Electric cars..been reading on the other forum...I have some thoughts

AMGeed

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At last, someone who isn't just taken in by the acceleration and sees the car as a whole package.

Hell will freeze over before I consider an EV as my choice of transport.
Long live the V8 (not much longer in an Mercedes unfortunately:()


Edit.......In answer to the the post by Uncle Benz
 

umblecumbuz

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Electric cars?
With almost no routine servicing or maintenance, and even brake pads lasting several times longer than those in a diesel or petrol car, what is there left for garages to do?

My local man envisions changing the pollen filter, replacing wiper blades, and a valet as the extent of his future work. Apparently even Snap-On Tools are suffering decreasing sales because what garage wants to invest in expensive equipment that will steadily see less and less use in the years to come?

Think I'll sell my Pela 6000 while there's still a market.
 

js190d

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Electric cars?
With almost no routine servicing or maintenance, and even brake pads lasting several times longer than those in a diesel or petrol car, what is there left for garages to do
Well Tesla won't sell you any parts to fix there cars anyway. They are after all the aftersales money with there products.

Speaking of Tesla what an enigma that company are. Started by a man who made all his money out of Paypal, started a car company (because he is an engineer..ok mate) funded by the US govt which has never made a profit and of course his giant firework company SpaceX again taking US tax dollars. He really does have luck on his side does'nt he?

All the other electric car manufacturers are doing it because they have to to lower there range of cars overall co2.
 

js190d

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It strikes me many of the detractors do so as a result of prejudice using questionable 'facts' and statements to support their arguments without fact checking them.

Like it or not the electric car is here for a while yet and it will spell the end of diesel and petrol powered cars. You can try and fight it (like King Canute) or embrace it.
Personally i think the detractors for electric cars do so just because the products that have come to market to date really are not fit for purpose.

They do not replace the functionality of ICE cars even if there were fast chargers everywhere. The issue of exactly how much energy an electric car takes to charge and what that amount of energy represents (i.e powers a house for XX weeks) is never discussed but i would assume a Tesla is consuming huge amounts of energy per charge so it's efficiency is poor.

Embracing a product that is poor just because we are told it is the future is a bit stupid in my opinion.
 

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I note from an i3 add in the cinema today they made a point of stating “zero emissions at point of use”. Nice to see it correctly clarified - although expect brake and tyre dust to be the next killer that requires heavily taxing to save us all / fund the country
 

Rappey69

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When are you getting a Tesla?
When you buy me one , it has to be the p100 though ;) .I don't mind what colour you get ..
As for "taken in by the acceleration" you could have a 2l turbo in the car you have and it would still get you wherever you wanted to go, but you must have been taken in by the power of having a large engine even though in reality you cant use much of it on the uk roads.. so whats wrong with being taken in by a much quicker car than yours that does it so smoothly?

Seen a few posts on brake pad tax. Since many electrics have regenerative braking then they use far less brake pads than a normal car. Mr Musk claims he will have a million mile battery this year so that will solve the issue of recycling batterys?
At the end of the day a car is a machine to get you from A to B, so why all the fuss about what powers it?
It also appears the ones that moan the most about electric are also the ones with cars that they bought due to their large engines and power output ? Seems they are getting a little upset that an electric family saloon is much quicker now than their "performance car" without any of the high running costs ? times have moved on and large engine petrols are just not needed any more and would take a guess that they to will end up on the un-necessary polluting hit list.
As for handling, who ever gets to drive on the limit on our roads anyway? If you like race tracks then surely renting a lotus elise will give you far more fun than a heavy large engine car anyway?
As for the demon diesel, what about the similar demon petrol? Its hardly saving the planet..
All hgv,s and most vans are diesel. I shudder to think of the costs if they all went petrol. They certainly cant go electric at this present time. The councils proposing banning diesel have their own fleet of vehicles, yup diesels mostly..
I would like to see into the same crystal ball that the government must have to say we will be carbon neutral by whatever the latest guestimate is..
When some of this years electric cars (claimed) will hit 60 in 1.9 secs, 250mph in 9 secs, will outhandle probably most things on the road (the lotus) and will fully recharge in 9 mins (18 with current superchargers) again I say what is there not to like ?
 

LostKiwi

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Personally i think the detractors for electric cars do so just because the products that have come to market to date really are not fit for purpose.

They do not replace the functionality of ICE cars even if there were fast chargers everywhere. The issue of exactly how much energy an electric car takes to charge and what that amount of energy represents (i.e powers a house for XX weeks) is never discussed but i would assume a Tesla is consuming huge amounts of energy per charge so it's efficiency is poor.

