Electric Cars - Saviours of our environment or just another fad?

Not much experience of actually running an electric car here - I have had a BMW i3 (range extender) for 22 months and 23,000 miles (of which only around 500 miles if that have been on petrol).  We also have a wind turbine (shared between three families) - it does some charging of the i3 but probably not a great deal, as it needs to be v windy for there to be enough to do so (we just get one third of output).  I'd need batteries to soak up all production and make sure I use it

Don's experience of an i3 being only able to do 30 miles?  Cobblers (to put it politely) - so far there have been two different battery capacity i3's sold - mine is the earlier lower capacity model and I have managed 98 miles without the range extender kicking in (it does so at around 6.5% battery left) and regularly manage a 77-mile round trip in the car all year round (though it gets a bit chilly in winter as I cannot do it with the heater on - but that's my choice as I hate using petrol - irrational, but it seems to spoil the point of the car).  The latest models have 50% more range, so I could probably do a 100 mile round trip in winter using the heating full blast. I am averaging around 4.0 miles per kWh (thats an across a full year average) so around 3.5-4p per mile electricity costs (except it's a company car and so I can put that through the company .

Don's experience of people unable to charge? Pathetic - a bit of training and anybody could do it - it's really not that hard.  Would you let someone fill your car up with petrol without any experience, instruction or training?

It is a pain doing longer journeys (though some owners have clocked up very high mileage rates) and sometimes the chargers don't work, or stop charging too soon.  I have done a 160-mile journey in one go (well broken into two bits with a charge in the middle) and it worked Ok but not something I want to do too often.  Around 99% of my charging is at home, overnight - I have only ever filled up the petrol tank in the i3 around 3 or 4 times. Max cost £9-£10. 

With respect to Tesla, I had a test drive of a model S about 3 years ago.  Decided not to get one as the salesman was unaware of the price changes that had been applied the day before the test drive.  And the prices changed again on the next working day.  My conclusion was I didn't really want to buy from a company that couldn't decide how much to charge for its product.

In the leccy car community, the view is that Tesla is nowhere near cutting edge (as far as the powertrain is concerned) - it seems to be the case that the owner has to manage the battery (ie, charge rapidly and run too low too often [necessary for max range] and that is detrimental to it) whereas BMW have put in place lots of technology to stop you wrecking the battery.  It's a but irritating at times as the usable capacity is quite a bit less than total capacity on the i3 (ie you cannot access something like 20% [don't quote me - that's from memory] with a band at the top ad a band at the bottom being rendered unusable so that you cannot speed up degradation on an i3 like you can on a Tesla).  There are Nissan Leafs used as taxis that have clocked up six-figure mileages (with multiple charges per day) and show no degradation on the batteries

It never ceases to amuse me the number of people who claim that everyone getting leccy cars will mean a huge hike in the number of power stations needed to charge them, but they think that hydrogen fuel cells are the answer - vast amounts of energy are needed to generate the hydrogen (or separate it from what it's part of, if you like) which hugely increases the total energy take - incredibly inefficient

Some other random points - comparing the energy take of a leccy car with internal combustion is quite tricky, as you need to factor in:

1. for the leccy car the fuels used in generation of it (including the extraction of the source fuel from a mine or well and transport  of it to the power station etc and the power used in refining / processing etc), the loss over the route from the power source to  the charging point and charging losses

2. for the petrol car you also need to factor in fuels used in creating the petrol (including the extraction of the source fuel from a mine or well and transport  of it to the power station etc and the power used in refining / processing etc), the fuel used in transporting it from the refinery to the petrol station

It strikes me that most people who are against leccy cars just don't like change, and only ever think of the most extreme examples of why they are rubbish.  Looking at the extreme examples is just stupid - it only ever shows that they aren't perfect for all circumstances. Thats called statin' the bleedin' obvious and doesn't prove anything much

The i3 is not perfect (bouncy ride and only four seats and restricted range being the main complaints) but it is super smooth to drive (on a smooth road!), very nippy and has saved me many many trips to petrol stations while I have had it. We have two other cars but if we got our act together could have managed with two (my wife and I will be managing with two when my eldest learns to drive next year as we'll be getting a small manual car for her to learn on) but on man maths grounds I worked out that the i3 would be roughly cash neutral compared to piling miles on a 2010 LR Discovery 4 (and that has proved to be more or less the case), helped by a reasonable tax position - which is eroding over the next 18 months but then coming back in force from April 2020 with 2% x list price for company car bik tax.

