Company Fleet - going electric

merlin

merlin

merlin

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
20,705
Location
England
Looking at the pre budget I notice the promise of zero company car tax for 5 years if you turn to an electric car.

We run a fleet of 8 cars & I'm interested in delving into the feasibility of electric, however, my knowledge is thin so I need to gather as much info as possible and thus have some questions: -

1) Where are the electric cars? Are they coming?
2) Where is the supply (re-charge or battery swap points) network?
3) Will HMRC class the electric as fuel? In other words do employees still have to pay their private "Fuel" and claim back business "Fuel"?
4) How much is say 100 miles of electric going to cost "at the pump"?

Cheers.
 
I'm sure there was an all electric Mini not so long ago that did something like 150 miles for £2 worth of electricity*

*I may be wrong
 
If your cars do anything more that pootle around town or 100 miles a day I'd forget the idea as currently battery technology and access to power makes it prohibitive. I can see it working for local business with small
commutes but not for reps on the road.
 
Also the time taken to recharge them is ridiculous.

I can't see why the interest in electric cars is here but none in the hyrdogen cars which are up and running in US of A.



M.
 
Because hydrogen cars are in-efficient and produce more co2 (thru hydrogen extraction and movement) than a good diesel.
 
Soon as the new nuclear builds are on-line in 10 years time that won't be the case (hopefully), can't wait for that because not only does it mean a shed load of work and job security from myself but also the end to battery powered cars?

Unless battery power gets some serious improvements over this period i can't see exclusively battery powered cars being anything other than a quick fix.

Non of this helps Merlin, sorry!
 
I'd forget about this for the next 5 odd years in this country.

The Chancellors spurting were just to keep the greens happy, as people have pointed there aren't any viable electric cars around apart from the much mentioned G-Whizz so he's expecting none or a very small number of takers, hence little impact on his purse strings.
 
Battery power will only really become viable if it is hot-swappable as a means of refuelling. This has been tried (again in the US) on a limited scale, and seems to work, but without 'instant' refuelling, the idea is dead in the water.
 
monkey_boy said:
Does that ineffieciency outweight whatever damage the batteries do to the environment?
Click to expand...
Yes. Batteries are recycled because the resources (lead, lithium, nickel etc) are scarce.

Hydrogen isn't going to be viable economically or environmentally until there is excess clean power to generate it.
 
I have never understood why no manufacture has combined a small efficient diesel engine, like VAGs 1.4 3-cyl tdi, and a hybrid system?

Only seems logical...
 
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