Electric Cars coming in a year or two

alexthecheese said:
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...
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I wanna see the power cable to our work to charge 400 cars at once!
 
Skillmister said:
And where does the power come from chaps :p
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If you're trying to be funny and comment on how they aren't environmentally friendly because some of the power stations in the UK happen to be run with coal/gas. Then you fail. For a start all those power stations are more efficient than turning oil into petrol and burning that in your engine. Secondly the sources for power are likely to change, more nuclear, more renewables, it doesn't really matter all that much what the backend power production is.
 
Robbie G said:
Obviously nuclear, wind, solar, fossil fuels, etc...but the equivalent MPGz are much higher than with petrol and they could be run from sustainable power sources, unlike petrol cars.
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But considering we still get less than 10% of our electricity from renewable sources it's not going to be enough if any effective number of people start driving electric cars.

bam0 said:
If you're trying to be funny and comment on how they aren't environmentally friendly because some of the power stations in the UK happen to be run with coal/gas. Then you fail. For a start all those power stations are more efficient than turning oil into petrol and burning that in your engine. Secondly the sources for power are likely to change, more nuclear, more renewables, it doesn't really matter all that much what the backend power production is.
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Yes and like i said above, it's not enough and the infrastructure isn't there so it's pointless. If by "some" you mean 70% or so then sure you are right. Still isn't enough to be worthwhile imo.
 
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alexthecheese said:
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...
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I guess eventually they'll figure out an efficient way of using induction charging, then all you'd have to do is park on your driveway at night and it'd charge overnight automatically. There's a video about it on the BBC website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13896166.

Skillmister said:
But considering we still get less than 10% of our electricity from renewable sources it's not going to be enough if any effective number of people start driving electric cars.
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You're talking about the current situation, that situation is ever-changing in response to the market. It has to be.

Skillmister said:
Yes and like i said above, it's not enough and the infrastructure isn't there so it's pointless. If by "some" you mean 70% or so then sure you are right. Still isn't enough to be worthwhile imo.
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There weren't many petrol stations a hundred years ago either. The infrastructure will come.
 
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Strange that this thread should come up now as two nights ago I watched a documentary called 'Who killed the electric car?' which examined the attempt in America to introduce fully electric cars in the mid to late 90s - General Motors actually produced a viable model with stats very much similar to these new cars.
It was an interesting watch and raised some good questions about the government, car manufacturers, oil companies and consumers responses to this type of vehicle.
I wonder if this time they will actually catch on?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car?
 
Untill they can be driven constantly with the time taken to 'fill up' being minutes with a range of 300 miles, they will be pointless.

"Sorry mum, I cant come and visit you in hospital as its 90 miles away..."
 
alexthecheese said:
When they talk about the Ampera doing 175mpg, is that sustained? i.e I have a 10 gallon tank, will I be able to do 1750 miles on it without refilling? Sounds unlikely.
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Of course not, as batteries won't last that long. The equivalent electric capacity of a 10 gallon tank is like 50 gallons...not many cars have 230 litre fuel tanks.
 
Thing is, 1hr to charge to 80% is not going to replace 5 mins to fill my car up and get 400+ miles out of the tank.

I drive a lot, even when not driving for work, at the moment it's just not a tennable solution to my eyes.

If the UK generated the majority of it's electricity from nuclear or renewable energies then fine it would be less hypocritical, however the fact that the energy used to recharge is still using fossil fuels seems a little daft to me.

If they can ever invent an instantaneous charging battery, and use non fossil fuel power stations, and can get the range of 500 miles - THEN I'd be interested.
 
A car with a <100 mile range might be acceptable for people like my mother who drive only to work and/or the shops but the technology will need a LOT of work before it starts really getting mass market adoption.

I mean even if you move upward from cars - what about planes, buses, trucks, trains? These things are HUGE and you're going to need a massive electric motor and as a result, some pretty serious batteries to go with it. They'll also need a range somewhere in the region of ~500 miles as well. Plus be able to be recharged in a matter of minutes.
 
Todge said:
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.
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If you want a range of 5 miles charged in 30 seconds yes.

Ultra capacitors are simply load buffers, they do not have the energy capacity.
 
paradigm said:
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.
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Or battery swap garage. But I think that's a few car generations way, maybe a decade at a complete guess.
For families that have two cars, an electric car makes perfect sense. Most trios are short.
 
Tute said:
A car with a <100 mile range might be acceptable for people like my mother who drive only to work and/or the shops but the technology will need a LOT of work before it starts really getting mass market adoption.

I mean even if you move upward from cars - what about planes, buses, trucks, trains?
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TRAINS? Seriously WTF?
 
simulatorman said:
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.
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There's grants and tax incentives for companies to install charging stations in car parks. Although we are well behind other countries. uSA for example are funding over 11000 in 10 major cities and Nissan in Japan are installing chargers in their dealerships and will have one within 40mile drive all over the island.
Majority of houses have drive ways and I believe all new houses have to be built with parking bays.

It'll take a few years to get their, but this is the start of the electric revolution, no two ways about it.

Full swap in 40seconds, demonstaration was slowed down to allow you to see what happens.
it is estimated the average person would need just 10 swaps a year, with the rest being done with normal/fast charging. Batteries would be "rented" so you wouldn't get an expensive battery replacement cost every decade or what ever it is.
 
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Telsa Model S and the Fisker Karma are ones to watch aswell. Lovely looking cars.

I went in an 'EV' the other day with a sound generation system, the V8 burble was quite amusing and authentic for what is currently a research project due to approaching legislation.
 
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