Omega Owners Forum
Chat Area => General Car Chat => Topic started by: terry paget on 17 May 2018, 14:08:41
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As the consultant injected anaesthetic into my head before digging out a biopsy, she enquired how I had collected the strange pattern of head injuries. By bashing me head while working under my six Omegas, I told her.
She replied she had never heard of such a car, was it very old? Not very, I said.
She went on to tell me that a colleague is buying an electric car with a 250 mile range. I told her there was no such car, nor ever will be. All electric cars are basically mik floats, and should not stray far from their bases. They are fashion items, bought by rich fools who believe they are saving the environment by not emitting noxious gases, unaware that the electricity they use is generated by a nearby fossil fuel power station also emitting noxious gases into the atmosphere.
She sent me on my way with written instructions on how to treat the wound she had just created, and to consult my GP if it turned nasty.
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Have you run out of your medication again, Terry? ::)
Ron.
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As the consultant injected anaesthetic into my head before digging out a biopsy, she enquired how I had collected the strange pattern of head injuries. By bashing me head while working under my six Omegas, I told her.
She replied she had never heard of such a car, was it very old? Not very, I said.
She went on to tell me that a colleague is buying an electric car with a 250 mile range. I told her there was no such car, nor ever will be. All electric cars are basically mik floats, and should not stray far from their bases. They are fashion items, bought by rich fools who believe they are saving the environment by not emitting noxious gases, unaware that the electricity they use is generated by a nearby fossil fuel power station also emitting noxious gases into the atmosphere.
She sent me on my way with written instructions on how to treat the wound she had just created, and to consult my GP if it turned nasty.
Cars that run on electricity have no soul.......exactly as cars that run on cement mixer/narrow boat fuel. :)
An electric car is an appliance. It is white goods.
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You old buggers, you!! :o :o :o ::) ::) ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
You sound like those that thought the early motor cars were just a fad, would never come to nought, as they did the first aeroplanes, and would never replace the horse! ;D ;D ;D
When you, and I have gone with our Omega's to the motorway in the sky, the new people will be scratching their heads in museums and wondering how the internal combustion engine lasted so long when it was so hard to maintain, dirty, and expensive to run with electric modes of transport now going thousands of miles on solar energy. :D :D
:-* :-* :y
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As the consultant injected anaesthetic into my head before digging out a biopsy, she enquired how I had collected the strange pattern of head injuries. By bashing me head while working under my six Omegas, I told her.
She replied she had never heard of such a car, was it very old? Not very, I said.
She went on to tell me that a colleague is buying an electric car with a 250 mile range. I told her there was no such car, nor ever will be. All electric cars are basically mik floats, and should not stray far from their bases. They are fashion items, bought by rich fools who believe they are saving the environment by not emitting noxious gases, unaware that the electricity they use is generated by a nearby fossil fuel power station also emitting noxious gases into the atmosphere.
She sent me on my way with written instructions on how to treat the wound she had just created, and to consult my GP if it turned nasty.
Sounds like it was you who turned nasty ;D
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Normally in this situation you need to work with them, so just put a load of Batteries in the Boot of the Omega, enough so you cant get any Shopping in there, and tell Her its been converted to an Electric Hybrid, then when She is in the Car drive around everywhere at 15 Mph, .... She'll soon get bored with it all.
Remember the Golden Rule, Woman - the Machine isn't broken, its just running a different Operating System.
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As the consultant injected anaesthetic into my head before digging out a biopsy, she enquired how I had collected the strange pattern of head injuries. By bashing me head while working under my six Omegas, I told her.
She replied she had never heard of such a car, was it very old? Not very, I said.
She went on to tell me that a colleague is buying an electric car with a 250 mile range. I told her there was no such car, nor ever will be. All electric cars are basically mik floats, and should not stray far from their bases. They are fashion items, bought by rich fools who believe they are saving the environment by not emitting noxious gases, unaware that the electricity they use is generated by a nearby fossil fuel power station also emitting noxious gases into the atmosphere.
She sent me on my way with written instructions on how to treat the wound she had just created, and to consult my GP if it turned nasty.
Most of the Tesla Range will do that :y
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As the consultant injected anaesthetic into my head before digging out a biopsy, she enquired how I had collected the strange pattern of head injuries. By bashing me head while working under my six Omegas, I told her.
She replied she had never heard of such a car, was it very old? Not very, I said.
She went on to tell me that a colleague is buying an electric car with a 250 mile range. I told her there was no such car, nor ever will be. All electric cars are basically mik floats, and should not stray far from their bases. They are fashion items, bought by rich fools who believe they are saving the environment by not emitting noxious gases, unaware that the electricity they use is generated by a nearby fossil fuel power station also emitting noxious gases into the atmosphere.
She sent me on my way with written instructions on how to treat the wound she had just created, and to consult my GP if it turned nasty.
Cars that run on electricity have no soul.......exactly as cars that run on cement mixer/narrow boat fuel. :)
An electric car is an appliance. It is white goods.
I am very happy with both of mine. If you put your foot down hard you can escape the noxious black cloud that appears behind 8)
My front top tooth fell out recently. It was installed in the 80's by Gossage ( a long dead rich Aussie). That day I remember joking with him that I had had a bad day culminating in scraping someones new red Supra in the car park. Probably not the best joke to pull. I hope you recover from your head wound Terry. :y
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An electric car is an appliance. It is white goods.
Gotta love a white goods thread! :y
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An electric car is an appliance. It is white goods.
Gotta love a white goods thread! :y
Just check the fuse ,and fix the loose connection ;)
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In 2018, both Kia and Hyundai will release models with a real world range of 260-300miles in the uk (weather dependent). So it’s hardly stuff of the distant future.
