Battery technology breakthrough

[dollywobbler]

Too much focus on reducing carbon emissions and not enough on the nitrous oxides. Electric car sales are massively up in 2014 though and having driven a Leaf, they are superb 90% of the time. Improving charging infrastructure will soon have that nearer 100%, even living here in rural Wales.

[Peter.N.]

I read about this a little while back but apart from the time its going to take to develop before it becomes viable, has anyone considered the amount of power you would have to shift to give it an appreciable charge in 5 minutes? You would need a three phase supply and and a power lead made from something like starter cable, OK for a dedicated charging point but not much use in the average home.

I hope something does come from it but I wonder how long it will be before we have a practical affordable application.

When I worked in London in 1954 Harrods had electric delivery vans as did our milkman and baker, they worked very well at the time but expectations have grown somewhat since then.

Peter

[dollywobbler]

Electric cars already are practical and affordable. You can buy an early Leaf for £8000-9000 and it'll get you 60-80 miles. As most of my driving is less than 40 miles on a round trip, that's fine. They're astonishingly brisk too, and, surprisingly, supremely comfortable. I'd never spend £8k on any vehicle, however powered, so still out of reach for me at the moment. For info, there's a taxi company in Cornwall using Leafs - one has done over 70,000 miles now, being high-power charged several times a day. Reliability seems impressive.

I'm seriously tempted to convert my 2CV to electric power. A lot easier than converting my XM...

[Peter.N.]

I would agree but they are being used for the wrong purpose, they are not a present a long distance vehicle but they are ideal as a second car for shopping and the school run, how many second cars do more than 50 miles a day? Very few I would think. If the range and speed were reduced even with lead acid batteries the cost of ownership would be less, fewer batteries = less weight and less money.

I can get from here to the north of Scotland easily on less than a tankful of diesel but you would have to charge an electric vehicle several times to do the same journey.

Peter

[White Exec]

As a commuter, school run, shopper, etc. - probably less than 50 miles a day - they're already more than adequate, and it's for this sort of local and urban journey that local air pollution worries are the most critical.

Purchase price is high at the moment, but that will change. There's an understandable worry about battery life (costly to shell out for a new set) but Renault have among the first to nail that one, with their offer of "buy the car, rent the battery". IIRC, for about £70pcm you lease the battery pack; when it dies, you get a new one, and just carry on doing that. One more concern is about the residual/secondhand value of an all-electric car after, say, 3 or 5 years . . . It will be certainly (hopefully) old technology by then, and who will want it?

In taking on an all-electric, a sensible "whole life" calculation needs to be done though. Depreciation might be high, but this might be more than offset by greatly reduced running costs.

Peter's point about monster charging cables/plant is a real one, but for domestic purposes, rapid charging might not turn out to be so much of a requirement. After all, you can't completely "recharge" your perol/diesel car at home now, can you? Needs a trip to a specialist service point - the filling station.

And John's comment about our not having enough electricity supply? Fewer internal combusion engines would reduce the demand for liquid fuels, and this oil could be re-directed - with far greater thermal efficiency - to generating electricity supply. Putting the same amount of liquid fuel into thousands of small engines being driven heaven-knows-how hardly spells efficient use of an energy source.

Electric traction scores high on efficiency and local cleanliness, and our grandchilden will probably look back on our pre-occupation with oil with the same disbelief that we now regard the burning of coal (far better used for chemicals and pharmaceuticals) and the steam engine.

The oil industry will fight long and dirty on this one, and much of their propaganda will be believed.

[dollywobbler]

Charging is still an issue for those without their own parking. Easy for me as I've got a garage/driveway with handy power. But as you say, it's actually more convenient than petrol. Around here, stations are few and far between so I often have to drive the car to a petrol station just to put petrol in it (2CV only has a 200-mile range, so I can't always assume I'll pass a station).

A lot of charging would be overnight too, when the grid has plenty of capacity.

If I had the money, I think I'd gamble on an outright purchase. I'd hope that if the battery did degrade, by the time it did, there may even be aftermarket battery suppliers. I might find that by the time the battery dies, a replacement could actually give better performance and range.

The other point to consider is how strangled modern petrol engines are. All that EGR valve, super-high pressure fuel stuff that sadly seems prone to going wrong - not to mention dual mass flywheels and the like. Doesn't take too many repair bills to get to four-figures these days. That's why the XM is probably as modern as I'll ever get for combustion-engined transport.

[Dieselman]

It is not just the USA that is worried about the crap from the recent generation of Diesel vehicles.
They are clean and well compliant when they leave the factory but not for very long.
I think the complex gubbins now fitted to clean up exhausts does not have reasonable service reliability.
Research identifying the significant risk from Diesel exhaust particulates was well circulated 30 years ago.

By the HSE and found to have no substance.

There is no reason modern diesel emission systems should break down after a short service life.

Everyone focuses on visible particulates, but fail to say that petrol engines produce more particulates by volume than diesels and because they are finer, are a greater danger to health.

Back to the Tesla -S. Having been to see the one in the showroom at Westfield Shopping centre, I took a test drive in a P85+.

What a car...!! The performance is staggering.

[White Exec]

This site* contains huge amount of latest news about more sustainable road transport, including all-electric cars, hybrids, and current development with diesel and petrol. Some sobering news about particulates from GDI engines, which can exceeded that of diesels - and a re-exploration of indirect injection.

Battery info galore, including several interesting descriptions of "on-road" inductive charging (for Berlin buses). Looks as if things are finally starting to move on...

* go to GreenCarCongress.com

[Dieselman]

This site* contains huge amount of latest news about more sustainable road transport, including all-electric cars, hybrids, and current development with diesel and petrol. Some sobering news about particulates from GDI engines, which can exceeded that of diesels - and a re-exploration of indirect injection.

Battery info galore, including several interesting descriptions of "on-road" inductive charging (for Berlin buses). Looks as if things are finally starting to move on...

* go to GreenCarCongress.com

GDI NOX and particulate issues have been well documented for years. It was the NOX problem that killed off the Misubishi Carisma GDI, years ago....allied to the car not actually having any Charisma.

[dollywobbler]

Well, I have now driven a Tesla Model S. My findings here. Guess what I compared it with... http://wp.me/p1jtbd-uY