electric cars,,,,

[mealiejimmy]

I am flabbergasted. I feel like a Martian has just landed.
It's a big deal because it entirely torpedoes the economics of car ownership. Essentially cars like that face the prospect of having zero second-hand value. If a battery needs replacing after say 6 years and the replacement cost more than the car is worth, then you are replacing a vehicle with a 15-year lifespan with a new type of vehicle that only has a 6-year lifespan and is considerably more expensive.

More EV myths
The batteries last a lot more than 6 years.
AFAIK, virtually all the electric vehicles sold in the UK come with a 7 year warranty on the batteries. That warranty states that if the capacity of the battery drops to less than 70% of its value when new, the manufacturer will supply and fit a new battery.
Given the cost of the batteries, the manufacturers are clearly confident that their batteries are going to last a long time - in most cases longer than the rest of the vehicle.
Have a look at the prices of used Nissan Leafs - they are actually rising.
Buy a used Nissan Leaf this year, keep it for a year and then sell it for the same or more than you paid for it.

Cheers

Bruce

 

[biffo]

Very strange vehicle that needs filling twice to get out of Kent, but can go from
Brum brum to Manc. without a top up!
Ken.

Ha ha! Kent is a big big county !

 

[Apthorpe]

More EV myths
The batteries last a lot more than 6 years.
AFAIK, virtually all the electric vehicles sold in the UK come with a 7 year warranty on the batteries. That warranty states that if the capacity of the battery drops to less than 70% of its value when new, the manufacturer will supply and fit a new battery.
Given the cost of the batteries, the manufacturers are clearly confident that their batteries are going to last a long time - in most cases longer than the rest of the vehicle.
Have a look at the prices of used Nissan Leafs - they are actually rising.
Buy a used Nissan Leaf this year, keep it for a year and then sell it for the same or more than you paid for it.

Cheers

Bruce

These may be myths, but if they are they are being fuelled by manufacturers' lack of transparency. Does anyone actually know the mean number and sd of miles /years these batteries last?
Manufacturers may also be offering those warranties a) because normal cars are offered with similar warranties and b) because there is no way anybody will buy EVs without them. It's not clear that the warranties are actually a guarantee that the car won't be a write off after 110k miles. A warranty is as much a marketing tool as anything.

You may be misrepresenting the warranties too. Tesla's is 7yrs or 100k miles - which could be under 3 yrs for some motorists I know.

You're telling me I can buy a Leaf, use it for a year, and then sell it back - a year older, and with the dealers' margins -at a profit???? Now that really does sound like a myth!
I think I'll wait until next year when a car with a perpetual motion engine is on the market.

This sort of stuff is precisely why some motorists are sceptical

 

[Bavarianbrit]

Essentially they are 18650 batteries all bolted together I believe.

2014 while on a project at Tesla Fremont they told me they were using simple C cell batteries ganged together, 4500 of them for an S model. Access to the battery area was not allowed.
I just checked with wiki and I appear to have been bs to. As of June 2012, the battery pack used modified Panasonic cells with nickel-cobalt-aluminum cathodes.[116] Each cell was of the 18650 form factor

 

[The Singing Stalker]

I did look into the viability of buying a second hand ev So spent some time researching and 2 bits of information came out from the forums. Note. This is if you buy a new vehicle.
The running cost was 20% lower than a fossil fuel car. Presuming this was factoring in initial costs and depreciation. That to me wasn’t viable but I would never buy new, I’m far too much of a tightwad.
And when the battery’s give up the ghost then as already said people have to make a decision do they replace the batteries at a value more than the car is worth or do they scrap a perfectly good car. I think the specific car was five or 6 years old.
The rest is rhetoric.
I personally dont believe full ev is the way to go currently. For example. A cars range is 100 miles, guy works 80 miles from the office, he then needs to spend a load of time charging and if he gets an emergency call requiring him to go home he is stuffed until he has enough charge.

if we look at the i8 which runs super car performance with a 1.5 litre engine then would we be able to run mide sized cars with an 800cc engine and an electric motor?

when fossil fuel cars came out there was no network to resupply fuel. We are transitioning now to electric networks and will get there eventually but, There will be major changes to lifestyle, ie; people who live in flats.
I think there are issues such as range and speed of recharging still to overcome. And until that happens then it is difficult how we can all change over to electric. Maybe now on a Sunday afternoon we will go to the garage to wash the car and charge up at the same time, possibly put the car on charge when we do our weekly shopping but of course in 10 years time there will be fewer supermarkets as the drive to online shopping continues and we will all be getting home deliveries.

