Net Work
Alan Winstanley
This month’s column brings the latest electric vehicle trends and new EV brands about to launch
in Britain, with updates on the power generation front and, of course, the latest from the LEO
satellite broadband sector.
P
revious Net Work columns
brought news of Britain’s
electric vehicle sector as the
lurch towards car electrification
gathers pace. The UK’s Society of
Motor Manufacturers and Traders
(SMMT) reports that 52% of all new
car registrations in February were
battery-powered (BEV), hybrid (HEV),
mild hybrid (MHEV) or plug-in hybrid
(PHEV). Those BEVs represented 16.5%
of all UK February car registrations.
Even so, 48% of new cars registered
in February were still petrol (gas) or
diesel – a far higher proportion than
in, say, EV-friendly Norway – but there
was of course no reference to used
car sales, whether fossil-fuelled or
electrically propelled. Despite the
interest in new EV cars, the high cost
and practical challenges of running
them puts them well beyond the reach
of many motorists struggling in today’s
financial climate.
However, the signs are that interest
in buying used EVs has cooled dramatically in Britain: wary buyers, already
feeling the pinch from the rising cost
of living and energy costs, are deterred by the dearth of EV charging
points, worries about range anxiety
and nagging doubts about becoming
lumbered with yesterday’s outdated (or worn out) battery technology.
As used EVs are gradually ‘returning
to the market’, some secondhand EV
models are suffering ‘incredibly large
drops’ in value, says car dealer journal
Automotive Management. They report
that the lack of interest in buying used
EV cars is such that some dealerships
have stopped stocking them altogether, in order to avoid getting stuck with
large inventories of rapidly depreciating
electric cars that simply aren’t selling.
Highlighted is the Tesla Model 3,
which has dropped over 33% on average in the past four months, and Tesla
also skewed the market by slashing
new car prices by up to 20% earlier
this year, as supply finally started to
exceed demand. Semiconductor shortages and supply chain problems didn’t
help EV sales either, so consequently
there is still a keen interest in buying
12
The Atto 3 is BYD’s (Build Your Dream) first EV to launch in Britain, featuring a futuristic
interior and ‘Blade’ battery.
sensibly priced petrol cars instead. It
seems there is plenty of life left in older
petrol cars before sales of new ones are
banned altogether. Maybe those used
EVs will be sold off at bargain basement prices in coming months.
Who’s in charge?
Britain continues to drag its heels over
the supply of EV charging points. New
British housing stock is supposed to include an EV charging point, but as one
web forum poster pointed out, ‘if the
local electricity substation that feeds
your street has a 400A fuse, and every
house has at least one 32A charger, then
you do the maths. They can’t even roll
out smart meters for every house and
that’s cost more than £12bn so far, and
is far from complete... I understood that
the electrical load of a new housing
estate averages eight amps per property, and now they want to add 32A
for one EV on top of changing your gas
central heating boiler to a heat pump,’
the poster mused.
In the January 2022 issue I mentioned
a possible charging solution for EV
owners in the shape of a semi-portable battery pack on wheels, called the
ZipCharge Go. This well-publicised
powerbank was being developed for
‘topping up’ EVs in the street or car
park – the idea was due to launch some
time this year, but I now understand
that the ZipCharge Go never made it
beyond the prototype stage. This illustrates the typical vagaries of this
fast-moving tech sector.
At least British EV owners are not
alone in suffering practical problems
of EV ownership. An American EV
owner recently posted on Reddit: ‘Was
at the Electrify America station in Indiana yesterday. In a blizzard. With 30
miles of range and about 75 miles to
drive. Station had eight chargers. Only
ONE was working and it was in use.
The EA call centre was useless. Took
hours to get a charge when it should
have taken 20 minutes. Until this gets
figured out, electric cars will be limited, period.’ Sounds all too familiar.
Blade Runner
Listed in nearly 74,500 new February
registrations were exactly 13 (thirteen) GWM Ora £32,000+ electric mini
cars, the cute Chinese EV previously
described in Net Work. There are yet
more Chinese EV brands, almost too
many to follow, heading our way across
Northern Europe, starting with BYD –
an acronym for ‘Build Your Dreams’.
BYD is barely 20 years old and may
be unfamiliar to most readers, but
BYD is a huge Chinese conglomerate
that manufactures semiconductors
and batteries as well as solar arrays,
energy storage systems, EV chargers
and electric buses. Cars made by subsidiary BYD Auto will arrive in British
Practical Electronics | May | 2023
showrooms this year, starting
with the attractive BYD Atto 3
compact SUV.
