Just a big up for this issue,  it would be worth the £2.95 IMO.

 

I stopped buying Auto Express, but then took the offer of the 5 for £1 and my free gift and took the subscription.

Last 2 issues were OK.

 

This 'Awards Special' impressed me, and i think some of the current cars available and some for the near future are looking good.

 

IMO,

Cars available now and until new legislation are maybe just as good as they will be in EURO 5 Emission spec, that is before the introduction of EURO 6 and cars with more limited lives, due to just too may electrics.

(hope i am proved wrong and 'we are not all doomed to only being able to buy,  new plug in and repair or test cars by 2015)

 

george

How long do you reckon we have before cars become so dominated by electrics that we can have a "Tesco Value" car which when it breaks they offer to simply replace for you outright like they do with their DVD players?

How long do you reckon we have before cars become so dominated by electrics that we can have a "Tesco Value" car which when it breaks they offer to simply replace for you outright like they do with their DVD players?

 

I think we've been there for a while they just don't make the swap easy.

I feel its all been downhill since the demise of Euro IV and the 1.9 PD. VAG will never again make such a good, reliable engine.

As petrol and diesel cars get more and more complicated to pass various rules I'm finding electric cars are becoming more viable.

Battery plus Motor, no DMF, no DPF etcc... etc...

 

Once they crack the range issue we are laughing.  I am being converted!

I have no worries over Electric Cars. That is advancing well.

Life of, Range of, life of Motors and all the stuff costing the money & being tested and improved.

 

More thoughts of MOT tests and electrics in the type of cars we have now.

Warning lights on TPMS, Seat Belt tensioners, Air Bags, ABS, ESP, DPF etc etc.

 

someone has forgotten in the car industry to advance wiring looms and connectors, water proof sensors,

make everything plug and play and yet reliable and with sufficient battery power to take a 3 week holiday and not only 2 weeks away and expect a car to start on the button when you get back to it.

 

Once we are parking and plugging in, this will be less of a problem, as of now, penny pinching and weight reducing to get low emissions mean many cars are not fit for purpose as Family Cars living normal lives.

 

george

Though you're right and electric will be the future, it will be interesting to see how they will deal with the problems it has in cold climates, both with greatly reduced battery life and the massive extra heating requirements. History, however, shows these issues will be overcome.

 

The change I'm not looking forward to is the fully automated car and following ban on manual driving.

 

Fire crews will need new equipment for all these electric cars though, as water fuels a lithium fire, as it burns violently enough to strip the oxygen from it (assuming they don't make these batteries from something else).

Edited 3 July, 201312 yr by Huskoda

 

Once we are parking and plugging in, this will be less of a problem, as of now, penny pinching and weight reducing to get low emissions mean many cars are not fit for purpose as Family Cars living normal lives.

 

george

 

Once we are all plugging in we'll have a huge problem as we don't have the generating power to charge millions of electric cars.

Once we are all plugging in we'll have a huge problem as we don't have the generating power to charge millions of electric cars.

They'll just have to build a few more oil plants and burn off the excess oil being pumped out of the ground

Hopefully the Nation Wide charge points will be legit and not Hooky, and just stickered up with fake 'Sony' labels.

 

Yes they will use up the nations national grid ability & generation.

But at least switch off when the batteries are charged.

 

george

 

Once they crack the range issue we are laughing.  I am being converted!

The range issue isn't my primary concern with EV's, it's the capacity of the national grid to charge them all if we all went out en masse to buy them that's the issue :(

As it is, at point of usage Hydrogen fuel cells are the most user friendly cars (Except for when the storage tank goes bang I suppose) - but Hydrogen is a really inefficient storage mechanism, I think I read somewhere that the input to return ratio of extracting hydrogen using current techniques is something in the region of 4:1. So 4 joules in, 1 joule out. Then think about the efficiency levels of burning fossil fuels to generate that electricity and it looks like a pretty poor technology.

 

There's a lot of interesting research going on in to efficient means of extracting hydrogen though, just takes a quick google to find it all

The range issue isn't my primary concern with EV's, it's the capacity of the national grid to charge them all if we all went out en masse to buy them that's the issue :(

 

While not wanting to go too in depth on this thread about something else, on it's basic charger the LEAF draws 2.4kw.  Only a bit more than a kettle or oven.

Add to the fact it can be set to charge overnight on a cheaper electric tariff and the majority would not be drawing power at peak times anyway when businesses are working.

 

We seem to manage now with heavy daytime use from business and industrials, and then evening use with kettles and cooking all around the same times.

The biggest problem with hydrogen is that you can't really store it. Its so small it just seeps straight through the walls of any container you try and use.

 

The grid will be able to supply charging cars, infact it will be more efficient as there will be an increase in consumption at night to help balance out the daytime load.

While not wanting to go too in depth on this thread about something else, on it's basic charger the LEAF draws 2.4kw.  Only a bit more than a kettle or oven.

Add to the fact it can be set to charge overnight on a cheaper electric tariff and the majority would not be drawing power at peak times anyway when businesses are working.

