Well PodPoint went with 60 or more of these petrol powered vans that will run supposedly 60 miles on electricity without the petrol engine running if they are charged up.

Fair enough.  (Is that when empty and there is a blue moon and it is a balmy night?)

 

Re Van vid.

***Combined, 304 miles range from 36 litres of Unleaded is a truly amazing thing.  31 kWh battery  ***

 

Some Edinburgh Taxi Drivers with these were sitting more than an hour on what was a limited amount of chargers and having a break and ignoring others wanting on a charger.

Sitting charging to 100%. For free,

Then Edinburgh Council introduced the 30 minutes max charge time and a fee (£30 overstay) & it turned out that was enough to get a charge in and go do some earning money. 35pence & kWh.

Now it is 60 minutes max time charging time and 55 pence a kWh and i no longer see them sitting 'Long time mister' don't bother me.

 

162 mpg, amazeballs.   Even 132 mpg is fandabby dozzy.

 

36 litres is nearly 8 gallons.     if you were getting 60 miles from the battery and then you need 244 more miles.

244 divided by 8 is 30.5 MPG.  

 

370 miles. say 70 of that from the 31 kWh charge, then 300 from the 36 litres of unleaded. 37.5 mpg.

If you are using battery and fuel combined and getting an additional 100 mpg how fantastic.

Why can it not go 800 miles then by WLTP figures or the testers?

 

 

 

 

Edited 15 September, 20232 yr by toot

There is a 9 litre petrol tank in the REX.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 15 September, 20232 yr by toot

49 minutes ago, toot said:

There is a 9 litre petrol tank in the REX.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BMW are so wierd with their quoted battery storage figures.

 

Also the 9 litre tank seems to actually give one a fraction of the  mileage expected.  One might expect well over 100 miles on the Range extending ICE feed by a 2 gallon tank !

 

As my Dad would say (lived quite a lot in Canada and USA)  "A 10 gallon hat on a 2 pint head"  (And that is US gallons)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How about battery swapping stations instead of charge points?

 

Will swapping out electric car batteries catch on? - BBC News

Probably, just not in the UK.  Not much has happened since that article 16 months ago. 

As it is getting wipers or car batteries or tyres or exhausts in the UK can still be a fiasco. 

I just watched this fire blanket demonstration, claimed to be for EV fires where the batteries have gone into runaway condition. My thoughts on the video are that although they claim the batteries are in the thermal runaway stage, I seriously doubt that. In the cases where that has happened and has been caught on CCTV, the batteries always vent gases from below the car sideways and those gases are highly visible and when they ignite are like blowtorches, rapidly setting fire to anything within the reach of the flames. The flames in this video are like those of a conventional ICE car, i.e., they are going upwards as there is no pressure being applied. So at that point it is exactly the same conditions as any other car fire, so the blanket would be perfect for all car fires.

 

That suggests that the blanket was introduced before the batteries got hot enough, and that is perfectly OK, but it will not solve the problem once the batteries have entered that runaway state. It also shows that as long as the fire Dept can reach car fires quick enough, then they stand a very good chance of preventing the batteries becoming part of the fire.

 

Fact is that most car fires will be the result of either oil dripping onto hot exhausts, overheated brakes, faulty wiring or something happening inside the car, like a dropped cigarette or just plain arson, and an EV car is going to be no different and will be like that for 99% of fires. It is the 1% or less of fires that will have the batteries involved and the real giveaway as far as I have observed in the videos, apart from the sidewards jets of fire, is the colour of the smoke, black is what you expect from normal fires, white or grey smoke is coming from the batteries electrolyte and at that point, its game over, the runaway has started.

 

EV Fire Blanket Demonstration - CR4 Discussion Thread (globalspec.com)

Edited 15 September, 20232 yr by Graham Butcher

Agree - that did not look like battery was in thermal runaway at the time the blanket was deployed.

Are people just not setting many EV,s on fire yet in the UK. 

Well a lot of the ICE fires were of course the results of the infamous joyriders trying to destroy anything that could link them to the theft of the cars for pleasure (no pleasure for their owners though). Joyriding was a problem in the 1980s though to the 2000s which was primarily when the car manufacturers improved their security and started to fit alarms and immobilisers making it more difficult for the casual thief to gain entry and hot-wire the ignition. 

@Graham ButcherIt still goes on and honestly car security is rubbish. 

Not down in your neck of the woods as you have told us before, prestige cars and Firsta,s down your way.

27 minutes ago, toot said:

@Graham ButcherIt still goes on and honestly car security is rubbish. 

Not down in your neck of the woods as you have told us before, prestige cars and Firsta,s down your way.

The more professional thief agreed, but I was purely talking about the craze that started in the 1980s of youngsters stealing a car, driving it around for an hour or two before dumping and cremating it so any evidence left behind such as fingerprints etc was totally destroyed so they could not be linked to the crime other than being caught on CCTV (not so popular back then) or eyewitness reports.

@Graham ButcherReally you do seem out of touch with the real world. 

2 minutes ago, toot said:

@Graham ButcherReally you do seem out of touch with the real world. 

Why are you going to tell me that this joyriding is still a big thing up in Scotland then?

