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Electric Vehicles


therealhantsram

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18 hours ago, sage said:

I reckon the game changer for EVs when big companies start ordering them as fleet cars. only then we will see a massive expansion of charger points and prices coming down due to economy of scale.

There was a lot of companies that had fleets EVs on the roads a few years back.

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Never really caught on with the general public back then. Might be worth giving them another go.

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21 minutes ago, JoetheRam said:

How long do Electrics take to charge these days - I saw something with Richard Hammond in a Tesla and it took about 25 mins to give him a hundred or so more miles - can't remember exactly but it wasn't quick? Acceptable on a long journey so as to give the driver a rest but what about these scenarios?

Real world scenario 1: It's Friday evening, you arrive home from work with a range of 1 mile left because you've done your 250 miles for the week.  Your wife calls to tell you she's gone into labour and is at a hospital 30 miles away.  Do you just sit there waiting an hour for the car to charge up?

Real world scenario 2: You get an emergency call from an elderly relative who lives 50 miles away that you need to pick them up and take them somewhere 30 miles from their house urgently, you have 50 miles range - they don't have an electric car charging station at their house.  Do you spend time "filling up" before you go, or do you pick them up and then find somewhere to charge up en route to their destination?

Or do you just leave it on charge over night like a mobile phone so you're always at 250 miles range in the morning and in the above scenarios you just call a taxi?

Doesn't the fossil fuels used to produce the cars/electricity defeat the point of them - or is that way less than that produced by a petrol car doing 200,000 miles over the course of its life?

Are Hydrogen fuel cells not a better idea? Or is does that still have the same problem?

I want there to be a solution but are EV's actually it? 

 

Pretty much all the reasons I wouldn't choose a purely electric one at present - I also (in normal times) have to occasionally work away from home for long periods staying 3-4 nights in a hotel - until there is the infrastructure in place to guarantee I could re-charge when I needed to (which the 3-4 charging points in your average 200 space hotel car park doesn't permit), then they're a non-starter.

I could just about forsee running a hybrid in the short-term but Fuel Cells will be the key to getting people out of their petrol/diesel cars unless they find a way to really speed up the charging and also invest billions in infrastructure...or possibly some form of induction charging built into the roads - again costing many billions...

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1 hour ago, Hathersage Ram said:

I am getting a new Kia E-Niro delivered on Monday. Did lots of research online. It was voted What car of the year - for all cars, not just EV's. Has a range of 292 miles, in real world around 250, which would be around a weeks mileage for me. 

I have a car history of Porsches, BMW M Editions, Mercedes AMG etc so it's a big change for me. 

But with a sub 7 second 0-60 acceleration its not to shabby, but time will tell.

Not actually driven one, comes fully loaded, so we will see.

I will tell more later next week - Into the dark side i go ? 

Yes report back your experiences in a couple of weeks. Would love to know.

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19 hours ago, sage said:

I reckon the game changer for EVs when big companies start ordering them as fleet cars. only then we will see a massive expansion of charger points and prices coming down due to economy of scale.

The company I work for is changing its fleet to electric cars and vans. I think it might be this year too. My next car will be electric not sure I’m looking forward to some long distance away days. 

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49 minutes ago, JoetheRam said:

How long do Electrics take to charge these days - I saw something with Richard Hammond in a Tesla and it took about 25 mins to give him a hundred or so more miles - can't remember exactly but it wasn't quick? Acceptable on a long journey so as to give the driver a rest but what about these scenarios?

Real world scenario 1: It's Friday evening, you arrive home from work with a range of 1 mile left because you've done your 250 miles for the week.  Your wife calls to tell you she's gone into labour and is at a hospital 30 miles away.  Do you just sit there waiting an hour for the car to charge up?

Real world scenario 2: You get an emergency call from an elderly relative who lives 50 miles away that you need to pick them up and take them somewhere 30 miles from their house urgently, you have 50 miles range - they don't have an electric car charging station at their house.  Do you spend time "filling up" before you go, or do you pick them up and then find somewhere to charge up en route to their destination?

Or do you just leave it on charge over night like a mobile phone so you're always at 250 miles range in the morning and in the above scenarios you just call a taxi?

Doesn't the fossil fuels used to produce the cars/electricity defeat the point of them - or is that way less than that produced by a petrol car doing 200,000 miles over the course of its life?

Are Hydrogen fuel cells not a better idea? Or is does that still have the same problem?

I want there to be a solution but are EV's actually it? 

 

Generally most people will get a charging point installed at home. Cost circa £500 after government grant. Then plug it in say twice a week to top up. I think current advice is not to keep charging up to 100% unless going on a long trip. But from 20 - 80% on home charger will easily be done overnight, and if doing twice a week in a say max 4 hours. 

If charging in public, only utilise rapid chargers which will charge from 20% - 80% in just under an hr.