One of our directors is a NED at Dyson and their stated aim is a 1000 mile range ev by 2022. In a relatively short period of time evs will be quicker, more reliable and equally/more convenient than fossil powered cars.
I think there is a great temptation to confuse noise with excitement and unreliability with character when it comes to motor vehicles.
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If you could, theoretically, get close to 1000 miles with an ev, it would solve the problem of people unable to have a charging point at home. One charge at, say, a dedicated charging station, would do most people for a month.
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I agree it seems far fetched. But they do at a very senior level genuinely believe it’s possible, and that level of belief tends to only come from a lot of background research.
We shall have to see. But tbh 1000 miles is just excessive for most people. Even if you charged it weekly, that’s over 50k miles/year. Even if you always wanted to keep 200 miles in reserve and only charged it at the weekends, that’s still 40k/yr.
In the main people’s perception of their needs far exceeds what they actually are. It’s like off-roading in a defender, 99% of the routes could be completed with a modicum of skill in a Suzuki jimny. ::)
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I agree it seems far fetched. But they do at a very senior level genuinely believe it’s possible, and that level of belief tends to only come from a lot of background research.
We shall have to see. But tbh 1000 miles is just excessive for most people. Even if you charged it weekly, that’s over 50k miles/year. Even if you always wanted to keep 200 miles in reserve and only charged it at the weekends, that’s still 40k/yr.
In the main people’s perception of their needs far exceeds what they actually are. It’s like off-roading in a defender, 99% of the routes could be completed with a modicum of skill in a Suzuki jimny. ::)
Or being blunt 99% of offroading doesnt need a 4x4. Same as 99% of journeys dont need a v8
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I can load 75 litres of petrol into my car in 5 minutes Each litre on combustion releases 10kWh of energy, so I download 75 X 10 = 750 kWh in 5 minutes.
30 amps at 250 volts is 7.5 kilowatts, so charging off the 250 volt mains at 30 amps downloads 7.5 kilowatts; in an hour it downloads 7.5 kWh.
So to download the energy I pop into my Omega in 5 minutes I could charge into my electric car in 100 hours.
I suspect special domestic charging points charge at a higher rate, but at 100 amps it only comes down to 30 hours. 100 amps necessitate rewiring to house and garage, possibly the street and grid if we all do it, and building more power stations.
Think about it, check my sums. Or conside: instead of burning all that petrol in cars, you have to burn it at the power stations, and transmit the power to all the charging points.
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Energy released isn’t really a useful measure though is it? It’s about energy that’s used. You are actually helping to demonstrate the case for an EV, 750kw to travel <500miles is monstrously inefficient when an ev will do the same distance on circa 20-25% of that.
The argument “you have to burn it somewhere” is also far too simplistic. You need to consider the “well to wheel” pollution and emissions to decide which is better in terms of emissions. Wheel to well, a leaf emits around 40-50g/km, a golf blue motion, around 150, if you start comparing performance cars, the difference is laughable.
The Convenience question is also subjective. Today I spent nearly 20mins at Tesco to get my 35l of unleaded. Why? Because every pump had 4 morons who all wanted 5l of petrol plus a newspaper and whatever other cr@p the shop sells. Had I had an ev, I would have got home, turned the engine off, pushed a button on the dash to open the charge flap (same as filling fossil car) got out, plugged in a cable and gone in the house. Additional time, maybe 10-15s, or 70-105s per week.
It comes back again to a question of what is actually required. The ability to take on 750kwh energy in 5mins is all nice n impressive, just totally unnecessary for 99% of the time, or 100% with a bit of casual thought.
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I can load 75 litres of petrol into my car in 5 minutes Each litre on combustion releases 10kWh of energy, so I download 75 X 10 = 750 kWh in 5 minutes.
30 amps at 250 volts is 7.5 kilowatts, so charging off the 250 volt mains at 30 amps downloads 7.5 kilowatts; in an hour it downloads 7.5 kWh.
So to download the energy I pop into my Omega in 5 minutes I could charge into my electric car in 100 hours.
I suspect special domestic charging points charge at a higher rate, but at 100 amps it only comes down to 30 hours. 100 amps necessitate rewiring to house and garage, possibly the street and grid if we all do it, and building more power stations.
Think about it, check my sums. Or conside: instead of burning all that petrol in cars, you have to burn it at the power stations, and transmit the power to all the charging points.
Whist I agree with the jist of the post, the numbers need amending a bit.
Yes you can fill your Meega with 75L in 5 minutes, and yes at 10Kw/l ish that's 750Kw. But, a good internal combustion engine can only extract about 15% of the available energy and convert it into work. So of that 750Kw, only about 112Kw actually moves you forward. The rest goes in heat, noise and un-burnt fuel.
On the other hand, electric motors are much more efficient - up around 80%. So to match the 112Kw extracted from the petrol, your battery would have to discharge about 140Kw. Therefore assuming a 100% charging efficiency (unlikely) charging from a 7.5Kw source will take about 19 hours, not the 100 you state. Still far too long though.
Electricity produced in power stations from fossil fuels is about 30% efficient. Therefore to generate 140Kw of mains power you need to burn 470Kw of fuel - which is around a 40% saving in fuel burnt per mile travelled (ignoring power distribution and charging losses).
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In 2018, both Kia and Hyundai will release models with a real world range of 260-300miles in the uk (weather dependent). So it’s hardly stuff of the distant future.
One of our directors is a NED at Dyson and their stated aim is a 1000 mile range ev by 2022. In a relatively short period of time evs will be quicker, more reliable and equally/more convenient than fossil powered cars.
I think there is a great temptation to confuse noise with excitement and unreliability with character when it comes to motor vehicles.
