Who are the biggest electric car liars - the BBC, or Tesla Motors? In a world-gone-topsy-turvy moment, the BBC has been accused of virulent anti-green bias by advocates of electric motoring, including Kryten from Red Dwarf and - of course - famous battery-car manufacturer Tesla, maker of the iconic Roadster. The Mini-E in action. Credit: Mini Don't try doing an Italian Job in one of these ( …
For 10 years I used to walk 20 miles per week as part of my commute. I discovered that I'd wear out Clarks' shoes in 3 months, and one year managed to get 4 consecutive free replacement pairs as "you'd expect a (c.£50) pair of shoes to last more than 3 months"!
DocMartens on the other hand would take that sort of mileage for at least a year.
All that walking would probably help the national "obesity crisis". And as for food, potatoes are cheap!
Would anyone want to drive 400 miles in a vehicle that can only do 100?
Surely the right car for this journey should be either a Vauxhall Ampera or a Prius Plug in. Use the battery as much as possible then the dual fuel for the rest of the way.
Electric comuter cars are just that! for comuting.
If only batteries worked that way, But they don't. Yet! (There is talk of liquid electrolytes) And that really is the point, Batteries are not a fuel tank - you should not expect them to be so either. and neither should the BBC.
So the only option for long distance and electric comuting is the Plug-in-Hybrid, but where can I buy one? - Oh I can't. (both the Prius and Ampera due for 2012)
Meanwhile I await with eagerness the BBC's attempt to cross the Pacific (7000miles) in an A320. (3500Miles) - island hopping is probably possible but really why would you? Its really not newsworthy.
"So the only option for long distance and electric comuting is the Plug-in-Hybrid, but where can I buy one? - Oh I can't. (both the Prius and Ampera due for 2012)"
No. Hydrogen fuel cell cars like the FCX Clarity are EVs that you can just fill up when they run out of juice.
http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/
Yes in an ideal world.. But Hydrogen has problems.
1) they are only prototypes. no sale versions exist.
2) you cant get from London to Edinburgh because just like the electric there are no filling stations.
3) Liquid Hydrogen is only 10MJ /liter whereas petrol is 40MJ/L so you need a tank 4 times as big.
4) No one is making hydrogen by high pressure electolysis - this is the ONLY way to efficently compress hydrogen into a useable form. (water is easy to pressurise before splitting - compressing Hydrogen from a gas uses stupid amounts of energy.)
5) Hydrogen is a bugger to store, at present the FCX requires a shutoff valve at the tank as the tank leaks the least. all the pipes bleed hydrogen so the supply must be shut off every time its parked up.
once these are solved I look forward to hydrogen motoring (hopefully still like the ampera using batteries that I can charge at home only using Hydrogen for long the longer journey. I dont like being dependant on fuel companies.)
I've actually suggested this before in places like Slashdot.
Use the electric for short everyday journeys, then rent a petrol generator trailers for longer journeys, ensure that there is some sort of communications standard so that the generator can turn on and off as needed by the battery, hey presto, range extended electric vehicles, albeit not as effecient as it could be since you now have 6 wheels rolling instead of the 4.
In which case, you're a subversive green-parodying genius with a world-class baiting technique and I salute you.
If not, well, someone else can rip every horrible facet of your brain-dead idea apart. Maybe an engineer will come along to explain just exactly how inefficient... Oh I'll leave it, it really does have to be a joke, surely nobody could be that asinine. But just in case: why not rent a petrol car instead?
See the Ampera Hybrid (aka volt) All electirc drive train and high efficency generator running at optimum Revs/conditions. Much better than a big inefficent engine designed for power at a wide range of revs and a big lump of gearbox.
http://www.reghardware.com/2010/06/25/preview_e_car_vauxhall_ampera/
"It was plainly done from a more critical standpoint than most e-car journalism is - you do have to suspect that Milligan and his biz-section editors are personally a lot more sceptical about e-cars than even the average motoring hack, let alone green cheerleader-reporters like the Beeb's Roger Harrabin."
Good, frankly. The world of electric car reporting needs a bit of balancing out.