Much of the RofUk, just not your area. England, Wales & Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Just now, toot said:

Much of the RofUk, just not your area. England, Wales & Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Nope, I disagree, at one time it was almost impossible to go to any car park, country lane, or remote country location, woods etc without seeing loads of burnt car shells, I have not seen any for over a decade, nor do you see any residue left over tell-tale signs like badly burned scorched ground/road/concrete. 

33 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

Nope, I disagree, at one time it was almost impossible to go to any car park, country lane, or remote country location, woods etc without seeing loads of burnt car shells, I have not seen any for over a decade, nor do you see any residue left over tell-tale signs like badly burned scorched ground/road/concrete. 

 

Essex ?

2 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

 

Essex ?

 

My first thought as well. I didn't notice what Graham describes in any places I've lived.

Essex was famous for car crime and car theft IIRC. 

1 minute ago, @Lee said:

 

My first thought as well. I didn't notice what Graham describes in any places I've lived.

Essex was famous for car crime and car theft IIRC. 

 

Got two lovely neices who grew up around Great Dunmow and nice around there, not that far from Chelmsford, county town/city a home of county cricket of course. Customs had several massive offices in Saffend, omg. Tilbury also not exactly Southampton. Much will returned to swamp when the floods come.

7 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

 

Got two lovely neices who grew up around Great Dunmow and nice around there, not that far from Chelmsford, county town/city a home of county cricket of course. Customs had several massive offices in Saffend, omg. Tilbury also not exactly Southampton. Much will returned to swamp when the floods come.

As to floods coming, much of London will flood first, I live up on a large hill well away from flood plains🤣. What and you don't even mention the large customs office in Chelmsford?

Edited 15 September, 20232 yr by Graham Butcher

17 minutes ago, @Lee said:

 

My first thought as well. I didn't notice what Graham describes in any places I've lived.

Essex was famous for car crime and car theft IIRC. 

When I was working, which is also when the massive joyriding craze at its peak, I used to have to cover an area that covered the following counties for the record, Kent, East and West Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Greater London and much as you might try to pretend otherwise, it was just as widespread in those areas as well. That's one of the great advantages of being a mobile engineer and not being stuck in offices, or factory, you get to see other parts of the country on a pretty regular basis 

25 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

As to floods coming, much of London will flood first, I live up on a large hill well away from flood plains🤣. What and you don't even mention the large customs office in Chelmsford?

 

What office in Chelmsford ?

 

Alex House was the last one left in Southend.

 

Yes when the Thames Barrage fails it will be incredibly expensive.

 

Coastal marshes in Essex will be in permanent flood would think.

 

UK needs new docks like London Gateway to keep working in the rising sea levels.

 

Maybe it's just the Essex boys popping to the east of London then who fancy a joyride in the county of Essex 🤷 Southend is at number 10. @toot is safe enough. 

Very rare when traveling to the ferry at Harwich not to see a burned out vehicle on the A12

 

 

https://totallossgap.co.uk/blog/post/the-worst-and-best-areas-for-uk-car-theft/518 

 

 

 

 

Edited 15 September, 20232 yr by @Lee

1 hour ago, Graham Butcher said:

Nope, I disagree, at one time it was almost impossible to go to any car park, country lane, or remote country location, woods etc without seeing loads of burnt car shells, I have not seen any for over a decade, nor do you see any residue left over tell-tale signs like badly burned scorched ground/road/concrete. 

 

Became tired of dogging?

 

I cant think of the last time that I saw a road around where I live be it here or in Picardie that wasnt fire damaged.

 

A close friend was burgled two weeks ago, she and her visiting family were sleeping in the house, she was in the adjacent ground floor room, they will almost certainly have looked in there, they took the car keys and her fairly new Renault on leaving, she lost her husband only a few months ago so you can imagine it hit her very hard.

 

Car was found burnt out a couple of days later less than 5k away, it looks like they had hit a bank and damaged the suspension and front wheel before torching it.

 

The Gendarmes arrested the thief last week, they told her his name and that he was from a certain community that doesastheylikey 😒, both things unlikely to happen in modern Britain, I reckon he lives within 1km of me, I will check at the Mairie.

28 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

 

What office in Chelmsford ?

 

Alex House was the last one left in Southend.

 

Yes when the Thames Barrage fails it will be incredibly expensive.

 

Coastal marshes in Essex will be in permanent flood would think.

 

UK needs new docks like London Gateway to keep working in the rising sea levels.

 

Parkway House, used to be Customs, but is now, like so many office blocks, been converted into flats. Yes, the marshes will certainly be permanently flooded if sea level rises, there is a lot of cliff erosion happening in Suffolk and Norfolk with some houses that used to be well away from the cliff edge, now crashing into the sea.

Good thing about owning Skodas, and Renaults, much less desirable than the Audis, BMW and Mercs.

 

Neighbour across the road had his M3 nicked by robbers breaking in, whilst he and missus were sleeping.

 

Just horrible living in fear of this.

 

Have a Q car. Superb with the 280 hp 4 wheel drive. Octavia VRSs can be fun but less on the nick list I would have thought than a Golf GTI.

 

Need more EVs with Sentry mode like Teslas, even better with electroshock or the like.