I did read your reply chap but I'm highlighting this because it makes your reply pretty irrelevant. Not sniping, I do get it, but it just doesn't make sense. Couldn't you make almost the same argument about doing the NC500 on a moped? Yes you could do it but you'd stop for fuel all the time with a small tank and you'd go slowly.
So far to knock EV's down a notch we've compared them to a 911 doing the NC500 and a Mitsubishi super mini to point out they're dirty to make and heavy.
I will point out again, I'm not an advocate of EVs per say. Yes they're paying my mortgage at the moment and yes I'd have one if they weren't so expensive, but I also share the view that they're not 'there' yet.
But I do this because of price point and market segments and consumer attitude. They're too expensive, they don't do the vehicles that I'd want (no one I know of does an EV Estate), and customers aren't educated enough to make fair comparisons of them, as evidenced here to be honest guys. Don't take it as an offense to you, but the comparisons being made here aren't fair or reasonable and aren't in the strategy groups of the OEMS.
If electric cars weren't the way forward for the immediate and medium term, then every single OEM wouldn't be making them or trying to make them.
Most manufacturers are just bandwagonning, IMO. Look at Ford. Pretty much the biggest manufacturer there is. What are their best selling "electric" vehicles ? Mild hybrids. What is a mild hybrid ? Its a car with a small efficient petrol engine and a relatively small 48V battery to give the petrol engine a kick in the ass when it can be bothered.
So basically an ICE car with an electric badge. Save the planet, buy an petrol engined car. That is basically where the technology has got to.
Its a dead end because many, many extremely clever people have tried and it turns out its not possible to make cheap, reliable, light, powerful batteries that provide "real world use" power for 100 times as long as they take to recharge. In fact, they cant even be recharged in a 10th of the time they take to deplete.
Unless someone can think out of the box and take it in a radically new direction, battery power isn't the solution.
All just my opinion
Last edited by Jonny Wilkinson; 22-09-2020 at 09:00.
When you say "it's a dead end" I assume you're talking about electric cars is general. In which case that's fine, it's your thoughts, but it's not an opinion to say they're not a dead end at all. Electric vehicles will form the backbone of new car sales and government low emissions planning for a considerable amount of time, they have enormous investment in them, their supply chain, their manufacturing sites and their end of life planning that to say it's bandwagonning is borderline absurd mate. These decisions are made with forecasts into double digit years.
Battery technology needs to get better for sure, and it will. Again, I'm not dismissing Hydrogen as a future alternative, but knocking EVs on the head in the face of all this evidence is irrational in my mind.
Electric cars have nothing to do with the environment imo, they certainly aren’t good for it, anyone with half a brain cell will understand this if they see the big picture.
It’s all about economics, contracts to provide infrastructure and car makers tricking joe public into thinking they are eco warriors when they 100% are not.
Battery powered cars is a dead end I’m my opinion too.
In the interim we need bio fuels for our combustion engines and then switch to hydrogen when the infrastructure is in place.
On what basis do you believe the tech will get better ? The resources that have been put into trying to improve the tech for electric storage since the 1940s has been phenomenal and the return on that has been miniscule compared to things like computing power.
The boffins have been able to find some amazing ways of making electricity move about in controlled directions (and work out interesting shit whilst doing so) but they've really, really struggled to get it to stay still. Its a problem of physics that the boffins have been on the verge of solving for years without ever getting appreciably closer to solving it.
THAT is why I believe it is a dead end.
I also believe that a lot of people are suffering from "Emperor's new clothes".
If mild hybrids aren't "Bandwagonning" what do you call it when a manufacturer is selling a vehicle as an electric vehicle when its predominant means of propulsion is an ICE into a market where people want to buy electric to "save the planet" but also want the convenience of petrol ?
For the same reason in 1980 video games looked this this:
And now look like this:
Technology evolves and changes. I get what you're saying about research into electrical storage, I won't pretend to understand what you're saying entirely but I can't see how it's comparable given the huge injection of private and public money into battery research in the last 15 years.
As for your last point, I call it filling a market segment. An MHEV is a good proposition for the customer. It's filling a gap the customer wants. It's not the future of EV, stop obsessing over MHEVs.
Yeah, no offence taken fella. At all. I could make the argument on the moped, yes, but then I know people that have done the trip on MSX125 Monkey Bikes - which has a range of easily in excess of 150 miles and can be filled up on ANY forecourt in 2 minutes flat.
I used NC500 as an example as having seen Doc's trip it's inspired me to try to get it organised, so I was literally doing my planning there and then. So I thought, how realistic would it be? And the answer, not very. The Autocar 500 miles to Frankfurt write-up was not in any way a proponent to change my mind. It sounds pretty miserable an experience TBH.
I don't think I could stomach buying a £70k car like the iPace based on its current capabilities. I was making a direct comparison to what I have in the garage and, frankly, it doesn't come close.
I think the customer attitude piece is right but I'm also on the JW side of the fence when it comes to them being 'there'. The iPace is marketed like it's a 300 mile tank range beast of a thing that has no down sides. But in reality, it's a bit of an expensive novelty and again - if you want to do a serious trip in it - you wouldn't, and you'd just have to go hire something instead. Yup, we're not in the scope of the strategy groups - that's probably why they don't appeal.
