No engine, just batteries and an electric motor.

Oh, and it will cost you £415 a month, over 4 years, on lease as Peugeot appears to only do it this way.

That's inclusive of the government £5k grant too.

So that's £19920 please.

That does include 4 years servicing and warranty but I don't think I'll get one just yet.

With a less than 100 mile range it will never replace a petrol engine for anything other than town driving but I reckon in 10 years we'll all be driving them around town.

It's not even actually "low carbon"; after allowing for National Grid (in)efficiency, it outputs something like 160g/km CO2 and several of the lower powered and diesel Yetis, plus most Furbies, diesel Octys and diesel Roomsters will beat that, whilst still having 300 to 500+ mile ranges.

It's not even actually "low carbon"; after allowing for National Grid (in)efficiency, it outputs something like 160g/km CO2 and several of the lower powered and diesel Yetis, whilst still having 300 to 500+ mile ranges.

apart from the DSG diesel at 168g/km

Top Gear actually did a serious piece on this and the Leaf last night. The Leaf came out on top but neither are actually any use in the real world, my opinion and theirs as it happens, and the green claims are genuinely flawed. I really do not see why mfrs are going down this route when it seems so obvious that they are not the answer, a real case of Emperor's New Clothes. Why are we paying a £5k subsidy for these cars?

The best solution I have seen so far is the Honda Clarity, and Top Gear make that claim as well before people think they are complete petrol heads. If mfs would join up with Honda and push this route with the same oomphhh that they are making over priced battery powered cars then we could all be driving Hydrogen powered cars within 10 years and we could actually go further in a trip than the end of your road.

I really don't know how people can be compfortable driving vehicles like these, especially after watching Top Gear last night.

I start to worry about when to refuel as the miles left reaches 80 or so. These cars have only a little more than that when fully charged!.

And what impact on the environment is there is making and disposing of the batteries and having to lug around their weight, compared to a normal car which is nearly all recycleable.

I can "recharge" my car in about 5 minutes at a garage, these are only fit for short daily commutes where they can be plugged in overnight to recharge. If a family owns one of these, they would either need to own a second normal car for the longer trips or keep hiring one, even further reducing the economic returns, if any.

apart from the DSG diesel at 168g/km

Keywords in my 09:30 being "several" and "most" I think. In other words, I didn't claim that every single Skoda diesel bar the Superbs can beat 160g/km CO2, only that the majority of them can.

Keywords in my 09:30 being "several" and "most" I think. In other words, I didn't claim that every single Skoda diesel bar the Superbs can beat 160g/km CO2, only that the majority of them can.

Sorry, mis-read your post. The only diesel Yeti I'm aware of over 160, is the CR140DSG. I can't speak (write) for any of the other Skoda's.

It's not even actually "low carbon"; after allowing for National Grid (in)efficiency, it outputs something like 160g/km CO2 and several of the lower powered and diesel Yetis, plus most Furbies, diesel Octys and diesel Roomsters will beat that, whilst still having 300 to 500+ mile ranges.

The big advantage comes when you want to improve the fleet g/km CO2 emissions; in a world of all-electric cars, you upgrade the grid, and the g/km goes down. For example, replace some of our 70-odd coal powered stations with a combination of molten salt batteries, solar power and wind power, and you reduce CO2 emissions by the grid. If carbon capture, or nuclear fusion, or superconducting HV cables become feasible, we can relatively rapidly improve the grid's CO2 emissions.

In contrast, a modern car is on the road for 10 or more years from initial purchase (either you drive from new until it's scrap, or you sell it second hand to buy another new car). There's no easy way to get cars upgraded to reduce their CO2 emissions; in contrast, there are only a few hundred power stations UK-wide, so getting them upgraded is relatively simple, given political willpower to reduce emissions.

