.....

Umm...

Anyone?

 

[Stingo]

The uptake of electric is happening really fast.... I guess I just do

Your dog has joined the other place where you keep flouncing from. I wonder if his bite is better than your bark?

 

[ari]

The uptake of electric is happening really fast.... I guess I just do

How many electric boats have you seen in your marina? (Proper marina berth boats, not tenders). Because I've not seen a single one in my marina.

Happy to be educated though, if you've got any actual figures on this really fast uptake of electric boats?

 

[Momac]

On a very recent boat trip to a channnel port was noticeable that virtually all the new craft .moored nearbye were lightweight small fast craft with a couple of token berths and two enormous outboards.

So if there is no inboard engine why is there not more cabin space rather than less compared to a sterndrive or shaft drive boat of the same size?

 

[Clancy Moped]

Yes.

 

[LBRodders]

The same sort of people who have always bought used boats. What do you think is going to change?

* New boats

 

[Martxer]

Have you got an electric car Bigplums? Because that statement is utter cr@p....

I've had an Electric Car for 2 years and covered 38,000 miles in that time. The charging infrastructure could be improved a little I concede, but it is there, it works perfectly well and to say it "Never will be" when it already is is utter rubbish.

I would admit the charging infrastructure for boats may never be, but that's not what you said. I could easily drive from my Home in Bristol to anywhere in the country in my EV and make it there and back without issue - my bladder would need emptying well before the car needs filling!!

I love to see people saying how bad the EV charging infrastructure is when they don't own an EV and have probably no clue how they work or how good the infrastructure is! They make statements like they are experts yet have probably never used an EV charger in their life.

At Sainsburys today there were 10 Ultra Rapid chargers (well 150kw anyhow) - one in use - that means 9 free - as most people have one car, I reckon 9 is enough.....

I have a video showing a typical charger situation at 8pm on a Monday night, on this occasion on the M4 in reading but I can't seem to attach a MOV file? I've put a link to it here.

Not published on You Tube before so may not work!

- I was driving back home from Kent to Bristol - can you see what a horrible struggle it was to find a charger... oh my how very awful it all was.....

I had an ev for 4 years, got rid earlier this year.

I got sick of paying 68p per kw at a super charger 150 kWh while only charging at 50 kWh.
The journey from the Northwest down to Dartmouth meant leaving the motorway to find a fast charger adding time to the journey.

I went for a diesel that can do the journey there and back without the need to re fuel. We still stop half way at the services, I think they have 2 number 50kwh chargers. We would have needed to stop and charge for an hour if one was available.

I won’t mention the depreciation

 

[Greg2]

Much of the debate appears to have revolved around electric vehicles and leisure boats but there are many commercial vessels that will require diesel or a fuel such as HVO because batteries just won’t cut it unless there is a major shift in technology.

A recent report concluded that there is no one size fits all solution for boats and to my mind some kind of mixed economy is the logical solution. I suspect that complete eradication of fossil fuels is probably impossible, and as at least one forumite has pointed out, not desirable given the range of products derived from the refining process.

Climate change is a threat and there is no question that we must make changes but the real challenge is how we go about it and whether politicians are able to listen to expert evidence and to act rationally instead of taking the populist view or putting themselves or their party’s interests first.
.

 

[oldgit]

So if there is no inboard engine why is there not more cabin space rather than less compared to a sterndrive or shaft drive boat of the same size?

There was certainly more cabin space for socialising both in and outside but a very small area taken up by berths/shower and galley.
The headroom throughout the boat was really impressive.
Well impressed with layout somewhat utiliterian design and suspect it could really shift.
Boats appeared to be around 8 to 9 Metres, all of French manufacture, they have captured that market which we appeared to have abandoned.

 

[Momac]

Boats appeared to be around 8 to 9 Metres, all of French manufacture, they have captured that market which we appeared to have abandoned.

Unfortunately so.

I see a new 33ft Sealine C335 (now German owned brand) advertised at £367,000+VAT which I am more than fairly confident I will not be buying.
Fortunately many of the now older UK built boats of any brand that people might prefer have all proven to be durable an offer generally much better value for money and are well worth a few quid spent keeping them in good order,

From an environmental perspective keeping an older thing is surely better than buying a new thing.

 

[wombat88]

I have a 20ft motor boat with a 50hp outboard that is coming to the end of a life of abuse. I rarely go out of the harbour. The idea of moving around at displacement speeds in near silence is very attractive. To replace the current engine would be something like £8k which is more than the current value of the boat including current outboard.

However...I would be sorely tempted to bolt on something leccy for £8k if such a thing existed...I suspect it doesn't.

 

[kashurst]

From an environmental perspective keeping an older thing is surely better than buying a new thing.

at first glance yes, however for many things the calculation is complex and not based on just because it's old and could be revived/refurbed at a fraction of the cost of a new one.

 

[ari]

* New boats

What new boats are those?