Embracing a product that is poor just because we are told it is the future is a bit stupid in my opinion.
Over 90% of most peoples journeys are under 200 miles. Given most electric cars can now do that how exactly are they not fit for purpose for most of the journeys driven?
My daily commute involves a 4 mile drive to the train station, 45 minutes on a train then 10 minute walk with the reverse on the way home. An electric car would suit that perfectly (I haven't bought one as at present I'm not in the market to replace any cars though I did look into a Twizy).
One of our suppliers is only allowing electric cars on their car scheme. Clearly they believe they are fit for purpose.
Even if I had to give up my V8s I'd take an electric car next time round if the price was right.
 

Rappey69

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Ice cars have had over 100 years to perfect their technology and many have done a mighty fine job..
Production electric cars are fairly new and have come a lot further than ice cars ever did in a similar time frame..
How will we charge them all ? who knows, (we need the governments crystal ball again ;) )
Souless ? A car is a mechanical machine so non have a soul anyway..
The future? Hmmm, questionable ..
Would I buy one - currently no ! Would hate to find that after parting with at least 30k something better comes along and im left with a car and no charging points.
If I won the lottery then it would have to be electric as why buy a hyper car if not for performance ,without all the breakdowns and ludicrous running costs.
Autonomous driving - can only be done with electric cars and that in turn would lead to much faster flowing traffic and everyone getting to their destination much faster than today. Could also mean the end of private car ownership ?
 

LostKiwi

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I suspect the end of private ownership will come with autonomous electric cars.
 

AMGeed

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The joy of owning an electric car?


WHAT IT'S REALLY LIKE TO DRIVE AN ELECTRIC CAR

Have you ever wondered what it is like to drive an electric car on a seriously long-haul journey, say...London to Edinburgh and back again?

Well, one man has done it for you, and the reality of the situation will no doubt come as a shock.

Read this, and let us know whether or not you would consider getting an electric car now.

Robert Perry writes in The Times:

At the dawn of the age of motoring in 1900, 83 owners of the newfangled horseless carriages signed up for what would become known as the Thousand Mile Trial, an 11-day road trip from London to Edinburgh and back. Only 65 cars made it to the starting line at Hyde Park Corner for what was envisaged as the ultimate test of the nascent internal combustion engine.

On the road that day were some who became the forefathers of the British automotive industry, including Charles Rolls, who would four years later meet Henry Royce and create the most famous marque in the world.

Only 51 were still running by Edinburgh and only 35 made it back to London, including the sole lady driver, Louise Bazalgette, a member of the family of Joseph Bazalgette, the Victorian engineer of London’s sewer system.

Nearly 120 years later we are at the dawn of another motoring age, that of the electric car. How would an electric vehicle (EV) with a range of not much more than 200 miles fare in a 21st-century version of the Thousand Mile Trial? What are the issues for the long-distance electric car driver? How do you find public charging points? How long does it take to recharge? Do they exist in any great number outside London?



With all these questions to answer I set out in the tyre marks of those intrepid pioneers of 1900 with little experience of driving an EV and none in charging one up. My aim was to complete the 1000-mile trial in three days.

For anyone who gets stressed when the charge on their mobile falls below 10 per cent, look away now for these are the confessions of an EV virgin.

Range anxiety
Following the original route heading west along the old Bath Road, now the A4, I’m in a Nissan Leaf, the best-selling electric car, built in Sunderland and generously lent to The Times by the Japanese carmaker.

I’m armed with a smartcard for the Polar recharging network, which promises access to 7,000 chargers. The Zap Map app is uploaded onto a phone and promises to locate the nearest charging point at any given time. What could possibly go wrong?

Our Leaf e+ pledges to provide 239 miles of range on one charge but with the caveat that “actual real world driving results may vary depending on factors such as the starting charge of the battery, weather conditions, driving styles”.

For the first two hours the Leaf would barely have kept pace with the 1900 cohort, clocking up fewer than 40 miles, restrained by the three Rs of modern day motoring: roundabouts, red lights and roadworks.

Skirting Bath and turning north the first stop is reached, the Gloucester Holiday Inn. The distance travelled is 144 miles and according to data on the Leaf dashboard 173 miles of range has been lost, suggesting that something may be up with the operative’s “driving style”.



Nearly an hour later enough electrons have been forced in to be back up to a 91 per cent charge, the equivalent, says the car, of 222 miles of range, enough to get to the first stopover at Bamber Bridge just south of Preston in Lancashire.