I won't get another i3 - too small for us (we often give lifts to wider family who live close by) though it's been ideal for the school bus runs (now around 25 miles per day before taking the children to various evening and weekend activities).  Not sure what I will get (i3 goes back December 2018) - Jaguar i-Pace is a possible replacement but probably quite pricy (£60k or virtually Tesla model S territory) and minimum wheel size of 22 inch (cos some stupid designer thinks they look cool) is a bit incompatible with living in the country and having to go into ditches to prevent idiots coming the other way from bashing their wing mirrors on mine... but we don't need to have two cars that can do long journeys with all four of us in and I would very like another leccy car.  If not December 2018, then April 2020 I will have another - and in the longer run possibly two or three as range and the technology generally improves

living in lancs yearning for yorks posted:

Not much experience of actually running an electric car here - I have had a BMW i3 (range extender) for 22 months and 23,000 miles (of which only around 500 miles if that have been on petrol).  

I used to think electric cars with range extenders were "cheating". But as you demonstrate, even with a smallish battery range, they can run almost exclusively on electric power, yet perhaps still be appealing to a larger market.

I have no time for the true cheats, the plug-in hybrids with tiny NimH batteries, which are mostly just a method used by manufacturers to  circumvent the need to show true fuel consumption figures.

Such an interesting and topical subject.

First the easy bit.  Are electric cars the silver bullet that will solve the environmental issues associate with transport emissions? Unfortunately not.  The challenge is too great and too complex for a single technology silver bullet.  It may be disappointing, especially for sound bite politicians, but there you go, reality bites.

Are they a valuable part of the answer?  Fortunately, yes.  They are wonderful for some vehicles, some of the time, providing part of the environmental solution.

They are great for reducing traditional tailpipe emissions (nitrous oxides, sulphur oxides, hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and particulates) in smaller vehicles (i.e. cars) that spend most of their time in urban environments such as the mega cities that are growing incredibly fast in east and south east Asia.  They are also great in mature cities, so long as you can get the charging infrastructure in to support them.  Paris is a nightmare for electric cars due to the challenge of charge point access, whereas Gothenburg or Stockholm are much better suited.

They are also great for moving CO2 emissions out of the city and to the location of the power station (if it burns fuel to generate electricity).

So in general, electric cars make a lot of sense for urban air quality.

There are downsides though.  First, a huge amount of energy is expended and pollution produced in the mining and manufacture of the lithium ion batteries, the electrical machines and the power electronics in your typical electric car.  It is estimated that 50% of the total lifetime CO2 emissions of an electric car running in western Europe will be generated in its manufacture.  The other half is generated in the fuel burning power stations that make the electricity that charges the car during its operating life.  In France and Scotland, it is more extreme than this because electricity in these 2 countries has a low carbon intensity, i.e. most of it comes from nuclear or renewables (which is a good thing!).  If your priority is urban ground level pollution, then this doesn't matter to you:- stand up most regulatory bodies in the USA + many of the world's city mayors.  However, if your priority is global greenhouse gas emissions taking into account the whole of a car's lifecycle, then electric cars don't look so great.  Ironically, Diesel cars running on sustainable bio-mass to liquid Diesel fuels are far, far cleaner.  Suddenly the Devil's fuel (Diesel) becomes almost saintly!  It's all a matter of your environmental priorities.  Given the scale of the challenge we face, there ought to be room for both.