The problem is however that the main claims for clean power are based on power stations using renewables which at the moment is not in the real world. Most of our power comes from coal powered stations, not lovely windmills or tidal power. The claims are based on an ideal not reality. Incidentally, I am all for the windmills, wave power etc but all the nimbys out there keeping blocking every proposal that comes forward so we are no closer now to leaving coal behind then we were 20 years ago.

The big advantage comes when you want to improve the fleet g/km CO2 emissions; in a world of all-electric cars, you upgrade the grid, and the g/km goes down. For example, replace some of our 70-odd coal powered stations with a combination of molten salt batteries, solar power and wind power, and you reduce CO2 emissions by the grid. If carbon capture, or nuclear fusion, or superconducting HV cables become feasible, we can relatively rapidly improve the grid's CO2 emissions.

Ok, how does any of this other than solar and/or wind power actually reduce emissions? You're increasing grid load, and not offering ways of reducing the power station fleet's emissions other than building renewable capacity faster than you increase load, apart from a somewhat pie in the sky suggestion of "hot supercnductors".

Tidal power is certainly feasible, but having helped my son complete his huge disertation on wind power which he wrote as part of his degree, and having had some peripheral involvement with windpower compaies at work, I just don't believe it is a sensible route to follow. The only reason they are being built at all is due to goverment subsidies, funded through our fuel bills which make up the difference in costs, otherwise they would never recoup there initial construction costs. Clearly most of the time they are working at less than 30% of peak capacity, and they produce no power when it is really needed, eg a cold windless day which are relatively common. So every wind power generator needs a coal/gas/nuclear station siting there on standby just in case it is a day without wind. There are plans to link the whole of europe together as there is always wind somewhere, but this just highlights the fact that most of the time they are not achieving there potential and you need to install around 3 to 4 windmills to get the maximum output of one, and these need to be dispersed over thousands of miles to find wind somewhere with all the losses in the long cable links sapping the power as well.

Tidal power is also not constant so needs either back up or some form of storage, eg linked to pumped water in large reservoirs. Pump the water uphill whilst the tide is running, and then run the water back down through generators as the flow slows and stops as the tide turns.

And I still don't think a car with a potential range of 100 miles before recharging taking many hours, or a short quick charge whichh will write of the batteries in short order is practical for anyone that does more than a few miles a day. And at low mileage use there are hardly any savings. My car does around 2000 miles a month at times, and often 270 in a single day, this would be out of the question in an electric car.

Surely we should be using electricity to split water into hydrogen and develop that technology rather than going down this blind alleyway. I can't see batteries ever improving to last the life of a car, like the fuel tank does, have a range of at least 350 miles, and be rechargeable in 5 minutes. Hydrogen tanks, feeding fuel cells is surely the eventual solution?

Tidal power is certainly feasible, but having helped my son complete his huge disertation on wind power which he wrote as part of his degree, and having had some peripheral involvement with windpower compaies at work, I just don't believe it <snip>life of a car, like the fuel tank does, have a range of at least 350 miles, and be rechargeable in 5 minutes. Hydrogen tanks, feeding fuel cells is surely the eventual solution?

I take it from this that you agree with me that what is presently being done is so much greenwash?

Moved to General Car Chat as has absolutely nothing to do with the Yeti unless it fits inside the boot?

Ok, how does any of this other than solar and/or wind power actually reduce emissions? You're increasing grid load, and not offering ways of reducing the power station fleet's emissions other than building renewable capacity faster than you increase load, apart from a somewhat pie in the sky suggestion of "hot supercnductors".

You're dismissing the entire point of electric cars by excluding "solar and/or wind power"; you're also ignoring carbon capture and the (currently uneconomic, as cars use too much of it) option of high-efficiency oil plants. The emissions theory behind electric cars is that for any given load on the grid, you can make the combination of the grid and the vehicle more efficient than local generation from oil at point of need. The secondary part of this theory is that for any given innovation that increases efficiency, it's simpler to deploy to the grid than to the motor vehicle fleet. As a simplistic example (and I know this isn't emissions reduction), compare the timescales for getting the majority of diesel car miles upgraded to include a particulate filter, versus the time scale to do the same to all power plants in the UK.