The M5 and M6 are both in a filthy, congested mood. On the clearer stretches I test the national speed limit to make up time. Past Cheshire there is a decision to make. The car shows just 20 per cent of charge and 47 miles of range left. Bamber Bridge is 38 miles away.

With no Polar charging points in motorway service stations I bail out and go in search of a recharge in Altrincham. Heading for a charge point at a Novotel, I find it is out of commission. With few options and an increasing sense of unease I end up in an empty, windswept Asda car park and hook up to one of its two standard, ie slow, charging points. The equipment dribbles one extra mile of range into the battery every three minutes.

After a chilly half hour it’s back on the road having added just nine miles of range, with everything crossed in the hope of making the destination. Three quarters of an hour later the Leaf limps — metaphorically — into the lodgings’ car park with a buttock-clenching 7 per cent.

On the charge
The stopover, a Premier Inn, has no charging points. But the Holiday Inn a mile up the road does. With first light breaking over the Pennines, Zap Map indicates that its single charging point is free so the Leaf scoots over, hooks up while its driver has breakfast and an hour later has 73 per cent of charge, enough to get to our next scheduled stop in Carlisle 91 miles away.

Fed up with the motorway I take the scenic A6 through rolling north Lancashire countryside into the beauty of the Lake District and the stunning ascent to Shap Fell, the subject in 1900 of a time trial won, naturally, by Charles Rolls. Carlisle’s only rapid charger, at a Toby Inn on the outskirts, happily is in commission and not being used.



A 40-minute top-up has the battery 70 per cent full: 142 miles range to do the 100 miles to Edinburgh.

The “historic tourist route” of the A7 is a stunning drive through a rugby sevens tournament of towns — Hawick, Selkirk, Melrose, Gala — and a real chance to put the Leaf through its paces. It handles brilliantly on the long and winding road and, with the same torque and pace of Nissan’s Nismo sports cars, has plenty of zip on the rare bits of straight to pass the agricultural vehicles exercising their right to drive slowly on a trunk road and the 40mph campervan pootlers.

After engagements in Edinburgh it’s time for a small top-up at the Norton House Hotel, the Scottish capital’s only public Polar charger, enough to ensure reaching the next scheduled stop on the way to Newcastle upon Tyne.

And there a fun day ends. With the light going there are 12 miles of tailback on Edinburgh’s southern bypass.

The Borders village of Carfraemill is not particularly near anywhere but it has a pub and more importantly a pub that has a charger. However, it’s dark, cold and with rain on the wind it’s the first charger failure. Several attempts to engage the machine reader with the smartcard fail. The screen then exhibits a big red cross and reverts to nothing, a grey screen of doom.

There are no other Polar chargers between here and Newcastle. The Leaf has 87 miles of charge and Newcastle is 86 miles away. What are the alternatives? Schlepping back to Edinburgh? A quiet weep?

One last attempt with the charging point and it fires into life. I give it a quiet embrace. A 44-minute charge-up and some disappointing neeps and tatties later, the Leaf is back on the road on an increasingly ugly night of rain. Arrive in Newcastle late.

Trial and tribulations
Next day starts with an early top-up at another Holiday Inn off the A1(M) a few miles south and a course via Nottingham to be home in time for supper.

At the Holiday Inn — like all others in its chain neither an inn nor somewhere you’d go on holiday, but a favoured location of the Polar recharging network — the Zap Map shows that of Nottingham’s three charging points near the M1, one is out of order, one has “reported issues” and one is busy (probably because the other two are offline).

A Polar point in Rotherham might be a better alternative. It is, once again, located at a Holiday Inn. Tucked away in the corner of an otherwise empty set of car parks, its location is only obvious because it has a Renault Zoe EV parked next to it and hooked up. We have our first instance of charging clash. The Zoe has been on for 30 minutes according to the machine, so I reason that the owner will be back soon. After 15 minutes’ no-show I decide to explore alternative arrangements, except the Zap Map connection is weak and not picking up. Time is spent wandering round the car park trying to get a signal. It begins to rain. Sheltering in the hotel, an available charger is shown on the Zap Map in Chesterfield. With the Zoe still recharging an hour in and no sign of its owner, it’s time to go.

By the time the charging point is found incongruously at the back of a pub in the middle of a Chesterfield housing estate there is 14 per cent of charge left. But given the levels of range anxiety experienced in the past couple of days I’m calm.

Until, that is, with the Leaf plugged in, the machine says it is 69 per cent charged when it is clear that it’s nearly out. Still, the blue lights in the car suggest that it’s charging so I go for a belated pub lunch. Returning an hour later the machine says it is 0 per cent charged.

