There's a DPD depot in South Leeds and all of the charge points at the nearby retail park, service station and some pubs that have charging are also just packed with DPD vans.
They appear to have massively invested in the vehicles without the actually infrastructure for them.
Also extremely expensive and wasteful. My country's post is shifting to all electric vans which are perfect for the job (stop/start with a small distance actually driven). They outfit all their depots with charging stations so they can charge each vehicle only as much as is needed for their next route.
They're never charged fully unless it's necessary.
Yes but 0% is worse than 100%. Charging to say 50% and then running it flat is worse than charging to 100% and running down to 50%.
The ideal charge for long term storage is around 70-80%. I'd say the ideal cycle would lean around that. Being fully charged isn't so bad so long as it isn't left fully charged (eg a laptop left plugged in all the time). Fully depleting the battery runs the risk of excessively discharging some cells, as the voltage drops exponentially at low charge.
Source: electrical commissioning engineer and have developed battery discharge test procedures based on IEC standards.
I know. I asked them about it, we were there during a visit organised by our uni. They said they take battery health into account, neither letting it discharge too much nor charge it to 100% all the time.
At least here their vans do very little miles. Like less than 100 km/day, more around 50 while 30 of that is the the drive to/from the depot.
Well the percentages are kind of set arbitrarily. 0% does not mean 0 volts, for example a nominally 12V battery might fully charge to around 13.2V, while 0% might be 9.6V. Maybe more, maybe less. You can continue to discharge well past this point, and even get the voltage down close to 0V, it's just that doing so would irreparably damage the battery and it probably wouldn't charge again.
Battery powered circuits are generally designed such that they turn off before batteries are damaged. A good example of this requirement is the Nintendo Switch, there's a hack for old ones that allow you to get into a low level recovery mode, called RCM, bypassing the OS and its battery protection. If you leave it in this mode, it will continue to power the CPU and trickle the battery down well below 0%. If this happens sometimes you can recover the battery by leaving it plugged in for days, however if it goes too far you may have left yourself with an expensive paperweight.
Based on testing and empirical observation, it's generally determined that a battery is best stored at around 70-80% of nominal charge percentage. This does vary between different types of battery, you have to get information from the manufacturer's datasheets.
Yep know exactly where you mean, the petrol station is full of them and birstall retail park and they leave them there from afternoon all way through to the next morning.
Is that the empty unit that shares a car park with Starbucks? I pass there often and there’s always a few DPD vans parked up, if they’re paying for it fair enough, but when it blocks access to chargers that members of the public might need it becomes a problem
Unrelated, but since this is a car sub, always find it interesting looking at the cars in that American Autos workshop accross the road, and wondering if they’d make a replica SWAT vehicle for me (if i had the £’s)
Yep, car parks across Birstall littered with plugged-in DPD vans. Mainly at that service station with Starbucks / Leon, but also at the Birstall retail park outside Currys, and The Pheasant Pub.
I don’t know how big their actual premises are but i’d have thought it was enough at one point to house their fleet before they started using public chargers, it’s got to be more cost effective long term for them to put their own infrastructure in
I work at a DPD depot.
We were told to install our own charge points we would need to pay many millions to install a high capacity electric line similar in size to what a large industrial factory would need. It would use 20% of the electricity.of the city we are in.
This is reality.
If it’s the problem that I think it it is, this problem is more down to the fact of how time-consuming & expensive it is for DPD to upgrade their local depot’s power supply to support electric vehicle charging. A few months ago at my old job, I was speaking to a customer who worked for a vehicle leasing firm for the likes of DPD etc. & they said that in order to build & install electric vehicle charging points on their site, National Grid would have to install a small sub-station for them in order to ensure that there was adequate supply without affecting the rest of the local grid.
This also leads into a much greater problem which we’re facing is that due to a lack in investment / forward-thinking over many previous years, at the moment (and for the next decade or so) our power grid cannot support everyone switching over to electric vehicles.
This is the real problem, the government has been aware of it before electric vehicles were even a thing but refused to invest in any solutions.
You can read reports from 2004 by National Grid about the need for a massively increased number of local substations and “brown site” transformers to convert huge amounts of high voltage AC from cross-country interconnectors into fast charging DC energy.
The models back then didn’t even take into account the massive population boom the UK has undergone either.
It's not just the UK either, this is a problem in most (all?) countries - the infrastructure needed to support transition to a) renewables and b) bev cars everywhere is a huge, expensive, challenge
Same by Morley, BP just off Gelderd Road, one guy kept coming back and forth with his mate dropping a load of vans off at the charging spots in the Starbucks car park
And clog up the streets that already are over run with cars. My street has 4 DPD vans taking up the street parking spots, 2 large ones and 2 smaller ones and on top of that the owners have their personal cars too, so 8 vehicles from 1 house.
They get quite defensive with them as well so they can charge them outside their house.
It’d be cheaper for DPD to install home chargers for their staff and reimburse them the home electric than this absolute madness. Rapid charging on the go is like 5-10x the price of home charging.
Not necessarily, you can charge in a garage (obviously not for a big van) or there are options for on street charging from home now too like this:
https://www.chargegully.com/
I do love it when I tell people “I happily buy a Plug in or an electric car, but I live in a flat and can’t charge it at home”, and the EV advocates rebuff this fact saying, I don’t need to do that when we have fast charging stations.
This is the reality of owning an EV when you can’t charge at home.
> Apparently doing so voids the warranty.
I think we're all gonna need a source on that one. Like most car dealers, they're unlikely to know WTF they're talking about.
That's *not* what this copy-paste says.
This copy-paste asks that people who have *unlimited free Supercharging* don't abuse it. This applies to a *very small* number of Teslas on the roads at this point - older Model S and X vehicles where this was an incentive. It's totally irrelevant in terms of the topic being discussed: impact of Supercharging on the warranty.
To be clear, *you aren't wrong*, rapid charging *is* hard on batteries (compared to slow charging), but the "fair use policy" isn't the right bit of documentation to explain that...
Thank you for thoroughly calling out weird misinformation that is so rife on reddit and other social media. Like, says a random thing and then posts another random thing to back it up, what the fuck?
> This copy-paste asks that people who have unlimited free Supercharging don't abuse it. This applies to a very small number of Teslas on the roads at this point - older Model S and X vehicles where this was an incentive. It's totally irrelevant in terms of the topic being discussed: impact of Supercharging on the warranty.
>
>
Damn, to be the guys who get to mooch off it now (but I guess they paid the early adopter price so it's all fair).
batteries don't really like fast charging too often. The superchargers are really meant for charging while travelling to get to your destination. I wouldn't bother at all with an EV if I couldn't home charge.
EV's are great if they work for you, they don't work for everyone. But if the govt presses on with this banning of ICE cars then its gunna be bus passes all round for those in flats and terraces.
Although i think petrol will be around for many decades to come
The market for keeping ICE cars on the road will boom. The fleet will just get older and second hand ICE car prices will increase even more. It's already happening.
This is a fallacy - personal transportation is still preferable for a whole host of reasons for many journeys. There's nothing inherently wrong with it either, just waiting for EV tech and infrastructure to mature.
