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[Viral_Jim]

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.

[STEMO]

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. 

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. 

[Gaffers]

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.

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

[LC0112G]

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.

[Bigron]

Pay-at-pump with credit/debit card is relatively faff-free! 

Ron.

[LC0112G]

Pay-at-pump with credit/debit card is relatively faff-free! 

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).

[STEMO]

Pay-at-pump with credit/debit card is relatively faff-free! 

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. 

[Bigron]

Pay-at-pump with credit/debit card is relatively faff-free! 

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! 

Ron.

[LC0112G]

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.

[STEMO]

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? 

[LC0112G]

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? 

Yes. The govt has decreed they are so good that they will be compulsory from 2040.

[STEMO]

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? 

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.

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

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? 

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.

[Doctor Gollum]

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...

[TheBoy]

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