Second, batteries have a low energy density, i.e. you need a big, heavy one to store a lot of energy, so they aren't great for heavy vehicles that travel long distances.  An example: a typical class 8 truck in North America or 40 tonne truck in Europe has a 500hp Diesel engine and a 1000 mile range from its Diesel fuel tanks.  It will have a payload of 25+ tonnes.  With today's technology, it is possible to replace the Diesel engine, transmission and fuel tanks with an electric drive and a big battery to give equivalent performance and range.  However, the battery pack alone will weigh about 23 tonnes.  Add in the weight of the truck chassis & trailer and you are left with a payload of about 5 tonnes, so you need 5 times as many long haul electric trucks to do the same job as one Diesel truck. Congestion becomes something of an issue at this point.  So does the cost of a 23 tonne battery, as it makes each truck at least 10 times the cost of a Diesel one.  The example of a long haul airliner is even more extreme than this.  They just need a very high energy density fuel.

On the other hand, electric buses make a lot of sense.  Compared with Diesel or natural gas buses, they remove urban ground level pollution (important in a city).  They only drive typically 150 miles/day on defined daily routes and return to the depot at the end of the day, so only need a relatively small and affordable battery and a concentrated, dedicated charging infrastructure.

Third, the economics of charging infrastructure make sense in cities where there are lots of people to use and pay for the the cost of the charging infrastructure.  It's a much harder sell in rural areas, where cars/light vehicles are also expected to tow trailers more of the time.  Towing absolutely kills range for an electric car.

There are many, many other perspectives, considerations and alternatives out there, but I hope this helps, given this deliberately narrow focus on electric vehicles.

Best regards, FT

living in lancs yearning for yorks posted:

Not much experience of actually running an electric car here - I have had a BMW i3 (range extender) for 22 months and 23,000 miles (of which only around 500 miles if that have been on petrol).  We also have a wind turbine (shared between three families) - it does some charging of the i3 but probably not a great deal, as it needs to be v windy for there to be enough to do so (we just get one third of output).  I'd need batteries to soak up all production and make sure I use it

Don's experience of an i3 being only able to do 30 miles?  Cobblers (to put it politely) - so far there have been two different battery capacity i3's sold - mine is the earlier lower capacity model and I have managed 98 miles without the range extender kicking in (it does so at around 6.5% battery left) and regularly manage a 77-mile round trip in the car all year round (though it gets a bit chilly in winter as I cannot do it with the heater on - but that's my choice as I hate using petrol - irrational, but it seems to spoil the point of the car).  The latest models have 50% more range, so I could probably do a 100 mile round trip in winter using the heating full blast. I am averaging around 4.0 miles per kWh (thats an across a full year average) so around 3.5-4p per mile electricity costs (except it's a company car and so I can put that through the company .I should have been clearer - 30 miles each way - 60 mile round trip. The vehicle isn't on permanent re-charge, so at any point during the day it is unlikely to be fully charged. Hence the practical limitations. OK, the 2 gal fuel extender helps, but in general, people need to prepare carefully for anything more than 30 miles away. No body will use it for a "long" journey, eg 50 miles away, it's too much hassle !

Don's experience of people unable to charge? Pathetic - a bit of training and anybody could do it - it's really not that hard.  Would you let someone fill your car up with petrol without any experience, instruction or training? Well, despite their training, I'll let them know they are pathetic. Three sets of cables plus the fuel tank means they rely on others to keep it "fuelled". I guess it's much the same as topping up the oil in a normal car. Mrs D can do it, but she has to think carefully. Which oil ? (we have both diesel and petrol). Some have a dip-stick, some don't, etc etc). Anyway, i'm describing factual experience of ladies that I know.

It is a pain doing longer journeys (though some owners have clocked up very high mileage rates) and sometimes the chargers don't work, or stop charging too soon.  I have done a 160-mile journey in one go (well broken into two bits with a charge in the middle) and it worked Ok but not something I want to do too often.  Around 99% of my charging is at home, overnight - I have only ever filled up the petrol tank in the i3 around 3 or 4 times. Max cost £9-£10. 