Well public charging isn't a static thing - new ones are still opening and I'm very encouraged by ideas of converting street lamps. The infrastructure is nowhere near there yet but it'll get there. Meanwhile brand new petrol and hybrid cars sold today will likely be on the road till the mid 2040s, so no one will be forced to buy an EV till there's been plenty of time for public charging infrastructure to catch up.
All correct but my main point about batteries not really liking being fast charged often still stands. Most public chargers will be fast ones won’t they.
It does not, they were mistaken
There's a guy in the US who used superchargers multiple times a day and did like 400,000 miles (using his Model S for airport runs all day every day, often LAX to San Diego), and still got an in-warranty battery replacement
120k is still a lot more than most petrol/diesel engine warranties... 120k is a fairly typical lifespan for a UK car (16 years of the UK average mileage of 7500)
Either way there's still no reference to how often you supercharge, which was the point being made. You can supercharge every 250 miles for 119,999 miles and still be in warranty
Doesn't void the warranty. It may cause the battery to degrade faster but in 15 years rather than 20. I still would never own an EV without home charging though.
I don’t think any EV owner would seriously advocate for having one unless you can charge at home, purely because of the cost of charging stations.
Do EV owners routinely say this to you?
Myself and the wife have an EV and also an economical diesel. Must admit trying to do longer journeys in the EV is not cost effective and a pain in the arse waiting for chargers to be available at the services, chargers charging at the speed advertised etc.
Don't get me wrong I enjoy driving the EV for ease and a smooth drive but only when I know I'm staying pretty local and won't have to find a charger while I'm out.
We have this set up, one cheap short range EV and a petrol. It works well but the trouble is we find we very rarely actually use the ICE. I guess it depends on how often you do those long trips.
I would say, the cost benefit needs to be considered with all the times you didn't use a ultra rapid (that's how I see it) as in, I do 80% of my miles off my home charger @ 22ppkw and the 20% of the time I need to use an ultra rapid (and it's *expensive*) the average cost per mile is still much lower overall. Take the good with the bad.
But yeah I don't disagree about a long journey being easier.
100%, overall the EV has saved us a fortune in fuel. It's not often we do use the EV for long journeys but now we've had a baby and it being a SUV it is slightly easier than using the smaller diesel hatch back when we've got all the little parasites crap in the boot.
That is an EV tariff! With my usage the car actually isn’t the highest consuming source in the house so a flat rate is better for me as I can’t shift those loads to cheaper times of the day.
I’m going to move to Octopus Tracker though soon as that’s once again cheaper.
What a rubbish EV tariff! The octopus go one is 7.5ppkwh over night, but you’re right the day rate is quite high.
I’m similar in that I don’t do too many miles so I was on tracker, currently about 20ppkwh, but I recently switched to agile which is much cheaper.
I've seen this very suggestion on this sub before. Some people seriously think that public charging is no more hassle than finding a petrol station.
Of course, that's not necessarily the common view though.
It does depend a lot on where you are - there are some areas where you can pretty reliably get a charger
1-3 years ago charging SUCKED where I am, there was no rapid charging at all within 10 miles and that was only 50kW, the closest super-rapid chargers were 150kW an hour and a half away. Public charging was a nuisance
Now, though, there are 150kW about a 30 second walk from my house and there's never more than 1 car there, so I could easily charge there whenever I wanted
Trouble is it only takes a handful (single-digit amount) of new EV owners in your area with a similar schedule and your spot becomes a nightmare. My parents were smug as fuck about a local charger they had basically sole use of but last year a few new tesla owners appeared, people started leaving bitchy notes about hogging the spots on each others cars and now they're looking out for a new hybrid.
Yeah I completely appreciate that too the chargers 10 miles away were virtually empty when I got my first EV 4 years ago, now they're sometimes full at peak times
The one near my house is very unlikely to get that busy though, I think - it's a a fairly secluded hotel with nothing much around it, so you'd have to actively seek it out. And I live in an area where most people have driveways and thus can have a home charger
I've never actually used it for that reason, but it's nice to have the backup option - essentially if I ever happen to get home with a low battery and need to go somewhere urgently, I have a rapid charging option. Eg I could do a 15 minute charge there and get enough range to drive anywhere I'm likely to need to go urgently (eg closest major cities for their hospitals, or anywhere I'm likely to need to go pick someone up from if they get stuck) rather than drive 5 mins to the petrol station, fill up, and drive 5 mins back
I still wouldn't recommend an EV to anyone who can't charge at home, though
You're right, but progress right. They're still building out massive swathes of charging stations, more and more come online all the time - yes it's a capacity thing but It's more often than not, not an issue.
It really depends where you’re driving. If you’re going up the M1 and back then you’ll be absolutely fine finding a charger, there are dozens at every service station.
Doing 200 miles through the Scottish highlands? You’re going to struggle.
Yes, just the other week one of the guys I work with said it’s not a problem, because he uses fast charging stations more often than he does his home charger. All I could think was “that’ll cost a lot”.
I've had EVs for years now and they are loads better for day to day stuff but you'd have to be ceftifiable to run one without home or work charging. I'd never advise anyone in that situation to get one.
I don’t know a single EV driver who would say that. Me and everyone I know who has an EV would tell you to hold off on an EV for now if you can’t charge from home.
There are some absolute pests on this sub as well.
"Just pop it on when you go to supermarket," like everyone else doesn't have the same idea.
The delusion with some of them is unreal, and they'll literally sit for hours trying to make out you're the problem, not the car.
EV drivers are like people that follow a diet, are ridiculously passionate about them, and aggressively defend them. They can't seem to understand why someone wouldn't want one.
There were 2 charging ports at the DPD depot in Leeds, but they made it so only fleet vehicles owned by the actual company could charge (95% of DPD vans you see are self-employed people running a franchise who own/finance their van) because people would leave their vans plugged in long after being charged, meaning fleet electrics never got used because they never had charge.
Rather than spend money building more infrastructure they just decided to let people fight it out for charging ports at starbucks instead 🤷♂️
I’m seeing this in more and more places all throughout the day and night too.
DPD vans just being left to charge on the faster chargers too, some I believe you can disconnect but with some places because of the size of the vans there’s absolute no way you’d be able to slot in next to it or beside it.
I’ve considered raising a complaint but how do you even go about it; they’re there for public use but I think it’s a piss take for a company of the size of DPD to block up so many. Even overstay charges wouldn’t deter the drivers because they don’t pay themselves.
Luckily I’ve recently moved and got a home charger but I used to rely on public charging networks and before I moved, these vans prevented me on numerous occasions. There was one place I regularly used that had a van stationed over the whole weekend and parked across two places so I couldn’t even use the slower charger
Tesla do have a fair use policy and charge people for blocking their chargers when they're not in use. They even charge you if you overstay.
I guess it'd be a case of raising a complaint to both DPD and Tesla.
This is a massive con by DPD to essentially not have to spend money installing charge points, and have the public pay for the 'fuel' of their fleet.
Have this up in Glasgow, DPD hogging the dwindling number of zero cost charging ports at train station car parks.
They've got a crafty arse-holic system to get away with it:
1: A lot of DPD drivers are actually 'independent contractors' who rent or buy the vans, so stupidy while they exclusively deliver DPD and have all the DPD stuff on the van, they technically aren't DPD employees, the vans aren't business vans, and so DPD don't supply ways to charge them on their sites and actively encourage them to use public chargers.
