Electric cars - the future?

Started by daffy, June 17, 2018, 06:23:43 PM

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AlexanderJesse

Quote from: Chris Morris on June 18, 2018, 09:11:38 AM
Going off at a slight tangent. Will technology ever be good enough for long distance electric powered lorries? I know some companies are working on this but developing a means of pulling say 40 tons 500 miles every day is a considerable challenge. Might it be that our railways will become essential for long distance freight again? Might we see big railway freight hubs with electric trucks just being used for fairly local work?

Close...

https://eforce.ch/index.html (unfortunately in german only)
factsheet https://eforce.ch/uploads/1/1/7/1/117106312/e44_fact_sheet_e.pdf (english)

Range: 350km (220 odd miles)
Weight: overall: 44t - 9t truck...
Target environment: city delivery (which makes most sense. Overland should be handled by railway and then the fine distribution == close range by truck)
Due to Swiss regulation (electric truck pays no road pricing) it is calcluated that after 50'000 km you are in the win-zone (financially). We have some of them running around here: a dream from a pedestrian point of view: no noise, no diesel perfume ...

It is up to road politics to stop the long distance trucking business. This must become railroad business again. Road pricing has to regulate that.

=================
have a disney day

Alexander

Remember: vapour is just water and therefor clean

geoffc

Quote from: Chris Morris on June 18, 2018, 09:11:38 AM
Going off at a slight tangent. Will technology ever be good enough for long distance electric powered lorries? I know some companies are working on this but developing a means of pulling say 40 tons 500 miles every day is a considerable challenge. Might it be that our railways will become essential for long distance freight again? Might we see big railway freight hubs with electric trucks just being used for fairly local work?


The problem would be the gross weight of the vehicle, to carry 30 tons the vehicle would weigh around 10 tons if it had a diesel engine giving a gross weight of 40 tons add to this the not inconsiderable weight of the batteries required and the road infastucture would not cope without substantial upgrading.

Geoff

Bealman

Stick to your bike plan, Mick.  ;)
Vision over visibility. Bono, U2.

njee20

I don't think anyone's ever suggested they're the equal (yet) of ICE cars, but there's the eco friendly element to it. Plenty of people are happy to drive diesels, not one can now say they didn't know how polluting they are, so there's definitely the "slightly smug at being green" factor. Then again, look at Chris's example that he won't consider electric because it won't do a 550 mile round trip, and now you've said that you can't drive from London to Glasgow without recharging.

Electric cars do tend to elicit some really weird justifications. Do you regularly drive from London to Glasgow? I know I don't. I maybe do one journey a year of more than 200 miles in one stint where I'd have to make alternative plans if I had an electric car. Normally I'm driving somewhere and leaving the car where it could be charged, or coming home.

With escalating running costs I'd start to consider hybrids and electric cars far more. I see the former as the more viable option FWIW, battery with small supplementary petrol engine is far more versatile than pure electric and goes some way to assuage the "but I have to drive to Orkney" set. Whilst I love my petrol car, I have looked at the hybrid equivalent, personally for me it's too expensive currently and the performance isn't nearly as good as my petrol variant, but the range wasn't a decisive factor in this.




geoffc

Quote from: njee20 on June 18, 2018, 09:46:26 AM
I don't think anyone's ever suggested they're the equal (yet) of ICE cars, but there's the eco friendly element to it. Plenty of people are happy to drive diesels, not one can now say they didn't know how polluting they are, so there's definitely the "slightly smug at being green" factor. Then again, look at Chris's example that he won't consider electric because it won't do a 550 mile round trip, and now you've said that you can't drive from London to Glasgow without recharging.

Electric cars do tend to elicit some really weird justifications. Do you regularly drive from London to Glasgow? I know I don't. I maybe do one journey a year of more than 200 miles in one stint where I'd have to make alternative plans if I had an electric car. Normally I'm driving somewhere and leaving the car where it could be charged, or coming home.

With escalating running costs I'd start to consider hybrids and electric cars far more. I see the former as the more viable option FWIW, battery with small supplementary petrol engine is far more versatile than pure electric and goes some way to assuage the "but I have to drive to Orkney" set. Whilst I love my petrol car, I have looked at the hybrid equivalent, personally for me it's too expensive currently and the performance isn't nearly as good as my petrol variant, but the range wasn't a decisive factor in this.

I own a diesel car because the government of the day (2000s) said they were less poluting than petrol and Gordon Brown when Chancellor of the Exchequer stated that diesel would always be 10p a litre cheaper than petrol!!!!!!. That is why since the turn of this century there has been a boom in the sale of diesel cars by people acting on government advice.

Geoff

Newportnobby

Quote from: Bealman on June 18, 2018, 09:45:51 AM
Stick to your bike plan, Mick.  ;)

In 2040 I'll be 87, George (assuming I'm still on the planet)
I might have an electric zimmer frame at best :uneasy:

Chris Morris

Aren't current diesel EU6 cars pretty clean?
Although it was a test on his terms I well remember Clarkson getting better fuel economy from a BMW M3 than he did from a Prius.
Working doesn't seem to be the perfect thing for me so I'll continue to play.
Steve Marriott / Ronnie Lane

njee20

#22
Quote from: geoffc on June 18, 2018, 09:55:22 AM
That is why since the turn of this century there has been a boom in the sale of diesel cars by people acting on government advice.

