EMDEE wrote:..............we shouldn't be so judgemental of something that is really pioneering technology.
Em
Electric vehicles are as far from perfection as they are from being a new idea. I don't consider it to be judgemental to point out a glaring impracticality or obvious design flaw, I was merely voicing what I'm willing to bet most people who read the original post was thinking. Better electric cars than the one being discussed here have existed for some time, years in fact. As a Kintyre resident who drives 30 miles to work and back each day the idea of a vehicle that barely does 20 miles in between 'fill ups' is pretty laughable. The electric car in question is aimed at the suburban market, so I can only wonder at the logic used to arrive at the decision to showcase it in rural west Scotland.
Overall, electric car technology IS still in its very early stages, no one could deny that, and when the day comes where I can purchase one that does all that my diesel Peugeot does at a similar cost or better I will be at the front of the queue to get one. Although, as a forty-something year old, I have to ask myself if I will ever be in that queue.
Remember, a penguin is for life not just for elevenses.
You are beginning to get there. There will never be anything else like petrol that contains as much energy in such an easily manageable package. The battery is and always has been and always will be the weak point. What you feel is the wall coming closer that we are going to hit.
When I was in Ayrshire over 30 years ago, I drove there in my Dad´s hand-me-down car for the year. I went home for Christmas by train and ferry. My successoress in office last year flew home once or twice a month for the week-end with Ryan-Air from Prestwick. Because it was so cheap. I did my washing at the launderette in Irvine. Phone call home was every other week and in the week between was the phone call back. This is what some may call mobility or globalization, but to me it is a rather wasteful lifestyle and it illustrates my point that we are speeding up as we approach the wall or the point where the shit hits the fan.
We have become dependent on oil so much that it seems impossible for us to go without it. We are at a point where there is no other way than to continue driving V8 4x4s - unless we can get a V12, of course. One horseless coach of Carl Benz was not so bad if it had stayed at that.
I will leave you now with the words of a famous German (in fact, an infamous Austrian):
"Die schönsten Stunden meines Lebens verdanke ich dem Automobil." (The best hours of my life I owe to the automobile.) Adolf Hitler He liked the compressor Mercedes.
See him being mad at current Neo-Nazis in a satirical programme on German TV. (Are you serious? This is not the way to do it! Look what I have done, you idiots!)
There is more under "extra3 NNN". Neo-Nazis being ridiculed by the "Führer" himself.
I forgot all the recharge points on the route and if there is only 20 miles between some of them, this might be, because the next council depot (as council depots have been chosen for recharge points) would be just too far out of range to take the chance and reach it without taking a "topper upper" after the first 20 miles. With electric cars, you constantly need to consider where you go. Even having sat-navs consider the profile of a route and choose the longer, but more level route in favour of going over the bealach is not out of this world. The worst you can do is draining the battery in an attempt to reach your destination. I have been talking to repairers of electric vehicles and they named that as most common source of battery failures.
I am no exception to that. I rented a Sinclair C5 on Graet Cumbrae once way back in the 80s when they were popular for a while. They were advertised as pedal-assisted electric cars until you sat in them when they turned out to be electrically assisted pedal cars. I did not make it round the island although I stuck to the level shore road. Even on my bicycle I could do more and go over the hill road as well as I had done in earlier years. So, I had to pedal the last quarter in a little car that was just too short for me and I could not stretch my legs completely. That was my first contact with an electric vehicle.
I feel a lot of demand for electric vehicles (working in that company) but as a customer support guy I always like to warn people of the change in their way of driving they are going to encounter. There is a Swiss company that makes pedal assisted electric mobiles with almost bicycle technology and they had their manuals online. There was an entire chapter on battery care and reading that, you were - basically - warned to drive at all. You should not go too fast to get maximum range. You should allow for recharging times. They were also trying to reclaim energy going downhill, so, if you wanted to go downhill with a full battery, you were advised to go uphill first, to deplete the battery a bit so not to overcharge it going straight down. I think being honest up front is better than letting people go ahead regardless will pay off in the long run.
Electric cars are like that, but for most users this reclaiming of energy thing is not viable. I had a lady calling me and she had to go to work uphill every morning and come down at night. In Austria, that was. OK. Then there are dust bin collection trucks that stop and go all the time and they are candidates as well.
My advice was to download the manual and read it before wanting an electric car. They took the manual offline. For some, the electric car would be the answer. Some have solar panels on their house to charge it and never worry (in theory) about energy shortages.
Being a radio ham, I rely on batteries for the hobby and I have been let down by these battery packs. Exercising them during the winter helped a bit, but three years´ service is the most I can get out of them if I want at least 60% capacity. The Lithium batteries are better than the led ones, but I have seen batteries of my cell phone go.
As with any new technology, people read magazines and whenever there is a new battery out, all is forgotten what was said about the last type and that is being shunned. In terms of photography: Everybody wants the 12 Mega pixel camera until the the18 Mega pixel one is out. Leasing the battery will be an option.