With respect to Tesla, I had a test drive of a model S about 3 years ago.  Decided not to get one as the salesman was unaware of the price changes that had been applied the day before the test drive.  And the prices changed again on the next working day.  My conclusion was I didn't really want to buy from a company that couldn't decide how much to charge for its product.

In the leccy car community, the view is that Tesla is nowhere near cutting edge (as far as the powertrain is concerned) - it seems to be the case that the owner has to manage the battery (ie, charge rapidly and run too low too often [necessary for max range] and that is detrimental to it) whereas BMW have put in place lots of technology to stop you wrecking the battery.  It's a but irritating at times as the usable capacity is quite a bit less than total capacity on the i3 (ie you cannot access something like 20% [don't quote me - that's from memory] with a band at the top ad a band at the bottom being rendered unusable so that you cannot speed up degradation on an i3 like you can on a Tesla).  There are Nissan Leafs used as taxis that have clocked up six-figure mileages (with multiple charges per day) and show no degradation on the batteries

It never ceases to amuse me the number of people who claim that everyone getting leccy cars will mean a huge hike in the number of power stations needed to charge them, but they think that hydrogen fuel cells are the answer - vast amounts of energy are needed to generate the hydrogen (or separate it from what it's part of, if you like) which hugely increases the total energy take - incredibly inefficient

Some other random points - comparing the energy take of a leccy car with internal combustion is quite tricky, as you need to factor in:

1. for the leccy car the fuels used in generation of it (including the extraction of the source fuel from a mine or well and transport  of it to the power station etc and the power used in refining / processing etc), the loss over the route from the power source to  the charging point and charging losses

2. for the petrol car you also need to factor in fuels used in creating the petrol (including the extraction of the source fuel from a mine or well and transport  of it to the power station etc and the power used in refining / processing etc), the fuel used in transporting it from the refinery to the petrol station

It strikes me that most people who are against leccy cars just don't like change, and only ever think of the most extreme examples of why they are rubbish.  Looking at the extreme examples is just stupid - it only ever shows that they aren't perfect for all circumstances. Thats called statin' the bleedin' obvious and doesn't prove anything much

The i3 is not perfect (bouncy ride and only four seats and restricted range being the main complaints) but it is super smooth to drive (on a smooth road!), very nippy and has saved me many many trips to petrol stations while I have had it. We have two other cars but if we got our act together could have managed with two (my wife and I will be managing with two when my eldest learns to drive next year as we'll be getting a small manual car for her to learn on) but on man maths grounds I worked out that the i3 would be roughly cash neutral compared to piling miles on a 2010 LR Discovery 4 (and that has proved to be more or less the case), helped by a reasonable tax position - which is eroding over the next 18 months but then coming back in force from April 2020 with 2% x list price for company car bik tax.

I won't get another i3 - too small for us (we often give lifts to wider family who live close by) though it's been ideal for the school bus runs (now around 25 miles per day before taking the children to various evening and weekend activities).  Not sure what I will get (i3 goes back December 2018) - Jaguar i-Pace is a possible replacement but probably quite pricy (£60k or virtually Tesla model S territory) and minimum wheel size of 22 inch (cos some stupid designer thinks they look cool) is a bit incompatible with living in the country and having to go into ditches to prevent idiots coming the other way from bashing their wing mirrors on mine... but we don't need to have two cars that can do long journeys with all four of us in and I would very like another leccy car.  If not December 2018, then April 2020 I will have another - and in the longer run possibly two or three as range and the technology generally improves

Expanding the subject slightly, Easyjet and I guess a few others, are looking carefully at the possibility of a 120 seat regional jet with a 350nm range with battery powered fan jets. Timeline c. 10 years.

Don Atkinson posted:

Expanding the subject slightly, Easyjet and I guess a few others, are looking carefully at the possibility of a 120 seat regional jet with a 350nm range with battery powered fan jets. Timeline c. 10 years.

