ELECTRIC CAR ROADSHOW

[Kintyre Forum News]

Argyll and Bute Council’s going the extra mile to support green energy. A member of staff from Argyll, Lomond and the Islands energy agency ( ALIenergy) is determined to drive an electric car from Dunoon to Oban. The council will provide charging points along the route at some of its depots.

The drive is a total of a hundred miles with stops in six different places to charge up on the journey which takes place on the 22 and 23 February.

Councillor Neil Mackay, spokesperson for enterprise, energy, culture and tourism said electric cars are increasing in popularity.

He added “There’s now a need to curb greenhouse gas emissions and oil prices are increasing all the time. Argyll and Bute Council is a leading rural authority and is always looking at ways of reducing its carbon footprint. All members of the public, staff and officers interested in seeing the electric car on its journey are invited to find out more at specially arranged drop in points.”

For interested members of the public the car will be available to view at the Co-op car parks in Lochgilphead on Tuesday 22 February at 3.30pm, Oban on Wednesday 23 February at 9 am and at 2pm in Dunoon on the same day.

On Tuesday 22 February the car will be available for fleet managers and council officials to view at the Lochgilphead council depot between 12 and 2pm. At 5pm it’ll be in the Oban depot for viewing. On Wednesday 23 February you’ll get the chance to see the car at 4pm at the Hamilton Street depot in Dunoon.

[Crowth]

6 stops to charge up during a mere 100 miles??!! Doesn't sound like a state of the art electric car to me, or even one from the 21st century. I'm all for the green option but this doesn't look like the way to go. Let's hope Argyll and Bute thinks negatively about adopting these vehicles across their fleet, the wages bill increase for people stood around waiting for these cars to charge up alone should be offputting.

[Swanseajock]

The joke is, that these "green" cars have to stop along the way of thei 100 mile journey to recharge. And how do they recharge? Why, by plugging in to an electric source that is fueled by conventional methods I am biased because I think the green lobby are shafting us, but this is a propoganda attempt ny whoever carries out this farce

[LANDROVER ROGER]

Swansea Jock.With you all the way.

[jdcarra]

The joke is, that these "green" cars have to stop along the way of thei 100 mile journey to recharge. And how do they recharge? Why, by plugging in to an electric source that is fueled by conventional methods I am biased because I think the green lobby are shafting us, but this is a propoganda attempt ny whoever carries out this farce

And what if there is a power supply down at any of the stop points , will someone be on standby with a geny?

Rising fuel prices then also the electricity costs may also shoot up like everything else.

[DH5JBR]

Hello all,

I have introduced myself elwhere here, but did not say that I work for this outfit:

http://www.loremo.com

When looking at that site, bear in mind that our roll-out date has had to be postponed to 2013, a change that has not been reflected on that site. The car itself is also to undergo a re-design doing away with the front hatch in favour of wing or sliding doors.

The problems you have with electric cars are very obvious and I share them to a degree. The question is if we will have the option. The petrol car has been around for 125 years now, in Europe realistically since the post-war economic miracle which makes it 60 years. We can already feel or rather sense that crude oil is past its best. There may be some more, but it will be harder to procure.

Well, let´s go for the lithium now! Is that the answer? We all are in for rough times. All you see on TV about Startrek - no matter which generation - is pure imagination based on some exotic energy source that nobody has ever seen or will ever see. We cannot import any energy from space. We have been to the Moon, but only the topmost 3 m of a 100 m tall rocket came back. Even if the moon was made of oil (which it is not), we could never get it down from there in an economically viable way.

I take a professional interest in this roadshow, becausse I might have to travel around Scotland in MY electric car some day. I came to Scotland when ATMs at banks were unheard of and you could not buy petrol on the Sabbath. So, if we are going that way, we may yet see power points full of Scottish hydro-power or wind power sprouting up everywhere.

Electric cars have been around for a long time, but never caught on for all the reasons you name. We have seen them as luggage trolleys at train stations and airports, but all these vehicles have been weighed down by their led batteries. As a manufacturer of an electric car you have to weigh the intended range of the car against the weight and cost of the battery and find a sweet spot, which is different for virtually each customer. A battery that will take you 400 miles - like a full tank of petrol or Diesel would take you - would be very heavy and cost a lot of the contained energy just to transport the battery itself. Never mind the time it would take to charge it. This battery would take up boot space and would be very much in the way on normal trips to the shops.

We have a splendid industry that can build Ferraris and BMW SUVs, but we will have to face the fact that we cannot burn fuel that has been collected from sunlight by forestss over millions of years within a time frame of 100 years and get away with it. This, our generation has used up more resources than all the people who have ever lived on earth in the past.

Our politicians in Germany are still worshiping growth. A politician who would propose to do the necessary things to maintain human life on this planet for a prolonged time would stand no chance of being elected, because these measures would be considered to be "uncool".

How uncool? Petrol at 400 or 500 pounds a litre-uncool. This is what you would have to pay a labourer at minimum wage to generate the energy contained in one litre of petrol. So this price is computed to a "human" level. Would you agree that it would make sense to re-introduce horses and sailing ships? We could be building ships to new designs with modern materials and devices that would make them safer and more convenient to operate, but our technical faculties are devoted to introducing yet more servos to our fat cars.

In human terms, petrol is very valuable and you will experience that value if you put down your foot in a large 4x4. This power is - thereafter - lost forever.

The best way for a better future is to cut back on energy consumption while there is still some of it left. If we start when there is absolutely nothing left, it is going to be even harder.

The Earth does not need humans, but we desperately need it.

As for Kintyre - a first step could be a daily ferry to Ayr or Girvan to stop all goods going over the Rest & be Thankful by truck. Bring back the "Vital Spark" - same service with a modern vessel. Slow down.