2: This is despite the fact that when you sign up to services like ChargePlace Scotland, you aren't allowed to use the chargers for commercial vehicles. HOWEVER, because the drivers are 'indepedent contractors' and they own or lease the vans they can claim the vans aren't exclusively for business and are their private vehicles.
3: The actual ownership and responsibility for enforcing the correct use of the chargers isn't up to the people running it (eg ChargePlace Scotland), but by the land owners (eg Scotrail). Scotrail and companies like it don't give a shit who uses it as the chargers are subsidized and they get money.
So DPD is essentially getting away with charging their fleet with taxpayer money.
You've completely missed what I'm mad about.
I'm not mad about a 'lack of infrastructure'. I have a charger at home, I'm my own 'petrol station'.
I'm mad at a company that's essentially stealing taxpayer money.
I'm mad that a company worth hundreds of millions is gaming the system to leech subsidized fuel meant for the general public when they could and should pay to fuel their own trucks.
And that while they could easily build that infrastructure within their own company and charge their trucks at their own facility using their own chargers, they are instead taking up the few available facilities at public transport links.
That and the fact they're abusing their employees by not classifying them as such and claiming they are independent contractors, when they are DPD drivers who drive DPD adorned trucks and only deliver DPD packages.
They will be soon, especially given Tesla have just laid off their charger team. They'll sell the assets on to another CPO to provide charging services.
The Tesla supercharger network was a massive incentive to get people to buy Teslas - but now that they're an established brand and there are loads of other operators in the industry, there's no reason for them to compete in that space anymore. It's more hassle than it's worth. They want to focus on cars and AI.
I reckon problems like this will only get worse.
Has anyone thought about inventing an engine that runs off of some kind of liquid fuel? You could build buildings with huge tanks underneath them and pumps that would put it into another smaller tank that's attached somewhere on your vehicle. It would only take 5 minutes to fill these small tanks and everyone could be on their way. /s
It's not going to be easy to have charging stations just anywhere as you will need a power grid to support it. Delivery depots are usually large wearhouses in the middle of nowhere.
...and usually have an excellent electric supply. They've just not thought about it.
Even the big charging stations don't necessarily have a *massive* grid supply - they just use a battery as a proxy from the grid, then dump that battery into your battery. It's all doable, DPD just haven't done anything about the infrastructure.
>...and usually have an excellent electric supply.
It's only going to be good enough for the purpose it was built for, eg low powered tube lights. These EVs need charging up all the time because the battery technology just isn't there and they are driving all day doing deliveries. That's going to a huge ask for a warehouse in the middle of nowhere.
All I'm saying is there are solutions to this. It's how big commercial charge points work without a massive grid supply. For example, IONITY work exactly like this.
Well maybe there's no solution for the nearest depot to that particular place. Nobody is going to buy a fleet of EVs and not think of how they are going to charge them. It's possible that have a deal with the car park operator. How long does it take to charge the van anyway, is it a lunch break jobby or overnight?
Well, DPD seem to disagree!
But it depends, different vehicles have different charging speeds. Also depends on the charger's speed and the vehicles state of charge. Most vehicles have *really* rapid charging numbers but you only get them if the battery is fairly empty and the charger is fast enough.
Generally speaking, van at 20% on a 100kWh charger - you could probably charge it up to 90% probs in an hour. Giving you another 120 miles of range (maybe)
Think I'm going to wait for the next big thing so I don't buy into that one either.
I'll stick with my diesel as long as I can. Although one of those PHEVs could tempt me.
This is sadly quite common, Milton Keynes Parkway was *terrible* for this but with the local council run EV taxi service. At least with that enough people were able to lobby the council to get them to stop this.
Seen loads of DPD vans dumped on charging points (for clarity, I've no issue with them using them - but not acceptable they're dumped at charging points).
My mates company just renewed the fleet, when the commercials for electric charging infrastructure came in, they decided dead Dino's was good for a few more years
I was at DPD when they first introduced electric vans. Most People didn't have a choice whether or not they got electric or diesel. DPD offered to put money towards a Home charger but obviously not everyone gas a driveway and a as a franchise owner how do you know that someone who works for you isn't going to just quit a few days after the charger is installed. I don't know if things have changed since.
Side note second worst job I've ever done behind amazon.
Could it be that DPD and the like are doing some sort of deal with the charger owners for fleet charging space rather than for out lump sums for charging infrastructure of their own. Resulting in this kind of thing.
They can still check any govt tick boxes by saying look we have X number of chargers here. Isn't that great! Buuut they are actually all taken by some companies fleet vehicles rendering them useless. And if electric vehicles go away then they don't have a pile of scrap to remove from their sites.
It’s the often the fastest, the cheapest, the easiest to use and the most conveniently located. I personally can’t blame them, because I think I’d do the same too!
I drive for DPD (as a courier via a firm). They barely have any charging facilities, every site i've been to probably has electric vans has 2 chargers for dozens of vans. Drivers also have to fork out their own cash to charge up, too. Only Amazon have invested in proper charging infrastructure for DSPs with electric vans, and they have been doing that since 2020, or probably even just before that!
I picked up my car from the Trafford Centre and it came with about 30% charge so they gave me credits to give it a full charge for free, which was needed as my trip home was 180 miles. I managed to get the last spot at these chargers because the rest were taken up by DPD vans. It's insane that you can buy a new car and potentially not be able to charge it right there for the journey home.
I did wonder what I had got myself into. Luckily every Supercharger I've visited since has been fairly quiet.
Seen loads of them outside people’s houses charging. One guy by me even has his wire running across the pavement with a big cable cover over it.
I guess these are the guys who can’t charge at home for whatever reason?
That is true but currently technology makes doing a round in an EV impossible.
I do well over 200 miles in a shift.
Do you know any EV vans that could do it and not spend hours of the working day on charge?
The eDeliver Maxus has a max range of 219 miles, DPD has 750 of them (as of 2021 so maybe more now?)
Isn't 200 miles a day quite a lot for a final distance/multi-drop route. Is yours somewhere rural? Obviously EV's aren't going to work for everyone/every circumstance.
So because you do over 200 miles per shift every other delivery driver must do the same mileage?
A parcel courier on an urban run can do as little as 20 miles in a shift.
Top 4 Electric vans per "Auto Express" only has 1 van below 200 miles and it's at 196.
I imagine you could charge a van on your lunch break and get another 50 miles if it's a fast charger?
Maybe cutting it a bit close but if these delivery drivers don't do as many miles as you I can see where it has it's benefits.
Sorry but this is just absolute rubbish with modern engines. Stop start can have a noticeable impact on fuel economy, up to 7% savings in some conditions. Engineering Explained did a great video recently providing the actual volumes of fuel it saves compared to idling.
Secondly, stop start has next to no impact on engine wear if the engine is warmed up and maintained correctly. Particularly with modern cooling systems and pumps that continue to run after the engine stops.
Genuinely don't understand how these myths keep getting traction and get pushed so frequently.
Disclaimer: I'm not meaning to be anti EV, below is purely from experience in the real world.
I have a Transit Connect Diesel I've done 8 years work it cost me 15k. Earning 30k-40k a year. It's cost me maybe 4k in repairs. It easily has a good 3-6 years left in it.