 

We seem to manage now with heavy daytime use from business and industricals, and then evening use with kettles and cooking all around the same times.

Electricity is only cheap at night because of low demand and the power stations that are inefficient to shut down and start up again the next morning are simply left running 24/7.

 

Also you typically tend not to be charged less for your electric usage over that time period by your retailer unless you have a meter which switches to a separate counter at specified times (also known as Economy7) - if you have one meter with one read-out on it, you pay a flat rate for your electric no matter what time you're using it.

 

Add to that, if people started making more use of that continually produced (and currently mostly wasted) capacity overnight, it would cease to be cheap, as the energy companies would be crazy not to charge the going rate for it if the demand started to approach the available output from the stations.

 

Maybe these posts should be split in to another topic as it could be an interesting topic in its' own right

But the most logical time to charge an electric car is at night when it's not needed.

So I can't see why the grid couldn't handle it.

As you say, currently it's cheap because there is a lot of spare capacity.

 

The anti-brigade suggest we'll have blackouts if a reasonable percentage of the population swap to electric vehicles.

I just can't see it as they'll be used during busy periods of high grid use and charged during quieter periods generally.

I think some people don't understand the huge amount of electricity industry sucks up, mostly during the day.  At night we just tick over as a national grid.

Agreed - I think the problem is that people are anticipating (not unjustly) that if a large number of people owned EVs, then an unfortunate percentage of them would have "selfish" charging habits for their cars.

 

To me a more logical approach for EVs would be the Calor Gas tank approach. Running out of juice? Get to the nearest exchange point before you run out, exchange spent batteries for fresh ones, exchange points can then recharge those batteries at an economically viable time.

 

Obviously, there are a number of practical disadvantages to that

 

1. No standardised battery design
2. batteries are BIG.
3. they tend to be designed in to the cars in such a way that they're not easily removable.

 

But from an economic standpoint it would have the advantage of not having to build billions of £ worth of charging point infrastructures with individual charging stations (and the required parking bay) which would use an awful lot of land, the cost of the batteries on an assumed 100,000km life-span could be absorbed in to the cost of the battery exchange, meaning no hefty replacement bills. etc etc.

 

Given the EV's already on the market it's probably now beyond the point of no return to even suggest something of the sort :(

Battery replacement is a dead duck in my opinion.  Although it appeals to people now.

 

We all know that over time the cost of tech comes down.

Currently it would work, with cars of ranges around 80 miles.

 

But...

 

The Telsa Model S already comes with a range of 300 miles (real use around 240) and an 8 year battery warranty.

 

If you invested in battery swapping tech and facilities I think you'll find that in 5 to 10 years it's not needed.

 

You'll be able to buy an electric car, drive 200 miles, stop for an hour and drive another 200 miles.  Which would probably be viable for the majority of the population.

Certainly, the small percentage it wouldn't suit would not be enough people to make the battery swapping stations viable.

re Electricty.

Scotland has its Hydro Power.

You pump the water up the hill at night when demand is low & release the water to make energy/electricity when the demand is there.

 

Wind power,

it blows a hooly at night but the Electricity demand is not there and often the turbines are just a waste of time.

We have that many here now that you would not believe.

 

It will blow and turn turbines off shore day or night.

We have more of those going in very soon.

 

Wave Power is going ahead at a pace in Scotland which is all part of why we are getting Charging Stations at least every 50 miles.

(supposed to be anyway.)

 

So all in all, apart from people not yet having the vehicles needing the charging,

we are ready to roll.

 

george

Off peak might become the new peak if there are enough cars charging.

 

And we do lack capacity until the new nukes get built.

 

There will always be issues for people without drives or garages from people stealing leccy to just unplugging the cars for a jape.

 

I'm also pretty certain that cars will be packed full of jiggery pokery anyway because for many people features sell cars. There will always be more features. There will always be reliability problems.

 

Batteries will catch up, might take a while but there will be better batteries.

Oil powered cars will be around for a good while yet, even if the become niche.I still think biofuel has life in it yet but they'll need to switch away from the easy sources like corn and maize.

Edited 3 July, 201312 yr by Aspman

 

You'll be able to buy an electric car, drive 200 miles, stop for an hour and drive another 200 miles.  Which would probably be viable for the majority of the population.

Certainly, the small percentage it wouldn't suit would not be enough people to make the battery swapping stations viable.

I think it's fair to say that you've got more confidence in the potential for improvements in battery technology than I do  

 

200 miles from one charge as it is is fairly decent it must be said (apart from those doing an epic southend->glasgow drive), the key is the charging infrastructure. But it's not going to be that easy, especially people in terraced houses etc where they have no private parking bay. EV's are a long way off being a solution-for-all even if they are the most viable long-term option. I reckon they'll see most take-up in congested cities before they reach out to the suburbs in any significant numbers.

Don't we have power shortages now when the whole country goes and puts a kettle on during Coronation Street advert breaks? It's the power grid that needs too catch up too the cars first