Electric, Hybrid and Alternative fuelled vehicles - News and Discussion

[Guest]

Probably true, but that is using every bit of power available to your house (and assuming a 100 amp service fuse - they are often lower). So no lights, kettle, TV, etc, to have that much power to charge the car.

 

As I said, 13 amp socket as the power source and you are looking at 13 hours charge time.

What you are saying is absurd. You will never have a single phase 100A charger. A 7kW charger will do for pretty much everybody and will add all the range you need overnight.

If you really want to charge quickly at home you'd get a three phase supply and your own rapid but that's only worthwhile if you have your own taxi or something.

 

You'd never charge at 13A from a socket anyway. Those chargers run at 10A and have a sensor in the plug in case the socket starts to melt. Your sockets probably aren't up to supplying 13A for 13 hours straight.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Some of them are starting to get replaced, but there are also a lot of smaller companies running knackered old vans around.

 

Surely if something costs more upfront the lease will also cost more, the leasing company isn't going to want to take that hit!

 

Not necessarily.

 

Look at car leasing. You can usually get a BMW or an Audi far cheaper than an equivalent Vauxhall or a Ford. The Audi A3 is often cheaper than its close cousin the VW Golf. The key in leasing/contract hire is what the residual value of the vehicle will be at the end of the term. The residuals on battery-powered cars should be very good - although perhaps unproved yet.

 

In the context of a courier firm, a slightly higher lease cost should easily be covered by reduced running and maintenance costs, particularly in a city environment. I used to cover a very rural route in Oxfordshire and even there it was very rare for me to do more than 200 miles in a day, usually about 150.

 

Even the better courier firms have a workforce that consists mostly of self-employed contractors. But the company controls the vehicle policy.

[Ron Ron Ron]

Looking away from EV's for the moment.

Very recently we've seen the application of "mild hybrid" power trains on some very new car models.

 

The new Audi A7 & A8 and new Mercedes CLS (mk3 - 2018) both very expensive premium cars, employ mild hybrid systems purely to help boost performance.

The forthcoming new Audi A6 along with other cars are getting these 48v systems too.

This is quite unlike the hybrid cars we've seen so far, as they do not allow running on electric, but use the batteries as a power booster, cutting fuel usage and emissions in the process.

 

Only announced couple of days ago, the revised Kia Sportage will adopt mild hybrid tech as well, so already it's apparent that mild hybrid is going to trickle down into more affordable cars over the next few years.

It's possible that within the next 5 years or so, there will be no mainstream, mass produced petrol or diesel cars being sold, that are not Plug-in Hybrid, Hybrid, or use Mild Hybrid technology.

 

 

Hydrogen Fuel Cell

Pure EV

Range Extender EV

Plug-in Hybrid

Hybrid

Petrol/Diesel + Mild Hybrid

 

 

 

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/updated-kia-sportage-gains-mild-hybrid-diesel-variant

 

https://www.audi-technology-portal.de/en/drivetrain/fsi-tsi-engines/audi-a8-mild-hybrid-electric-vehicle-mhev-components

 

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/new-audi-a6-guns-5-series-mild-hybrid-power-and-a8-cabin-tech

 

http://www.carbuyer.co.uk/tips-and-advice/159947/what-is-a-mild-hybrid

 

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/mercedes-amg-cls53-and-e53-hybrids-revealed

 

 

 

.

[Joseph_Pestell]

I had not heard about the new Sportage. Definitely a possible option for SWMBO.

[Ron Ron Ron]

[Kickstart]

What you are saying is absurd. You will never have a single phase 100A charger. A 7kW charger will do for pretty much everybody and will add all the range you need overnight.

If you really want to charge quickly at home you'd get a three phase supply and your own rapid but that's only worthwhile if you have your own taxi or something.

 

You'd never charge at 13A from a socket anyway. Those chargers run at 10A and have a sensor in the plug in case the socket starts to melt. Your sockets probably aren't up to supplying 13A for 13 hours straight.

Yeah, that is the point. At very very best the charging is slow.

 

All the best

 

Katy

[Horsetan]

 Yes, but only for the income class that maintains horses at present. ...

 

....and that is a surprisingly wide class.

[Ron Ron Ron]

....and that is a surprisingly wide class.

 

Do you mean Rich Fat ba****ds ???

 

 

.

Edited May 24, 2018 by Ron Ron Ron

[Horsetan]

Do you mean Rich Fat ba****ds ???