Now, it's clear that this generation of electric cars isn't going to change much - if nothing else, when the dealer isn't prepared to guarantee a 30 mile range (or a loaner car while they sort it) on a full (overnight) charge for a vehicle advertised with a 100 mile range, it's not a practical car for most people.

You're dismissing the entire point of electric cars by excluding "solar and/or wind power"; you're also ignoring carbon capture and the (currently uneconomic, as cars use too much of it) option of high-efficiency oil plants. The emissions theory behind electric cars is that for any given load on the grid, you can make the combination of the grid and the vehicle more efficient than local generation from oil at point of need. The secondary part of this theory is that for any given innovation that increases efficiency, it's simpler to deploy to the grid than to the motor vehicle fleet. As a simplistic example (and I know this isn't emissions reduction), compare the timescales for getting the majority of diesel car miles upgraded to include a particulate filter, versus the time scale to do the same to all power plants in the UK.

Now, it's clear that this generation of electric cars isn't going to change much - if nothing else, when the dealer isn't prepared to guarantee a 30 mile range (or a loaner car while they sort it) on a full (overnight) charge for a vehicle advertised with a 100 mile range, it's not a practical car for most people.

OTOH, you're saying "this is efficient now because we might be able to do that in 10 years". When you can do 2 of outrange, outcarbon, outrefuel (full "tank" in 5 minutes), and outaccelerate me, then you might have a practicable mass-market technology.

The thing that gets me about them all (or both in this case) is the advertised lifetime of the batteries. These things are't be cheap, are be potentially dangerous and they're not reliable. If yu need 10 or 20 cells per car/configuration, what's the MTBF of the config?

I think a diesel electric hybrid makes some sense, How to do that properly though? do you still connect up an engine and gearbox up front? Do you use the engine as a generator and have drive motor(s)? Do you make it totally stand alone or do you allow or require to use mains recharge?

J.

OTOH, you're saying "this is efficient now because we might be able to do that in 10 years". When you can do 2 of outrange, outcarbon, outrefuel (full "tank" in 5 minutes), and outaccelerate me, then you might have a practicable mass-market technology.

Not at all - I'm saying that of your four items, the "outcarbon" one is a red herring; as and when carbon emissions from electrical generation matter, we will change the economics to fix it. Whether that means nuclear power, price rises to encourage conservation, more renewables, some surprise technology managing to scale from lab demo to grid, I can't tell - I'm not a futurologist. What's more, we can fix the grid's emissions far more easily than we can fix individual cars; it's more about political willpower than practicality.

The other three matter - current electric cars can't even match the worst Skoda has to offer on each of range, fuelling time and acceleration, and they need to beat Skoda's current line up on at least one of those three to be in consideration, and on two of those three to be a genuine mass-market technology. You could just get away with outranging anything else if you also took advantage of electric motors to get better poor-weather and offroad traction than the best 4x4s today, but they're not going to be mass-market until they're comparable to an ICE car, and they're completely uncompetitive if they don't beat you on one of the three.

Is it me or is that just a mushibushi i with garlic breath?

We could just decide that CO2 really isn't actually much of an issue, if it does even cause climate change (or rather additional climate change - which ironically could be stabilising the climate as much as exaggerating any change), if we just decided to embrace it instead of declaring it harmful, adapted instead of futilely tried to stop it! But then of course there wouldn't be a trillion pound 'market' literally created out of thin air, and a reason to massively tax us and restrict our freedoms.

The thing that gets me about them all (or both in this case) is the advertised lifetime of the batteries. These things are't be cheap, are be potentially dangerous and they're not reliable. If yu need 10 or 20 cells per car/configuration, what's the MTBF of the config?