Whaaat? It transpires that the machine is having a dodgy day and the car is suitably charged — I hope — with 174 miles of range and 150 miles to go.

Heading down the M1, the stated range is worryingly diminishing faster than actual miles completed. But with heavy Friday evening traffic the national speed limit is rarely reached, which the battery appears to appreciate. I’m home a little later than expected but laughing, a little too manically, with 6 per cent of charge left. The four on-street overnight charging points in my street are busy or blocked . . . but that is a story for another day.

Continued below.
 

AMGeed

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continued...

Lessons to be learnt

The long run
The Nissan Leaf proves that electric car driving can be properly good fun, but today’s pure electric vehicles are not cut out for long journeys. The industry does not claim them to be, but thGat does mean great swathes of motorists are locked out of the market. Long journeys require pinpoint planning and there is no guaranteed charging point availability.



Charging networks
Relying on one charging network — as I did — is foolish. It is the equivalent of our grandparents’ generation driving without a jerrycan of fuel in the boot. But the poor national network means you have to join multiple operator schemes with different logins and payment arrangements, all of which is a faff and doesn’t make electric driving accessible. It is as if you need to be a member of Esso to access their petrol. All charging points must be contactless.

Availability
Obviously, there need to be many tens of thousands more public charging points. For the charging-point operators to install only one charging station in a location seems inefficient. If the electricity feed is plumbed in, why not install multiple points? Why do so many hotels — where people stop overnight — have no chargers?

Wasted time
Waiting three quarters of an hour to get a meaningful recharge is a long time and doesn’t represent what the industry insists is a “rapid charge”. Only when the industry gets to its aim of a 100 per cent charge in the time it takes to go to the toilet and get a coffee (and in the case of the over-50s going to the loo again) will charging seem like an efficient use of time.

Locating charge points
The industry’s best charging point locator, Zap Map, is a clunky app and doesn’t always relay accurate information. Satnav systems need to be at the top of their game and, although it might be a bit analogue, is there any harm in road signs advertising the location of charging points?

Shelter from the storm
No one filling their car at a petrol station has to do it in a sou’wester. A nice charging point canopy offering respite from the rain when you are fumbling with your charge card and plugging the cord into your car would be a pleasant addition.












Thanks for reading.

PATRICK
A Spokesman Said
 

LostKiwi

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So...
Back in the early 1900s how many issues did those pioneers have obtaining petrol for their new fangled horseless carriages?
As the writer correctly states, the Leaf is not intended for long distance runs - but it's a very suitable car for London traffic (where a diesel would soon expire with a clogged DPF if used daily for a month without a blast down a motorway).
It's also interesting the writer only focused on one aspect of the drive. No mention of comfort, noise levels, drivability or any of the other myriad things that a good piece of journalism should encompass.

I can't help but feel the writer had their own agenda.
 

Blobcat

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I can't help but feel the writer had their own agenda.
Same as every other news outlet, only interested in selling papers or getting you to watch their drivel.
 

js190d

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I just love how people see the electric car as some sort of new tech to enjoy, and if you don't label you as a luddite. Battery powered things are not new or innovative, it is an old technology.

The majority of things i have ever bought which were battery powered have at some point have had there battery fail. But that was ok because i could just buy another £100 cordless drill, it was affordable. Don't think you can say the same for the huge battery arrays in electric cars which are probably the most valuable component in the cars.

Using a battery to power a car is a compromise at best. As for a Lithium ion batteries enviromental consequences well they are appalling.

This is just my opinion but i get the distinct feeling that electric cars are only really present now because they are development tools for autonomous cars. As someone who likes driving my car i don't want to see autonomous cars on the roads any time soon as they will never be safe.

A programmer of an autonomous car can never envisage all possible situations a driver may experience, that is an impossibility. Situations they would have to envisage would involve ethical questions (for example in a crash situation where the decision is to either swerve left into a group of children or swerve right into a pregnant woman) and how can we accept a piece of computer script making decisions such as this.

Tesla's for example are well known for being very much beta development cars and if you search for "Rich Rebuilds" on Youtube you may be a bit astonished at the data these cars are gathering without the owners knowledge or consent.

We are all aware of the way Google uses it's search engine (and other services & apps) to harvest data on users enabling Google's parent company Alphabet Corporation to develop Artificial Intelligence such as Google Deepmind. Electric cars are just tools for doing the same, harvesting data to ultimately develop driverless cars. They are just another SMART device.
 