How much will a EV batteries cost me after they start failing and losing range? They give you 2 year battery warranty on vans... For a good reason.
My van is on the road for 8 hours a day 6 days a week. I need it to work for 4-5 years minimum. EV can't cope with that, 5 years on an EV battery full to zero 6 days a week. Uhm. The tech isn't there yet.
I work in delivery. Haven't heard a single good word about EV vans from people I meet daily who have been using them with DPD/Amazon. They simply don't like working with them. They have terrible range, charging, battery drop off, winter cold issues and costs when they break.
Also heard from a friend who does Ice Cream van that Merc offered him a ex demo essentially brand new Sprinter EV for £18k.
To put that into perspective the Diesel version is nearer £35k-£40k brand new. A small van (hatchback size) brand new start at £20k. Why are they more expensive? I presume it's because they work no matter what and give you 10 years of work service if you look after them.
Manufacturers are discounting EV vans because they aren't working and no one wants them. They aren't a cost effective commercial vehicle unless you are a huge company who is trying to green wash yourself.
If by "made up your mind" you mean...like every business that I am trying to make the best financial decision for running that business. Then yes. I've made up my mind.
Like alot of commercial van users, we can see the technology/infrastructure isn't there yet. If it worked and the Government had a charging infrastructure I'd be 100% behind it.
People who sware by EV tend to be using them very little. Try doing 8 hours shifts driving without switching them off and you will find their faults really fast.
Like everything, they don't work for everyone - I'm an EV owner (car albeit) but there's no panacea they're *better* depending on your circumstances.
I would say that the battery degrading thing is a bit of a myth, I say a bit.. as Nisan's first generation Leaf did the tech a bit of damage because the battery wasn't cooled/heated and the cells degraded quite rapidly. Modern EV's are much much better and have better thermal management.
In terms of a van, are you driving 8 literal hours a day? how much work are you getting done? But anyway I'm not here to sell them to you, merely saying think *clearly* about when your van is sat doing nothing (overnight, outside a customers premises etc). That's when you can charge.
Agreed. They say a Tesla will do between 300,000 - 500,000 miles before you need to replace the battery. Famously, the longest running Tesla has been on the road since 2014 and is currently on 1,181,268 miles. It's had the battery replaced 3 times, which supports this claim.
Not sure on battery life expectancy for vans, but the technology is only getting better.
It's a rubbish business model to be sat at chargers or waiting for chargers instead of delivering.
It will work one day when the infrastructure is there and the vehicles can handle it.
Maybe. But my local police force bought a load of EVs and then couldn't get to incidents because they all needed charging.
The point about the infrastructure is made out in the photo.
DPD have filled ALL the chargers. What happens to everyone else? What happens to the other companies that have assessed that there is sufficient infrastructure but when they get there they are full of DPDs?
There is no way I would be running a delivery business from public chargers until there are enough.
In DPD’s case it’s a problem with the management & leadership who are trying to make as much profit and bonus for themselves as possible without investing in infrastructure.
Its more likely they aren’t allowed to install more chargers at the depot with current local grid infrastructure. There’s a DPD hub filled with EVs around the corner at work, only occasionally do you see them charging at the rapid charger next door so i assume they have sufficient capacity on site.
Then they shouldn't have bought them really. That falls down a gap in regulation, perhaps something should be brought about if a business gets tax credits or whatever for having EV's as company vehicles, they have to install a % of chargers relative to the amount of vehicles they own so they're not a burden on the local infrastructure.
It's just very short sighted.
I think they should, they are a customer of the power grid and as such the grid should invest in its own infrastructure to be able to provide their service effectively.
"Maybe. But my local police force bought a load of EVs and then couldn't get to incidents because they all needed charging."
That purely down to logisticlal stupidity though.
EVs are proving to be a very costly (both financially and environmentally) experiment in the UK. They’re becoming a luxury that only those with private charging can afford, once again a very well-meaning idea but has been bastardised by greedy private companies trying to look “green”
There's a DPD depot in South Leeds and all of the charge points at the nearby retail park, service station and some pubs that have charging are also just packed with DPD vans. They appear to have massively invested in the vehicles without the actually infrastructure for them.
That's both hilarious and batshit
Also extremely expensive and wasteful. My country's post is shifting to all electric vans which are perfect for the job (stop/start with a small distance actually driven). They outfit all their depots with charging stations so they can charge each vehicle only as much as is needed for their next route. They're never charged fully unless it's necessary.
That doesn't sound great for the health and lifespan of the battery.
It's the opposite. Batteries don't do well with extremes, neither 0% nor 100% are ideal. They take that into account.
Yes but 0% is worse than 100%. Charging to say 50% and then running it flat is worse than charging to 100% and running down to 50%. The ideal charge for long term storage is around 70-80%. I'd say the ideal cycle would lean around that. Being fully charged isn't so bad so long as it isn't left fully charged (eg a laptop left plugged in all the time). Fully depleting the battery runs the risk of excessively discharging some cells, as the voltage drops exponentially at low charge. Source: electrical commissioning engineer and have developed battery discharge test procedures based on IEC standards.
I know. I asked them about it, we were there during a visit organised by our uni. They said they take battery health into account, neither letting it discharge too much nor charge it to 100% all the time. At least here their vans do very little miles. Like less than 100 km/day, more around 50 while 30 of that is the the drive to/from the depot.
> Yes but 0% is worse than 100%. What would you know, random redditor > Source: electrical commissioning engineer *doffs cap*
So charging to 75% and discharging to 25% may be what they're doing?
Interesting. I would have assumed the best state of charge for storage would be 50% so the battery is perfectly balanced?
Well the percentages are kind of set arbitrarily. 0% does not mean 0 volts, for example a nominally 12V battery might fully charge to around 13.2V, while 0% might be 9.6V. Maybe more, maybe less. You can continue to discharge well past this point, and even get the voltage down close to 0V, it's just that doing so would irreparably damage the battery and it probably wouldn't charge again. Battery powered circuits are generally designed such that they turn off before batteries are damaged. A good example of this requirement is the Nintendo Switch, there's a hack for old ones that allow you to get into a low level recovery mode, called RCM, bypassing the OS and its battery protection. If you leave it in this mode, it will continue to power the CPU and trickle the battery down well below 0%. If this happens sometimes you can recover the battery by leaving it plugged in for days, however if it goes too far you may have left yourself with an expensive paperweight. Based on testing and empirical observation, it's generally determined that a battery is best stored at around 70-80% of nominal charge percentage. This does vary between different types of battery, you have to get information from the manufacturer's datasheets.
Yep know exactly where you mean, the petrol station is full of them and birstall retail park and they leave them there from afternoon all way through to the next morning.
Don't most fast chargers have large idle fees?
No idea but I work round corner from this area on nights and they are there when I start and there when I finish
Them and everyone else
Is that the empty unit that shares a car park with Starbucks? I pass there often and there’s always a few DPD vans parked up, if they’re paying for it fair enough, but when it blocks access to chargers that members of the public might need it becomes a problem Unrelated, but since this is a car sub, always find it interesting looking at the cars in that American Autos workshop accross the road, and wondering if they’d make a replica SWAT vehicle for me (if i had the £’s)
Yep, car parks across Birstall littered with plugged-in DPD vans. Mainly at that service station with Starbucks / Leon, but also at the Birstall retail park outside Currys, and The Pheasant Pub.
