Electric Car

[fishingpaul]

I agree with flecc here, the technology for an electric car is not ready yet,as for oil companies holding back development,this is only put forward by dodgy sellers selling useless items,this reminds me of magnets for better fuel economy,and run your car on water,all proven to be useless but attracting the odd buyer.believe me when really usefull electric car becomes available, it will make front page news on all the papers.

[JohnInStockie]

I think there are a couple of contenders beginning to emerge, but it seems that greed and monopoly are the restricting factors now. One such potential with range and speed, but without swappable batteries is Th!NK whose City model is based on the Ford City electric car but using a different battery technology, see here

Home - Think

Heres Autocars review from March this year.

Think City - Road Test First Drive - Autocar.co.uk

They have also receive investment from GE for their OX model concept using A123 batteries which seem to have to be leased (I suppose you dont have to worry about buying new ones then).

I dont know what is holding these guys back, the youtube videos and press releases dont say much. I dont think its the technology, I think its the price and margins personally (production margins in the automotive manufacture industry are very comfortable).

John

[flecc]

It is the battery technology John, some manufacturers admitting to that, Mitsubishi for example.

Would you shell out £4000 to £6000 every couple of years or less for new batteries?

If Ford haven't been able to achieve it, it's fanciful to think someone else can with part of their technology, or that they would grant part of a successful technology without exploiting it themselves, given their very poor commercial position at present. "Think" indeed, a certain irony in the name!

We are still at this limiting stage with our bikes, but since they only have to provide part of the propulsion power, they are viable. The cars aren't.

If you haven't read back, there's more in my various preceding posts on this since I've been trying to buy an electric car for years.
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[JohnInStockie]

Hi Flecc

Yes I have read back. I just think that this method with this technology seems to have something more than the others, at a price though. An electric car that can do 62mph, and cover a distance of 100 miles, with NCAP 4 rating.

Its getting there, just the £14k price tag is a bit steep.

John

[flecc]

I agree it looks attractive John, but I don't believe the figures anyway, they are as reliable as they were with e-bikes a couple of years ago when we used to have to halve most manufacturer's claims.

Just as the Vectrix overclaims it's speed by 10 mph, I bet this does too, ideal circumstances etc, and a real world range in a moderately hilly area will no doubt be well under half the claim as always.

Like Toyota Prius buyers, I'm not worried by that initial cost, but there's the all important matter they all duck, how long will the advanced batteries last. Using the full range it does have in real world conditions will probably finish those in two years, replacement at an astronomic cost which even at three years would be unacceptable. It's this which has killed all attempts to date, and since there's been no battery advance that solves it, the car remains not viable.

And I haven't even mentioned the other thing they all duck, the hill climbing. Electric vehicle weight kills the climb performance and that has to be adequate. Anyone can make an electric car that goes fast for a long time, even with lead acid batteries, but it's when a hill is met that they collapse. The little G-Wizz is acceptable on the flat, but on hills it makes milk float drivers impatient and that's just not practical in today's traffic. There's already enough out there to upset and enrage drivers without fleets of sluggish e-cars doing the same on every hill.

There's a huge potential demand for viable electric town cars, especially in London with no congestion charge, no parking charge and free recharging for them, and as the Prius proved, capital cost isn't a problem, but for the reasons I've given, we won't be seeing many Think cars around trying to satisfy that.

I wish I was wrong, but I'm completely confident I'm not.
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[Badge]

This firm in Glasgow is converting a Peugeot taxi
and giving a six year battery warranty.Do they
know something that we don,t?

[JohnInStockie]

@Flecc

Yes I agree, I imagine those figures are with a following wind, light weight driver, e.t.c.

The one thing these do do though as well is that you only 'lease' the battery, you dont own it. That means if it starts to misbehave, you can change it at no (extra) cost.

However, thats for £140 a month.

We need to be in a situation where we can swap batteries at a battery station, and the station itself check the condition of returned batteries, replacement being included in the 'swap-over fee'.

John

[flecc]

Originally Posted by Badge

This firm in Glasgow is converting a Peugeot taxi
and giving a six year battery warranty.Do they
know something that we don,t?

Depends on the application Badge. The NiMh batteries in the Toyota Prius have an 8 year warranty, but that's achieved by cycling the charge at intermediate levels, the top and bottom 20% of the capacity never used.

That's fine in a hybrid where the petrol engine is available, but only 3/5ths of the range in an e-car wouldn't be ok. A taxi working locally and able to have fast top ups can be a different matter of course. Equally if it's working in a fairly flat area that can be done using lead acid traction batteries.

For the same reasons, electric vans have always been viable and have run on our roads for much of the last 80 years, I remember Harrods delivering with them over many decades.

It's the predictability of the usage that makes this possible, something not true of private cars.
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[flecc]

Originally Posted by JohnInStockie

@Flecc

Yes I agree, I imagine those figures are with a following wind, light weight driver, e.t.c.

The one thing these do do though as well is that you only 'lease' the battery, you dont own it. That means if it starts to misbehave, you can change it at no (extra) cost.

However, thats for £140 a month.

We need to be in a situation where we can swap batteries at a battery station, and the station itself check the condition of returned batteries, replacement being included in the 'swap-over fee'.

John

That's usually been the model John, and the Peugeot electric 207 NiMh used this leasing as an alternative to the £4000 renewal of the battery four yearly,though the batteries didn't last that long in practice.

Battery station swapping is surely an answer, but it can only happen with a standardised battery across various car makes, so it's decades away at least. Therefore, as I've said before, fuel cells will likely be in use first and solve all these problems.
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[JohnInStockie]

Originally Posted by flecc

... fuel cells will likely be in use first and solve all these problems.

I am not so sure they will solve our problems Flecc, I think one of our big problems is the deemed prerequisite for a mobile fuel source, and the fuel cell just replaces the fuel tank in this. As I understand it, making fuel cells is not at all cheap, and then there is the manufacture, recycling of empty cells, transportation, distribution.......all things we should be moving away from.

With a battery, the energy production is taken away from the vehicle, and can be controlled by a central source that can invest (if they have the will) in cleaner technologies for electricity production in the first instance.

John