I was having a conversation with some senior people from a large lubrication oil company (no, not that sort of lubrication company) and we were discussing this. One interesting thing that came out of the conversation is that as the need for fuel goes down then the price for lubricants will go up because the oils and grease are a byproduct. Ok that is a simplistic answer to a complicated process but close enough.

I know there are people working on hydrogen cars, with its inherent dangers, not sure how far that will go but can guess.

If I could pick up an ev for the right price I would consider buyin one. My daily commute is 44 miles. So if the range is 100 miles then i would be covered. However the one bit i dont know and I keep meaning to ask our engineers, what is the percentage loss in storage capacity of the batteries Per annum, of course that is up there with the, how long is a piece of string because there are so many variables.
I dont think moving to electric cars will save the planet but i think electric motor cars re the future in that, no gears, torque available instantly etc etc. I just think that we need to overcome the powering issue

I think that for the foreseeable future I will be sticking with my, “cost me a £1,000 2 years ago but still does 50 to the gallon“ motor.

sheesh, hard to think i had a good night in the pub last night. Now, time to pack the kit. There are 2 Munties that are eating the fresh planted trees and 1 fox that needs to be removed before lambing.

 

[mealiejimmy]

I know there are people working on hydrogen cars, with its inherent dangers, not sure how far that will go but can guess.

If I could pick up an ev for the right price I would consider buyin one. My daily commute is 44 miles. So if the range is 100 miles then i would be covered. However the one bit i dont know and I keep meaning to ask our engineers, what is the percentage loss in storage capacity of the batteries Per annum, of course that is up there with the, how long is a piece of string because there are so many variables.


Hydrogen powered cars are a dead end. At present, and for the foreseeable future, the hydrogen used in these vehicles comes from reforming natural gas with steam at high temperature - so the power source for a hydrogen powered car is still fossil fuel.
Producing hydrogen by the electrolysis of water is horribly inefficient - it needs much more power to release the hydrogen from the oxygen in water molecules than will ever be regained when combining them again in a fuel cell. The only way such a method would be worth doing is if the electricity needed for the electrolysis is coming from a renewable source such as wind or solar power.
As to percentage loss in battery capacity per annum - then nobody will be able to give you an exact answer to that question.
However, the principal known causes of loss of battery capacity are extended exposure to high temperatures (more than 50-60deg celsius) and frequent rapid charging to 100% capacity.
Given our climate, then high temperature is not an issue, plus the fact that most electric cars have a thermal management system for their batteries which prevents them from overheating (or getting too cold)
Rapid charging is generally regarded as meaning the ability to recharge the car from 20%-80% capacity in less than an hour (and frequently much more quickly).
Once the battery is more than about 80% charged, the charge rate drops and it takes proportionally much longer to get to 100% charge.
The slower the charge rate, the longer the batteries will last. That makes home charging at 7KW is the best way to preserve battery life.
The simple fact is that, at present, electric cars are not an optimal solution for frequent long distance journeys. Undertaking such journeys would entail multiple fast charging sessions and would result in a faster loss in battery capacity than a vehicle which is only ever charged at home or at a public charge point producing 7KW.
For your daily commute, an EV with a nominal range of 100 miles is cutting it a bit too fine.
Range will decrease in winter and with poor surface conditions (and driving style). I'd be looking for a nominal range of 150 miles

Cheers

Bruce

 

[David T]

It’s all BS. Just changed my car n had to move away from diesel as I was going to be penalised. An additional 1% from our Nic. EV is quite simple. No range, not enough charging points, the ones that do exist are in the wrong places and it takes to long to charge. As a commercial sales guy how can I wait hours for a recharge ?
So I went for a hybrid. 2.5 petrol engine and a self charging battery. The battery works up until about 30mph then the engine kicks in. The battery runs things until I get to the bottom of our hill and then the rest of the journey is on a petrol engine. At 45k miles a year you can imagine how much is done on battery.......answer is bugger all. However, it costs me less in tax and BIK.
EV doesn’t work. It doesn’t make sense ( cradle to grave enviro impact ) and once enough have been sold the gov will tax them to the hilt. As they did with petrol and then diesel. Feckers.
Apologies rant over

 

[Broadarrow]

I'm running a mates Tesla S while he is away for a couple of months overseas....Just had a return journey from Yorkshire up to Northumberland and back in the day...165 miles and had no issues ....Still quite a bit of charge left over ...steady 65mph on the A1 each way.....I would definitely have one if;-
1) They were cheaper to buy
2) There were more FREE charging points
3) The range on etc batteries was improved
4) charging times were shorter

What I am impressed with is the SPEED of acceleration....it goes like the clappers off the line !!! So much so It makes you feel sick !!