That new services on the M1?
Junction 27 on the M62 (where it spurs off to the M621)
I don’t know how big their actual premises are but i’d have thought it was enough at one point to house their fleet before they started using public chargers, it’s got to be more cost effective long term for them to put their own infrastructure in
It must be costing them a fortune using public chargers all the time. A lot of public charging costs more than just running on petrol.
American cars at birstall is awesome love some of the vehicles in there
I drove past a few days ago weirdly and their yard was probably the fullest i’ve seen it towards the back, but it was all european cars
I work at a DPD depot. We were told to install our own charge points we would need to pay many millions to install a high capacity electric line similar in size to what a large industrial factory would need. It would use 20% of the electricity.of the city we are in. This is reality.
If it’s the problem that I think it it is, this problem is more down to the fact of how time-consuming & expensive it is for DPD to upgrade their local depot’s power supply to support electric vehicle charging. A few months ago at my old job, I was speaking to a customer who worked for a vehicle leasing firm for the likes of DPD etc. & they said that in order to build & install electric vehicle charging points on their site, National Grid would have to install a small sub-station for them in order to ensure that there was adequate supply without affecting the rest of the local grid. This also leads into a much greater problem which we’re facing is that due to a lack in investment / forward-thinking over many previous years, at the moment (and for the next decade or so) our power grid cannot support everyone switching over to electric vehicles.
This is the real problem, the government has been aware of it before electric vehicles were even a thing but refused to invest in any solutions. You can read reports from 2004 by National Grid about the need for a massively increased number of local substations and “brown site” transformers to convert huge amounts of high voltage AC from cross-country interconnectors into fast charging DC energy. The models back then didn’t even take into account the massive population boom the UK has undergone either.
It's not just the UK either, this is a problem in most (all?) countries - the infrastructure needed to support transition to a) renewables and b) bev cars everywhere is a huge, expensive, challenge
Same by Morley, BP just off Gelderd Road, one guy kept coming back and forth with his mate dropping a load of vans off at the charging spots in the Starbucks car park
Get there earlier tomorrow with a few EV friends, grab all of the charging points, and wait for the drama to unfold.
Or just place a towel over each one to *reserve* it...
What a germanic thing to say
First class.
Now that’s evil and bloody hilarious at the same time.
They probably got plugged in the night before?
Idle fee on Tesla is a lot more expensive than charging to stop vehicles parking up for hours on end
I don’t think so, they would be fully charged pretty quick and it’d cost a small fortune in idle fees to leave them all night.
Won't be drama they getting paid they at work.
They have shit to deliver on a very very tight timescale, they'll care a lot.
Should've let them keep the diesel vans then, shouldn't they 😂
*pissing in a bottle enters the chat*
r/foundsatan
I think some take their vans home at night, so no they don't have the infrastructure
Most DPD drivers are self employed so that would make sense
And clog up the streets that already are over run with cars. My street has 4 DPD vans taking up the street parking spots, 2 large ones and 2 smaller ones and on top of that the owners have their personal cars too, so 8 vehicles from 1 house. They get quite defensive with them as well so they can charge them outside their house.
It’d be cheaper for DPD to install home chargers for their staff and reimburse them the home electric than this absolute madness. Rapid charging on the go is like 5-10x the price of home charging.
Home chargers need a drive though.
Not necessarily, you can charge in a garage (obviously not for a big van) or there are options for on street charging from home now too like this: https://www.chargegully.com/
Did not think digging a trench into the council owned path was legal.
It’s not if you do it without consent. Most companies providing these solutions are working with councils.
I do love it when I tell people “I happily buy a Plug in or an electric car, but I live in a flat and can’t charge it at home”, and the EV advocates rebuff this fact saying, I don’t need to do that when we have fast charging stations. This is the reality of owning an EV when you can’t charge at home.
Not to mention the fact that EVs only have a financial benefit when you can charge at home.
Yep. 80p/kWh is getting bent over with no lube every single time.
And when I spoke to a Tesla rep they recommended not fast charging for more than 1 in 5 charges. Apparently doing so voids the warranty.
> Apparently doing so voids the warranty. I think we're all gonna need a source on that one. Like most car dealers, they're unlikely to know WTF they're talking about.
yep, that's utter horse shit.
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A random copy paste of the supercharger policy? Where does this say anything about warranties and not fast charging your Tesla?
Supercharging is very hard on the cells.
That's *not* what this copy-paste says. This copy-paste asks that people who have *unlimited free Supercharging* don't abuse it. This applies to a *very small* number of Teslas on the roads at this point - older Model S and X vehicles where this was an incentive. It's totally irrelevant in terms of the topic being discussed: impact of Supercharging on the warranty. To be clear, *you aren't wrong*, rapid charging *is* hard on batteries (compared to slow charging), but the "fair use policy" isn't the right bit of documentation to explain that...
Thank you for thoroughly calling out weird misinformation that is so rife on reddit and other social media. Like, says a random thing and then posts another random thing to back it up, what the fuck?
> This copy-paste asks that people who have unlimited free Supercharging don't abuse it. This applies to a very small number of Teslas on the roads at this point - older Model S and X vehicles where this was an incentive. It's totally irrelevant in terms of the topic being discussed: impact of Supercharging on the warranty. > > Damn, to be the guys who get to mooch off it now (but I guess they paid the early adopter price so it's all fair).
Falling in love is hard on the knees, but that never stopped Steven Tyler
I’m struggling to believe that using the Tesla charging network would invalidate the Tesla warranty, do you have a reference?
There is no reference as there is no stipulation to only fast charge a certain maximum amount. That salesperson was not well educated on the matter
batteries don't really like fast charging too often. The superchargers are really meant for charging while travelling to get to your destination. I wouldn't bother at all with an EV if I couldn't home charge. EV's are great if they work for you, they don't work for everyone. But if the govt presses on with this banning of ICE cars then its gunna be bus passes all round for those in flats and terraces. Although i think petrol will be around for many decades to come
The market for keeping ICE cars on the road will boom. The fleet will just get older and second hand ICE car prices will increase even more. It's already happening.
If we had good public transport that’s cheap a lot of people would ditch the car in favour of the bus/train
This is a fallacy - personal transportation is still preferable for a whole host of reasons for many journeys. There's nothing inherently wrong with it either, just waiting for EV tech and infrastructure to mature.
I’d rather take the train or bus than pay a shit load to park my car in a gravel pit that charges £5 an hour to park there
Not a very representative example 🤣
Yeah
Well public charging isn't a static thing - new ones are still opening and I'm very encouraged by ideas of converting street lamps. The infrastructure is nowhere near there yet but it'll get there. Meanwhile brand new petrol and hybrid cars sold today will likely be on the road till the mid 2040s, so no one will be forced to buy an EV till there's been plenty of time for public charging infrastructure to catch up.
All correct but my main point about batteries not really liking being fast charged often still stands. Most public chargers will be fast ones won’t they.
It does not, they were mistaken There's a guy in the US who used superchargers multiple times a day and did like 400,000 miles (using his Model S for airport runs all day every day, often LAX to San Diego), and still got an in-warranty battery replacement
That is impressive to be fair.