I have calculated for a 250 weekly useage it will not cost me £8 per week! Whereas in my previous mode of transport AMG it would be A LOT MORE LOL

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55 minutes ago, JoetheRam said:

Doesn't the fossil fuels used to produce the cars/electricity defeat the point of them - or is that way less than that produced by a petrol car doing 200,000 miles over the course of its life?

This is a good question and one I asked myself. The answer is apparently that electric motors and way more efficient than petrol or diesel engines, such that even if all our electricity were produced by gas turbine power plants, electric cars would still be much better than the current batch. 

As it happens, 40% of UK electricity is from renewables (yes that high!) and about 15% from nuclear.

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We've been looking into this topic as well.

For health reasons, Mrs Wolfie needs a relatively high car and will be coming out of her employer's lease scheme in the middle of this year, so we need to find her a suitable small SUV to replace her hybrid Toyota CH-R.

We've been looking at the Electric Hyundai Kona (very good reviews) but seeing as she will be only doing low mileage, working from home for the foreseeable future, I don't think we can live with the high purchase price. So it'll probably have to be a hybrid version this time instead - which is s shame, as they are a bit sluggish in comparison.

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1 hour ago, JoetheRam said:

Or do you just leave it on charge over night like a mobile phone so you're always at 250 miles range in the morning and in the above scenarios you just call a taxi?

I always have mine fully charged, you come home, park the car in the garage and put it on charge - always juiced up. Yes, there are scenarios where you could get caught out but no less so than being ten miles from a petrol station with only five miles in the tank as a scenario.

1 hour ago, JoetheRam said:

How long do Electrics take to charge these days - I saw something with Richard Hammond in a Tesla and it took about 25 mins to give him a hundred or so more miles - can't remember exactly but it wasn't quick? Acceptable on a long journey so as to give the driver a rest but what about these scenarios?

Even without a fast charger you will get 40 miles charge overnight so if that's in your daily working that's what you do, plug in when you get home. Again, if you have a petrol / hybrid you've always got the petrol engine if you need it.

1 hour ago, JoetheRam said:

Doesn't the fossil fuels used to produce the cars/electricity defeat the point of them - or is that way less than that produced by a petrol car doing 200,000 miles over the course of its life?

Indeed, it's not zero carbon footprint, just zero tailpipe emissions. But my car charges using about the same amount of electricity as the tumble dryer. It's still a better option than the aforementioned Merc AMG. One point not mentioned is battery disposal - these things have a lot of cadmium in them so don't pretend you're greener than the giant. But, all in, still a better option (of course, as one poster said, if you have solar panels and cheap evening energy you can schedule it that way).

 

2 hours ago, JoetheRam said:

Are Hydrogen fuel cells not a better idea? Or is does that still have the same problem?

Very expensive, the Hyundai hydrogen option is about £90k for a base family saloon and there are only about ten hydrogen stations in the country. Now if you think range anxiety is a problem with a hybrid this is a whole different scale of things.

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3 hours ago, JoetheRam said:

Or do you just leave it on charge over night like a mobile phone so you're always at 250 miles range in the morning and in the above scenarios you just call a taxi?

Not recommended at all, you'll shorten the battery lifespan by a considerable amount.

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Just now, Rev said:

Not recommended at all, you'll shorten the battery lifespan by a considerable amount.

Had mine eight years, manual clearly states charger should remain in place at all times to maintain a trickle charge. Seen no drop off in range at all (only time I see it is in winter when fully charged range drops by about 30% but it comes back again next summer). What electric cars don't like is not being driven - batteries fully charged and kept that way for a long time. That's a problem at the moment, in lockdown, when I can go weeks without driving anywhere.

Mate of mine went for an interview with Tesla in the early days, when they showed him the car in manufacture it was literally a bank of laptop batteries covering the floor of the car.

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45 minutes ago, BaaLocks said:

Had mine eight years, manual clearly states charger should remain in place at all times to maintain a trickle charge. Seen no drop off in range at all (only time I see it is in winter when fully charged range drops by about 30% but it comes back again next summer). What electric cars don't like is not being driven - batteries fully charged and kept that way for a long time. That's a problem at the moment, in lockdown, when I can go weeks without driving anywhere.

Mate of mine went for an interview with Tesla in the early days, when they showed him the car in manufacture it was literally a bank of laptop batteries covering the floor of the car.

 

23 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

A home charger will take care of that by only running for the time required?

Maybe the tech is now in place to prevent overcharging, but I've heard from this Android it's not a good idea!

Pretty good website all round, for those looking at EV.

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1 hour ago, Rev said:

Maybe the tech is now in place to prevent overcharging, but I've heard from this Android it's not a good idea!

Pretty good website all round, for those looking at EV.

Another view or, rather, more of an additional aspect to your point:

https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1127610_keep-your-parked-electric-car-and-its-battery-healthy-with-these-simple-tips

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