Geoff

I know, and cheaper VED rates, which still preside etc, but ultimately it's an emotive subject and people are selfish, how many are still driving the diesel they bought in 2000 because Gordon Brown told them to? They want to be able to drive from London to Glasgow without filling up because that's what they've become accustomed to. Or at least they want to think they can, and be seeing that the range of electric cars is poor they tell themselves "oh I couldn't possibly have an electric car, the range is terrible", whilst in reality the majority of people could with very little adjustment to their daily lives.

I went from a diesel to a petrol car, and got used to filling up every 380-400 miles rather than every 550-600, but I don't do huge mileages and my most common journeys are either 25 miles where I leave my car all day and cycle to work, or 20 mile round trip to drop my son off at nursery. I know, categorically, I could make do with an electric car, but like I said, currently I don't really want to!

QuoteAlthough it was a test on his terms I well remember Clarkson getting better fuel economy from a BMW M3 than he did from a Prius.
Yep, think it was an M3, they ragged a Prius around the track and followed it around in the BMW which clearly didn't even break a sweat, and the Prius got a higher fuel consumption. Obviously that's a daft, if amusing, example though, and in line with the "but I want to drive to Land's End in one go" troop.

daffy

I had a number of electric cars back in the 1960's that were very fuel efficient and a friend and I ran two almost continuously for over 15 hours, with just a couple of breaks for drinks, food, etc.

To emulate this in the modern world, all the Government need to do is agree to put twin strips of metal either side of a groove in all the track roads and connect the whole lot to the mains.

Simples. With a tiny bit of up-scaling of course.

;)


Mike

Sufferin' succotash!

Malc

The other issue with battery powered cars is the recharging time. Not a problem if you can wait a few hours to fill up. The local news did an item on recharging points in Birmingham and found that lots of them were either out of order or occupied when they went round in their electric car.
The years have been good to me, it was the weekends that did the damage.

Newportnobby

Quote from: daffy on June 18, 2018, 10:28:33 AM
I had a number of electric cars back in the 1960's that were very fuel efficient and a friend and I ran two almost continuously for over 15 hours, with just a couple of breaks for drinks, food, etc.

To emulate this in the modern world, all the Government need to do is agree to put twin strips of metal either side of a groove in all the track roads and connect the whole lot to the mains.

Simples. With a tiny bit of up-scaling of course.

;)

:laughabovepost: :laughabovepost:

njee20

Quote from: Malc on June 18, 2018, 10:39:05 AM
The other issue with battery powered cars is the recharging time. Not a problem if you can wait a few hours to fill up. The local news did an item on recharging points in Birmingham and found that lots of them were either out of order or occupied when they went round in their electric car.

Yep, the infrastructure certainly needs to be there for it to be a genuinely viable alternative. Tesla Supercharging stations look good, 50% charge in 20 minutes and full charge in 75 minutes. I don't know if they've open sourced the technology so other brands can use it.

You're never going to reach everyone - blocks of flats, and even terraced houses without drives will always make it very very difficult to charge cars, but it will improve, I'm sure of it.

The Q

Well I do travel from the east coast of Norfolk to Scotland regularly to vist my immediate family, though not as much as when I was a field service engineer doing 50,000mile a year. I need a car that can do 400miles in a day at the end of it's battery life, not just at the beginning.
Come to that London is about 90 miles each way once a year. And if I wish to visit more relatives in the West country we are back in the 300 mile plus range.

The only way I can see this achieved is a standardised swap out battery system..

acko22

i won't lie I do see the advantages in electric cars in the long run, but just now there is not the infrastructure there to make it worth while for myself.
With current technology and the limitations it's very much a horses for courses scenario, electric cars for urban driving such as a commute into work makes perfect sense (although public transport is an option - I will leave that one there as I know its could lead down the rabbit hole), from what i understand if registered you get an exemption on the London congestion zone charges if it's an electric which been honest I can see the same scheme happening in most cities eventually.

For me while I don't currently have a car (not cost effective with been away so much) my last 2 cars were diesels, why? Because the journeys I was doing were at least 200 miles a time (Salisbury - Manchester or Manchester to Islay) and where as I had previously had a Petrol before in a diesel I could do a Salisbury - Manchester return trip on a single tank of Diesel where as it would be a tank each way on petrol and that's with the prices been broadly the same for each fuel so twice the fuel means twice the cost and well more pollution from me running a petrol car.

Will electrics become main stream and we all have to get over it, to right and I will happily embrace it when they are able to do what I need them to do, and the technologies are becoming more available, the single best idea I have seen been trialled is in Holland IIRC.
They are using wireless charging technology, but its built into the road so whilst you are on the road with this tech in you are running of the power supplied from the road and not batteries  so when you come off the road you still have your entire battery range to get you where you want to go.