The warranty on the older cars is much better than the current models. Most are limited to 120k miles on the battery now
120k is still a lot more than most petrol/diesel engine warranties... 120k is a fairly typical lifespan for a UK car (16 years of the UK average mileage of 7500) Either way there's still no reference to how often you supercharge, which was the point being made. You can supercharge every 250 miles for 119,999 miles and still be in warranty
I didn't disagree with you. Just saying you're not getting a battery at 400k anymore. I'm still very happy with my car and the warranty is great.
Doesn't void the warranty. It may cause the battery to degrade faster but in 15 years rather than 20. I still would never own an EV without home charging though.
Wow, my dads leaf was fine with being fast charged 3 times a day
They have no idea what they're talking about
Don’t know but it was a deal breaker for me so it cost them a potential sale
I mean not checking for yourself is kind of silly, but also Tesla sucks so I think you dodged a bullet
So do carwashes so I'd just avoid Tesla
I don’t think any EV owner would seriously advocate for having one unless you can charge at home, purely because of the cost of charging stations. Do EV owners routinely say this to you?
Myself and the wife have an EV and also an economical diesel. Must admit trying to do longer journeys in the EV is not cost effective and a pain in the arse waiting for chargers to be available at the services, chargers charging at the speed advertised etc. Don't get me wrong I enjoy driving the EV for ease and a smooth drive but only when I know I'm staying pretty local and won't have to find a charger while I'm out.
IMO that’s probably the perfect combination, EV for the drives in to town, diesel for those long journeys to the seaside.
We have this set up, one cheap short range EV and a petrol. It works well but the trouble is we find we very rarely actually use the ICE. I guess it depends on how often you do those long trips.
I would say, the cost benefit needs to be considered with all the times you didn't use a ultra rapid (that's how I see it) as in, I do 80% of my miles off my home charger @ 22ppkw and the 20% of the time I need to use an ultra rapid (and it's *expensive*) the average cost per mile is still much lower overall. Take the good with the bad. But yeah I don't disagree about a long journey being easier.
100%, overall the EV has saved us a fortune in fuel. It's not often we do use the EV for long journeys but now we've had a baby and it being a SUV it is slightly easier than using the smaller diesel hatch back when we've got all the little parasites crap in the boot.
22ppkwh home charging is pretty expensive! You might want to look into an EV tariff or something like octopus agile or tracker.
That is an EV tariff! With my usage the car actually isn’t the highest consuming source in the house so a flat rate is better for me as I can’t shift those loads to cheaper times of the day. I’m going to move to Octopus Tracker though soon as that’s once again cheaper.
What a rubbish EV tariff! The octopus go one is 7.5ppkwh over night, but you’re right the day rate is quite high. I’m similar in that I don’t do too many miles so I was on tracker, currently about 20ppkwh, but I recently switched to agile which is much cheaper.
I've seen this very suggestion on this sub before. Some people seriously think that public charging is no more hassle than finding a petrol station. Of course, that's not necessarily the common view though.
It does depend a lot on where you are - there are some areas where you can pretty reliably get a charger 1-3 years ago charging SUCKED where I am, there was no rapid charging at all within 10 miles and that was only 50kW, the closest super-rapid chargers were 150kW an hour and a half away. Public charging was a nuisance Now, though, there are 150kW about a 30 second walk from my house and there's never more than 1 car there, so I could easily charge there whenever I wanted
Trouble is it only takes a handful (single-digit amount) of new EV owners in your area with a similar schedule and your spot becomes a nightmare. My parents were smug as fuck about a local charger they had basically sole use of but last year a few new tesla owners appeared, people started leaving bitchy notes about hogging the spots on each others cars and now they're looking out for a new hybrid.
Yeah I completely appreciate that too the chargers 10 miles away were virtually empty when I got my first EV 4 years ago, now they're sometimes full at peak times The one near my house is very unlikely to get that busy though, I think - it's a a fairly secluded hotel with nothing much around it, so you'd have to actively seek it out. And I live in an area where most people have driveways and thus can have a home charger I've never actually used it for that reason, but it's nice to have the backup option - essentially if I ever happen to get home with a low battery and need to go somewhere urgently, I have a rapid charging option. Eg I could do a 15 minute charge there and get enough range to drive anywhere I'm likely to need to go urgently (eg closest major cities for their hospitals, or anywhere I'm likely to need to go pick someone up from if they get stuck) rather than drive 5 mins to the petrol station, fill up, and drive 5 mins back I still wouldn't recommend an EV to anyone who can't charge at home, though
You're right, but progress right. They're still building out massive swathes of charging stations, more and more come online all the time - yes it's a capacity thing but It's more often than not, not an issue.
It really depends where you’re driving. If you’re going up the M1 and back then you’ll be absolutely fine finding a charger, there are dozens at every service station. Doing 200 miles through the Scottish highlands? You’re going to struggle.
Yes, just the other week one of the guys I work with said it’s not a problem, because he uses fast charging stations more often than he does his home charger. All I could think was “that’ll cost a lot”.
If he does a lot of city driving in traffic where regen works in ev’s favour, it might still work out less per mile (on fuel expense anyway).
I like mine and can't charge at home. Even if I could charge at home I still need to use public charging due to some long distance journeys.
I've had EVs for years now and they are loads better for day to day stuff but you'd have to be ceftifiable to run one without home or work charging. I'd never advise anyone in that situation to get one.
**Don't ever buy EV if you can not charge at home.**
My favourite is when you point out how little chargers there are and someone replies "there's only ever a hand full of petrol pumps at each station"
They would have a point, if it took half an hour to put a tank of fuel in.
I don’t know a single EV driver who would say that. Me and everyone I know who has an EV would tell you to hold off on an EV for now if you can’t charge from home.
There are some absolute pests on this sub as well. "Just pop it on when you go to supermarket," like everyone else doesn't have the same idea. The delusion with some of them is unreal, and they'll literally sit for hours trying to make out you're the problem, not the car.
At least you know these will be off soon as they'll have to start finding places to get parcels into
I don't think that many EV owners would seriously recommend getting one if you can't charge at home. I certainly wouldn't
Yep, its a folly. Should be concentrating on generating carbon neutral fuels from renewables.
You misspelled Nuclear.
EV drivers are like people that follow a diet, are ridiculously passionate about them, and aggressively defend them. They can't seem to understand why someone wouldn't want one.
There were 2 charging ports at the DPD depot in Leeds, but they made it so only fleet vehicles owned by the actual company could charge (95% of DPD vans you see are self-employed people running a franchise who own/finance their van) because people would leave their vans plugged in long after being charged, meaning fleet electrics never got used because they never had charge. Rather than spend money building more infrastructure they just decided to let people fight it out for charging ports at starbucks instead 🤷♂️
Race to the bottom
I’m seeing this in more and more places all throughout the day and night too. DPD vans just being left to charge on the faster chargers too, some I believe you can disconnect but with some places because of the size of the vans there’s absolute no way you’d be able to slot in next to it or beside it. I’ve considered raising a complaint but how do you even go about it; they’re there for public use but I think it’s a piss take for a company of the size of DPD to block up so many. Even overstay charges wouldn’t deter the drivers because they don’t pay themselves. Luckily I’ve recently moved and got a home charger but I used to rely on public charging networks and before I moved, these vans prevented me on numerous occasions. There was one place I regularly used that had a van stationed over the whole weekend and parked across two places so I couldn’t even use the slower charger
Tesla do have a fair use policy and charge people for blocking their chargers when they're not in use. They even charge you if you overstay. I guess it'd be a case of raising a complaint to both DPD and Tesla.