Of particular interest is BYD’s
‘Blade’ lithium-iron-phosphate
battery that they claim is among
the safest in the world. BYD
reckons that the pressure to
improve car cruising range had
forced battery makers to pursue
an increase in battery energy
density over safety considera- The Atto 3 cabin is ‘built with the concept of sports and fitness’ with a ‘trendy and avant-garde
design’, BYD says. Traditional motorists might not agree.
tions. BYD’s Blade battery uses
a unique cell construction, which they an extremely sleek executive car and a coal-fired station up to speed, and
stated withstood nail puncture tests SUV from BYD. The Atto 3 is expected environmentalists were hopping mad
and neither overheated nor produced to cost around £35,000. For more de- at the thought of it, but, thanks to the
efforts of all those in our hard-worksmoke. When damaged, ordinary Li-Ion tails, see: www.byd.com/eu/car/atto3
ing energy sector, the lights are still
batteries have a tendency to thermally
on, and life goes on as normal. This
runaway and are nearly impossible to Energy for tomorrow
time round, smart meter users were not
extinguish once they start to melt down Despite earlier dire predictions of pos– often exploding – as graphically de- sible power cuts, the UK seems to be asked to reduce their consumption in
scribed in previous Net Work columns. weathering the winter storms well, at return for receiving a small cash bonus.
Software developer Kate Rose Morley
Other Blade safety distinctions include least as far as energy consumption is
having a high starting temperature for concerned. In March, National Grid has coded a very impressive website
exothermic reactions, slow heat release ESO (the UK electricity system opera- that publishes more live National
and low heat generation, as well as an tor) tweeted that an electricity margin Grid data than I know what to do
ability to not release oxygen during notice (EMN) had been issued to the with – it’s available for viewing at:
market for one day, which meant that https://grid.iamkate.com
breakdowns or easily catch fire.
Historical trend graphs (under
BYD adds that their smart technology Britain’s last remaining coal-fired power
allows for ‘bi-directional EV charg- stations were ‘warmed up’ just in case ‘Generation’) show the gradual total
ing’. Suitably equipped vehicles could they might be needed to top up the elimination of coal, a steady decline
charge overnight at off-peak times when supply. It takes time and money to get in nuclear and a rise in wind power
energy demand is low, and become a
powerbank to feed energy back into the
electricity grid when demand is high.
A year ago, in the May 2022 issue, I
mentioned this V2G or V2H (Vehicle
to Grid/ Home) technology but this is
barely at a developmental stage here
in Britain. In comparison, BYD has
offered DTG (Direct to Grid) charging
since 2015 when its conventional-looking ‘e6’ car was first launched in the
US – it was the only car on sale at that
time with V2G included as standard.
As things turned out, BYD arrived in
the UK well over a decade ago, floating its ‘e6’ potentially as a taxi, but
the Chinese firm has kept a low profile
ever since – until now. As well as in
the UK (eg, Arnold Laver dealerships),
dealers for BYD electric cars have been
signed up across Europe. Traditionalists who prefer to use tactile knobs and
switches might not adapt so well to the
touchscreen way of doing things in an
electric vehicle, but the BYD Atto 3 has
a stylish interior dash that’s ‘built with
the concept of sports and fitness’ with
a ‘trendy and avant-garde design’ they
say, so its target market is clear to see.
BYD is presently slugging it out with
Tesla over pricing, but the BYD Atto 3
is part of a phalanx of futuristic-looking electric vehicle brands, including
XPeng, Fisker and Nio that may eventually become familiar sights on Britain’s An impressive data website coded by Kate Rose Morley displays National Grid
roads. European drivers will also see generation and statistics.
Practical Electronics | May | 2023
13
Left: The first of two French-built 500-tonne reactor
vessels arrived at the UK’s Hinkley Point C nuclear power
station in February.
Above: A Russian-built poloidal field coil was successfully
delivered to the multinational ITER nuclear fusion pilot
plant in France in February.
generation over the past ten years. For
a different outlook on the National Grid
stats, try the graphs and dials shown
on: www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk
The Hinkley Point C nuclear power
station in Britain is the first new one
to be built in 20 years. Sadly, like a
number of other key infrastructure projects in Britain, it has suffered delays
and construction cost overruns. In
February the site received the first
of two French-built 500-tonne nuclear reactor vessels, as construction
of this ‘too-big-to-fail’ power station
continues with completion expected
within five years. Interested readers
can find more background on the history and status of Hinkley Point C at:
https://bit.ly/pe-may23-hinkc
Previously covered in Net Work,
December 2022, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)
is an ambitious multi-national effort
being built in France to explore the
boundaries of nuclear fusion. The
ITER tokomak will not however be
used to generate electricity for the grid.
In February, after a near four-month
voyage from St. Petersburg, a giant
Russian-made 160-tonne poloidal field
coil was successfully delivered to the
ITER site, having taken some six years
to fabricate. Russia’s Rosatom is contributing 400 tonnes of equipment to the
ITER project, which has now reached
78% along the road to ‘first plasma’.
Space is (still) hard
London-based network operator
OneWeb continues to build its constellation of satellites intended to provide
Internet access between the North Pole
and the 50th parallel. OneWeb uses a
number of service providers, including friendly rival SpaceX, to launch
small batches of its satellites into LEO.