We only wanted to build the high mpg car with internal combustion engine, but customers craving for electric cars almost became aggressive about it, so we are going to oblige - that is all. Using up Lithium resources is just as bad as depleting oil. The Lithium could probably be recycled to some degree, but it would need a determined effort.
I can see the point that people do not like electric cars and I am with you all completely. The charge level needs constant attention even if management systems are in operation - even more in rural areas where power points are few and far between.
It all boils down to that you cannot eat money and cannot make oil (you could, but you need coal for that and you cannot make that either). The time has come that the oil goes. China is finding out the advantages of cars. Why should the Chinese be any different from you or I?
I have seen people getting mad at the science community for not coming up with another energy source. The plain fact is that there is none. Hydrogen and fuel cells are prohibitively expensive and also dirty. When a car has a footprint of 200 grams per mile the hydrogen car´s is beyond 1000 grams. The car is clean locally, but making the hydrogen and compressing it takes a lot of energy. And the greatest bother is that the gas is so light that it evaporates, so you can only fill up just before you want to go. Leaving the car with a full hydrogen tank for a week is not a good idea, because it will be almost empty after that time.
We are at the limit of growth. Probably way beyond it. We did not notice, when we went over. All the clever economists who say that this or that is uneconomical all rely on cheap oil, of which we all know there is a limited supply and we are burning it at a much higher rate than it came into existence. Whether it will last for 30 years or a century or two centuries is immaterial to the survival of mankind. Mankind is not going to survive for the time that has passed since the Kilmartin stones were made. The survivors will envy the dead. Electric cars will not be able to prevent it. Finding a sustainable level of survival is a very delicate task. Most people on Earth are having a very tough time already as it is. We are stuck on this planet with them and need to find some agreement before we are fighting wars over things like water.
It is going to be tough, but the toughest assignment is making people aware of these simple facts, especially the economists and politicians.
I will leave you with the words of Albert Einstein who had to leave Germany because of Hitler.
"Human ignorance and the universe are both boundless, but in the case of the universe I am not entirely sure."
Watch a current German ex-politician (Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg (where Daimler Benz is located)). He was sent to Brussels as commisioner for energy matters about a year ago. He said after this statement than he would pick up the remaining necessary English over the Easter break. (Good luck!)
First, of course, he is adamant that English is the working language and each worker and office clerk should be able to speak and understand it.
Why sure. The long distance lecky car would be a very expensive one because of the big battery it would need. For shorter journeys this big battery is in the way and costs too much energy to be carried about. Lecky cars need to be optinmised for a certain range or they become too heavy and expensive. To make just one roadshow it is simply too expensive to equip a car with such a big battery, possibly changing the structure, suspension and so on. Having a few recharging points where the car can also be viewed is a lot cheaper because an off-the-peg car can be used. Electric cars do impose more discipline on the driver. Charging time, range. You can fast-charge batteries over the coffee-break, but this will reduce the numbers of cycles for the battery and reduce the range more rapidly than with standard charges. Since batteries are the most expensive item in the car, a prudent user would be reluctant to do that. I, personally, do not think that electric cars will save us, but here in Germany - and the US even - prospective customers desperately want them and will not touch combustion engines at all any more. So much so, that we have set ourselves the target to make them. Just don´t thwart the roadshow (which is not ours, though I can understand why it is done like that) for reasons it does not deserve. Electric cars will always be inferior to petrol or Diesel cars, except for acceleration, but electricity can be generated in a number of ways and crude oil cannot. At curent prices the cars are expensive, but the electricity is cheap. The break-even point must be computed individually. I have pointed out what I think about economists and the cheapness of petroleum products in view of their capabilities and their genetic history. There I went again. A complex topic needs a complex approach. I can see the points you make against electric cars and share some of them, but defend them against unjust criticism. Difficult, ey?
Dont have any problem with electric cars, But at the moment would it not make more sense on the goverment to spend our ROAD TAX and FUEL TAX on providing better and safer roads. Its about time the tax payers got their moneys worth! Lets get up to date on our road surfaces etc before trying to be like Germany!!!
loggerstu wrote:Dont have any problem with electric cars, But at the moment would it not make more sense on the goverment to spend our ROAD TAX and FUEL TAX on providing better and safer roads. Its about time the tax payers got their moneys worth! Lets get up to date on our road surfaces etc before trying to be like Germany!!!
You are like Germany. We are full of potholes. People can even adopt them and pay for their repair out of their own pocket. Some communities have done that.
I have never in all those years seen potholes in Scottish roads to an extend that would have worried me. I will have another look in May.
Yes that sounds like a plan! Adopt a pot hole?! One problem........ the amount of potholes between Campbeltown and Southend would take a population of Glasgow!! Also I know countless people who have ruined wheels & tyres on Argyll roads so make your electric car strong!
