Charger plug gets very hot

[d215yq]

I don't understand how people "don't understand" electric vehicles. I live in a city with no parking place and never do a journey within the city and very rarely one that is shorter than 30 miles and regularly do 500 miles in a weekend (just had a nice long weekend away doing 600 miles). Hence I bought the cheapest comfiest car I could that does decent mpg, 800 cruising miles to a tank and is reliable and an electric isn't for me.

However, I see that there are millions of people who only ever use a car for 30 miles/day (in suburbia most people's 2nd cars for example) and have a drive and so for them electric makes perfect sense. At home my parents have a 20yr old Yaris that has 45k on the clock but used almost daily. I think its only taken for a long run once a year to "clean the engine out". Electric would make sense for that application and many others.

 

[Capra]

I don't understand how people "don't understand" electric vehicles. I live in a city with no parking place and never do a journey within the city and very rarely one that is shorter than 30 miles and regularly do 500 miles in a weekend (just had a nice long weekend away doing 600 miles). Hence I bought the cheapest comfiest car I could that does decent mpg, 800 cruising miles to a tank and is reliable and an electric isn't for me.

However, I see that there are millions of people who only ever use a car for 30 miles/day (in suburbia most people's 2nd cars for example) and have a drive and so for them electric makes perfect sense. At home my parents have a 20yr old Yaris that has 45k on the clock but used almost daily. I think its only taken for a long run once a year to "clean the engine out". Electric would make sense for that application and many others.

You're right, EV would make perfect sense to a lot of UK drivers as a second car, but how many people can afford the initial outlay to buy one? Maybe a few years ago when the Government were giving out subsidies! I think my friend saved something like 40%

 

[Craiglxviii]

Short range vehicles like this I agree (to a certain extent but now my week day driving is under 10 miles per day I can see it for the short run stuff).
For longer runs (say 200 miles) the longer range vehicles do make sense to me as the cost per mile is quite a bit lower.
For continental travel they make less sense unless there's a fast charge infrastructure readily available. I don't mind stopping every 250 miles for a 20 minute coffee break (and often do anyway).

Hybrids I'm less sure about... Especially where battery range is only 30 miles or so!

That said the early Honda Insight was amazingly frugal with over 100mpg easily achieved. It was admittedly pretty stripped out. Maybe if we weren't so hung up on all the toys that add weight the manufacturers could do something serious about economy...

A fully adjustable front seat weighs in excess of 85kg. That makes the front seats 8.5% of typical MB total vehicle mass @ 2 tons.

The Adblue system is around 60kg when pump, tank and fluid are taken into account.

There was an experiment done where all of the "user comfort" tech was taken out of a car, I think it was a Focus. There was well over 200kg removed or otherwise accounted for, on a car with a 1391kg kerb weight.

Hybrids- dependent on type- to me make a lot of sense because they allow the IC engine to run at its most efficient speed while at the same time the wheel drive is the most efficient possible, via electric motor (and why are the drive motors geared? There's more mass not required. Oh yes, it's because a motor and transmission is cheaper than two hub motors with associated wiring...) There's á reason why all diesel-electric trains and submarines have used this layout since the early '40s.

 

[Capra]

A fully adjustable front seat weighs in excess of 85kg. That makes the front seats 8.5% of typical MB total vehicle mass @ 2 tons.

The Adblue system is around 60kg when pump, tank and fluid are taken into account.

There was an experiment done where all of the "user comfort" tech was taken out of a car, I think it was a Focus. There was well over 200kg removed or otherwise accounted for, on a car with a 1391kg kerb weight.

Hybrids- dependent on type- to me make a lot of sense because they allow the IC engine to run at its most efficient speed while at the same time the wheel drive is the most efficient possible, via electric motor (and why are the drive motors geared? There's more mass not required. Oh yes, it's because a motor and transmission is cheaper than two hub motors with associated wiring...) There's á reason why all diesel-electric trains and submarines have used this layout since the early '40s.

I thought that trains didn't use gearboxes because the amount of power coming from the engines meant the box would be very unreliable so so diesel-electric setup was best.