Ford shows off e-van concept

Zero emissions?

Well locally yes. That leccy has to be generated somehow though, and will involve the use of fossil fuels at least in part. Then there are the losses over transmission cables, losses in storage and in the electric motors. I'd love to see a complete energy and CO2 audit on this one compared with the energy costs of refining and transporting petrol/diesel, and the energy conversion efficiency for aspirated engine vehicles.

Now if they could make this van smell of hot Scalextric leccy motor... and could we have a hand throttle that gets too hot and smokes a bit?

Taxi!!!

"We think it would be an ideal solution for taxi use," quoth John Flemming, Chairman and CEO of Ford Europe.

You would have thought that a man in his job would realise that or all cars, the taxi is the most likely to be in continual use throughout the day. This leaves it particularly short on time for recharging....

"an ideal solution for taxi use"??

Do they have *any* concept of how many miles a taxi will get through in a 24 hour working period?

It all gets back to the basics;

Running time / Recharge time, and, Recharge Time / Charge current.

where

Recharge time = Taxi not making money.

Charge Current = Infrastructure costs.

Can't honestly see too many, if any, taxi drivers taking up the 'leccy only option.

They might make interesting milk-floats or garbage trucks though.

Wait, didn't we do that already?

Oh yes, so we did.

Zero emission?

It's only zero emission if the leccy comes from wind/solar/squirrel power, which most of it doesn't. And that's ignoring the energy use in manufacturing it in the first place too.

Surely a CEO should know better. Perhaps to make up for it he will publish how many kwh it took to make it, as that would be really interesting.

Tim#3

Finally!

It may be 'boring' but that's the first EV I've seen that I really want. A serious vehicle with usable range and a decent top speed, combined with some actual carrying capacity. Something a little smaller might suit me better but it's still nice work. I hope it catches on.

What's wrong with this statement?

"Although conceptual for now, if there is sufficient interest, this silent, zero-emission technology could be applied to the Tourneo Connect quite quickly. We think it would be an ideal solution for taxi use, as a hotel shuttle vehicle or similar inner city application."

Silent. By far the loudest noise coming from a modern car at cruising speed is usually tyre noise. So there's little to suggest this vehicle will be quieter than an IC powered vehicle most of the time. It will most likely only be significantly quieter when accelerating hard, not something it's likely to do with a 50KW motor dragging that bulk around. Certainly it will be nowhere near silent.

Zero emission? And Ford live in a utopian world where there is no electricity generated by fossil fuels presumably.

Ideal for Taxi use? A 100 mile range, a 21KWh battery and judging by that photograph a 32A single phase charger. So something over three hours charge time. 100 miles doesn't sound like enough range for an eight hour shift to me and I doubt most cabbies would want to take a three hour break every 100 miles. It's a big vehicle, why such a small battery capacity?

Presumably the answer to that last question is that it's a conversion rather than designed from the ground up and that's the biggest battery they could get into the space vacated by the fuel tank. I'm not a big fan of plug ins, but they work best when they are designed from the ground up. So we can presumably take it that what this really amounts to is a bit of PR bluster translated as: "We're miles behind everybody else on this, so we've knocked this together to try to get a slice of the EV publicity pie."

Recharge

Apparently vehicles with combustion engines need 'recharging' from time to time too.

What's needed is an industry standard set of battery packs that are easily interchanged. Instead of stopping for three hours while it charges, pop in to the petrol station and swap your battery pack for a charged one. It's not unlike the Calor gas model where you actually buy the energy stored inside, the physical carrier remains the property of the company selling the energy.

This isn't new by the way - electric buses used to have interchangeable batteries fifty years ago.

Silent

I nearly stepped out infront of a G-Wizz when I didn't hear anything coming and couldn't see that far down the street due to its curvature and the much larger vehicles parked along it.

What an embarrassing way to go that would have been.

I reckon I'd have heard an IC vehicle sooner.

Keep 'em peeled!

Taxi Use

I hardly think that a maximum range of 100 miles is going to be adequate for many taxi's.

Possibly for private hire cars that expect to return to base regularly, but can you imagine a cabby asking 'where you going?' then having to say 'Sorry, have to charge up for half an hour if you want me to go more than five miles."

@ Vendicar Decarian

"Don't worry, in 20 years the maximum highway speed will be 40 mph, thereby reducing fuel consumption by 50-60 percent."

What delightful drivel.

I assume from your use of the word 'Highway' rather than 'Motorway' you are in N America. I could see it happening there - your limits in places are already laughably low. If they tried to drop the Motorway limit over here, the people wouldn't stand for it.

Personally I think that motorway speeds should be increased from 70 to 85, and then policed properly - Most modern vehicles cruise at 70MPH+ nowadays anyway. I don't know anyone who drives less than 80MPH, MANY people drive 90+.

@DRendar

IIRC the 70 limit was introduced to reduce fuel usage during the 70's. So by that reasoning we could still see it reduced further to save the planet. Our current government's obsession with speed and safety has little to do with the reason the national limit was introduced and even less to do with a true concern for safety.

As for your idea that nobody drives at less than 80mph I think you're just trying to justify your own driving. I generally drive at an indicated 80mph on the motorway when conditions allow (probably a true 75mph and therefore within the law in so far as the +10%+1mph rule applies) and find that I'm overtaking about 90% of traffic.

40 everywhere

"Don't worry, in 20 years the maximum highway speed will be 40 mph, thereby reducing fuel consumption by 50-60 percent."

It already is for my commute. Even on the straightest rural sections of the single-carriageway A-road at least half the drivers (often in brand new cars) insist on driving at exactly 40mph all the time. Curiously they don't slow down for the 30mph limits.

@Anonymous Coward

Nope - it was introduced for safety (Average Cars back in 1965 couldn't handle travelling AT 70 safely let alone faster. http://www.information-britain.co.uk/famdates.php?id=280

"As for your idea that nobody drives at less than 80mph I think you're just trying to justify your own driving."

Please re-read my statement - I said I don't know anyone who does - not that no-one drives less than 80. I wish that were the case then I wouldn't have to complain about the F**king arseholes doing 50 in the middle lane or 60 in the outside, and never pull in.

However, let me Clarify my statement: I don't know anyone, who drives a car, on a motorway, when there are no police around, and the road is clear, and it isn't raining, snowing, icy, foggy or whatever, that doesn't drive less than 80MPH, by the clock.

Happy?

And no I'm not trying to justify my own driving - I, like just about anyone else who does a lot of motorway driving usually cruise at 85 by the clock (when clear etc.etc.) which by the speed on my GPS is 78. I make no apologies for it.

Bizarrely my car actually gets better MPG at 85 than at 75 too. :-?