 

[countrryboy]

How safe are these cars in a crash??? Heard my mate on about them and between elec and air bags everywhere firemen have a difficult job made even harder.
Seemingly u really dont wasn't to cut throu an used air bag

Slight tangent.
But how effecient is producing the electricity in the 1st place??

Loads of green energy white elephants around me from wind turbines, wood chip power stations and recently bio digesters.
Take away the massive grants and see how many truely are vaible?

Wot is the carbon footprint of a boi digester that has to be fed with young grass silage under 5yrs old?? Taking 5 cuts a year ( using 200+ hp tractors and big self propelled which sup desiel for fun) fields also to be slurried/fertilised and then ploughed, rotavated and down every 5 yrs.
Plus the cost off taking them out of agriculture and additional carbon foot print off the neighbouring farmers who used to rent the land now having to cart grass in and shite out even further. Whole farms/estates are talking there best land out off production for these things.

How the hell they make any green energy is beyond me.


The local wood chip burning station has hundreds of lorry loads of decent round timber every day, despite the promise when built to only burn by product and waste timber, biggest BS ever.
No farmers locally have any willow left as rates so low the 1 demo field they could off fired it into the yard from the harvester spout it was so close, they carted chip 50miles away to dry????

My. bro had a Mitsi hydrid before and quite liked it but surre was only getting 40 odd mpg when on engine, most modern cars will do that anyway now.
Hell even heavy 4x4s are now pushing close to 40mpg now.
Are some of the smaller 2/3cylinder engines not getting masive mpg?
Really no Ned for a battery powered car when!of so high.

Are u really doing any good getting an extra few % mpg but that's not taking into account the desiel costs to make that electricity.

The whole thing is a massive con in my opinion driven by CV folk with an agenda, like far too many things in politics now.
Even scientists are rarely reporting unbiased facts but distorting to suit there agenda

 

[mealiejimmy]

How safe are these cars in a crash??? Heard my mate on about them and between elec and air bags everywhere firemen have a difficult job made even harder.
Seemingly u really dont wasn't to cut throu an used air bag

In a crash with an electric car there is a very small possibility that, if the batteries are smashed badly, then they can catch fire. However, in the vast majority of cases, the batteries are automatically disconnected from the rest of the vehicle meaning there is no high voltage anywhere on the vehicle except inside the battery pack
In a crash with a petrol powered car, there is a significant possibility that, if the fuel tank gets hit, you have a blazing inferno on your hands.
According to this Safety and Health Information Bulletins | Automobile Air Bag Safety | Occupational Safety and Health Administration
used air bags are not hazardous.

Cheers

Bruce

 

[mealiejimmy]

My. bro had a Mitsi hydrid before and quite liked it but surre was only getting 40 odd mpg when on engine, most modern cars will do that anyway now.
Hell even heavy 4x4s are now pushing close to 40mpg now.
Are some of the smaller 2/3cylinder engines not getting masive mpg?
Really no Ned for a battery powered car when!of so high.

If you run a plug in hybrid like the Mitusibishi outlander on it's engine all the time, you'll be lucky to get even 40mpg.
Plug in hybrids are short journey vehicles where you can run it as pure electric vehicle for most of the time, only run it on the petrol engine until you get back home and then charge it up so that the next time you use it, you're running on electric again.
In any other scenario, a small diesel makes much more sense.

Cheers

Bruce

 

[mealiejimmy]

So I went for a hybrid. 2.5 petrol engine and a self charging battery. The battery works up until about 30mph then the engine kicks in. The battery runs things until I get to the bottom of our hill and then the rest of the journey is on a petrol engine. At 45k miles a year you can imagine how much is done on battery.......answer is bugger all. However, it costs me less in tax and BIK.