To digress for a moment, it’s funny
how a feeling of deja-vu can trigger
14
distant memories: when I hosted the
Ingenuity Unlimited column of readers’
circuit ideas here at Everyday Practical Electronics in the 1990s, I received
a circuit suggestion for a 4000-series
CMOS-based electronic rotary switch
from an engineer who worked at the
emerging Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Department of Space. It
was carefully typed with a dot-matrix
printer on tissue-thin paper, which I
found in my archives (fortunately,
I’m ruthlessly methodical) and our
correspondence had always stuck in
my mind.
Fast forward 25 years, and in October 2022 a jubilant ISRO launched its
new LVM3 (Launch Vehicle Mk. III)
rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space
Centre in Sriharikota and it successfully placed 36 OneWeb satellites into
their intended orbits. The triumph was
one of India’s biggest ever commercial
orders, and the launch can be seen at:
http://bit.ly/3yFSAsn
OneWeb’s constellation of 542
first-generation satellites is nearing
completion, and a second launch from
India was due to lift off in March.
Following the outbreak of the
Ukraine conflict, 36 OneWeb satellites
worth some $230m were impounded
at the Russian-controlled Baikonur
Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, where
presumably they have lain ever since.
It’s thought that they could now be
traded for some badly needed Russian
Soyuz stages languishing at the European Spaceport in French Guyana,
which is situated in north-eastern South
America. Roscosmos pulled the plug
on co-operating with the European
Space Agency, leaving critical Soyuz
rocket parts behind.
The European site accommodates
the European Ariane 5 as well as Russian-built Soyuz vehicles, but the ESA
continues to develop its long-overdue
Ariane 6 launcher which is now slated
to launch from French Guyana by the
year end. Last year, Arianespace signed
a contract with Amazon for 18 flights
carrying satellites into LEO for Project
Kuiper, Amazon’s own satellite-based
Internet service that is still seeking
regulatory approval. More details are
at: www.arianespace.com – note that
there is no website for Kuiper, although
projectkuiper.com leads to an enigmatic login page.
Other news
An advanced new fusion energy prototype will be built by Tokamak Energy
at the United Kingdom Atomic Energy
Authority’s (UKAEA) Culham Campus,
near Oxford. The compact spherical
tokamak, called ST80-HTS, is due for
completion by 2026. It will incorporate
advanced technologies required for the
delivery of sustainable fusion energy,
including cutting-edge high temperature superconducting magnets to
confine and control the hydrogen fuel,
which becomes plasma many times
hotter than the sun, they report. Last
year, their current ST40 fusion device
in Milton Park, Oxfordshire, achieved
a 100-million-degrees-Celsius fusion
plasma – the highest temperature ever
recorded in a compact spherical tokamak, the research centre reported.
The European Union has formulated
in record time plans for a new secure
satellite communications programme
of its own. Called IRISS (or IRIS2), the
Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite may
see the development and launch of
up to 170 LEO satellites between the
years 2025 and 2027. It’s also intended to integrate with other EU space
programmes such as the Copernicus
earth observatory and Galileo satnav,
as well as offering secure communications while eliminating Internet dead
Practical Electronics | May | 2023
India’s Space Research Organisation Dept of Space readies a payload of 36 OneWeb satellites for launch into low-earth orbit.
spots in Europe and across the entire
African continent.
America’s Lockheed Martin has announced plans to build its first satellite
factory outside the US in Britain, which
will create 2,000 skilled jobs in Britain’s
The Ivie Bud is a replacement In-Home
Display with app, for UK smart meter
owners. Check compatibility online.
booming space sector. The firm states,
‘it is serious about having a footprint in
the UK and creating UK jobs, as well as
developing the UK supply chain.’ Lockheed Martin, in partnership with ABL
Space Systems, would be among the
first companies to support a launch from
the SaxaVord Spaceport – one of Britain’s new vertical spaceports, currently
under construction (see last month).
Japan’s first launch of its new H3
rocket on 7 March ended in failure
when a self-destruct signal had to be
sent to abort the mission, destroying
the Advanced Land Observing Satellite-3 payload. The Japan Aerospace
Exploration Agency (JAXA) suspects
that the second stage failed to ignite
– see: http://bit.ly/3FqcV93
Space is still hard to do and full of
‘anomalies’ and ‘launch attempts’, as
JAXA, Virgin Orbit, Skyrora and ABL
Space Systems have all recently found.
Green tech company Ivie is selling
a replacement or upgrade In-Home
Display (IHD) for British smart meter
owners. The Ivie Bud costs £49.99 and
will work with any energy supplier, they
say, but it’s necessary to check smart
meter compatibility before buying. This
can be done online at https://ivie.co.uk/
product/ivie-bud/ and the Ivie app is
available from Google Play and the App
Store. Alternatively, there’s the Loop
app (with no IHD) that links to your
smart meter, see: https://loop.homes
That’s all for this month’s Net Work.
Don’t forget that the hyperlinks above
are ready-made for you to click on
in my Net Work blog summary at:
www.electronpublishing.com
See you next month!
Terrington
Components
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Practical Electronics | May | 2023
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