Will the problems never end, vol.2

[Chris KC]

And of course how 'green' it is depends on how the electricity is generated. Norway = hydro electric = full marks. Eastern Europe = coal fired = <gulp>

[Reckless Rat]

From what I remember from my school days, if you need 200 amps to fully recharge your EV, then if your domestic system isn't three phase but normal 240v single phase then you are unlikely (without modification) to be able to charge at a rate greater than 30 amps (the rate usually set for cookers etc). It doesn't mean that if you need 200 amps you'll trip the breaker, all it will mean in reality is that it will take considerably longer to get 200amps worth of juice into your car, probably all night.

I read that Volvo are "claiming" that soon they will have an EV with a range of over 650 miles. It will probably be heavier than a Chieftain tank in order to carry the batteries necessary. Not sure the technology will ever be available at a sensible cost to achieve that. Have you seen how much the "Polestar" is selling for (and it's a chinese made volvo) OMG!

I will stick to my 20 yrs old Diesel Uber barge that can do over 1200km on a tank. It will still be going when all the Zöes have been crushed and recycled.

[Tony Griffiths]

I did a couple of longish runs recently. Home to Bristol to home via Birmingham; 540 miles without stopping for fuel and still with 240 miles of range left. Then, home to Heathrow via Rubgy and home; 335 miles all both runs with just one stop for fuel and enough remaining for a further 690 miles or so. Our knock-about grot-box for local running needs just one ten-minute stop every six weeks to fill up. When electric cars can beat those figures I might buy one. But, there is a snag and some brutal facts to face, as this chap pointed out in the paper the other day. "There currently around 20,000 public charging points in Britain, with another 20,000 private ones - and the SMMT reckons we'll need around 2.3 million by 2030. Only 2.26 million to go - and I make that about 4,750 per week (allowing for holidays). Good luck with that, Greenies!
Now, what about these magic “ultra-rapid" chargers that "can charge cars in a matter of minutes". Sounds exciting, but, why are there are so few of them? Here's the reason: take the tiny, useless Renault Zoe - battery 52kWhr, 400-Volt lithium - and do some rough calculations on the current / voltage needed to put 80% of nominal charge into it in five minutes. Feel free to check my working: plugged into a 3-phase, 440-Volt supply that’s over 100 Amps - but how many homes have a 3-phase supply? virtually none. Use the domestic 220-Volt single-phase supply and it rises to over 220 Amps - but the typical house breaker trips at 65 Amps - so, that’s a non-starter. Something EV manufacturers hide about rapid-charge stations is that the battery gets very hot - and a quarter megawatt of heat is not easy to dissipate. The Nernst equation says that heat kills cycle life (above ~40C, about 2x per 10C).. You can rapid charge often for convenience, but doing so will kill the battery sooner rather than later. Perhaps an undisclosed EV financial warranty liability?
Of course, Motorway service stations and ordinary filling stations have a 3-phase supply, but what if they fit twenty ultra-rapid chargers? With all in use, that's about 2,000 Amps, with two lots of cabling to split the load into something manageable, with each of the three cores (plus earth) being 630 sq. mm. in cross-sectional area, and each core 38 mm in dia. So, maybe the services on the M25, and groups of local garages can club together and buy their own power station driven by a nuclear sub-type reactor from Rolls-Royce? Twenty chargers in one service area on a packed M25 - not really enough is it, so, let’s go to forty and install five stations so equipped. Operating simultaneously that’s 0.25MW x 200 = 50 Megawatts of power. That’s a lot of electricity – enough to power 25,000 homes - just for five charging stations operating at full capacity (on the M25 alone). The grid can barely service current requirements – so where will we find 10s of gigawatts of extra power to recharge a 100% EV fleet? Compare this to a petrol filling station, which is essentially just a big underground tank and a pump. The power is conveniently stored in liquid form, so it's much easier and cheaper to handle and deliver. Without some major breakthroughs, all-electric national vehicle fleets are just as much of a fantasy as the rest of the green package of climate “solutions”. "

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And of course how 'green' it is depends on how the electricity is generated. Norway = hydro electric = full marks. Eastern Europe = coal fired = <gulp>

Not to worry, in 2020 the Chinese built over 50 new coal-fired power stations and plan many more. India, Indonesia and many other countries - backed by Chinese money - also plan an expansion of cheap, coal-fired energy.

