How long until manufacturers go completely electric?

I was reading a statement put out by one of the far east car manufacturers (might have been Hyundai), apparently hydrogen cars have even more moving parts than a petrol car, something like 160 for hydrogen, 130 for petrol and 16 for electric. Can you imagine the maintenance costs for something like that and given how dangerous hydrogen is the only place you'd be able to take it is the dealership.
 
You also still need a big battery for hydrogen anyway and you still have the major downside of an EV (expensive) and you also have two of the big downsides of being an ICE (fuel is expensive and the complicated power train). There is a reason as to why there is only a few hydrogen cars on the road even though the two Japanese giants have been developing them for a decade.

The fuel is currently arguably worse of the environment than fossil fuels at the moment (the losses are huge) but that would clean up over time as the grid does.

There could be a business case for aviation or maritime applications but its my view for automotive it makes little sense with rate BEV's are developing. Hydrogen needs technological and price breakthroughs to become viable. The infrastructure needed is exponentially more expensive than BEV as well. Where as BEV just needs a price breakthrough, the technology is there or there about already, the infrastructure just needs putting in and has the bonus that it is relatively cheap.

EDIT: Toyota have been working on fuel cell technology since 1992!
 
Bug One said:
As an electric car owner, I'd say Infrastructure. There's barely enough to cope with the tiny proportion of electric cars we have now. Imagine if they were all electric - and there was no alternative.

There would need to be (very) quick chargers in every fuel station. There should be low output chargers in almost every parking space.

I feel a whole generation has to die off first before it really happens - so 2040 might be too soon.
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I find the current infrastructure weird. Most major towns now have rapid charging, but there's odd ones that have nothing. I was in Burton today. No rapid chargers, and just two 7kW chargers at one site. They were operated by PodPoint, which I don't normally use, which meant downloading an app, signing up, and topping up £5 to pay £0 for the charge. Alternatively, I could have driven the wrong way home, and had to sign up for Shell's expensive charging scheme, or InstaVolt's.

Rural areas remain a bit lacking too. Wales, for example. Want to drive along the North or South coast? Fine. Want to drive across, or down, the middle? 7kW chargers only.

Around my way, it's fine for the number of drivers currently around.
 
Chuk_Chuk said:
Not sure if this should go in another thread. But IMO i think hydrogen makes the most sense to replace ICE. It lacks both the weight penalty and charging penalty of EVs. The lack of weight penalty is a huge plus for trucks and planes (assuming planes move to electric engines.)
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If we’re completely serious about removing hydrocarbons from transport then (without any currently unknown technological breakthroughs) Hydrogen will be the fuel to take up the slack between ICE and EV.

In that world most cars would be EV, but there would be hydrogen options - more prevalent in areas without a stable electrical grid and infrastructure (such as places they still sell (new) old landcriusers) and in vehicles designed for longer range and/or utility.

EV is probably the best bet for your standard hatchback or saloon though.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
You also still need a big battery for hydrogen anyway and you still have the major downside of an EV (expensive) and you also have two of the big downsides of being an ICE (fuel is expensive and the complicated power train). There is a reason as to why there is only a few hydrogen cars on the road even though the two Japanese giants have been developing them for a decade.

The fuel is currently arguably worse of the environment than fossil fuels at the moment (the losses are huge) but that would clean up over time as the grid does.

There could be a business case for aviation or maritime applications but its my view for automotive it makes little sense with rate BEV's are developing. Hydrogen needs technological and price breakthroughs to become viable. The infrastructure needed is exponentially more expensive than BEV as well. Where as BEV just needs a price breakthrough, the technology is there or there about already, the infrastructure just needs putting in and has the bonus that it is relatively cheap.

EDIT: Toyota have been working on fuel cell technology since 1992!
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With maritime... I always thought it was stupid to get rid of sails completely as it's clean, free energy. But they are actually looking at bringing wind powered ships back in some way afaik. Large ships are the worst polluters on the planet.
 
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What's the long term future of companies like A&A / Greenflag etc with electric cars

Far less 'mechanical failures' no more mis-fueling issues etc.

I know brakes can still go wrong, people will still have flat tyres and blow-outs, people who run out of juice will still need to be towed etc but they aren't going to be as busy as they are at the moment.
 
A lot of the problems won't be fixable at the roadside, they will have to be hauled away on a flatbed. If out of warranty and it's a problem with the drive system, good luck finding someone to fix it :p
 
EVs don't break often, but when they do (based on current cars):
  • You almost always have to call a flatbed.
  • Pretty much the only people who will work on them are main dealers.
  • Out of warranty repairs are often stupidly expensive.
I'm sure the second point will change over time, and will likely help the third. But repair costs are likely to remain higher, as the bits that go wrong are generally more complex/expensive.
 
VincentHanna said:
What's the long term future of companies like A&A / Greenflag etc with electric cars

Far less 'mechanical failures' no more mis-fueling issues etc.

I know brakes can still go wrong, people will still have flat tyres and blow-outs, people who run out of juice will still need to be towed etc but they aren't going to be as busy as they are at the moment.
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I wonder if they'll explore 'emergency recharge' to say give you 30 miles to reach services or somewhere. Maybe 7kw diesel generators in a van or similar.
 
Electric cars have been on the roads for quite a while. The recovery services are well clued up on dealing with them.