Toyotas "self charging hybrid" tag is the most misleading bit of marketing BS ever.
Every vehicle that can be driven from a battery (hybrid, plug in hybrid, pure ev) recharges their batteries under braking or when going down a hill, and can therefore be called a "self charging" vehicle
The Toyota Prius first went on the roads in 1997 and the the current Toyota "self charging hybrids" use exactly the same technology as the Prius has used for more than 20 years. Toyota simply called it a "hybrid" until it became obvious that their reluctance to move into pure EVs was costing them sales, so their marketing department had to come up with a slogan that made it seem as if the the bog standard Toyota hybrids were a breed apart, and something special. Actually, the Toyota "self charging hybrids" are special because they need a special self charging fluid to make them work.
That special self charging fluid is more commonly known as petrol

Cheers

Bruce

 

[David T]

Toyotas "self charging hybrid" tag is the most misleading bit of marketing BS ever.
Every vehicle that can be driven from a battery (hybrid, plug in hybrid, pure ev) recharges their batteries under braking or when going down a hill, and can therefore be called a "self charging" vehicle
The Toyota Prius first went on the roads in 1997 and the the current Toyota "self charging hybrids" use exactly the same technology as the Prius has used for more than 20 years. Toyota simply called it a "hybrid" until it became obvious that their reluctance to move into pure EVs was costing them sales, so their marketing department had to come up with a slogan that made it seem as if the the bog standard Toyota hybrids were a breed apart, and something special. Actually, the Toyota "self charging hybrids" are special because they need a special self charging fluid to make them work.
That special self charging fluid is more commonly known as petrol

Cheers

Bruce

Thanks Bruce. That makes me feel so much better !

 

[Heym SR20]

I am fortunate in that I work with a lot of technology companies and there are some really clever stuff coming through. There is a big revolution going on in energy storage, and rather than storing energy as chemical energy - as in most batteries, there is a lot going on in storing energy as a charge.

Benefits are huge in terms of amount of power that can go in and out very rapidly. You are not running around with lots of nasty chemicals or rare earth minerals. Energy density is much, much higher. You are not producing lots of heat when you charge / discharge so don't need lots of cooling systems etc. And rather than lasting 30,000 cycles, lifetime is measured in the millions of cycles. And with clever architecture you are not getting a big surge of power, but able to provide a continuous flow.

At current stage of the tech it can provide a big slug torque to accelarate a heavy load to steady state. In five years time these can be used as the prime mover.

 

[foxdropper]

,,"and There's no future
And England's dreaming"
[/QUOTE]
No future ,no future ,no future for me .

 

[countrryboy]

In a crash with an electric car there is a very small possibility that, if the batteries are smashed badly, then they can catch fire. However, in the vast majority of cases, the batteries are automatically disconnected from the rest of the vehicle meaning there is no high voltage anywhere on the vehicle except inside the battery pack
In a crash with a petrol powered car, there is a significant possibility that, if the fuel tank gets hit, you have a blazing inferno on your hands.
According to this Safety and Health Information Bulletins | Automobile Air Bag Safety | Occupational Safety and Health Administration
used air bags are not hazardous.

Cheers

Bruce

I meant when cutting parts of the car apart u don't want to be slicing through un used airbags as the propellant can go off as u cut. Or atleast that's wot the fire boys train for.

Atleast with fire u can see wot ur dealing with, can u guarantee 100% off time that battery will never short out against body work or if a cable is severed.
With a hybrid surely u have both to worry about.

 

[Alantoo]

In any other scenario, a small diesel makes much more sense.

If you compare the efficiency of a small diesel with a small hybrid even if the overall diesel mpg is better for the same performance, the advantage of the small hybrid is that at speeds below 30mph in urban areas you are not producing so much pollution.

There does seem to be a lot of comparing apples to oranges with 20 year old performance of Hybrids with current performance of diesels and petrols by many in this thread.

If relative size and performance of vehicle, and age of technology and urban pollution are considered then the petrol hybrid has advantages...compare the better MPG/efficiency of a Hybrid Toyota Yaris to the less efficient diesel version for instance, and add the reduced urban pollution advantage...

Alan

 

[reloader54]

In a crash with an electric car there is a very small possibility that, if the batteries are smashed badly, then they can catch fire. However, in the vast majority of cases, the batteries are automatically disconnected from the rest of the vehicle meaning there is no high voltage anywhere on the vehicle except inside the battery pack
In a crash with a petrol powered car, there is a significant possibility that, if the fuel tank gets hit, you have a blazing inferno on your hands.
According to this Safety and Health Information Bulletins | Automobile Air Bag Safety | Occupational Safety and Health Administration
used air bags are not hazardous.

