There's a million homes in the UK alone that demonstrate you're wrong. The vast majority of them didn't need any renovation. I know this, because the average cost of an install in the UK, including supply and labour, is between 500 and 1000 quid, and that wouldn't be enough to pay for renovations. That said, a consumer unit that's full hardly counts as renovations. A bigger one will cost about 100 quid! Not that most people have needed it.

I shall be generous-minded about this and put it down to Canadian homes being more likely to need some form of upgrade than UK homes, because your homes are larger, your heating already strains your 100A supplies, your breaker boards tend to be older and more crowded and less likely to be near the front door, and your garages can more often be detached.

But your home's set up isn't mainstream at all: the vast majority of houses that can have home charging do not need to spend more than 1k to get it. They don't have to contend with 250 foot cable runs. Although as I pointed out, in all likelihood, you don't have to contend with that either. Your problem is niche, not mainstream!

250 is completely fine in an EV. I drive from London to Durham, which is 260 -- ie longer than your there-and-back journey -- it take five hours if all goes well. The car doesn't need to charge, but I do need a break on a journey of that length. I would not blink about jumping in my car and driving 125 miles, going for a hike, and driving home again, without ever thinking about the need to plug in either en route or at my destination. Just plug in the night before and plug in when I get home. Totally straightforward.

Obviously, some EVs have a range of way less than 250 and some have a range of way more. But there's plenty of perfectly ordinary cars that will take you 250 miles without blinking: Citroen C5 Aircross LR, Renault Scenic LR, Kia EV4, Tesla M3 LR, Xpeng G6 LR, MG IM5 LR, etc etc.

I don't really see why you need me to do this, when Google is readily available to you. It would be nice to think that as I'm going to this effort, you're going to concede that it is in fact the case that China has been innovating in basic battery chemistries, but we shall see.

Anyway, I am amazed you really need me to spell this out for LFP: it's quite a well-known chemistry, surely you've read about it? You know, cheaper, more durable, many more charge cycles, greater fire resistance, no M or Co thus no risk of conflict minerals, lower power density than NMC but not too bad, etc etc. Used in the R1T, the Mach E, the M3 & Y, loads of BYDs, etc

For sodium: there's been models in mass production since late 2023, including the Yiewei 3 and the JMEV EV3. Sodium's obvious massive advantage is that it's much cheaper due to sodium's enormous abundance cf Li. But there's also a lower fire risk, lower impact of extraction cf Li, no conflict minerals, many more charge cycles even than LFP, etc. But lower power density than Li chemistries
Example: https://www.electrive.com/2024...

For semi-solid state: the first mass produced car is the MG4 Anxin Edition. It's an LiM chemistry similar to the LMR chemistry you touted, but it's coming in mid 2026 in global markets, a full two years before the chemistry you described, and the production car is already finalised. You can read about it here: https://carnewschina.com/2025/...
Semi-solid is more power-dense than liquid chemistry and more stable.

I don't think anyone's ever tried to hide the fact that putting in a home charger has always had two costs associated with it: the kit and the installation. The all-in costs have always been 500 to 1k in the UK, which is not nothing, but also only a small fraction of the costs of buying a car (unless it's a really, really shit car). What we were discussing was whether your costs in your circs would be the typical 500 to 1k or would be that plus another 2500 for a long shielded cable run, and I think the answer is, there would be extra costs, but almost certainly far less than the 2500 you were talking about, because there's easier solutions than running that long cable.

But as I said before, it's going to be a very long time before you buy an EV anyway, if you ever do, long enough that battery prices will have fallen another 50 or 75%, so the car itself will be a lot cheaper than today.

It's become just another form of wealth transfer from the poor to the upper classes in the economy. Perks and incentives to earn "points" and cash-back by spending on credit cards are financed by those merchant fees, so the entire country is subsidizing them by paying hidden fees in the form of higher prices of goods and services. People who buy a lot with credit and can easily pay off their credit card bill every month come out ahead. People who can't or don't purchase much or who cannot always pay their bill in full get screwed. And card networks (Visa, Mastercard, etc) are leeches in the middle sucking blood from everyone.