They're already quicker, more reliable and economical than IC cars. The charging technology and infrastructure doesn't measure up to the (already paid for) network of filling stations. But before WW1 when there was nothing to choose between IC and electric, you bought petrol in cans from a pharmacy. The war led to a massive improvement in engines, but not in batteries. And they're still the problem; there isn't yet an effective way of making a battery with a large capacity that's small in size, lightweight and quick to charge - let alone one that's affordable and ecologically sound. The recent improvement in electric vehicles came partly from LiOn batteries, and mostly from electronic control of them and the motors they power. Those are Tesla's real business, the cars are just a means to an end.
Generating energy remotely has got to be more efficient(and therefore with fewer emissions) than releasing it locally. And fuel has a whole supply chain that never gets mentioned; we dig it out of the ground, ship it around the world, change its form in refineries, store it, ship it, store it again before it's sold to the end user. Who just burns it to use about 20% of the energy released! That's an appalling waste of precious resources that have better uses, especially as we don't have to generate electricity like that.
And as mentioned, the frequently mentioned 'character' of IC engines are the waste products that we ought to be eliminating. And as car enthusiasts, we're weird - most car users consider them only as an expensive appliance. I've written this before, but altering the way we power vehicles is just papering over the cracks - changing the way we use them is the real answer. But that's a social change, and forcing those never ends well.
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Let's not confuse kilowatts with kilowatt hours, chaps. A kilowatt (kW) is a rate of power, and a kilowatt hour (kWh) is a quantity of energy, a kilowatt for an hour.
Sure, burning fuel in a car is only about 15% efficient, but a coal or oil powered power station is only about 30% efficient Electrical power distribution incurs losses too.
I wonder why we spend vast sums converting our railways from diesel to electric haulage. We should burn the oil in the locomotive, not in a remote power station.
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As the consultant injected anaesthetic into my head before digging out a biopsy, she enquired how I had collected the strange pattern of head injuries. By bashing me head while working under my six Omegas, I told her.
She replied she had never heard of such a car, was it very old? Not very, I said.
She went on to tell me that a colleague is buying an electric car with a 250 mile range. I told her there was no such car, nor ever will be. All electric cars are basically mik floats, and should not stray far from their bases. They are fashion items, bought by rich fools who believe they are saving the environment by not emitting noxious gases, unaware that the electricity they use is generated by a nearby fossil fuel power station also emitting noxious gases into the atmosphere.
She sent me on my way with written instructions on how to treat the wound she had just created, and to consult my GP if it turned nasty.
Most of the Tesla Range will do that :y
On paper, in reality, far from it (sadly)
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The war led to a massive improvement in engines, but not in batteries. And they're still the problem; there isn't yet an effective way of making a battery with a large capacity that's small in size, lightweight and quick to charge - let alone one that's affordable and ecologically sound. The recent improvement in electric vehicles came partly from LiOn batteries, and mostly from electronic control of them and the motors they power.
That's because the required improvements to batteries cannot and will not happen. The physics is well understood. It's just as likely that IC engines will double in efficiency as it is that batteries will double in capacity, (although dividing a 0% chance by a different 0% chance is always iffey). You might be able to squeeze another few percent out of either technology, but there is zero chance of them doubling or more.
Generating energy remotely has got to be more efficient(and therefore with fewer emissions) than releasing it locally. And fuel has a whole supply chain that never gets mentioned; we dig it out of the ground, ship it around the world, change its form in refineries, store it, ship it, store it again before it's sold to the end user. Who just burns it to use about 20% of the energy released! That's an appalling waste of precious resources that have better uses, especially as we don't have to generate electricity like that.
The distribution losses of electricity aren't negligible either. In a small country like the UK losses are about 8%. In a large country like the US they're up around 15%. And battery charging isn't perfect either. Tesla claim 92% efficiency - users report more like 80%. So for every 100Kw generated at the power station (in the UK), 92Kw reaches your house, and (at most) 85Kw ends up charged into your battery. If the motors in a Tesla are 80% efficient, then 68Kw ends up being converted into work moving you forwards. The total efficiency from power station to destination is therefore at best 68%.
The supply chain for fossil fuels is basically the same whether you burn it in a remote power station or in your local IC engine. We don't burn much oil (8%) or coal (8.5%) anymore, but about 40% is gas. Much of this is imported in super tankers from the middle east, so has similar transport costs to petrol burnt in cars. Gas has a 20% higher (mass) energy density than petrol so you can extract more useable energy from it than from the equivalent mass of oil/coal. But petrol has a better volumetric density - more bang per litre and so is better suited to mobile applications where you have to move the fuel with the consuming device. The only real difference is in the transport of the fuel from the refinery to the petrol station
We could generate the electricity by Nuclear, but for various reasons that's currently only about 20% of UK generation. Renewables make up the remaining 25% or so and won't be in any position to displace gas in the foreseeable future.
And as mentioned, the frequently mentioned 'character' of IC engines are the waste products that we ought to be eliminating. And as car enthusiasts, we're weird - most car users consider them only as an expensive appliance. I've written this before, but altering the way we power vehicles is just papering over the cracks - changing the way we use them is the real answer. But that's a social change, and forcing those never ends well.
Yes - and won't happen.
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In 2018, both Kia and Hyundai will release models with a real world range of 260-300miles in the uk (weather dependent). So it’s hardly stuff of the distant future.
One of our directors is a NED at Dyson and their stated aim is a 1000 mile range ev by 2022. In a relatively short period of time evs will be quicker, more reliable and equally/more convenient than fossil powered cars.
I think there is a great temptation to confuse noise with excitement and unreliability with character when it comes to motor vehicles.
Jimmy.....Noise is an essential part of the excitement.
