Electric Cars

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Thu 6 May 2010 10:52
Electric Cars - Sofa Spud

OK, another thread says nothing is happening here, so I started a thread on Electric cars since there's a lot of buzz in the motoring press about them at the moment.

My view is that battery electric vehicles do have a bright future as a niche product - small urban electric cars and vans where range is not an important factor.

I think the G-Wiz, though very basic, has paved the way for a generation of better and slightly bigger urban electric vehicles. Modec electric vans (roughly Fort Transit sized) and trucks appear to be quietly gaining favour in cities.

I could see a lot of two-car households running an electric car as a second car - given a reasonable purchase price, in the future.

And I'm interested to see how the close cousin of the pure electric car, the range-extender hybrid (e.g. Chevrolet Volt) performs in the real world when it goes on sale.

Edited by Sofa Spud on 06/05/2010 at 10:53

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Thu 6 May 2010 11:11
Electric Cars - veryoldbear

The elephant on the back seat is still the battery. Despite sterling efforts and endless research the amount of power per kilogramme of battery is still nothing like that from a tankfull of diesel or petrol. I am still rather baffled why most of the mainline car manufacturers seem to think that we want four door saloons with no luggage space (it all being taken up by the battery). If they were to go for a real lightweight two-seater, with some shopping storage they might be on the right lines. But they still have to get past this limit of around 50 miles range before they are of any practical use.

I can see the next thing will happen is lots of station car parks on a cold winters day full of electric cars with flat batteries.

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Thu 6 May 2010 14:43
Electric Cars - fredthefifth

Pehaps in the fullness of time those station car parks will have solar assisted recharging stations that the electric cars would use during the day - for a nominal fee of course. (Note only solar assisted to cover that cold sunless winters day!)

FTF

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Thu 6 May 2010 14:57
Electric Cars - b308

The other thing is that the manufacturers seem to think that we will pay well over the odds for an electric car (the GWhizz is well OTT in that respect for what it is) or a hybrid... until costs come way down most people will continue to buy conventional IC motors.

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Thu 6 May 2010 21:28
Electric Cars - Leif

The elephant on the back seat is still the battery. Despite sterling efforts and endless research the amount of power per kilogramme of battery is still nothing like that from a tankfull of diesel or petrol. I am still rather baffled why most of the mainline car manufacturers seem to think that we want four door saloons with no luggage space (it all being taken up by the battery). If they were to go for a real lightweight two-seater, with some shopping storage they might be on the right lines. But they still have to get past this limit of around 50 miles range before they are of any practical use.

I can see the next thing will happen is lots of station car parks on a cold winters day full of electric cars with flat batteries.

Modern Li-Ion batteries perform extremely well in the cold. As do NiMH. I don't think it is a case of wanting electric vehicles, but rather that we will eventually need an alternative to petrol and diesel. Batteries have advanced massively in the last 20 years due to the demand created by mobile phones. No doubt we will see large advances in the future. I don't disagree with you that the range of many electric cars is pathetic. And don't forget that the batteries wear out over a few years, and capacity drops. When they reach 70%, you dump them. Fortunately worn batteries will have value, to electricity generators who want to store off peak energy, or even out electricity from renewables such as wind.

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Fri 7 May 2010 10:46
Electric Cars - Sofa Spud

Over its lifetime a petrol or diesel car is likely to need several new exhaust systems, a new clutch, possibly a couple of new cambelts, a dozen or more oil changes - all amounting to several thousand pounds. From what I've read, apart from battery deterioration, the driveline of an electric car is likley to last for the car's lifetime.

So battery replacement costs have to be weighed against the cost of components that need replacement on i.c. engined cars.

I see the elephant on the back seat mentioned above, but it looks like the electric car market going is to remove the problem by not having a back seat for the elephant to sit on! In other words, design for a niche market where long range isn't needed.

Edited by Sofa Spud on 07/05/2010 at 10:49

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Fri 7 May 2010 11:01
Electric Cars - pyruse

Electric cars are clearly ideal for a second car for shopping and commuting.

The only thing wrong with them is the price...

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Fri 7 May 2010 13:27
Electric Cars - Andy P
What I'd like to know is whether anyone has actually sat down and done a complete environmental analysis of electric, hybrid and IC cars - and by that I mean including the costs of the materials used to make them, the transport costs shifting stuff around the world, fuel extraction/refining/production costs and so forth.

Without this information, no car can be described as being "green" or "environmentally friendly".
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Sat 8 May 2010 12:47
Electric Cars - R2-CMax

Electric cars are clearly ideal for a second car for shopping and commuting.

The only thing wrong with them is the price...