They ran a test car for 2 weeks none stop to get an idea of cost efficiency and environmental impact (Using a gas powered power station as the supply point) and found it cost 1/8th of what a petrol would cost and around 1/20th of the pollution, so personally it looks like one of the better ideas currently been looked at for a long term solution, however it does have it set backs like anything.

While some cars are already set up for the wirelesss charging system many aren't and those that are would need some re configuring to work as described, and then there is the cost of setting up such a system it's not exactly cheap however if done on a mass scale the price would drop, but there has to be the large scale need for it to be truly worth it which is where getting manufactures and the powers that be on board with the concept comes into play.

When questioned on how it would be paid for they actually had a very simple ideas which make sense, the cars would be data linked in so you would be charged by your usage so while maybe not the 1/8th probably more to pay for the system,your power usage and its upkeep. But working on even paying 1/2th of what we pay for fuel now it would save on road tax and general fuel costs, and for foreign drivers of such cars a pay as you go set up like we have for mobile phones.

They were very honest when asked about installing it on every road in a country and said it wasn't worthwhile doing that, but on major routes such as motorways and A roads (possibly some B roads) it would be worth while doing it and while battery technology comes on it would mean that cars would be able to get almost anywhere without needing to stop at services for charging or people been caught powerless.

That's where personally I see electric cars coming into their own if the powers that been are willing to back it, and if so I will happily say sign me up as it will meet my needs and the needs of 99% of people, save us some money on fuel and allow us to keep that bit of freedom without worrying is there a charging point en route or where will I have to stop and charge for the night.
Mechanical issues can be solved with a hammer and electrical problems can be solved with a screw driver. Beyond that it's verbal abuse which makes trains work!!

Nick

Just thought I'd insert a little personal experience into this debate.

We have owned an electric car for just over two years (a Citroen C-Zero, a rebadged Mitsubishi m-iEV). It has a nominal range of 93 miles. In fact, under normal circumstances, we achieve in the high 60s to low 70s on a full charge. By "full charge", I mean use from full to the point when "remaining range" on the trip computer is close to zero. My understanding is that there is still hidden charge left at that point, and the car enters a "turtle mode", which suppresses non-essential functions and limits performance. I don't intend to investigate that mode, since I don't want to be brought home on a flat bed truck.

I suppose it's perhaps possible that if we cut down weight by stripping out all the passenger seats and extraneous trimmings and had the car driven optimally  by a stark naked size zero model across  the salt flats of Utah, it might achieve 93 miles, but in the real world, and with  my hulking frame, no chance. 75 miles is the most we have managed to record. Range is slightly weather dependent, most obviously if you have to use heating or aircon, but the battery also performs noticeably better in warm weather.

Charging is not as bad a problem as sometimes portrayed. To charge it fully from "empty" takes about seven or eight hours, but it is effectively full after around five, and usable for short trips much, much sooner. That's from the domestic mains supply. Fast charging at a motorway services will provide an 80% charge in around half an hour. You just need to be aware of what you have left and what you need. Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance, as any pilot here will know.

We love it. We use it for all our local driving. It's easy to drive, convenient to park, comfortable and quiet. Performance is excellent. I especially enjoy out accelerating a stroppy Audi driver from the lights... (Remember the Beep Beep bubble car song???) It's also very cheap. From domestic sources, the electricity costs around 2p/mile, compared with our diesel car where fuel is currently around 15p/mile in urban driving. If and when the battery dies, I suspect we'll have to scrap the car, but we bought it second hand cheaply and it will likely have paid for itself in fuel, VED and servicing savings. And we'll have had fun. And a certain green smugness. (Yes, I know about the batteries, etc.)

As I said, we still have a diesel car, and we use that for long-distance driving. The furthest I've taken the EV is to near Cardiff, a one way of about 48 miles. The charging network on the motorways is perfectly adequate for big trips, but you need to plan, and your average speed will drop to something around 30-40 mph because of the charging stops. As Ecotricity have now priced motorway recharges similarly to fossil fuel (they were free) that's a mug's game if you have access to an ICE car. Although we may go up to our son's in Rugby as a bit of an adventure... There are apps that tell you where charging points are, and whether they are in use or out of service. Since the price went up, I've noticed they are  usually vacant, as hybrid owners don't bother with them any more.

However, going forward, if the government wants to drive full adoption, which is the stated aim, then somebody needs to pull their finger out and do something about the charging infrastructure. There isn't enough of it for widespread use, or anywhere close, even if battery technology improves. We are lucky because we live in a nice leafy suburb with our own drive, so can charge at our leisure from our own resources. More generally, the country needs kerbside infrastructure and much more provision in car parks, or people in high-rises and older or town properties will be excluded. I gather some European countries (Germany?) are putting charging points in lampposts. But, knowing the UK, we have probably cabled ours with second-hand 3A twinflex...

If we live long enough to need to buy another car, my first choice would definitely be another full electric vehicle. I'd ideally like a range in the 150-200 zone, so I could do a full day's drive with only one or two stops. I rarely schedule more than about 400 miles of driving in a day, even driving down to Italy, so that would be fine. I have to take breaks in that distance anyway.
Nick

The perfect is the enemy of the good - Voltaire

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