Cheers

Bruce

so it therefore follow would it not, in a crash between an electric car and a conventional petrol engine powered car, with a ruptured fuel tank and a high percentage of risk of electrical sparks you have a pretty good chance of getting fried in whichever vehicle you are within. especially if trapped.

I wonder what the ratio of collisions between conventional petrol cars bursting into flames on impact [seemingly quite low if the scrap and car salvage yards are anything to go by].

and whether the fire risk will increase as the inevitable petrol / electric crash increases with more electric cars on the roads.
the risk of chemical burns must rise a great deal too, both for the unfortunate occupants and rescue crews. in addition the road in the vicinity of the collision will probably need more than just a brush up and a removal of incapacitated vehicles. some kind of containment of damaged batteries and their components will have to be implemented. the thought of a pile of damaged battery powered vehicles leaking into to surrounding ground doesn't sound that environmentally friendly does it.?
as with all new and latest tech, the infrastructure is rarely implemented until its become a problem and then its panic stations.,and everyone starts looking for someone to blame.

rather like building housing estates, resulting in massive increases in people and then wondering why existing schools,hospitals,and services power, water,sewage, etc cant cope.

 

[mealiejimmy]

I meant when cutting parts of the car apart u don't want to be slicing through un used airbags as the propellant can go off as u cut. Or atleast that's wot the fire boys train for.

Atleast with fire u can see wot ur dealing with, can u guarantee 100% off time that battery will never short out against body work or if a cable is severed.
With a hybrid surely u have both to worry about.

An airbag is inflated by a small gas cartridge (similar to that used in a soda stream) - there is no hazard in cutting through an uninflated air bag, you'd need to cut through the gas cartridge and that's a rather small target.
As I said, when an an electric vehicle is involved in an accident where more than a certain G force us experienced, the battery (which is a sealed steel box which also contains isolating switches) is disconnected from the rest of the vehicle. Rescue crews having to cut people out of an electrically powered vehicle face no additional hazards if they cut through the cables coming from the battery, because the battery has already been disconnected from those cables.


Cheers

Bruce

 

[mealiejimmy]

so it therefore follow would it not, in a crash between an electric car and a conventional petrol engine powered car, with a ruptured fuel tank and a high percentage of risk of electrical sparks you have a pretty good chance of getting fried in whichever vehicle you are within. especially if trapped.

I wonder what the ratio of collisions between conventional petrol cars bursting into flames on impact [seemingly quite low if the scrap and car salvage yards are anything to go by].

and whether the fire risk will increase as the inevitable petrol / electric crash increases with more electric cars on the roads.
the risk of chemical burns must rise a great deal too, both for the unfortunate occupants and rescue crews. in addition the road in the vicinity of the collision will probably need more than just a brush up and a removal of incapacitated vehicles. some kind of containment of damaged batteries and their components will have to be implemented. the thought of a pile of damaged battery powered vehicles leaking into to surrounding ground doesn't sound that environmentally friendly does it.?
as with all new and latest tech, the infrastructure is rarely implemented until its become a problem and then its panic stations.,and everyone starts looking for someone to blame.

rather like building housing estates, resulting in massive increases in people and then wondering why existing schools,hospitals,and services power, water,sewage, etc cant cope.

I agree that a collision between an petrol car and an EV could result in a fire, but that risk is less than a collision between 2 petrol cars where you have 2 separate fuel tanks, either one of which could go on fire with the fuel from the other vehicles tank just making things a lot worse.
The fact is that the designers of both fossil fuel vehicles and electric vehicles go to great lengths to reduce the risk of fire when their vehicles are involved in collisions - and that's the reason why you don't see many vehicles actually catch fire when they are involved in a collision.
As I said, the risk of a vehicle fire in an electric car is much lower than in a petrol car. The battery is much better protected than a petrol tank, it automatically disconnects from the rest of the vehicle in a major impact so cables carrying battery power to other parts of the car become dead and incapable of starting a fire. Even if it does go on fire, the fire is contained to the battery pack- it's not like burning petrol flowing out of the fuel tank and spreading all around the vehicle.
Why should the risk of chemical burns increase? and have you ever seen the state of a road near where a vehicle fire has occurred - the road normally has to be re-surfaced because the petrol soaked into the tar and as it burned it melted the tar and destroyed the road surface.
A lithium ion rechargeable battery contains no liquids, so there are no liquids to leak into the surroundings, which again, is a lot more environmentally friendly than petrol or diesel soaking into the ground and finishing up in a river.

Cheers

Bruce