Are you seriously telling me that a Ferrari Daytona or AC Cobra with a 7 litre lump of Detroit V8 up front would be just as exciting if it made the same noise as one of those little light blue spaz chariots from the seventies?...... :)
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That's because the required improvements to batteries cannot and will not happen. The physics is well understood. It's just as likely that IC engines will double in efficiency as it is that batteries will double in capacity, (although dividing a 0% chance by a different 0% chance is always iffey). You might be able to squeeze another few percent out of either technology, but there is zero chance of them doubling or more.
Seems quite a bold statement. Particularly given the current promising research into Nanowire batteries at Uni of California and the various big companies' (BMW, Dyson & others) research into solid state batteries. The current lithium ion tech isn't much developed from its original 1989 guise, largely because no one had an application that required it to be better than it is. That's now changing and battery technology will inevitably move forward with it.
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In 2018, both Kia and Hyundai will release models with a real world range of 260-300miles in the uk (weather dependent). So it’s hardly stuff of the distant future.
One of our directors is a NED at Dyson and their stated aim is a 1000 mile range ev by 2022. In a relatively short period of time evs will be quicker, more reliable and equally/more convenient than fossil powered cars.
I think there is a great temptation to confuse noise with excitement and unreliability with character when it comes to motor vehicles.
What could be more character building than to fix an old MGB or TR6 by the side of the road in pissing pain with no more than a spanner and a set of feelers? :y
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LC0112G:
We're agreeing with each other! I would have said that it's chemistry not physics that prevents any radical improvements to batteries, delivery of electricity and IC engines(I strongly suspect the big improvement that full management gave 30 years ago is the last one we'll see), but the point is the same: any improvements to either will be hard won and incremental at best.
What I really resent is that we're constantly assured that extremely complex problems have easy magic-bullet solutions: renewables for electricity, 'zero emission' electric cars, Brexit, wars in the middle-east, privatisation, build a wall, etc etc. And they'll ALL be affordable. Hurrah!!! Unfortunately, there are plenty of stupid and/or ignorant people to encourage such mendacity. Many of them are the politicians we select to govern us.
I do see a change in vehicle usage(energy usage really) happening but it's not going to be the worst change, as it will caused by something disastrous. Hopefully not in the next 30odd years.
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I wonder why we spend vast sums converting our railways from diesel to electric haulage. We should burn the oil in the locomotive, not in a remote power station.
Most Diesel locomotives are actually Diesel-Electric. They burn the Diesel in an engine which powers a generator which generates electricity and powers electric motors connected to the wheels. They are in effect huge HEV's. It's difficult to produce a mobile system that is cheap, efficient, reliable, relatively light and capable of propelling a train at much more than 100 miles an hour.
Once you decide you want a system that can go at 150+ mph the only option is to remove the engine and generator from the train, generate the electricity remotely, and then wire up the tracks/catenaries.
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I wonder why we spend vast sums converting our railways from diesel to electric haulage. We should burn the oil in the locomotive, not in a remote power station.
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Two things:
As trains run on fixed tracks, they can be plugged into the mains all the time. Hybrids are a bodge.
There's only a limited supply of oil and multiple uses for it, so we should only be burning oil when there isn't a better way of achieving the same result. That hasn't happened for road vehicles yet, but did sometime ago for generating electricity. We've decided that we don't like it as a solution, and so are stuck with the half-arsed ones.
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Seems quite a bold statement. Particularly given the current promising research into Nanowire batteries at Uni of California and the various big companies' (BMW, Dyson & others) research into solid state batteries. The current lithium ion tech isn't much developed from its original 1989 guise, largely because no one had an application that required it to be better than it is. That's now changing and battery technology will inevitably move forward with it.
No. The energy storage capacity of virtually all substances has been known for years :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density
The only known substances with better energy capacity per mass/volume than chemical/burnable fuels are nuclear. Any battery tech you come up with will always be at least an order of magnitude worse than fossil, meaning it has to be much heavier and much larger to be capable of storing the same amount of useable energy. Useable energy from (charged) batteries is 5 ish times better than fossil (15% vs 80%), but with energy densities 40-50 times worse you've got a net 10 fold difference to make up.
So until someone produced the first Dilithium crystal powered engine I stand by my statement.
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No. The energy storage capacity of virtually all substances has been known for years
But again, that's only the negative half of the story.
If you solve the charging issue, the energy density available is more than sufficient. Hypothetically, if you could input say 10% of a battery's capacity per second of charge (not currently possible or likely, but illustrative) you could recharge a 250mile battery while sat at the traffic lights, so energy density would then become a non-issue. :y
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LC0112G:
We're agreeing with each other! I would have said that it's chemistry not physics that prevents any radical improvements to batteries, delivery of electricity and IC engines(I strongly suspect the big improvement that full management gave 30 years ago is the last one we'll see), but the point is the same: any improvements to either will be hard won and incremental at best.
What I really resent is that we're constantly assured that extremely complex problems have easy magic-bullet solutions: renewables for electricity, 'zero emission' electric cars, Brexit, wars in the middle-east, privatisation, build a wall, etc etc. And they'll ALL be affordable. Hurrah!!! Unfortunately, there are plenty of stupid and/or ignorant people to encourage such mendacity. Many of them are the politicians we select to govern us.
I do see a change in vehicle usage(energy usage really) happening but it's not going to be the worst change, as it will caused by something disastrous. Hopefully not in the next 30odd years.
Ahh Ok - I misread your meaning. Chemists and Physicists only differ by orders of magnitude. Chemists work out how to blow up buildings, factories etc. Physicists work out how to blow up the world/universe. ;D
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No. The energy storage capacity of virtually all substances has been known for years
But again, that's only the negative half of the story.