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davidsl500

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Range isn't that much of an issue its the other things. I remember filling up my SL500 and doing an Italian tune though the lanes on my way home from work I blew 20 litres in 25 miles - that's a quarter of a tank. The whole tank at that rate would last for 100 miles! I was lucky to get 280 miles to the tank on most fill ups (without any long runs). The difference is that around every corner there is near enough a fuel station where I can fill her up in 10 mins and be on my way. I can't do that with an electric vehicle and I don't want to have to spend my time planning trips in advance. You can't even guarantee that a charging station will be free when you get to one. I can walk up the road with an empty petrol can and get it filled up - can't get a can of electric yet..

Inductive charging in the roads is the way to go in my opinion then the problems will disappear even if the battery range isn't that good.
 

LostKiwi

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I just love how people see the electric car as some sort of new tech to enjoy, and if you don't label you as a luddite. Battery powered things are not new or innovative, it is an old technology.

The majority of things i have ever bought which were battery powered have at some point have had there battery fail. But that was ok because i could just buy another £100 cordless drill, it was affordable. Don't think you can say the same for the huge battery arrays in electric cars which are probably the most valuable component in the cars.

Using a battery to power a car is a compromise at best. As for a Lithium ion batteries enviromental consequences well they are appalling.

This is just my opinion but i get the distinct feeling that electric cars are only really present now because they are development tools for autonomous cars. As someone who likes driving my car i don't want to see autonomous cars on the roads any time soon as they will never be safe.

A programmer of an autonomous car can never envisage all possible situations a driver may experience, that is an impossibility. Situations they would have to envisage would involve ethical questions (for example in a crash situation where the decision is to either swerve left into a group of children or swerve right into a pregnant woman) and how can we accept a piece of computer script making decisions such as this.

Tesla's for example are well known for being very much beta development cars and if you search for "Rich Rebuilds" on Youtube you may be a bit astonished at the data these cars are gathering without the owners knowledge or consent.

We are all aware of the way Google uses it's search engine (and other services & apps) to harvest data on users enabling Google's parent company Alphabet Corporation to develop Artificial Intelligence such as Google Deepmind. Electric cars are just tools for doing the same, harvesting data to ultimately develop driverless cars. They are just another SMART device.
Battery powered cars have been around since before Karl Benz's first car. At one point they were almost as popular as petrol but died off due to being unable to compete on range.
You're a bit out of date on the battery tech. Tesla have developed a 1 million mile battery pack. Li-ION is set to be replaced by other technologies in the very near future which not only promise increased range but also much more rapid (near instant) charging. Super capacitor and battery technologies are converging and will greatly enhance the range and diminish recharge times. It could be argued a fuel cell is just a different type of battery and fundamentally should be classified as electric vehicles.

Your ethical decision is moot as I'm sure no driver ever makes that conscious decision. They will invariably react to the first input and set in motion a train of events that cannot then be stopped. In most cases they fixate on what they are trying to avoid and drive straight into it as a result. It could even be argued that an autonomous vehicle would often not get into that position in the first place as it would have access to data that we humans would not by being aware of data from nearby vehicles. We already have autonomous systems that can take off, fly and land large commercial airliners and we think nothing of that. I am equally certain there have been more accidents where the cause of the accident has been pilot error as opposed to autonomous system failure. In fact the only autonomous system crashes I can think of right now were the MCAS ones.
Many military aircraft are unable to be flown without the assistance of avionics.

Autonomous systems always err on the side of safety unlike humans. Humans are unpredictable in their actions and don't always take the best option. If you look at modern automated warehouses and factories they often use autonomous forklifts etc and rarely have issues. Amazon is a prime example (pardon the pun). Our own MBs were built using automated systems that carried components around the factory without human intervention.

Data privacy is an issue everywhere and it's for that reason those good folks at the EU introduced GDPR regulations to try to restrict what information is taken, how it's used and how the individual can have it removed.

Autonomy in cars is coming whether we like it or not. Electric cars are likewise coming like it or not. Enjoy your diesel while you can.
 

Philedge

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Electric cars are likewise coming like it or not. Enjoy your diesel while you can.

EVs may well be on their way, but with an estimated 30% increase in grid capacity required to power them for mass use, I think they could just be driveway ornaments if sales pick up big time. Its taken over a century to get the petrol and diesel fuelling infrastructure in place so even if things are fast tracked new power stations, solar and wind farms dont happen overnight.

Might be prudent to brush up on your cycling proficiency and keep the bus timetable to hand!
 

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