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Electric Vehicles Charging Points In The UK

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Our environment is under threat and we should do everything we can to help the world. Our friends over at carwow are doing a lot to help promote sustainable, green automotive solutions for this! Electric Vehicles is one important way to do this!

We all like the thought of an electric car but we always are thinking where can we charge up?! Well the guys over at car wow have developed an interactive Electric Car Charging Map to help electric car owners find their nearest electric vehicle charging station!

Check out the interactive map, it’s pretty cool! By clicking here: https://www.carwow.co.uk/electric-cars/charging-points

It will tell you how many charging points there are at a location and how much it will cost! It may be easy to find one as there’s 20,000 charging points in the UK and it’s growing!

Does it cost to charge?

It varies and will depend on a manner of things such as your car, the batteries it takes and where you get your electricity from. Some public charge points ask for a monthly or yearly subscription, while others use a pay as you go model. While some are FREE! However a rule of thumb is, it will be cheaper to recharge the electric car than your petrol one.

How does it work?

There’s 3 different types, rapid, fast and slow charger. These are categorised by their power outputs. Thus, how fast they will charge your vehicle.

Rapid charger

This is the fastest way to charge your electric car. Rapid AC chargers have outputs of 43kW and a Type 2 connector. Rapid DC connectors have atleast a 50kW output. While Tesla Superchargers have a 120kW output and are Rapid DC. Using a rapid charger it should take between 30-80mins to charge to 80%

Fast charger

This is the type of charger you will see at most public places. These will be between 7 and 22kW. Fast Chargers will have Type 1 or 2 connectors and will take between 3 – 4 hours to charge.

Slow charger

These chargers have a three-pin plug. Similar to the home charger many electric vehicles owners have installed in their house, it can take up to 10 hours to fully recharge EVs at one of these locations. However, all the latest charging points in the UK have a universal Typ2 2 socket.

Type 1 / Type 2 Connectors

A lot of the UK sockets have the Type 2 socket. This has a flattened head and will charge at a faster rate than the Type 1. While both Type 1 and Type 2 cables are able to be fitted with adapters. This allows them to be connected to charging stations with either socket.

What is kWh for cars?

A kWh is the value which is equivalent to power in kilowatts multiplied by the time in hours, assuming the energy is transmitted at a constant rate.

So, therefore a kWh price is the EV equivalent of the price per litre of fuel. The price per kWh will show you how much it will cost to recharge the car at different stations.

To work out how much it will cost to charge your electric car from empty to full, you take the unit price for the electricity and multiply it by the kWh capacity of your car’s battery.

The price will always be a little less because the car will never go to completely empty and you may not have time to charge it full.

How many kWh does a car use?

This all dependes on things like weight and how they’re driven and different electric cars use different amounts of energy.

Also the size of the battery will be rated by how many kWhs it can hold. The Tesla Model 3 Long Range has a 7k kWh battery. So therefore it can store 75kWhs of electricity.

Electric vehicles do have an official range but as with fuel based cars, depends on external factors such as how you drive it. Driving it quickly like fuel based cars will use up the electricity faster and decrease the range.

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Ocean all electric affordable car by Fisker!

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Fisker recently revealed that they are planning to release an affordable electric SUV in 2021. This SUV is called “Fisker Ocean”, they’ll build a show car and debut a “fully running production intent prototype sitting on the actual, completely engineered platform” on the 4th January 2020.  When they reveal the “Fisker Ocean” it will be during a private event. However, it will be livestreamed so everyone can watch.

Recycling

What separates the Fisker Ocean from many other electric vehicles is that it will have a full length solar roof. Therefore extending the vehicles range. Fisker believes that the solar panel will provide up to an extra 1,000 miles worth of energy and clean miles a year. To further highlight Fisker’s belief in recycling, the carpeting will be made of fishing net which have been pulled from oceans. While vegan materials will be used for the interior.

Fisker are releasing it’s own mobile app on November 27th to lease the vehicle with no long term contracts. They will take early reservations and tell us more information about “Ocean” on the same day.

Fisker have previously said that the SUV will cost >$40,000, therefore making it one of the relatively affordable EV’s on the market. The target range for the SUV will approximately be 250 to 300miles. While it may come with an 80kWh lithium-ion battery.

While, Fisker’s Ocean sub-$40,000 electric car will debut on January 4th, 2020, production is stated to begin by the end of 2021. With the first set of high volume deliveries to take place in 2022.