If you solve the charging issue, the energy density available is more than sufficient. Hypothetically, if you could input say 10% of a battery's capacity per second of charge (not currently possible or likely, but illustrative) you could recharge a 250mile battery while sat at the traffic lights, so energy density would then become a non-issue. :y
charging time isn't the only difficult issue. Long term durability is major requirement, and suffers badly when batteries are charged quickly. The battery pack needs to last the life of the car; shall we use 20 years and 200k miles as a starting point? It's easily achievable with an IC engine. Reducing the life of the car is a stupid solution.
We also need to consider what the battery is made of, especially if switching to EVs is done for environmental and ecological reasons. There's only so much lithium for example, although the batteries can be recycled. That's something that we ought to insist on, but it does bump up the cost. That's probably why we're very bad at it.
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But again, that's only the negative half of the story.
If you solve the charging issue, the energy density available is more than sufficient. Hypothetically, if you could input say 10% of a battery's capacity per second of charge (not currently possible or likely, but illustrative) you could recharge a 250mile battery while sat at the traffic lights, so energy density would then become a non-issue. :y
If my aunt was a man she'd be my uncle.
Charging 10% of a (say) 100KWh battery in 1 second requires a delivery system capable of supplying 360MW per second :o . That's 1.5 Million Amps at 240V, or 14400A at 25Kv, or any other combination you want to calculate. Sorry old bean, safety issues aside there is zero chance the infrastructure will ever be able to support that kind of setup, or anything remotely close to it, short of building a nuclear power station into every set of traffic lights.
And that assumes 100% charging efficiency. If the charging process is 95% efficient (which is way above any currently available system) you end up with 18Mw of heat being produced in losses. Something is going to get pretty toasty if you stuff 18Mw of heat per second into it ::).
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The battery pack needs to last the life of the car; shall we use 20 years and 200k miles as a starting point? It's easily achievable with an IC engine. Reducing the life of the car is a stupid solution.
I suspect the manufacturers are looking at closer to 5-7 years life and 60K miles and then re-cycling.
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This thread is a joy to read. It's what this forum used to be about, great discussion and debate on an important, motoring-related subject. Plenty of good knowledge being bounced about. :y
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This thread is a joy to read. It's what this forum used to be about, great discussion and debate on an important, motoring-related subject. Plenty of good knowledge being bounced about. :y
People with O-level science and access to Google should be able to work this kind of stuff out from first principles. The fact they can't says more about the education system than anything else - and that's your wife's fault isn't? Where do I claim my compo?
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Jimmy.....Noise is an essential part of the excitement.
Are you seriously telling me that a Ferrari Daytona or AC Cobra with a 7 litre lump of Detroit V8 up front would be just as exciting if it made the same noise as one of those little light blue spaz chariots from the seventies?...... :)
Absolutely not! Cars like that are a true joy and the engines are a massive part of what makes them what they are. I'm referring to the phalanx of keyboard warriors who bemoan how souless ev's are compared to fossil cars, an then toddle off to work in their ultimate driving machine 320d with the plastic M-sport nonsense attached to it.
My world view (which I don't expect to be shared by many) is that the proper place for petrol engines is in an exciting toy, where every journey is an occasion and the daily drudge of M42, M6 & M1 is taken care of by my (hopefully) self driving EV.
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The battery pack needs to last the life of the car; shall we use 20 years and 200k miles as a starting point? It's easily achievable with an IC engine. Reducing the life of the car is a stupid solution.
I suspect the manufacturers are looking at closer to 5-7 years life and 60K miles and then re-cycling.
5 years and 60k miles is in line with current major servicing of wear items. Cambelts for example. Which would make a replacement battery pack a £500 job. Hell, lets be generous and call it a grand as that's easy to spend on current cars. What is the likelihood of that ever being achievable? They would have to make a fundamental change to the way that batteries are packaged within the car too, which would negate one of EVs bigger advantages.
Their business is to make money by selling stuff. That's why their answer to any question is buy the new model which fixes that problem. They'd already rather we all bought a brand new car every two or three years. That's why they were so keen on the scrappage scheme, as it enticed lots of people who wouldn't normally have bought a new car to do so.
I keep saying this, but continually replacing something for an ostensibly 'better' one is NOT a sound practice.
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This thread is a joy to read. It's what this forum used to be about, great discussion and debate on an important, motoring-related subject. Plenty of good knowledge being bounced about. :y
.....not from me. ;)
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Jimmy.....Noise is an essential part of the excitement.
Are you seriously telling me that a Ferrari Daytona or AC Cobra with a 7 litre lump of Detroit V8 up front would be just as exciting if it made the same noise as one of those little light blue spaz chariots from the seventies?...... :)
Absolutely not! Cars like that are a true joy and the engines are a massive part of what makes them what they are. I'm referring to the phalanx of keyboard warriors who bemoan how souless ev's are compared to fossil cars, an then toddle off to work in their ultimate driving machine 320d with the plastic M-sport nonsense attached to it.
My world view (which I don't expect to be shared by many) is that the proper place for petrol engines is in an exciting toy, where every journey is an occasion and the daily drudge of M42, M6 & M1 is taken care of by my (hopefully) self driving EV.
I'll go along with that ........minus the EV bit. :y
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This thread is a joy to read. It's what this forum used to be about, great discussion and debate on an important, motoring-related subject. Plenty of good knowledge being bounced about. :y
People with O-level science and access to Google should be able to work this kind of stuff out from first principles. The fact they can't says more about the education system than anything else - and that's your wife's fault isn't? Where do I claim my compo?
Basic education in the humanities(particularly history and geography) will make you aware of how changes to one thing cascades through everything else. That should bring a distrust of simple answers. A grounding in the scientific method is then enough to look at the numbers and techniques and realise that they're 'dangle berries'.