Weight is very costly in aviation, as you know. Unless the energy density of batteries undergoes a step-change, making it lighter than liquid dinosaurs, I'd expect that aviation will be the last place that electric power will be applied. I'm happy to be proven wrong.

Don Atkinson posted:

Expanding the subject slightly, Easyjet and I guess a few others, are looking carefully at the possibility of a 120 seat regional jet with a 350nm range with battery powered fan jets. Timeline c. 10 years.

Indeed, Don. If I understand correctly, it relies on a breakthrough in battery technology.  Work has been going on for years to develop lithium air batteries. If successful, the hope is that these Li-air batteries will have ten times the energy density of current lithium ion battery technology.

 Li-air batteries are also widely seen as being the essential breakthrough technology that enables cheap, ubiquitous electric cars after circa 2030.

Let's see...

Best regards, FT

Foot tapper posted:

Don Atkinson posted:

Expanding the subject slightly, Easyjet and I guess a few others, are looking carefully at the possibility of a 120 seat regional jet with a 350nm range with battery powered fan jets. Timeline c. 10 years.

Indeed, Don. If I understand correctly, it relies on a breakthrough in battery technology.  Work has been going on for years to develop lithium air batteries. If successful, the hope is that these Li-air batteries will have ten times the energy density of current lithium ion battery technology.

 Li-air batteries are also widely seen as being the essential breakthrough technology that enables cheap, ubiquitous electric cars after circa 2030.

Let's see...

Best regards, FT

It would be a game changer. I don't see it as being 100% necessary for electric cars to dominate, though. Even with current technology, electric cars are already better in just about every conceivable way for the majority of driving. The costs of batteries continues to fall rapidly with manufacturing efficiency increasing (economies of scale, for one thing) and incremental technological advances.

Not sure where or when I first became aware of Easyjet's love affair with battery powered aeroplanes but here is an abstract from The Guardian a few days back

EasyJet could be flying planes powered by batteries rather than petroleum to destinations including Paris and Amsterdam within a decade.

The UK carrier has formed a partnership with US firm Wright Electric, which is developing a battery-propelled aircraft for flights under two hours.

EasyJet said the move would enable battery-powered aircraft to travel short-haul routes such as London to Paris and Amsterdam, and Edinburgh to Bristol. Wright Electric is aiming for an aircraft range of 335 miles, which would cover the journeys of about a fifth of passengers flown by easyJet.

https://www.tesla.com/roadster/

Get your $50K deposit down now!

0-60 mph in 1.9 seconds

0-100 mph in 4.2 seconds

1000km range

2+2 seating.

BBC and others are reporting today that Tesla have a concept electric HGV/truck capable of 500 mile range. Now that would make a difference is it ever makes it to market.

winkyincanada posted:

 

https://www.tesla.com/roadster/

Get your $50K deposit down now!

0-60 mph in 1.9 seconds

0-100 mph in 4.2 seconds

1000km range

2+2 seating.

 

God help any cyclist(s) who gets in the way...............

Don Atkinson posted:

winkyincanada posted:

 

https://www.tesla.com/roadster/

Get your $50K deposit down now!

0-60 mph in 1.9 seconds

0-100 mph in 4.2 seconds

1000km range

2+2 seating.

 

God help any cyclist(s) who gets in the way...............

Yeah, you won't hear it coming!

Seriously though, I get passed by Teslas all the time. They really aren't that quiet from  cyclist's perspective compared to ICE vehicles. The tyre noise makes up much of what you can hear.

winkyincanada posted:

Yeah, you won't hear it coming!

Seriously though, I get passed by Teslas all the time. They really aren't that quiet from  cyclist's perspective compared to ICE vehicles. The tyre noise makes up much of what you can hear.

Particularly if the ICE referred to is an In-Car Entertainment system: Well at least if it's used in the way some yoofs do - windows down and playing full blast!

winkyincanada posted:

 <snip>

0-60 mph in 1.9 seconds

0-100 mph in 4.2 seconds

1000km range

2+2 seating.