 

 

.

 

Ah, how we cleave to the old stereotypes.

 

I'm talking people with humble jobs, e.g. carers, who live in (ex-)council housing, yet are able somehow to keep two horses and a yearling on the go, for example.

[Joseph_Pestell]

I really don't want a car where I have to take my eyes of the road to run through a series of menus on a touch-screen. Typical IT engineers - finding answers to non-existent problems.

[Horsetan]

I really don't want a car where I have to take my eyes of the road to run through a series of menus on a touch-screen. Typical IT engineers - finding answers to non-existent problems.

 

It's bad enough we already have distracted driving thanks to smartphones and tablets......and children

[Nearholmer]

Strange and shocking as it may seem, some ordinary people appear to spend almost as much time and money on the hobby of horse-keeping as others do on the hobby of toy trains.

 

I sometimes work with a women who is slim and, so far as I know having not actually asked, has married parents. She does a fairly ordinary job. She devotes every spare penny and second to her horse.

Edited May 24, 2018 by Nearholmer

[Kickstart]

I really don't want a car where I have to take my eyes of the road to run through a series of menus on a touch-screen. Typical IT engineers - finding answers to non-existent problems.

Tend to agree. There are a load of functions on there which I would love to have easy access to which on many vehicles are a pain (eg, stereo controls can be quite obscure), and which such a screen would be fine as I wouldn't care about being parked to access them.

 

But some basic controls I want very easy and quick access to. Heater controls I certainly don't want to faff around with menus to access.

 

All the best

 

Katy

[Zomboid]

Expensive hobbies are one of the perks of relative wealth.

Even now many of us can't afford - or more likely don't want to make the compromises necessary - to run a V8. So a fun large engined car is already an expensive hobby. It's not going to change, it's the boring 1.2 fiestas which are going to be replaced, and I doubt many people will miss the fun that such a car having an ICE will provide.

[Horsetan]

....I sometimes work with a woman who is slim and, so far as I know having not actually asked, has married parents. She does a fairly ordinary job. She devotes every spare penny and second to her horse.

 

Now there's a woman after my own heart.

 

[jjb1970]

I quite like the current fashion for "infotainment" systems based on controlling many of the car functions via interactive menus. When BMW introduced it was their I-drive system it was heavily criticised but I find most of the systems now used to be very good. Audi MMI is excellent I think, as is the VW system used in the Golf, I'm guessing they're both basically the same given the shared ownership however the menus and some functionality is different. However I also think some things should retain an old fashioned knob or button, for example stereo volume and ventilation controls. Most of the cars I've driven in recent years have managed to get a good balance between de-cluttering the fascia and retaining more traditional controls when it is the sensible thing to do.

[runs as required]

1

Personally I'd like a vehicle that drives itself and I can sit looking out of the window enjoying relating the view to the detailled OS map of the area. I love ferreting out interesting relics of various (usually rail related) kinds. I'd like to be able to issue deviation instructions to the 'driving device'.*

I don't reckon I will last long enough to experience this as an affordable possibility.

2

With EV usage of 20 miles approx a day, but then long motorway stints to family 250-300 miles away for child minding duties every 6 or 8 weeks or so, how long are we talking of for charging stops?  With the old Mondeo we'll normally have one watering stop of around 20 minutes on such a journey; I imagine the EV would require a longer stop for refeshment. Why did the interchangeable fuel/power/battery cell not take off?

dh

*The only time I ever had that luxury was with a university employed friendly driver in a small Triumph 1300 in Malawi back in the mid 1960s.

Edited May 24, 2018 by runs as required

[admiles]

What you are saying is absurd. You will never have a single phase 100A charger. A 7kW charger will do for pretty much everybody and will add all the range you need overnight.

If you really want to charge quickly at home you'd get a three phase supply and your own rapid but that's only worthwhile if you have your own taxi or something.

 

You'd never charge at 13A from a socket anyway. Those chargers run at 10A and have a sensor in the plug in case the socket starts to melt. Your sockets probably aren't up to supplying 13A for 13 hours straight.

 

It's not absurd at all.  What an arrogant comment.

Edited May 24, 2018 by admiles

[admiles]

Not necessarily.

 

Look at car leasing. You can usually get a BMW or an Audi far cheaper than an equivalent Vauxhall or a Ford. The Audi A3 is often cheaper than its close cousin the VW Golf. The key in leasing/contract hire is what the residual value of the vehicle will be at the end of the term. The residuals on battery-powered cars should be very good - although perhaps unproved yet.