It's more the somebody else ought to do something about that attitude that has become so prevalent recently. It's somebody else's problem because I've already volunteered to be a victim for some oppsing reason.
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Speaking of battery replacement charges......
I briefly toyed with the idea of an Infiniti M35H which has a 3.5V6 Datsun engine in tandem with a battery pack. This came with a piss poor 5 year warranty that didn't include general deterioration of the battery pack. :-\
For a genuine part each module came in at £3500 plus fitting. The car had six modules which presumably would all go tits up at a very similar time. :-\
Expensive.
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Sorry old bean, safety issues aside there is zero chance the infrastructure will ever be able to support that kind of setup, or anything remotely close to it, short of building a nuclear power station into every set of traffic lights.
Its an interesting question as to what would satisfy an EV sceptic in regard to charging, I'm thinking nothing. Taking my real life example from yesterday (or maybe the day before, I forget). 20mins to fill my poxy roller-skate of a hire car with enough juice to take me about 370 miles (1.0 fossil cars and motorways don't mix).
We are already at the point where 150kw chargers are at the deployment phase, meaning a 75kwh car can go from 10%-80% in around 20mins. When we have EVs that can take you 300-400 miles on only the charge time it takes you to have a coffee and go for a pee or two, what more do you need or want from the tech?
On battery life & maintenance, EVs are mostly too young to really put it to the test, but the few teslas our there that have done high mileages are showing over 90% capacity at 200,000 miles. So I doubt its as big an issue as many would have us believe. Sadly in that regard, the Gen 1 24kWh leafs did the cause no favours. Add in a lack of clutches, oil, belt changes and generally far fewer moving parts, I would think the lifetime costs of EV ownership are much lower in maintenance terms.
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Sorry old bean, safety issues aside there is zero chance the infrastructure will ever be able to support that kind of setup, or anything remotely close to it, short of building a nuclear power station into every set of traffic lights.
Its an interesting question as to what would satisfy an EV sceptic in regard to charging, I'm thinking nothing. Taking my real life example from yesterday (or maybe the day before, I forget). 20mins to fill my poxy roller-skate of a hire car with enough juice to take me about 370 miles (1.0 fossil cars and motorways don't mix).
We are already at the point where 150kw chargers are at the deployment phase, meaning a 75kwh car can go from 10%-80% in around 20mins. When we have EVs that can take you 300-400 miles on only the charge time it takes you to have a coffee and go for a pee or two, what more do you need or want from the tech?
On battery life & maintenance, EVs are mostly too young to really put it to the test, but the few teslas our there that have done high mileages are showing over 90% capacity at 200,000 miles. So I doubt its as big an issue as many would have us believe. Sadly in that regard, the Gen 1 24kWh leafs did the cause no favours. Add in a lack of clutches, oil, belt changes and generally far fewer moving parts, I would think the lifetime costs of EV ownership are much lower in maintenance terms.
I'm dubious.
But when the battery pack on a P100D finally does give up the ghost my guess it will cost more than the value of the car to replace.
I, for one, would not be willing to buy a 5-7 year old EV which is still running (limping along for 30 miles or so) on it's original PP9.
Figure battery replacement into the equation and the glorified milk float begins to look less attractive.
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EV lovers tend to have an encyclopedic knowledge of where the next charging point is located.
"I have 30 miles left and the next charge point is 25 miles...........relax and breathe deeply. It'll be OK if I just keep calm."
A minor unanticipated detour is probably enough to bring about a panic attack. :D
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Sorry old bean, safety issues aside there is zero chance the infrastructure will ever be able to support that kind of setup, or anything remotely close to it, short of building a nuclear power station into every set of traffic lights.
Its an interesting question as to what would satisfy an EV sceptic in regard to charging, I'm thinking nothing. Taking my real life example from yesterday (or maybe the day before, I forget). 20mins to fill my poxy roller-skate of a hire car with enough juice to take me about 370 miles (1.0 fossil cars and motorways don't mix).
We are already at the point where 150kw chargers are at the deployment phase, meaning a 75kwh car can go from 10%-80% in around 20mins. When we have EVs that can take you 300-400 miles on only the charge time it takes you to have a coffee and go for a pee or two, what more do you need or want from the tech?
On battery life & maintenance, EVs are mostly too young to really put it to the test, but the few teslas our there that have done high mileages are showing over 90% capacity at 200,000 miles. So I doubt its as big an issue as many would have us believe. Sadly in that regard, the Gen 1 24kWh leafs did the cause no favours. Add in a lack of clutches, oil, belt changes and generally far fewer moving parts, I would think the lifetime costs of EV ownership are much lower in maintenance terms.
I'm dubious.
But when the battery pack on a P100D finally does give up the ghost my guess it will cost more than the value of the car to replace.
I, for one, would not be willing to buy a 5-7 year old EV which is still running (limping along for 30 miles or so) on it's original PP9.
Figure battery replacement into the equation and the glorified milk float begins to look less attractive.
I know were your coming from with that.
Imo, when (not if) these things do take over from the conventional IC engine, you will be buying the car and renting the battery pack from the manufactures or even a 3rd party supplier.
New model vehicles will be designed with easily replaceable packs just like a over grown power tool :-\
That way, market forces come into play and the prices of the packs come down.
This will carry on for about 20 years until the raw materials for the cells start to get scarce and the price starts to creep up again and the infrastructure for hydrogen is established :-\
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I think there’s likely to be a healthy aftersales market for such things too. Given that no ev battery is a battery, rather it’s a number of cell modules (16in a tesla I think?)and these are what go bad/fail/whatever. So I would anticipate that in the not too distant future you’ll be able to pole up to a garage, have them remove the battery pack, diagnose which sells are bad and then refit.