 

0-60 in 1.9s is about 1.5G - you won't achieve that with normal road tyres on normal road surfaces!

Many of the cyclists I have seen recently are wearing ear-phones and presumably listening to their OCE (On Cycle Entertainment) system. So no chance to hear an electric car.

And as for one accelerating at 0-60 in <2 secs to overtake the cyclist before swerving in to avoid the BMW 3i doing the same in the opposite direction...............

Still, if 0-60 in 1.9 secs floats your boat............

Huge posted:

winkyincanada posted:

 <snip>

0-60 mph in 1.9 seconds

0-100 mph in 4.2 seconds

1000km range

2+2 seating.

 

0-60 in 1.9s is about 1.5G - you won't achieve that with normal road tyres on normal road surfaces!

seems to work OK on our perimeter track.................we have both a Tesla S and a BMW

Don Atkinson posted:

<snip>

Still, if 0-60 in 1.9 secs floats your boat............

Never mind float your boat, it'll take off!  (Grand Prix hydroplane racing anyone?)

Last week a small team was trying out what looked like a Formula 1 with an electric motor.

Bloody fast, but sounded like a Scalextric !

Huge posted:

winkyincanada posted:

 <snip>

0-60 mph in 1.9 seconds

0-100 mph in 4.2 seconds

1000km range

2+2 seating.

 

0-60 in 1.9s is about 1.5G - you won't achieve that with normal road tyres on normal road surfaces!

Yeah, we must be nearing the traction limit, eh? This thing must have sticky "sports" tyres, rather than hard, range-extending tyres. It is 4WD, though. I read somewhere that the 2.3 second to 60 mph time of a P100D in "ludicrous" mode time is pretty much at the limit of tyre traction the whole way, with traction control constantly in play. The braking time from 60 to zero is more-or-less the same as the acceleration time.

Don Atkinson posted:

Last week a small team was trying out what looked like a Formula 1 with an electric motor.

Bloody fast, but sounded like a Scalextric !

That's likely Formula E. It's been around for a few years. It's getting increased interest from manufacturers.

Don Atkinson posted:

Many of the cyclists I have seen recently are wearing ear-phones and presumably listening to their OCE (On Cycle Entertainment) system.

Some car drivers too, Don. You don't have the moral high ground all to yourself   ;-)

C.

Don Atkinson posted:

Huge posted:

0-60 in 1.9s is about 1.5G - you won't achieve that with normal road tyres on normal road surfaces!

seems to work OK on our perimeter track.................we have both a Tesla S and a BMW

 

I used to have a Honda that would do 0-60 in about 3.2; with soft tyres (about 5k miles life with moderate use), it would still break traction on stone-mastic surfaces at 60mph.

winkyincanada posted:

Huge posted:

winkyincanada posted:

 <snip>

0-60 mph in 1.9 seconds

0-100 mph in 4.2 seconds

1000km range

2+2 seating.

 

0-60 in 1.9s is about 1.5G - you won't achieve that with normal road tyres on normal road surfaces!

Yeah, we must be nearing the traction limit, eh? This thing must have sticky "sports" tyres, rather than hard, range-extending tyres. It is 4WD, though. I read somewhere that the 2.3 second to 60 mph time of a P100D in "ludicrous" mode time is pretty much at the limit of tyre traction the whole way, with traction control constantly in play. The braking time from 60 to zero is more-or-less the same as the acceleration time.

Take your foot off the accelerator and the energy-recovery system feels as if you've applied the normal brakes on a normal car. But having a conventional braking system is still useful......

.....it could help you stop at the pedestrian crossing for the odd cyclist carrying his helmet and shoes

Christopher_M posted:

Don Atkinson posted:

Many of the cyclists I have seen recently are wearing ear-phones and presumably listening to their OCE (On Cycle Entertainment) system.

Some car drivers too, Don. You don't have the moral high ground all to yourself   ;-)

C.

Oh Chris !     if you eliminate ALL other car drivers, I probably do