That's what gets me too, and the purchase cost. One would suit me fine, I do 40 miles a day to uni in Oxford and back, and then could charge it overnight (or even in Oxford, as I'd imagine they'd have eco-car stuff). Any other driving I do is purely for leisure, so I'd just make sure the car was charged, go shorter distances (usually to go for a walk/ride somewhere), or take a friends car.

Let downs being, as student there's no way I could afford a 20/30k car, which will be dead in anything from 5-10 years.

Is it me or is that just a mushibushi i with garlic breath?

I thought that as soon as I saw it too.

As for the car itself, it would suit me perfectly as a second car due to the fact that I do 15 miles a day to work and back. A fully charged car should last me all week. It's big enough to transport me in relative comfort, at a reasonable pace in the NSL and I could just about live being seen driving the thing due to the fact it is so cheap to run. I'd have one in an instant as a second car for short journeys but for one major reason. £30,000 is a lot to pay for any car, let alone a car that is limited to doing just one thing.

Also, living in Scarborough means that a simple trip to see most of our family in Pontefract - 71 miles door to door - means we'd need a different vehicle to get there and back in a day. The electric car is an expensive toy at the moment and really doesn't solve the long term issues facing most motorists.

As flawed as a MK1 vRS is, it still is a multi functional car. It's the family bus, carting us all over the place, with a 400 mile range on average. It takes seemingly unlimited stuff to the tip on a regular basis - we are doing our delapidated Victorian house up. It brings loads of stuff back from B&Q that really should be transported in a van or on a flatbed truck. It allows me to go out for runs with my mates in their cars and have a bit of a play on the Moors around Whitby, keeping up with a variety of hot hatches. It's been a taxi this week running from Scarborough to Wakefield to take parents to and from hospital, returning an average of just over 40mpg and is comfortable enough to not jiggle the patient and their catheter out of place. I could go on, but won't as it's both boring and obvious as to what I'm hinting at.

At the moment, it's the perfect car for our family and it's needs and to even consider an electric car such as the Nissan or Mitsubishi is just plain daft. Even the Prius or Insight isn't an option as I'd go mental having to drive one every day. The novelty would wear off very quickly, especially each time I saw my friend disappear over the horizon in his Integra. At the moment I'll stick with my Earth destroying monster and wait for something to come along that will tick all my personal boxes.

One thing on the not in my back yard brigade has anyone actually seen the offshore windfarms they are horrendous for 3 main reasons

1 National Security They are a massive liability (no arguing) as this isn't something to discuss.

2 Obstruction to Navigation given 80% of the worlds trades moves by ship

3 They are seriously horrendous things up close.

Also trying to send electricity long distances or via multiple storage states is inefficent due to fundamental physics

If electric cars took off, the grid wouldnt be able to cope.

The cars may not produce CO2 driving around, but their creation and electricity needed to run them makes them significantly worse than internal combustion varieties.

The only viable immediate long term option is Hydrogen, but creating the stuff cheaply enough, and storing it safely is a big issue. IIR NASA specs say 1KG of the stuff if exposed to fire needs a 1/8 mile exclusion zone and it could also be burning away and is practically invisible.

Current thoughts are a way to produce on the go and only store enough to kick start a thermic pyrosis reaction which because of high burn temps can then instantly create more from H2O with some kind of electrolyte.

The issue is these electrolytes which can make it 67% efficient (says wiki) are highly corrosive and nothing around can last long enough - unless you'd want to replace your 'engine' every few 1000 miles

Cost and apart from looking dog-ugly, the Pug would have a better range if it was even remotely aerodynamic! F1 cars aren't lok and sleek for a good reason, why waste so much energy pushing against a brick wall of air??

Given the huge quantity of coal that must be used every single year, the single biggest decision that needs to be made, is finding the best replacement, that is in bountiful supply, and is renewable and sustainable longterm.

Batteries may be a far from perfect solution, but at least they make no fixed requirements on fuel supply.