The “skateboard” design of most evs helps with this. Using tesla as an example, it’s about 16bolts and 2 electrical connectors to drop it off the car.
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This thread is a joy to read. It's what this forum used to be about, great discussion and debate on an important, motoring-related subject. Plenty of good knowledge being bounced about. :y
People with O-level science and access to Google should be able to work this kind of stuff out from first principles. The fact they can't says more about the education system than anything else - and that's your wife's fault isn't? Where do I claim my compo?
Why should you get compo? My wife wasn't teaching 60 years ago, when you were at school. :P
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EV lovers tend to have an encyclopedic knowledge of where the next charging point is located.
"I have 30 miles left and the next charge point is 25 miles...........relax and breathe deeply. It'll be OK if I just keep calm."
A minor unanticipated detour is probably enough to bring about a panic attack. :D
That reminds me of a moment in my early days of milk float ownership. We were heading off to Centreparcs and I had planned the journey out so that we passed a Nissan dealer on the way to recharge when we were due to be close to empty. I hadn't factored in the cold weather and the range was dropping faster than the distance we were travelling. Then the turtle came on which means that it is in the last throws of battery juice only for the last 2 miles to be downhill all the way to the charging point! I changed my planning slightly after that ;D
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Its an interesting question as to what would satisfy an EV sceptic in regard to charging, I'm thinking nothing. Taking my real life example from yesterday (or maybe the day before, I forget). 20mins to fill my poxy roller-skate of a hire car with enough juice to take me about 370 miles (1.0 fossil cars and motorways don't mix).
We are already at the point where 150kw chargers are at the deployment phase, meaning a 75kwh car can go from 10%-80% in around 20mins. When we have EVs that can take you 300-400 miles on only the charge time it takes you to have a coffee and go for a pee or two, what more do you need or want from the tech?
No. It doesn't take 20 minutes to fill up your poxy hire car. It probably takes a couple of minutes - perhaps 5 tops. The other 15 minutes is spent faffing around getting there, waiting for the old biddy in front to fill up and pay, plus paying yourself. Most of that faffing is equally applicable to charging an EV vehicle so your 20 minutes for an 80% charge is actually 35 minutes under the same conditions.
Except if the old biddy is also filling up an EV, then it takes her 20 minutes (minimum) to dispense the electricity from the pump, instead of the 5 minutes it took her to actually work the petrol pump. So add on another 15 mins, and we're up at 50 minutes.
So lets compare 'pumps'. If you can fill a petrol car with 75L in (say) 5 minutes, that's 15L/min, which is 150Kwh per minute. Petrol cars are at best 15% efficient, so that's 22.5Kwh/min of useable energy. Your 150Kwh electric 'pump' is rated as charging a 75Kwh battery 80% in 20 minutes. So it pumps (75Kw * 80%) / 20mins = 3Kwh/min. If the motors are then 80% efficient then they're effectively pumping 2.4Kwh/min of useable energy.
We're talking spending 10 times longer actually at the pump filling up with electricity, which means to match the current petrol pump system you either need 10 times the number of charging points, or 1.5MWh capable chargers and batteries. Most petrol stations round here have 12 petrol/diesel pumps. They're going to need 12 1.5MWh chargers, or 120 150KWh electric pumps to match that capacity. That'll require an 18MWh supply to each petrol station. The new Hinkley point C is 3200MW, so could power about 180 such petrol stations.
And I'd oppine that its actually a lot worse than that :
1) I don't believe it actually takes anything like 5 minutes to physically put in 75L of petrol. But the process is so short in the overall scheme of faffing about that we don't really notice the difference between 2 and 5 minutes (unless you're late for the plane/ferry!)
2) Comparing 100% filling a 75L petrol car, with 80% filling a 75KWh EV is wrong. 65L in my Meega will get me 420 miles if I'm careful - which is less than 30Mpg. Plenty of other eurobox options will get me 40+ MPG on the same trip. A better comparison would be 80% filling a 48L Ashtray/Vectra. So 40L, which will half the actual filling time - though this is still swamped by the faffing time.
So I'd argue that once the actual filling time exceeds the faffing time you'll start to matter how long it actually takes.
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Pay-at-pump with credit/debit card is relatively faff-free! :y
Ron.
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Pay-at-pump with credit/debit card is relatively faff-free! :y
Ron.
Doesn't help if the old biddy is already at the pump, working out how open the filler cap, lifting the nozzle, remembering the button to push to say you're not paying at the pump, waiting for the bird behind the till to autorise use, putting the pump nozzle back, closing the filler cap, find her purse, lock the car, walk to the pay station, do a months worth of shopping, buy some fags, remember her pin number, have a natter with the girl behind the till, find her loyalty card, pay, walk back to the car, work out how to unlock it, get in, store purse, find driving glasses, adjust mirror to comb hair, start the car, stall, start it again and finally inch forwards to clear the pump before realising they've put diesel in a petrol car (or vice verca).
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Pay-at-pump with credit/debit card is relatively faff-free! :y
Ron.
Doesn't help if the old biddy is already at the pump, working out how open the filler cap, lifting the nozzle, remembering the button to push to say you're not paying at the pump, waiting for the bird behind the till to autorise use, putting the pump nozzle back, closing the filler cap, find her purse, lock the car, walk to the pay station, do a months worth of shopping, buy some fags, remember her pin number, have a natter with the girl behind the till, find her loyalty card, pay, walk back to the car, work out how to unlock it, get in, store purse, find driving glasses, adjust mirror to comb hair, start the car, stall, start it again and finally inch forwards to clear the pump before realising they've put diesel in a petrol car (or vice verca).