Particularly medium-distance commuting (e.g. 20 miles each way if you can only recharge at home, or 40 miles if your employer or wherever you park has charging posts. i.e. you won't save over an IC engine car unless you're doing decent mileage as the battery is expensive, so you need to use it to get the value.

Although I expect that avoiding the congestion charge will have a big effect on the economics too.

Personal opinion on pricing is that Mitsubishi are just doing a bit of a market scalping excercise for those that are desperate enough to want one. I'm pretty sure that Renault-Nissan are talking about being much more sensible on pricing, and because these cars have yet to achieve the genuine economies of mass production, they've got a long way to fall.

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Sat 8 May 2010 13:36
Electric Cars - Xantiaman

Assuming there is a significant move to electric cars in the future, where do you think the government will take its cut?

I'm genuinely curious about this. At the moment the government does very nicely from taxes on fuel and can increase these with an argument that it pushes us to greener cars. But once a lot of us jump on board the government will need to replace this income. Just hope the answer isn't too shocking

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Sun 9 May 2010 11:42
Electric Cars - R2-CMax

Assuming there is a significant move to electric cars in the future, where do you think the government will take its cut?

I'm genuinely curious about this. At the moment the government does very nicely from taxes on fuel and can increase these with an argument that it pushes us to greener cars. But once a lot of us jump on board the government will need to replace this income. Just hope the answer isn't too shocking

Nice pun...

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Sun 9 May 2010 11:54
Electric Cars - R2-CMax

Assuming there is a significant move to electric cars in the future, where do you think the government will take its cut?

I'm genuinely curious about this. At the moment the government does very nicely from taxes on fuel and can increase these with an argument that it pushes us to greener cars. But once a lot of us jump on board the government will need to replace this income. Just hope the answer isn't too shocking

Whoops - fat fingers on sunday morning mean i failed in my first attempt to post a reply.

I don't think Govt really knows yet. There are fundamentally 3 options.

1- Try and keep the tax take up by ramping tax on road fuels (obviously the fuel consumption of IC engines can still drop by 20-25% for many vehicles). But this could lead to a tipping point when everybody would desert normal vehicles... and HGV operators that won't have a credible electric option won't like that one little bit.

2- Charge more for electricity destined for the car - you'd need separate metering of car, and because that might be easily or unsafely circumvented by stringing extension leads from the house or something, the meter would need to be in the vehicle. It's debateable about whether people would take this kind of differential pricing, although I guess the existence of red diesel is some sort of precedent.

3- Tax some other part of driving - road pricing. In principle I think a lot of people would favour this if it was done well - e.g. paying more where you could be using public transport instead of your luxo-barge, paying less if you're in the middle of the country and have no alternative to your Fiat ePanda. However, it's the UK Govt we're talking about, and regardless of it's colour, what are the chances that it would be done well? Slim

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Mon 31 May 2010 16:20
Electric Cars - jc2

Mobile phones and their batteries have got smaller,not so much because of improved battery technology but more because of the use of exotic rare metals in the phones' integrated circuits.

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Sat 8 May 2010 13:36
Electric Cars - Avant

"The only thing wrong with them is the price..."

And the limited range. There's a report in today's Times (p.41) of a survey which found that range anxiety was the main factor putting people off electric cars (yes, they ought to worry about overall costs and effect on the environment, as said above) but most don't.

As I was saying in the LPG thread just now, the rise of the high-efficiency, low-capacity petrol engine, as in VAG's and Renault's 1.2s, makes LPG power less relevant, and could do the same for electric cars too (i mean purely electric rather than hybrids, for which there is a case).

SWMBO, who is on her third Mini, works from home and does a low mileage: a Mini E would suit her if it came down in price, but only because we have a garage with a power point. Most people who drive in towns and cities (where the electric car would be most practicable) have to park on the street. What do they do - run a cable from the house for someone to trip over and sue, or for teenagers on the way back from the pub at night unplugging it for a jolly jape?

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Wed 19 May 2010 16:01
Electric Cars - 3point14

Purchase costs aside, which could be assisted through some scheme, even taxation, I agree that the range is paramount. Added to that is the impracticality of a change in circumstances. Your range is 100 miles, you have driven 35 there and are driving 35 back, you can never drive 50 miles somewhere as you cannot trust you have 50 miles charge to get back. However you cannot change your mind and take a detour, lest you break down.

What happens if you forget to plug it in, presuming of course that you have a garage to store it in the first place ? Get up and think "oh s***" and your day is ruined. If you had a 300 mile range and had already done 100 miles then you would be ok but if nearly every journey takes you to near depletion of the battery then you are stumped if you forgt to charge it.

How many times did you used to forget to charge your mobile in the days when battery life was only a day or so ? Loads I bet and when you got to the office no-one had a charger your could use ! That is where electric cars are now but the demand is not there to push development because unlike mobile phones, peopel are just not prepared to live with short term battery life in the hope that necessity will once again prove the catalyst for invention.