PiKe said:
Why does towing EV's cause issues?
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If a Leaf goes completely flat the parking brake goes on. Unless you're smart and just before you're down to nothing you put it into neutral.

With the parking brake locked on, you're not getting towed anywhere.

Edit / Or so I've been told. Never personally run out of power.
 
Bug One said:
Electric cars have been on the roads for quite a while. The recovery services are well clued up on dealing with them.


If a Leaf goes completely flat the parking brake goes on. Unless you're smart and just before you're down to nothing you put it into neutral.

With the parking brake locked on, you're not getting towed anywhere.

Edit / Or so I've been told. Never personally run out of power.
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Not sure that is entirely accurate. All EV's on the road currently still have a small 12V battery that runs all of the cars electronic systems as it would in an ICE. The HV battery is only for drive and charging the small 12v battery. You would need both a dead HV battery and 12V battery before that's a problem and they can be 'jump started' using a regular portable jump start kit that all recovery services have on them to get the parking break off.

If you have a 12V system failure then you need a flat bed, a jack and 2 skates for the rear wheels. Its the same procedure as an ICE with an electronic parking break and a 12V failure.
 
satchef1 said:
EVs don't break often, but when they do (based on current cars):
  • You almost always have to call a flatbed.
  • Pretty much the only people who will work on them are main dealers.
  • Out of warranty repairs are often stupidly expensive.
I'm sure the second point will change over time, and will likely help the third. But repair costs are likely to remain higher, as the bits that go wrong are generally more complex/expensive.
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There isn't a lot of them around to actually break down and the oldest ones still in regular use aren't that old, so it's hard to get the full picture. But yea, a big problem is indi garages generally won't touch them since they have no one trained. It's a completely different skill set once you go beyond the basics. So you need to pay main dealer big bucks.

There are people who have bought damaged Teslas and tried to repair them. The costs are astronomical.
 
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Well if you have a high voltage failure which means the contractors in the battery aren’t closed, or the inverter can’t switch the 3phase motor into DC then it’s a problem! There’s no where for the energy to go.
 
Nasher said:
There isn't a lot of them around to actually break down and the oldest ones still in regular use aren't that old, so it's hard to get the full picture. But yea, a big problem is indi garages generally won't touch them since they have no one trained. It's a completely different skill set once you go beyond the basics. So you need to pay main dealer big bucks.

There are people who have bought damaged Teslas and tried to repair them. The costs are astronomical.
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A large portion of Zoes from 2015 broke. Issues with the DC-DC Converter. At the time, the entire PEC (Power Electronic Controller) unit had to be replaced (it contained the Rectifier, DC-DC Converter, Inverter and Input Filter), a repair which cost around £5400 and took 4-6 weeks. That's the only common major fault I'm aware of. The cost is down to about £2500 with a turn around of about two weeks because dealerships are able to replace the individual components themselves. Not very common out of warranty (most of the affected Zoe's failed within two years). But not unheard of. The repair cost is similar on a Leaf.

When mine broke, it turned out the first dealership to work on it didn't have an EV tech (which is why they couldn't find anything wrong). The idea of an unqualified mechanic prodding around inside a 400V, 63A electrical circuit still makes me wince. Since realising their mistake, said dealership won't even let a regular mechanic change a tyre on an EV (again, speaking from personal experience).

Interestingly, a mate of mine is studying to be a mechanic at the moment. A significant proportion of his course has been electrical engineering, and understanding how to repair EVs, so at least colleges appear to be reacting the the possible future demands of the market.
 
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When you think that even some European countries are about ten-twenty years behind the uk it will still take some time. We are a blip in the ocean in most cases. What is an EV going to do in the outback, South Americas or Africa?
 
When you look at cars you need to look at markets rather than individual countries. In Europe there isn't any county that is '20 years behind the UK' (EU or not), I was in Turkey this year and the majority of cars were modern European vehicles (there was a few old Russian banger though but also a few EV's). European vehicles basically follow the same EU regs weather they are in the EU or not, its not worth making special variants for a few countries not in the EU (one of the reasons BREXIT will have a limited effect on regulation because we will not be able to move away fromit if we want to continue to trade with them but that's another thread). We know manufactures are already struggling to meet the latest EU standards on pure ICE vehicles anyway so going plug in is inevitable for all of Europe EU or not.

As for the outback, Australia is pretty forward thinking already when it comes to EV's and renewable energy. There is already places that you can plug-in that run from east-west and 3 phase AC everywhere where there are people or roads so putting in chargers will not be a problem. Hardly anyone actually drives through the outback or even lives out there, if you want to get from one side to the other you just fly. Most transport out there is farming, mining or freight related which isn't really the target for EV's yet.

I have no idea what South America or Africa's regulations are like so I couldn't really comment.

You can't drive from one side of Canada to the other in an EV yet but again who does that in a car...?
 
Europe is reasonably well covered. You could drive from the top of Scotland to Bucharest or Minsk with a 24kWh EV using rapid chargers alone. Even islands like the Canaries, the Balearics, Malta, Corsica & Sardinia have decent coverage.

It's only once you get in to the Balkans, or toward Ukraine, that the number of chargers really dries up. Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Ukraine, and Greece aren't very well provisioned at all. But that shouldn't really be a huge surprise; Greece, for example, saw just 10,000 new car sales last year. The vast majority of drivers are using decades-old vehicles, with little prospect of this changing until/unless the economy picks up.
 
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