We do not have an unlimited supply of energy resources "up our sleeves" as we did 125 years ago. There is the sun and what it does to the weather to make wind and waves (I have been to the Limpet generator on Islay -have YOU?) and that is all.

Back to the topic of electric cars. I have pointed out the effect of different design parameters of electric cars. I do realize the distances in Scotland having done Land´s End to John O´Groats´on the push bike back in 1982 ("Ebony and Ivory" ringing in my ears).

Before you try and argue with me - try and prove me wrong on any of my statements.

The electric car has many limitations that make it unattractive, but it is the best we are going to get - being realistic.

[campbell]

i'll bet it doesn't get far before the suspension and wheels are knackered with all the potholes! The potholes will shoogle all the batteries loose lol

[oorly gourlay]

Take the aerial off the roof and replace it with a mini wind turbine to charge the battery and if that doesn't work, keep the foot off the brake at the top of the Bealach Mhor and freewheel to the Wee Toon You just might get here quicker.

[DH5JBR]

This car is my late Dad´s Nissan and 20+ years old. (registration A-YR 78 to reflect the year when I first came to that friendly county town).
The problem with the road show car is that it has not been designed to go from Dunoon to Oban via Lochgilphead, but is just off the production line. There are cars that allow the quick exchange of batteries while the driver has a coffee break or attends a meeting, The empty battery could then be recharged while the car goes on with the new one.
Power points can be put anywhere. There is a plug system with a clever data lead in it that can read out a chip in the car which identifies it. The electricity withdrawn can thus be charged to your home electricity bill at a rate that you know and is the same everywhere.
However, in Germany, the energy suppliers want to recover the cost of deploying all those power points quickly by charging 70 Euros per month on top of the actual electricity cost of which they might not see anything if a different provider gets the money. These things need attention. The technology for handling the money is there.

[maxmix]

The electric motor will have fallen off the car with the potholes before it needs it's first charge lol

Better getting a V8 Nissan 4x4 or similair.... At least you will survive the 100 mile journey....

maxmix

[smokynuk]

The problem with the road show car is that it has not been designed to go from Dunoon to Oban via Lochgilphead.

Surely the first and foremost requirement for any car is to be able to go from point A to point B via any A road which your saying this car is not designed to do?
Im of the opinion, if you are really in for saving money and the environment, you are better off getting a small cheap 1.2 minicar with great MPG or even a hybrid which has even better MPG and the range to go from Dunoon to Oban without having to stop for electricity (which is of course produced by conventional power stations).

Until the fully electric car matches a normal (or even hybrid) car in range, speed and power, then the mass public will not jump on board, especially in an area like argyll.

[LANDROVER ROGER]

DH5JBR wrote"The best way for a better future is to cut back on energy consumption while there is still some of it left. If we start when there is absolutely nothing left, it is going to be even harder"
Back to basics.Where does the energy come from to charge the batteries?Sustainable source or not?

[EMDEE]

The facts are that we all know that the use of fossil fuels is unsustainable and in the longer term we will need to move towards the use of renewable energy, but this is really in its embyonic stage, and maybe we shouldn't be so judgemental of something that is really pioneering technology.

[DH5JBR]

Some of us have read about the infinite improbability drive, but all we really have towards that is the hot cup of tea. The point is that we cannot build cars that can go anywhere, because the battery would have to be prohibitively large, heavy and expensive. If you have an already large battery and double it, the range of the car would not double, because the other battery would have to be carried about. In the extreme case, putting in an even larger battery would not do anything to the range, just batteries having a day out.
The roadshow car (not from our company, but a competive model) is a car for city or local use and has to be charged as a consequence of the distance to be covered. The Argyll model would have less luggage space and a larger battery to enable you to the miles from Southend to Glasgow. It would cost a pretty penny and the Inveraray people would not want it and opt for a smaller battery that would take them to Glasgow.
I am not in favour of electric cars as some people I have met at trade shows where we put our car on show. They are even convinced that they can be charged with renewable energy although we are still below 20% renewable energy in Germany as a whole BEFORE all the cars come and want to be charged on top of that.
Our car which will have an internal combustion engine will do around 120-130 mpg. The electric version will do about 80 miles on a charge. A hybrid drive is way too expensive and prone to breakdowns because of the complex technology involved. I am determined to drive it to the road end at the lighthouse where even Google Earth did not go.
The way to go forward is to assess each technology for sustainability and for technology it depends on and those that depend on it. Mr. Carl Benz may have heard of a place called Flensburg, but only associated rum with it. This town in the far North of Germany was the hub of German rum industry and still is in a small way, but today it is better known as the database where all the traffic offences and penalties ar archived and if you get more than 18 "points" you lose your driving license. There was no way of knowing for poor Mr. Benz that something like this authority would evolve, much the same as Alexander Graham Bell did not foresee something like a telephone answering machine.
Development goes out of hand and at some point, we go beyond the limits of growth that our planet imposes on us. Our earth can be over-stressed for a time without it getting noticed. It cannot scream for help.
We have seen technologies evolve and have made advances in medicin. Our way of life and the whole economy depends on the fact that oil is available in abundance and cheaply. This is not the case. We will be hitting a wall and all our governments can do about it is to speed up.
There is one resource that we cannot get enough of and does not harm the environment and that is education.
This would be very nice if teachers knew what to teach.
I am sure that Kintyre will not be the origin of a new green movement. It would also be a bit pointless. China would be a better place for that. It needs a global approach.

I wanted to try this feature.

Mingulay as home of private Frazer.

[loggerstu]

Can anyone imagine the price board at the county garage if they could charge for electricity!!!