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Wed 19 May 2010 16:12
Electric Cars - veryoldbear

I also suspect that battery charging (other than that done at yout own house) will be costed in such a manner that it will only just a teeny bit cheaper than running the car on petrol / diesel / woodchips / whatever. Expect your fast charging facility in the city to charge you something like £5 a jolt minimum ....

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Wed 19 May 2010 22:58
Electric Cars - Leif

There's a lot of good points in this thread, and I had not thought about the tax aspect.

Regarding range, some while ago I suggested swappable batteries, and the idea was poo-pooed here on the grounds that batteries are huge. It turns out there is an Israeli chap who has created electric cars with replaceable battery packs. The key is to have sufficient battery stations along major routes. Then when you run low, just pop in to a battery station, and swap your exhausted one for a freshly charged unit. Obviously the batteries are huge, and the cars need special machines that swap them. It needs government support and I think he has had success in some parts of the world. The batteries are I assume rented rather than purchased.

There is one point I do not see discussed. There have been more than a few deaths from mobile phone batteries exploding. Whether they were manufacturers units, or cheap ones is unclear. But Li-Ion batteries are potential bombs as they store so much energy. Overcharge one, and kaboom, you can kiss your future goodbye. Fortunately chargers and batteries have built in protection circuits. Still, when one of these babies goes up, we'll know about it. As to whether this is a problem in practice is unclear. Perhaps they will use safer chemistries.

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Wed 19 May 2010 23:43
Electric Cars - 3point14

I seem to remember that the first introduction of electric cars in the USA was not on a sales basis but on a rental or lease if you will. Given that the battery life is the great stumbliing block, then perhaps rental is where the future lies, at least until the technology improves significantly.

I originally thought about where you could dump the empty car and immediately pick up a fully charged one, that information being available in real time these days via sat nav, but people like their own cars, so that idea doesn't work.

Swapping a battery is obviously viable but unrealistic. There would be accidents, it would be a minimum wage job and only attract the unemployable etc. Some clown would wire one up back to front to see what happened and blow the place up ! We might as well go for nuclear fuelled cars, driving them into great deep pits in Sellafield when obsolete and then filling with concrete !

I also don't see quick charge as being the future - yet. It seems with rechargeable batteries that you get the best performance charging them slowly.

You know, even if the batteries had decent ranges, the issue of how much a new one costs and what you are supposed to do with the old one need to be addressed. You are not going to be a happy bunny if you find your new battery comes with a £15,000 price tag.

Lastly for now, who on earth would ever buy a second hand electric car ? No-one is the answer I fear, making the whole thing a dead donkey.

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Thu 20 May 2010 19:17
Electric Cars - R2-CMax

There is one point I do not see discussed. There have been more than a few deaths from mobile phone batteries exploding. Whether they were manufacturers units, or cheap ones is unclear. But Li-Ion batteries are potential bombs as they store so much energy. Overcharge one, and kaboom, you can kiss your future goodbye. Fortunately chargers and batteries have built in protection circuits. Still, when one of these babies goes up, we'll know about it. As to whether this is a problem in practice is unclear. Perhaps they will use safer chemistries.

The world is awash with systems that can be very dangerous if risks are not properly managed. Managing the risks from battery fires (regardless of cause) will be part of the vehicle engineering programme.

There is also the wider context to consider - how many mobile phone users have been killed by batteries vs the number who were run over using their phones because they were distracted and forgot the green cross code? I bet the number of people killed by exploding car batteries will be a lot smaller than those killed driving their EV off the road (or run over by one)?

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Tue 1 Jun 2010 16:26
Electric Cars - SteveLee
So, if we had massively improved batteries which don't rely on rare minerals (which we don't) and an endless supply of neodymium electric motors (which we don't) we still have a bit of a problem - how do we charge them?

A household power supply will not deliver enough energy to charge a super-duper battery with enough charge to give the vehicle a decent range within a 12 hour charging cycle. 3kw, which is what you can draw from a 13Amp socket, converted to kilowatt hours worth of charge and then into good old fashioned horsepower is just over 1 horsepower (for an hour's) worth of energy per hour in old money, of course that energy has to make it to the wheels - motors aren't that efficient. Even if you used a 30 amp supply the "energy transferred" figures still don't look good. Are we going to upgrade every household to 440v three phase power supplies? Our electricity infrastructure is already on its knees as it is. If 30% of households started drawing a constant 3Kw let alone 5 or 10Kws, the national grid would trip and shut down!

Electric cars are not the solution.
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If you cover no more than 100 miles per day and have easy access to a charging point at home or work, then an EV is ideal for you.

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