Chinese cars are coming to UK and the best example of this are the exhibits from the Fully Charged Show North electric car show held at Harrogate UK Friday 20th to 22nd of June  

Practicalities 

1. Getting around the site was difficult as 70 exhibitors were inside and 25 car exhibitors were outside.  Test drives of major brands offered attendees experience although that required a UK drivers license and validation with the UK authorities!
2. About 17 talks were held each day. Each was 30 minutes, with a coordinator and a panel of 2 to 5 speakers there were plenty of topics to talk about.
3. Topics ranged from energy used for home electric chargers to battery developments to farming. Check out the full program here. 

Thoughts and Impressions

1. On the Friday only middle-aged men were present. Almost no females. Was this a demographic of the renewable energy sector, or just that Friday is not a day for families? Turns out that the demographic of the Fully Charged Show is 92% older white males. 
2. Males dominated attendance, as expected at car shows. Females were less than 10% of attendees. More women turned up on Saturday but still only about 20% of the people attending.
3. Robert Llewellyn is a hopeless facilitator in sessions always goes over time and always talks too much but he has probably more than anyone advanced EV and electrification in UK. So all excused.
4. No mention that transportation needed more than a change from ICE vehicles to EV. Simply increasing the number of EV cars was not a sustainable focus.  This may be we are early on in the transition and there are no autonomous vehicles yet.

EV Suppliers

EV models were dominated by Chinese, Korean suppliers. Other suppliers had vehicles on display. 

E-Bikes

Only one e-bike distributor was at the show. ESkuta looks like they import their own UK designed Chinese scooters – with power at 250W and a range of 65km.  UK regulations require the bicycle requires peddling all the time and if the pedals stop for more than 5 seconds, the bike stops. They are targeting the delivery of food or similar with this ECargo model . With the bicycle regulations, there is no license needed, no helmet, no tax paid and no insurance needed and can travel up to 25kph.  However, it cannot be self-propelled. The UK government is considering changing the regulations but as the owner said as the committee is a bunch of old white guys sitting around a Whitehall table, they have little understanding of the personal mobility opportunities.. Mobile transportation decisions appear to be stalled.

They also import their own conventional small-wheeled e-mobility scooters. 

EV Charging

Many of the indoor show exhibitors were EV charger manufacturers and suppliers. Large DC charging manufacturers including  ABB was there, as was AUTEL, a B2B network provider of AC and DC chargers. Most EV chargers used 3 layer stack. The charger firmware, the software control system and a cloud based payment/management service. Most software was completely cloud-based software and there were a few of this software network charging providers

E.g. One home charger came with an OTA upgrade, and compliance with multiple network providers.

On-street parking systems were demonstrated. While 60% of UK houses have off-street parking, many of them will actually have something else on the street.  (As many visitors note.) Solutions included pop-up boxes, Shell provide a retrofit to power poles that a local authority might supply (and make money on). Destination chargers mean that the scarce parking spaces on the street or in parking lots can be repurposed. Shell’s stated plan is 100,000 by 2030 – the challenge is to do it faster.

Similar to Australia, apartments were challenging. Larger DC chargers in apartment complexes could distort energy pricing. Heard that one installation was going to be over £220,000 for a large supply. 

Panel Discussions

• Many panel speakers were ceos or owners or such of charging companies with a few specialists in batteries, agriculture or charging.
• The format of 30 minutes was too short. There was only enough time for 5 minutes each and question time. 
• The farming was led by a farmers union spokesperson and it seems as though the farming has no idea about the changes and disruptions coming. Their focus is automation, but they recognised the potential of solar on roofs of the farm properties. There are no electric tractors or such around UK.  For a look at EV Tractors check out this blog
• I think the format of the sessions at half an hour was two little because while they had some question and answer sessions it really wasn’t enough time to explore the topics in anything but a cursory manner and there was no ability to challenge the speakers
• Shell was a presenter at one session No-one called them out for greenwashing. Their objective is to have up to 100,000 chargers available at petrol stations or destination chargers. A commentary was Shell could afford to do that within two years. 
• There was no focus on not having a car. It was all about having an EV. There was no commentary to reduce car ownership. The focus was actually owning and maintaining a BV car and dealing with the current concern of charging.
• There was a small light plane called which was designed as a training aircraft for flight instruction. They had recently received funding from Airbus. The range was 80 kilometers (50 miles)

Vehicle Leasing

A number of EV leasing companies exhibited. Tax write-offs in the UK are generous and many choose salary sacrifice. Salary packaging is common. It means that fleet purchases range from a small car to Bentleys.

EZoo provides a short term rental of EVs  – 1 month to 3 months although some can extend out. The market is, as an example, companies who appoint a new hire with a 6 month probation, and they want the car within a couple of days. Their Zoe is from £400 per month to a Tesla at £1100.

•  Includes all insurance, maintenance, tyres, roadside assistance and soon charging 
• They have no credit check so does not go against the company or the employee
• 1 month or 3 months
• 1 week’s notice each month
• Longer term available
• Suits companies with staff on 6-month probation. 
• 3-day wait for car
• Only EVs

Solar and Batteries

Batteries halve the rate of return from solar panels. Most suggest the cost of solar panels is paid back within 7 to 8 years. However, adding batteries reduces payback to less than four years. Most systems cost about £10,000 with installation on a double storey, tile roof with scaffolding

• The average purchase tariff across UK averages 41 pence per kWh.
• The average consumer export sell price tariff was as low as 6p kWh although that tariff is currently about 11p.
• Octopus offers time-of-day feed-in and export rates can be as high as £1.20 on half hour intervals.

Price of Solar and Batteries

• 4kW panels, 9.8kW battery, 3kW inverter 9,000
• 6.5kW panelsl9.8kW battery 5 kW inverter 11,000
• With existing panels, 5kW inverter, 9.8kW battery 

Electra Trucks

Kia and Hyundai EVs

BYD Great Wall, SAIC, Xping – Chinese Cars are Coming

Ford

Volkswagen Group

Toyota and Nissan

Rivian

BMW and Mercedes Benz

Fiat And Microlina

UK will get these new Chinese cars along with a range of cars from Korea and Germany.

Program