You can avoid all of this by setting your alarm for 3am and filling up then. If you feel particularly awake, you could also do the weekly shop. If you are like me, you can pay for both your fuel and shopping without actually having to speak to anyone. Back in bed by 4:30ish, cursing the idiots that populate our planet as you fall off to sleep. ;D
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Pay-at-pump with credit/debit card is relatively faff-free! :y
Ron.
Doesn't help if the old biddy is already at the pump, working out how open the filler cap, lifting the nozzle, remembering the button to push to say you're not paying at the pump, waiting for the bird behind the till to autorise use, putting the pump nozzle back, closing the filler cap, find her purse, lock the car, walk to the pay station, do a months worth of shopping, buy some fags, remember her pin number, have a natter with the girl behind the till, find her loyalty card, pay, walk back to the car, work out how to unlock it, get in, store purse, find driving glasses, adjust mirror to comb hair, start the car, stall, start it again and finally inch forwards to clear the pump before realising they've put diesel in a petrol car (or vice verca).
The good thing about my local pay-at-pump machines is that they are nearly always empty because your hypothetical Miss daisy and many others don't know how to use them, so they steer clear of them! :y
Ron.
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I think there’s likely to be a healthy aftersales market for such things too. Given that no ev battery is a battery, rather it’s a number of cell modules (16in a tesla I think?)and these are what go bad/fail/whatever. So I would anticipate that in the not too distant future you’ll be able to pole up to a garage, have them remove the battery pack, diagnose which sells are bad and then refit.
The “skateboard” design of most evs helps with this. Using tesla as an example, it’s about 16bolts and 2 electrical connectors to drop it off the car.
How 'easy' is it to replace the battery in an iPhone, or iPad, or get 3rd party ink cartridges to work in a modern printer? Manufacturers have never been know to do things that means you have to keep going back to them and them alone for replacement parts or servicing?
Oh - and google suggests petrol pumps are either 38L/min or 50L/min. So one minute tops to 80% fill the Ashtray/Vectra with 40L of fuel.
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So, in conclusion.....EV's are shite because they have no range, there are are insufficient charging points, the batteries become less efficient from day one and we will need to build a massive amount of infrastructure to support them. They are also very expensive, don't make a vroom vroom noise and are, in the main, small.
Apart from that, they are fine. :)
Did I forget anything? ;D
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So, in conclusion.....EV's are shite because they have no range, there are are insufficient charging points, the batteries become less efficient from day one and we will need to build a massive amount of infrastructure to support them. They are also very expensive, don't make a vroom vroom noise and are, in the main, small.
Apart from that, they are fine. :)
Did I forget anything? ;D
Yes. The govt has decreed they are so good that they will be compulsory from 2040.
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So, in conclusion.....EV's are shite because they have no range, there are are insufficient charging points, the batteries become less efficient from day one and we will need to build a massive amount of infrastructure to support them. They are also very expensive, don't make a vroom vroom noise and are, in the main, small.
Apart from that, they are fine. :)
Did I forget anything? ;D
Yes. The govt has decreed they are so good that they will be compulsory from 2040.
A lot can/will happen before 2040. One of them being that, if a viable alternative has not been developed, it would be economic suicide to try and phase out fossil fuel powered vehicles.
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So, in conclusion.....EV's are shite because they have no range, there are are insufficient charging points, the batteries become less efficient from day one and we will need to build a massive amount of infrastructure to support them. They are also very expensive, don't make a vroom vroom noise and are, in the main, small.
Apart from that, they are fine. :)
Did I forget anything? ;D
Yes. The govt has decreed they are so good that they will be compulsory from 2040.
A lot can/will happen before 2040. One of them being that, if a viable alternative has not been developed, it would be economic suicide to try and phase out fossil fuel powered vehicles.
Yes......my guess is that you'll be six feet under. :)
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So what we need is a power plant that uses solar energy to convert rain water into steam to power a turbine that produces electricity which powers a motor to propel a vehicle which uses regenerative braking and ducted airflow mounted turbine to maintain the charge in the electrical reservoir.
And it needs to fit into an overnight bag and cost less than week in Mallorca to buy ::)
The hybrid is a good idea poorly executed.
A small turbine engine powered by vegetable oil which runs at a set speed and simply produces either electricity for drive motors or hydraulic pressure to run a hydraulic drive system could be the way forward...
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I would have an electric car if:
1) It had similar performance to what I currently drive (some do)
2) It has a "usable" range per charge. In reality, that means around 400 miles real world... ...baring in mind 1) (even the touted best struggle for 100 miles)
3) It can be "slow charged" overnight. That's an 8hr overnight, not a silly 16hr overnight, which is as useful as a used split condom smeared in dogshit
4) Replacement battery packs come down to sub £1500 for the entire pack (never gonna happen whilst I have a hole up my arse)
I have a bit of insider info about attempts to create an EV exec saloon not dissimilar to our Omegas. These are honest concerns by those directly involved, rather than marketing wank or mate-down-the-pub anitdotes…
Range a massive issue, expect at best Tesla level ranges (not good enough)
Battery pack life estimated (by testing) 3-5yrs
Battery pack replacement >£30k exc labour (which H&S means you also always need 3 spotty techs working on it)
Each fast charge buttoppss the battery, so more than 1 fast charge per week, that life drops dramatically
They current volative nature of Lithium Polymer packs means that a) liable to suffer a "thermal event" in an accident, b) mass produced chargers are going to cause more "thermal events"
Given we'll never be allowed nuclear powered cars, the only currently viable (within next 15yrs) EV tech is hydrogen
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Bring back the Stanley Steamer? LPG fired, not coal and a flash boiler..... ???
Ron.
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Hydrogen.....don't they make bombs out of that?
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Hydrogen.....don't they make bombs out of that?
I mean, what could possibly go wrong... ::)