Don't get me wrong, I looked at an electric VW Golf for the missus not so long ago as the lease deals were so good, it would have made perfect sense even financially. It was kiboshed by her work not having charge points, and the fact we'd have to have a charge point at home, which means it'd need to go in the garage, which means the 911 would go.....err.....nope not happening. But then I look at that now and think to myself right, what journeys have I done recently. I went down to Brixham which is a 4-5 hour drive and something like 240 miles. The Golf would have been an absolute mare for that and I'd not wanted to use the 911 because of where I was having to park for the whole weekend. Similarly I'd gone to Gosport which is 2 hours and 110 miles. I'd have been crapping it on range to do it in one. Both times I'd have had to go hire a car.
Get your point on the manufacturers having a decent pop at it, but I'll still buy petrol cars for as long as I possibly can for all the reasons listed, unless something miraculous happens.
And that’s why I said, it’s about aligning the customer to the reality of what’s possible to let them make a decision. They can’t compare to ICE. They will NEVER be able to do a direct comparison to ICE cars. And this is a stumbling block for EVs, making people realise that.
The expectation of what a ‘car’ is needs to be segregated into what a ‘car’ is and what an ‘electric car’ is.
https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2020/0...-car-batteries
paper quoted is here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/....1002/est2.141
Even if you were to use the fast charging stations on the routes after your re-education, you're likely to be damaging the battery. the rate they're talking about in the paper is mental for a single cell - in the lithium packs that I've made, I'd recharge at about a quarter of what they talk about as my 'quick charge'. you'd have to be very selective about your use of those stations if that's the industry standard method.
I don't think the idea of an EV is fundamentally problematic, it's the characteristics of current EVs that are the problem. it's just that if it has to be your single vehicle, you're limiting your possibilities an awful lot. some people aren't fortunate enough to be able to either afford both combustion and electric or rent something with longer range occasionally. I don't really want to be the guinea pig whilst it's all worked out. I think Tesla's million mile batteries are promising in terms of limiting degradation.
If you want to preserve battery life, the rental drop in / drop out model does work - it means any pack could be slowly recharged though that'd need standardisation and infrastructure, neither of which seems likely at the mo.
I'm thinking about a proper hybrid or EV as a second car, for the local run around stuff.
white '94 s13 200sx scrapped - mapped to 1.45bar. OS giken box, garrett GT2876R, 950cc injectors, ORC twin plate, nistune. 349bhp/325lbft @ 1.3bar CA18DET
white '96 s13 180sx - type g with more kouki bits - RB25DET, GTR steel twin turbo conversion, RB26 crank & rods. 2.6L VVT twin turbo, SR20 OSG box, OSG STR twin plate clutch, Z32 ECU w/ nistune.
current status: 180 a bit broken but to be repaired.
The question is, how environmentally friendly are they? We don't have the electricity generation to be able to supply if everyone suddenly switched to EV, how efficient is generating electricity, getting it to the car etc.
I was having this discussion and one chap said, my electricity provider only purchases units from renewable sources. I said you know how the national grid works, they aren't filtering out electricity from coal, gas or nuclear power stations.
Also is Lithium abundent enough to make enough batteries?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
Ash, have a read of this when it comes to capacity.
https://www.nation***rid.com/stories...ehicles-busted
Your friend is partially correct, his supplier probably only buys units from the grid that are attributed to renewables. Remember, we live in a world where now, in the summer, more electricity comes from renewable resources than non-renewables. Yes I said in the summer, no it's not all year round.
Are EV's specifically marketed as 'do not take out of the city' and 'fine for motorway use' tho?
The 208 EV is a good example, manufacturer claims 200 miles on a charge from it. My brother had one as a company car, he lives about 140 miles away - he wouldn't consider taking the car on that drive.
He was also a salesman at Peugeot.
If the sales people don't fancy that kinda distance it's tough to convince the public how much of a good idea that car is.
To give you a bit of background, I used to work in silicone valley, CA so I've seen the research into electricity management and graphics card technology/computing power is what I was talking about when I said about technology to control electricity flows. Its stopping electricity from flowing (temporarily) that is difficult i.e. storing potential energy.
Moore's law does not apply to battery technology.
It now sounds like you are saying that EVs are not a replacement for ICE cars but a new alternative for people who just want to potter about locally.
If that is what you are saying, we are in agreement.
Jonny Wilkinson
"Silicone" valley. I wouldn't mind a job in a valley surrounded by the Silicones
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
As a senior engineer for the country's biggest DNO I can say for certain that electric cars will destroy the national network for everyone, the infrastructure is so poor as it has been ransacked and asset stripped non stop from the day it was privatised there is no way it can support even half the households of the country attempting to charge 1 car each on a shitty 10hr cycle.
The amount of infrastructure we installed just to fit 6 tesla chargers at Keele services was ludicrous, to make it feasible for everyone then every housing estates hoping to need a primary substation at the centre.
Sent from my SM-N970F using Tapatalk
No mate, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that electric cars are here to stay, will form a sizeable part of the global vehicle strategy for a long time, will not fully replace ICE, and require customers to view them as an alternative method of transport but not a direct comparison to ICE vehicles. Which falls at the feet of the industry to educate them.