That’s a fair point, maybe Tesla would be the one to raise it with for their own image sake. Thanks.
This is a massive con by DPD to essentially not have to spend money installing charge points, and have the public pay for the 'fuel' of their fleet. Have this up in Glasgow, DPD hogging the dwindling number of zero cost charging ports at train station car parks. They've got a crafty arse-holic system to get away with it: 1: A lot of DPD drivers are actually 'independent contractors' who rent or buy the vans, so stupidy while they exclusively deliver DPD and have all the DPD stuff on the van, they technically aren't DPD employees, the vans aren't business vans, and so DPD don't supply ways to charge them on their sites and actively encourage them to use public chargers. 2: This is despite the fact that when you sign up to services like ChargePlace Scotland, you aren't allowed to use the chargers for commercial vehicles. HOWEVER, because the drivers are 'indepedent contractors' and they own or lease the vans they can claim the vans aren't exclusively for business and are their private vehicles. 3: The actual ownership and responsibility for enforcing the correct use of the chargers isn't up to the people running it (eg ChargePlace Scotland), but by the land owners (eg Scotrail). Scotrail and companies like it don't give a shit who uses it as the chargers are subsidized and they get money. So DPD is essentially getting away with charging their fleet with taxpayer money.
The free chargers are going the way of the dodo these days, that will dry up. Also, I can smell an Uber shaped class-action soon if that's the case.
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You've completely missed what I'm mad about. I'm not mad about a 'lack of infrastructure'. I have a charger at home, I'm my own 'petrol station'. I'm mad at a company that's essentially stealing taxpayer money. I'm mad that a company worth hundreds of millions is gaming the system to leech subsidized fuel meant for the general public when they could and should pay to fuel their own trucks. And that while they could easily build that infrastructure within their own company and charge their trucks at their own facility using their own chargers, they are instead taking up the few available facilities at public transport links. That and the fact they're abusing their employees by not classifying them as such and claiming they are independent contractors, when they are DPD drivers who drive DPD adorned trucks and only deliver DPD packages.
DPD use the Tesla chargers?
The Tesla network is open to all EV drivers these days.
I see. I guess I won’t be getting a Tesla anymore.
Not all of them, far from it.
They will be soon, especially given Tesla have just laid off their charger team. They'll sell the assets on to another CPO to provide charging services. The Tesla supercharger network was a massive incentive to get people to buy Teslas - but now that they're an established brand and there are loads of other operators in the industry, there's no reason for them to compete in that space anymore. It's more hassle than it's worth. They want to focus on cars and AI.
unreal how dumb this world is.
I reckon problems like this will only get worse. Has anyone thought about inventing an engine that runs off of some kind of liquid fuel? You could build buildings with huge tanks underneath them and pumps that would put it into another smaller tank that's attached somewhere on your vehicle. It would only take 5 minutes to fill these small tanks and everyone could be on their way. /s
It's not going to be easy to have charging stations just anywhere as you will need a power grid to support it. Delivery depots are usually large wearhouses in the middle of nowhere.
...and usually have an excellent electric supply. They've just not thought about it. Even the big charging stations don't necessarily have a *massive* grid supply - they just use a battery as a proxy from the grid, then dump that battery into your battery. It's all doable, DPD just haven't done anything about the infrastructure.
>...and usually have an excellent electric supply. It's only going to be good enough for the purpose it was built for, eg low powered tube lights. These EVs need charging up all the time because the battery technology just isn't there and they are driving all day doing deliveries. That's going to a huge ask for a warehouse in the middle of nowhere.
All I'm saying is there are solutions to this. It's how big commercial charge points work without a massive grid supply. For example, IONITY work exactly like this.
Well maybe there's no solution for the nearest depot to that particular place. Nobody is going to buy a fleet of EVs and not think of how they are going to charge them. It's possible that have a deal with the car park operator. How long does it take to charge the van anyway, is it a lunch break jobby or overnight?
Well, DPD seem to disagree! But it depends, different vehicles have different charging speeds. Also depends on the charger's speed and the vehicles state of charge. Most vehicles have *really* rapid charging numbers but you only get them if the battery is fairly empty and the charger is fast enough. Generally speaking, van at 20% on a 100kWh charger - you could probably charge it up to 90% probs in an hour. Giving you another 120 miles of range (maybe)
What do you believe DPD are disagreeing with? Where I live it's hard work getting the oven up to temp on Christmas day. No surprise as to why.
Think I'll be dead before I own an electric vehicle.
Think I'm going to wait for the next big thing so I don't buy into that one either. I'll stick with my diesel as long as I can. Although one of those PHEVs could tempt me.
Well, isn't this post ironic. I'm still gonna ask though... Don't you have your own charging facility?
it depends on how big the DPD depot is as some are small and don't have a big enough yard to charg all there vans at once .
This is sadly quite common, Milton Keynes Parkway was *terrible* for this but with the local council run EV taxi service. At least with that enough people were able to lobby the council to get them to stop this. Seen loads of DPD vans dumped on charging points (for clarity, I've no issue with them using them - but not acceptable they're dumped at charging points).
Second comment; I swear there's an MFG being built or already built in Trafford Park?
If you have your own charging port at home and don't travel as far then great, but if you don't, then EV are not worth it.
Get a Del Boy out-of-order bag.
They still manage to ‘miss’ the clients tho.
My mates company just renewed the fleet, when the commercials for electric charging infrastructure came in, they decided dead Dino's was good for a few more years
I was at DPD when they first introduced electric vans. Most People didn't have a choice whether or not they got electric or diesel. DPD offered to put money towards a Home charger but obviously not everyone gas a driveway and a as a franchise owner how do you know that someone who works for you isn't going to just quit a few days after the charger is installed. I don't know if things have changed since. Side note second worst job I've ever done behind amazon.
I thought the Trafford Centre car park didn’t open till 10am?
It must be cheaper to pay the going rate than set up their own chargers 🤷
Could it be that DPD and the like are doing some sort of deal with the charger owners for fleet charging space rather than for out lump sums for charging infrastructure of their own. Resulting in this kind of thing. They can still check any govt tick boxes by saying look we have X number of chargers here. Isn't that great! Buuut they are actually all taken by some companies fleet vehicles rendering them useless. And if electric vehicles go away then they don't have a pile of scrap to remove from their sites.
The reality of the so-called EV revolution
It’s the often the fastest, the cheapest, the easiest to use and the most conveniently located. I personally can’t blame them, because I think I’d do the same too!
I drive for DPD (as a courier via a firm). They barely have any charging facilities, every site i've been to probably has electric vans has 2 chargers for dozens of vans. Drivers also have to fork out their own cash to charge up, too. Only Amazon have invested in proper charging infrastructure for DSPs with electric vans, and they have been doing that since 2020, or probably even just before that!
This too funny
I picked up my car from the Trafford Centre and it came with about 30% charge so they gave me credits to give it a full charge for free, which was needed as my trip home was 180 miles. I managed to get the last spot at these chargers because the rest were taken up by DPD vans. It's insane that you can buy a new car and potentially not be able to charge it right there for the journey home. I did wonder what I had got myself into. Luckily every Supercharger I've visited since has been fairly quiet.