Once you understand how the system is rigged, it's actually pretty disgusting.

There's a whole lot there, and I disagree with lots of it, but can't really be arsed to go through it all.

You yourself linked trans stuff and better Republican messaging. So whether you support Republicans or not, you are one of those people who identified this part of what Republicans did as being an important part of how they succeeded. And I therefore stand by my use of "you people". So by all means, disregard the part that talks about people who are invested in the future success of the GOP as being irrelevant to you; it's still relevant to the people who share that analysis with you, but are rooting for future GOP success.

As for the rest, your assertion that messing with people's children is any kind of a block to political success seems absolutely wrong to me. The GOP has supported the banning of books, has twiddled its thumbs while school kids die in numbers that would be politically suicidal in other countries due to gun laws, has a bunch of men with a track record of sexually assaulting children in power along with women who minimise it, has overturned child labour laws in some states, etc etc. The GOP has been messing with kids in terrible ways for decades, and it has not impeded its success.

The trans stuff was a vibe thing.

Those sound like they might cut costs and complexity, but it's clear that this system brings its own costs and complexities, so they don't seem massively compelling. I guess we probably need to see them scaled and in the wild to see if they are commercially viable vs the alternatives.

Working class people in the UK are not especially likely to require long (distance) commutes to work More than anyone else. Where on earth did you get that idea? They are more likely to have to rely on public transport, however, because lots of people can't afford a car in the first place.

There is no long UK drive that someone would do of a weekend that's any kind of issue in an EV. No-one is driving from Southend to Aberdeen. They might drive from London to Sheffield or similar, but that's completely fine in an EV.

Huh.

Every house is different, and I don't know anything about electricity beyond the basics, but at least for my house, what the electrician did was to split the supply for the EV off from the main feed with an external isolator switch near the incoming service (a small cable was then taken through the external wall to the consumer unit where the fuses are, required a small hole to be drilled in the outside wall). Probably depends on whether this is allowed, but it worked well for us. I guess another possibility would be a sub-panel. I understand Canadian codes are strict about breaker placement, conductor size, overcurrent protection etc, but I still think it may be possible.

Although obviously this is all theoretical because you're not buying an EV for decades if you can help it, right?

Erm..the first link you provided was about LMR batteries being available in 2028. That's exciting if it happens, but there's many a slip twixt cup and lip.

It just seems silly to me that people are so keen to deny the obvious: the Chinese successfully commercialised-at-industry-scale several important EV battery developments before anyone else, including LFP, sodium and semi-solid state.

Yup, I'm sure they haven't thought about this issue at all when considering putting computers in space.

Will you show your working? I'd be very curious to see it

For the record, I bought a longer 10m cable when I got my new car to replace the old 5m cable. It cost me 120 quid back then, but I see they can be picked up for 60 quid now. This is for a 7kW capable cable.

In the UK today, petrol is about 130p per litre, so 120 quid's worth is 92 litres. A UK spec Mercedes GLA (the equivalent of my car, an EQA) gets about 42mpg. That's 9.2 miles per litre, so enough for 850 miles. The typical UK car is driven 20 miles per day, so that's enough petrol for maybe six weeks at a push. Hence why I'm curious about your working. From what I can see, Canadian gas is about 134 cents per litre today, and I'd be amazed if you drove as little as 20 miles per day or got as much as 42mpg, so I can't see how this works for you. Looks like you can get a 10m cable for somewhere between 200 and 400 Canadian dollars, so that's also in line with UK pricing.

This is such a silly little story to tell yourself, about demand being saturated, when EVs are taking an increasing market share in European markets (and others, but the story you're commenting on is about Europe). And to claim yourself as working class when you've got a nickname here of dev and you're on Slashdot is just incredibly inauthentic.

I'm sure they have smart engineers and have thought lots of this through, and have robust and well-tested systems etc. But it still seems like it's inherently hard work for not much payoff. And even the geothermal stuff seems odd; what's so much better about this solution than standard geothermal solutions.