Electric Cars coming in a year or two

Johnnytoxic

Johnnytoxic

Johnnytoxic

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I think these are going to take off big time. I'd like one just for a daily drive.

Like this thing

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/autoexpressnews/270187/vw_eup_spy_shots.html

80miles on a tank and 1 hour to recharge 80% of the battery so they say.

My works only a few miles there and back. Would be ideal for those who work locally.

What do the oil companies think of these? I thought they would do everything in their power to stop development of them.

I think once these proper electric cars take off ( not the Prius **** or that car with one seat that costs £20,000 ) theres going be no stopping them.

It's the future.
 
I think until the range is 350+ miles on a decent sized car whilst being competitively priced with their internal combustion counterparts, EVs can be safely ignored.

80 miles (lol at 80 miles to a "tank")? No thanks.
 
That's sort of what the market needs. Not some pretentious hippy mobile that looks like a cross between star-trek and a 1920's kitchen.

People just want a 'normal' looking car, with an ok range (80 would be fine for town driving, I'd be looking for at least 150 out in the sticks) and a fairly quick charge time.
 
This is all well and good but the without a charging infrastructure these will still be niche products. Without off street parking are people going to run a cable across a pavement to charge a car? Car parks, parking bays will need charging points, they’re going to have to be everywhere. I’d take an 80 mile range one for town driving but not until I know I have lots of places where it can be charged.
 
Dogbreath said:
Where do you think electricity comes from? 45% of the electricity generated within the UK is from gas...
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the point is its more efficient (i think) in both terms of running a car on electric and also generating the power in a very large facility....

so if you took all the petrol used and burnt it in a central location (converting it to electric), you would be able to travel more miles than if all the cars burnt the petrol...
 
I've driven a new Ford Transit that was completely electric. It's very odd with no engine noise other than a slight whirr/whine from the motor when you get to around 60/70mph. It wasn't quick but didn't hang about, perfect for a company to do shuttle runs to and from a station to pick up staff/clients.
 
There is the launch of an EV charging point network at the engineering centre where I work today. We had our first half a dozen EV charging points put in last week.

The Chevy Volt and Vauxhall Ampera are already cars that I would happily own and I'm sure I would soon add the Plug in Prius to that list although the EV range of the other two would cover a much larger percentage of my driving.
 
Im more than happy to go electric when they sort the range issue out.

I live 40 miles from my place of work so an 80 mile range just isnt going to cut it.

Also for example i'll be going to work this Friday then driving to Manchester after work to go to a friends wedding. That comes to 180 miles in 1 day then another 100 mile return journey on Saturday so 280 miles without the time/anywhere for a charge. Then when i get back Saturday lunch time i might want to go out somewhere for the afternoon. Suddenly i need a 350 mile range still with a pretty short recharge rate before i could even think about it being a real solution as my main vehicle.

I'm not willing to change my life style to work around my car, my car is MY tool and should do what i need of it.
 
There is a place for electric, but its not so much home use, unless you only need a runabout. These are ideal (and also starting to be widely used) for company runabouts, house calls, healthcare and councils.

If the range was around 150 miles, I would get one myself. However, I live in a flat and have street parking. No good whatsoever without somewhere to charge it! As is said, we want a normal looking car dammit!
 
sovietspybob said:
I live 40 miles from my place of work so an 80 mile range just isnt going to cut it.
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Sounds like it will be perfect when your company puts in charging points ;)

I take your point though however taking my own scenario. We have two cars which we tend to use in a mixed way (i.e. if we are making a trip at the weekend we take whichever one is at the bottom of the drive!) however my gf's daily commute is 12 miles into the city and back, my car is used for work so it varies from 6 miles to 200 miles on a daily basis.

A full EV for my GF and plug in hybrid for me would be the ideal combination. We would just need to ensure that we took the right car out with us on the weekends.
 
The limiting factor is the infra structure

The ETI think 1% of cars will be EV by 2050.

The future is going the be plugin hybrid in their mind and I would agree with this thinking at the moment.
 
Is it increasingly unlikely that hydrogen fuel cell is off the cards now then?

It was the only solution that was "similar" in approach to the current infrastructure of fuel pumps and liquid/gas fuel, but I know there were issues in extracting and storing liquid hydrogen.
 
lordrobs said:
Sounds like it will be perfect when your company puts in charging points ;)
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I wonder if that's the future? Your company provides the juice, which they will inevitably add a mark-up to, and sell to you as an employee.

Trouble with EV vehicles is that I'd be one of those people that forgets to put it on charge when I get home at night...
 
Electric cars will be much more viable once they ditch batteries and use Ultra Capacitors that'll charge instantly and so could be done on a wireless drive through basis instead of plug in and wait.

Saying that, unless we are going on holiday somewhere in the UK the furthest I drive is about 40 miles a day. The wife only uses her Fiesta for work so could easily get by on an EV and we have a drive so we could change them.

As soon as they are affordable and comparable on initial price with other technologies more will adopt.
 
i've just been looking up on that Vauxhall Ampera and the plug in hybrid does seem to offer a good way forward. Runs mostly on the batteries on my trip to work but can just keep filling it up with petrol for a longer journey once the batteries are flat.

But i personally won't be getting one till there sub £4-5K as i couldn't bring myself to spend anything more than that on something so dull when there are so many nice (uneconomical) cars out there and a cheap old shed of a diesel bought for £1-2k will save me so much more over the the medium term
 
I don't think i'd switch to a fully electric car without it being pretty much 100% necessary (little to no oil left). My reasons are:

- I like the sound of an engine*
- I'm yet to see a nice looking electric car, they seem to try to make them as ugly as possible, both inside and out.
- If everyone buys one, we'll just get massive fuel tax placed on electric instead. After all, do you really think the economy could stomach the loss of tax revenue on petrol/diesel?

They may be the future, but i'm not getting excited over it. It seems to me like it's the first step on turning the vehicle from something that can be enjoyed into something that's just a tool. :(

* For this reason, i'd be interested in any developments in hydrogen-based combustion engines.
 
40 or 80miles would be fine for me. The problem is not being able to charge it up at home. Untill you can charge it up at home its takes to much time.
 
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