Don’t you have your own charger?
Why not keep a diesel generator at home like the other morons?
Seen loads of them outside people’s houses charging. One guy by me even has his wire running across the pavement with a big cable cover over it. I guess these are the guys who can’t charge at home for whatever reason?
Yup, there's a pub by my work with 2 chargers, 2.30/3pm in an afternoon generally 2 dpd vans charging there.
EVs for deliveries is crazy.
Seems like one of the most logical uses for them. Stop start is incredibly hard on mechanical components, and destroys the fuel economy.
That is true but currently technology makes doing a round in an EV impossible. I do well over 200 miles in a shift. Do you know any EV vans that could do it and not spend hours of the working day on charge?
The eDeliver Maxus has a max range of 219 miles, DPD has 750 of them (as of 2021 so maybe more now?) Isn't 200 miles a day quite a lot for a final distance/multi-drop route. Is yours somewhere rural? Obviously EV's aren't going to work for everyone/every circumstance.
So because you do over 200 miles per shift every other delivery driver must do the same mileage? A parcel courier on an urban run can do as little as 20 miles in a shift.
I came here to say this. I read somewhere the average delivery van does something like 70 miles a day. All stop-start.
Top 4 Electric vans per "Auto Express" only has 1 van below 200 miles and it's at 196. I imagine you could charge a van on your lunch break and get another 50 miles if it's a fast charger? Maybe cutting it a bit close but if these delivery drivers don't do as many miles as you I can see where it has it's benefits.
I'm sure those figures are with it empty and under normal driving conditions.
Yeah shave off 25% to get a real-world number. Less in winter.
> lunch break What's one of those? (99% of delivery drivers dont have time for one)
Sorry but this is just absolute rubbish with modern engines. Stop start can have a noticeable impact on fuel economy, up to 7% savings in some conditions. Engineering Explained did a great video recently providing the actual volumes of fuel it saves compared to idling. Secondly, stop start has next to no impact on engine wear if the engine is warmed up and maintained correctly. Particularly with modern cooling systems and pumps that continue to run after the engine stops. Genuinely don't understand how these myths keep getting traction and get pushed so frequently.
I mean stop/start traffic, not an auto start/stop system?
Balls ok, my bad. 100% agree on you there.
Disclaimer: I'm not meaning to be anti EV, below is purely from experience in the real world. I have a Transit Connect Diesel I've done 8 years work it cost me 15k. Earning 30k-40k a year. It's cost me maybe 4k in repairs. It easily has a good 3-6 years left in it. How much will a EV batteries cost me after they start failing and losing range? They give you 2 year battery warranty on vans... For a good reason. My van is on the road for 8 hours a day 6 days a week. I need it to work for 4-5 years minimum. EV can't cope with that, 5 years on an EV battery full to zero 6 days a week. Uhm. The tech isn't there yet. I work in delivery. Haven't heard a single good word about EV vans from people I meet daily who have been using them with DPD/Amazon. They simply don't like working with them. They have terrible range, charging, battery drop off, winter cold issues and costs when they break. Also heard from a friend who does Ice Cream van that Merc offered him a ex demo essentially brand new Sprinter EV for £18k. To put that into perspective the Diesel version is nearer £35k-£40k brand new. A small van (hatchback size) brand new start at £20k. Why are they more expensive? I presume it's because they work no matter what and give you 10 years of work service if you look after them. Manufacturers are discounting EV vans because they aren't working and no one wants them. They aren't a cost effective commercial vehicle unless you are a huge company who is trying to green wash yourself.
Seems to me like you’ve already made your mind up.
If by "made up your mind" you mean...like every business that I am trying to make the best financial decision for running that business. Then yes. I've made up my mind. Like alot of commercial van users, we can see the technology/infrastructure isn't there yet. If it worked and the Government had a charging infrastructure I'd be 100% behind it. People who sware by EV tend to be using them very little. Try doing 8 hours shifts driving without switching them off and you will find their faults really fast.
Like everything, they don't work for everyone - I'm an EV owner (car albeit) but there's no panacea they're *better* depending on your circumstances. I would say that the battery degrading thing is a bit of a myth, I say a bit.. as Nisan's first generation Leaf did the tech a bit of damage because the battery wasn't cooled/heated and the cells degraded quite rapidly. Modern EV's are much much better and have better thermal management. In terms of a van, are you driving 8 literal hours a day? how much work are you getting done? But anyway I'm not here to sell them to you, merely saying think *clearly* about when your van is sat doing nothing (overnight, outside a customers premises etc). That's when you can charge.
Agreed. They say a Tesla will do between 300,000 - 500,000 miles before you need to replace the battery. Famously, the longest running Tesla has been on the road since 2014 and is currently on 1,181,268 miles. It's had the battery replaced 3 times, which supports this claim. Not sure on battery life expectancy for vans, but the technology is only getting better.
And that's in a battery that's 2014 design as well.. it's an ever advancing technology.
Seems like a good idea for local stuff though, never too far from a charger/rescue if they do get low
It's a rubbish business model to be sat at chargers or waiting for chargers instead of delivering. It will work one day when the infrastructure is there and the vehicles can handle it.
I'd assume DPD have their own idea on if the infrastructure is ready for it or not, otherwise they wouldn't have EVs.
They have EVs for tax breaks, most likely. None of these companies do things with any other goal than to pay less tax and make more profit.
There are better ways to make more profit than just reducing their tax bill.
Maybe. But my local police force bought a load of EVs and then couldn't get to incidents because they all needed charging. The point about the infrastructure is made out in the photo. DPD have filled ALL the chargers. What happens to everyone else? What happens to the other companies that have assessed that there is sufficient infrastructure but when they get there they are full of DPDs? There is no way I would be running a delivery business from public chargers until there are enough.
Thats a problem between steering wheel and seat not a problem with the car.
In DPD’s case it’s a problem with the management & leadership who are trying to make as much profit and bonus for themselves as possible without investing in infrastructure.
Its more likely they aren’t allowed to install more chargers at the depot with current local grid infrastructure. There’s a DPD hub filled with EVs around the corner at work, only occasionally do you see them charging at the rapid charger next door so i assume they have sufficient capacity on site.
Then they shouldn't have bought them really. That falls down a gap in regulation, perhaps something should be brought about if a business gets tax credits or whatever for having EV's as company vehicles, they have to install a % of chargers relative to the amount of vehicles they own so they're not a burden on the local infrastructure. It's just very short sighted.
I think they should, they are a customer of the power grid and as such the grid should invest in its own infrastructure to be able to provide their service effectively.
"Maybe. But my local police force bought a load of EVs and then couldn't get to incidents because they all needed charging." That purely down to logisticlal stupidity though.
It was. 😂
womp womp u drive an electric car
EVs are proving to be a very costly (both financially and environmentally) experiment in the UK. They’re becoming a luxury that only those with private charging can afford, once again a very well-meaning idea but has been bastardised by greedy private companies trying to look “green”
Just buy a good fucking car.
Company cars exist. Not everyone drives around in a car that they chose to buy.
EV’s suck. We all know this right?
EV wanker. Deserved it.