(Engadget)

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Tesla How To Kill An Hour Car

It’s “Game, Set, Match” For Tesla, Says Musk

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Elon Musk likes to extol the virtues of his car company. But this month, the billionaire mogul has gone a step further, claiming that it’s “game, set, match” for the firm in the race to develop autonomous tech. Musk is convinced that no other players in the industry can catch Tesla in the race to develop cars that drive themselves, thanks to the company’s unique position.

 

Game, Set, Match Tesla

 

Musk points out that Tesla is the only company in the world to make cars, develop autonomous tech in-house and collect vehicle data. It is, in his opinion, a slam dunk, which means that Tesla will continue to outcompete the rest of the market for at least the next five years.

 

Credit: www.diggita.it/v.php?id=1623397

 

What does this mean for the “traditional” automakers like BMW and Ford? Are we looking at the end of the traditional auto industry as everyone switches to Tesla’s superior tech?

 

It’s worth pointing out that other players could cobble together some form of response. Ford, for instance, could team up with Google’s Waymo and start producing cars with the search giant’s powerful software onboard. Likewise, BMW could pair up with another third-party provider and install all of the autonomous apparatus it needs as the cars come off the production line. It wouldn’t take a genius to work out that part.

 

The Competition

 

But all companies, including Waymo, have a problem that Musk’s Tesla has solved: the data collection issue. Waymo, the second most driven AI system in the world, has collected about 10 million miles of real-world data through its various testing initiatives. Tesla, on the other hand, says that it has more than 2 billion, meaning that it just has way more data to train its algorithms.

 

The cars you can find on sites like  Emerald House Of Cars today still offer some pretty decent autonomous technology. Many, for instance, offer lane assist, parking assist, lane warning, blind spot assist and smart cruise control. But these are low-hanging fruit: it’s relatively easy to make a car do what you want in controlled conditions and set pieces. It’s when the vehicle has to make decisions itself when things start getting complicated. Just reacting isn’t too hard, but being proactive is something that machines struggle to do.

 

How Long Before We Get Autonomy?

 

Will we get autonomous tech anytime soon? Musk seems to think so. In the interview in which he declared that it was “game, set, match” to Tesla, he said that his cars would be “feature complete” with regards to autonomous driving by the end of 2020, so about 18 months from now. That’s the point, he says, where he’d feel comfortable travelling in a Tesla autonomous vehicle.

 

That’s not to say, however, that regulators will agree. Tesla might be ready to go as early as next year, but regulators could spend upwards of a decade working out whether they think autonomy is a good idea. Many conservative regulators may always want a human in the loop. The delay could allow other manufacturers to catch up and overtake Tesla, which isn’t what the company wants.

 

Alfa Romeo How To Kill An Hour

Car Tech You Really Need

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The latest cars are all full of technology most of which is for safety or comfort reasons, as well as making the cars more efficient and cheaper to run. The technology has advanced at such a pace that you do not have to go back many years to find cars that have very little technology in them. You can always add some to older cars, and there are hundreds of great gadgets that could help to enhance your driving experience. However, there are also some technologies that will stay as part of newer cars only.

 

Dash Cams

Many new cars are being fitted with a dash cam, and some have a rear view facing cameras too. If you have an older car it is very simple to add a dash cam to it and then you will have a recording of the journeys you have made. These can be very useful evidence if there is a dispute with another road user.

 

Portable Jump Starter

Traditionally, car jump starters are made from a large battery that you store in your garage. Now there is one that is small enough to keep in the glove compartment of your car. It includes a USB charger that you can use for your other devices and has a built-in torch in case you need to use it in the dark.

 

300W Inverter

Most cars have USB ports these days, but what if you need to use something that needs a 3-pin socket? Then you need an inverter, which will change your cars 12V DC electricity supply to 240V AC in the UK. If you need to power anything over 150W, you have to clip the inverter directly to your battery. That will then be enough to power a laptop or a camping fridge.

 

Automatic Emergency Braking

This uses a variety of sensors to determine if a forward collision crash is about to happen and automatically applies the brakes to reduce its severity or to stop it or all together. This is going to be fitted as standard on all new cars by 2022 but would take a lot of work to install in an older car.

 

Technology Helping Maintenance

This technology might not be in your car, but the latest developments in servicing and maintenance can certainly help to keep in in a better condition at a more reasonable cost. For example, Mercedes AMG servicing & genuine parts do not have to break the bank and will prolong your car’s performance.  Technology and highly trained technicians have been combined to create the best service possible for your car maintenance and repairs.