[Malcolm Parker]

It seems that the only adverts you see for cars nowadays are for electric ones and the hand-wringing 'green' public are likely to be conned into thinking that they are doing the planet a good turn.  At one time the pleasure of owning a car was the experience of actually driving it, nowadays it seems to be the smug satisfaction of doing your bit  for the environment.   Remember when Greta Thunberg crossed the Atlantic on a boat to attend a climate conference in the USA? The crew of ten (or whatever) then jetted back to Europe, happy in the knowledge that they were protecting the planet.
In my part of the world there is a single EV charging point in Thirsk Market Place, probably serving a 15 mile radius area.  I am quite tempted to borrow an EV for a 24 hour test drive, then phone the supplier and tell them it is in rural Boltby with a flat battery awaiting collection!
As for electric Austin 7's, I would like to see one demonstrated on Sneck Yat, the ferocious hill just outside the village. I don't know whether it would be more entertaining watching it attempt the climb or seeing it come down the hill, either way I suspect there would be a frightening amount of heat generated.

[daveg]

I am not a green fanatic and not even 100% convinced climate change is man made but I am surprised at all the negativity on here about electric cars. They have problems and are not the solution for everyone but not many people need to drive 600 miles in a day.

I admire people experimenting with putting an electric motor in an A7 - as far as I am aware they are not doing anything that cannot be reversed. The performance, cost and range at the moment may a problem to most of us but that will improve. I suspect that in 10 years time the cost of a useable electric conversion will be comparable with an A7 engine build.

[Reckless Rat]

Not everyone, Daveg, but I do. My sons family live in Stuttgart, which from here in the south of France is slightly over 560 miles each way. I can do that in my diesel E class on 3/4 tank. No-one has been able to explain to me satisfactorily how that is possible in an EV without at least one, and possibly two ( or more) stops for a full re-charge, and avoiding any problems with a suitable hook-up not being available.

A pal of mine had to deliver a BMW i3 from South Yorks to the Bristol area. It's an ev with a donkey engine to charge the battery. Running at motorway speeds he was on donkey power all the way and had to stop 4 times for fuel because the damn thing only held 9 litres of petrol. Useless and pointless. I am not in any way convinced that an ev us any use unless you live in Islington and then don't go outside London.

[Malcolm Parker]

In ten years time there may be a healthy market putting Austin 7 engines in Renault Zoes!

[daveg]

Reckless - I am not saying that that electric cars are for everyone at the moment, not least because of the price and limited range. Interestingly though Volvo has just predicted its e cars will have a range of 620 miles by 2030

I think of e cars like mobile phones - in the 1980's they cost thousands the battery lasted an hour and took 10 hours to charge, I thought they were toys for poseurs with too much money and never imagined owning one. Today you can get a basic phone for £10 with a battery life of a week most people now have one.

Technology can move very quickly when there is money to be made out of it and in the case of e cars many governments seem very keen on them and will probably encourage them by massively increasing the taxes on petrol and diesel in the name of the environment. The smart phones of today have 100,000 times the computing power of the Apollo 11 guidance computer which in its day was state of the art a lot the improvement driven only by consumer demand.

I think the people experimenting today with electric A7's should be encouraged - it may be the only option for using our cars in the future.

[John Mason]

It’s aright if you can afford both an EV for short journey’s around town and local travel and a standard petrol or diesel car for longer journey’s but most of us want something to do both and that means petrol/diesel. What really winds me up is the fanatical demonstrators in this country. If they are really serious about saving the world go to the countries who really pollute the planet the most i.e. USA, China and India. When they have sorted those then we can come into line with them.

John Mason. Feeling better now I have got that off my chest.

[Malcolm Parker]

I have nothing against EV's and I think an electric Austin 7 is an interesting experiment.  My concern is that there is simply not the infra-structure to support the rapidly increasing number of EV's.   Yes, it could be installed, but how long will it take?   Massive infra-structure schemes usually take a decade before anything actually happens, why should the provision of charging points countrywide be any different?  Take HS2 as an example.    Chances are that once the necessary charging points have been provided, they will already be inadequate for the demand.