 

In the context of a courier firm, a slightly higher lease cost should easily be covered by reduced running and maintenance costs, particularly in a city environment. I used to cover a very rural route in Oxfordshire and even there it was very rare for me to do more than 200 miles in a day, usually about 150.

 

Even the better courier firms have a workforce that consists mostly of self-employed contractors. But the company controls the vehicle policy.

 

Living in Suffolk most of our couriers "local" depots are in Norfolk, Cambridgeshire or South Essex. What would the likely range of an electric 3.5T van be?

Lots of those courier vans are doing 500 miles + per day with frequent stops and no time for charging during the day.  In big cities I can see it might work. For large 

swathes on the country the range just won't be there.

 

There's also the extra cost of the vehicles themselves. There's probably a good reason why the couriers are generally using EVs.

[admiles]

I had not heard about the new Sportage. Definitely a possible option for SWMBO.

 

Just read the terms of Kia's warranty very, very carefully.  My sister has a current model Sportage and although the warranty is a long one (5 or 7 years I think from memory) compared to the standard 3 years, lots of components aren't covered in the later years.

Edited May 24, 2018 by admiles

[Zomboid]

Living in Suffolk most of our couriers "local" depots are in Norfolk, Cambridgeshire or South Essex. What would the likely range of an electric 3.5T van be?

Lots of those courier vans are doing 500 miles + per day with frequent stops and no time for charging during the day. In big cities I can see it might work. For large

swathes on the country the range just won't be there.

Such vehicles are far from rare in London, as are 7.5T trucks.

 

I don't think anyone has said that EVs are the solution to everything yet, and clearly they aren't at the moment. But I believe that one day they will be capable of everything a combustion engined vehicle will.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Living in Suffolk most of our couriers "local" depots are in Norfolk, Cambridgeshire or South Essex. What would the likely range of an electric 3.5T van be?

Lots of those courier vans are doing 500 miles + per day with frequent stops and no time for charging during the day.  In big cities I can see it might work. For large 

swathes on the country the range just won't be there.

 

There's also the extra cost of the vehicles themselves. There's probably a good reason why the couriers are generally using EVs.

 

If your courier is making any sort of profit (I am talking overnight/24hr rather than direct), his vans are not doing 500 miles a day. Do the maths. At an average 50mph it would take 10 hours continuous driving with no time to make the deliveries. At a more likely average of 35mph, it would take more than 14 hours without any deliveries.

 

My rural Oxfordshire route, which involved about 30 miles per day of "dead" mileage from Newbury, averaged about 70 drops per day. Some colleagues in Swindon were doing more than a hundred drops but much less mileage.

 

That was 10 years ago. With so much more courier traffic due to e-mail, delivery rounds have tended to get shorter in mileage terms (not in hours).

Edited May 24, 2018 by Joseph_Pestell

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Expensive hobbies are one of the perks of relative wealth..., it's the boring 1.2 fiestas which are going to be replaced, and I doubt many people will miss the fun that such a car having an ICE will provide.

 Exactly. To me the motor vehicle is simply a utility, and the potential for simpler operation provided by electric is very appealing. And coming in the foreseeable future there's the fully autonomous electric car so I don't even have to drive the bloody thing either once the vision, reactions, (and any other random bits and pieces) have started to fail from old age and decrepitude. All I will have to do is get in and say one of eight words, pub, model shop, doctor, hospital, dentist, barber, supermarket, home. (I know it will be a little more complex than that, but you get the idea.) 

 

...a women who is slim and, so far as I know having not actually asked, has married parents. She does a fairly ordinary job. She devotes every spare penny and second to her horse.

Now there's a woman after my own heart.

 Literally, as she is used to making sacrifices to keep a horse. So once she's got your heart, the horse will be eating it...

[Horsetan]

.....she is used to making sacrifices to keep a horse. So once she's got your heart, the horse will be eating it...

 

My current veteran does anyway. It would be much more expedient if horses had evolved to eat, say, bales of twenty and fifty-pound notes....

[Nearholmer]

Horses are carnivorous?!

 

I never knew that.

 

I'll be a lot more careful around them in future.

 

PS: there does seem, from what I understand, to be an awful lot of sh1t-shovelling involved in horse-keeping, which is an ever odder thing to want to do in your spare time than taking-down engine numbers, IMO.

Edited May 24, 2018 by Nearholmer