 

Adaptive Cruise Control

Cruise control has been around for years, but now it can adapt to the speeds of the traffic around you. By using an array of sensors built into the car it will adjust the speed to suit the cars in front of you. Some of the more advanced systems will even stop and restart the car without you having to do a thing.

 

Technology and car are like everything else that is going on around us. They will continue to evolve and be very different in just a few years to how they are today.

 

Tesla

Tesla Burning Through Tons Of Cash!

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So, turns out Telsa like spending money as fast as they do making it! A report by Bloomberg suggests that Tesla, if they keep going at the rate that they are, may run out of money by the end of the year! Elon Musk’s electronic car baby may run out of cash and the electronic car revolution finished!

The company fell short of it’s own production targets for the Model 3 Sedan once again. Futhermore another person died in a crash involving it’s assisted driving feature. So it’s not been a great week for Musk or Tesla. Musk himself has entered into a public dispute with safety regulators. Tesla had previously been a high marketed stocked company. This was boosted by a downgrade from credit analysts, yet it has dropped 26% from it’s highest in September. Ouch. Allegedly no one has raised cash and spent it the way that Elon Musk has. While no one has also made a bankruptcy joke on Twitter.

Risk

The company is so young and there is a genuine risk, without any additional funding or financing that the company will go bust. Which will be a shame for a 15 year old company that’s hailed as the company to usher in a new form of personal transportation. According to data compiled by Bloomberg the tech company goes through $7,430 each minute. Free cash flow (this is cash that a company generates after capital expenditures – has been negative for 6 quarters – consecutively. This, has sky rocketed to more than a billion dollars when Tesla reported it’s earnings on May 2nd.

There’s some rough times ahead and we hope that Tesla and Musk can pull through, it’s such a cool company and the future of tech needs Tesla!

This article was thanks to a Bloomberg report where you can see a much more detailed report of how much money Tesla are ploughing through! It even has a counter that predicts how much has been spent since you started reading!

 

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DIY Powerwalls

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There is a new way to get more power into your home and the people of the internet are going up against Tesla in the world of POWERWALLS!

Apparently a lot and we mean A LOT, of batteries aren’t being recycled, which accounts for a lot of unaccounted for power going to waste. So why not upcycle them and create a powerwall?!

View the video above to see exactly how to get more power from your used batteries, just make sure to follow them to a T and don’t miss anything out, otherwise you could get seriously hurt and or burn your house down!

Elons Tunnel Machine Name?

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Elon Musk is now, as you may know, is looking at building a load of tunnels under LA to deal with it’s traffic problem. Well Elon Musk despite having to yet overcome things like permits or if his idea will work, or if he even has enough money to actually build the thing took to Twitter to think of some names for his tunnel building machine. This is what he has come up with thus far:

 

To listen to the guys chatting about this please click here!

 

Tesla Prediction!

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Dash cam footage from the Netherlands from a Tesla driver shows the car’s autopilot function predicting an accident before anyone saw it coming.

In the clip below you can see a bunch of cars travelling down the A2 highway in the Netherlands. It is here where the ‘Forward Collision Warning’ on the Tesla beeps and the car is brought to a halt by the emergency braking system. Moments later a crash occurs.

Incredibly the Tesla was able to predict the crash but also recognize what was coming two cars ahead of itself.

Tesla announced in September 2016 that an upgrade to it’s autopilot feature would rely heavily on this feature. With the update being rolled out to it’s first generation of autopilot hardware.

“The most significant upgrade to Autopilot will be the use of more advanced signal processing to create a picture of the world using the onboard radar,” 

@elonmusk Finally the right one. pic.twitter.com/2fspGMUoWf

— Hans Noordsij (@HansNoordsij) December 27, 2016

To listen to the guys chatting about this please click here! 

PowerWall by Tesla

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Here at How To Kill An Hour we came across this really cool new product from Tesla called the Powerwall What the Powerwall basically is, is a massive battery for your home. It’s automated and compact so it’s not an eye sore and is super easy to install. The Powerwall is really cool in that it charges using the electricity that is generated from solar panels or when utility rates are low and powers your home in the evening instead of the grid. It’s so powerful you can even go off the grid entirely! Saving yourself a few bucks in the process, all from the power of the SUN! It also acts as a back-up so if there is a power-cut you will know nothing about it because the Powerwall kicks in and allows you to keep on playing that COD marathon!