I hardly think blowing up a Gee Whiz on a car program (famed for its hatred of electric cars anyway) is enough to balance out the hours and hours of inaccurate ecomentalist guff the BBC usually come out with (unplugging mobile phone chargers when they're not charging phones is a classic example)
"Don't you think that car reporting is hugely biased against electric cars already?"
No.
How is it biased against it? Because it highlights the extraordinarily high cost of electric cars, or maybe the poor range and performance hampered by battery technology?
Would you prefer these facts were just ignored? Then where would the bias fall?
The article rightly points out that the simple mechanics of where you park the car to charge it are serious issues. I don't think running a trailerlead across the pavement is goign to work and driveway/own-garage parking is pretty rare in town where these cars are viable, as opposed to out in the sticks where they are pointless.
I'm happy to see technology moving on here, driven by the car makers rather than the government, but in the short term most electric cars will be mostly a bit of green tinged showing off for the wealthy. (There's one G-Wiz near where I live parked in the drive next to a huge luxury SUV).
Sure you wouldn't buy one if you didn't have a driveway.
Sure you wouldn't buy one if you drive a long way frequently.
Sure they're not perfect for everyone - however no-one's suggesting they are for everyone.
However, most people's commutes are well within the range of an iMiev or Nissan Leaf electric car, and probably the mini's, and I would expect people with a driveway would be able to just charge them up overnight
For me, an electric car would probably suit for all journeys except our summer holidays, for which we could hire a normal car.
Lots of people say I'm not getting one until it can do everything my normal car can do - perhaps for some people that is valid, but the thing is, they're good enough for a lot of people already.
Nothing wrong with electric cars as such, except for the batteries. They suck.
Battery technology will need to improve by at least an order of magnitude in every conceivable way before they even come close to the power, speed (of refilling) and simplicity that a tank of combustibles will give you.
Batteries are the least environmentally friendly devices on the planet. They rinse power at every possible juncture; manufacture, transport, charging, disposal, recycling.
Storing energy is catastrophically inefficient compared to generating it on tap.
this is the main problem.... people think for the here and now.... fossil fuels are finite (your 'taps' well is running dry), of course there are losses and problems with energy storage BUT using electricity from renewable sources completely turns this on its head making for a much more sustainable technology. Its all about the bigger picture!
that this "renewable sources" thing is a neat little mental patch that people use to ignore the problem.
Such as when people ask "why are we here" and then come to the conclusion that "God did it".
No problems have been solved, all you've done is create new ones. Renewable sources of energy currently suck harder than a hooker in a hurricane. And they all require massive amounts of fossil fuel to impliment.
I'm holding out for nuclear fusion. The sun doesn't seem to have run into any problems lately and it "burns" more energy a second than I could hope to imagine. Would you rather get a similar reaction going on earth, or spend loads of money on shitty solar panels that will collect some infinitely small fraction of that power and cost more per unit than a boat load of your favourite Class A?
Yes, the human race might very well die out before perfecting nuclear fusion, the thing is, I don't care.
I studied renewable energy, and while some are still not great and are expensive in small scale projects, others like large scale wind are pretty darn gd, and i have also calculated and researched the imbeded/associated carbon content etc etc and they pay themselves off relatively quickly, both in the fossil content they use to produce and the monetary cost..... big steps are being made. As renewables are used more, the associated carbon of producing more will decrease further, making them even more sustainable x
Yes, of course fossil fuels are finite, but the idea that the well is "running dry" is ludicrous. As it happens, most oil companies propagate the myth because it allows them to bump the oil price up, my mate was working at one of the plants in Saudi where they currently have enough oil reserves to last them for another 80-100 years at current consumption - IF they don't discover any new oil supplies - which they will.
The concept of your post is correct but the alarmist "running dry" nonsense most certainly is not.
And renewable sources are a nice idea but don't appear to be particularly viable in terms of cost, value for money (i.e. power generated per £ spent), and reliability.
the idea of running dry if that there is nothing to replenish what you take.... so.... if you are taking a finite resource it will be 'running dry'........ I didnt give any sort of opinion on how long this will take, there are many reports saying different thing, it depends which you chose to believe. As you very well stated that prediction is at current usage..... energy demand is increasing substansially!
so yeah i wasnt being alarmist its just a turn of phrase.
Renewable energy is viable, get in touch with a large scale wind company and ask for their finances. The issue is needing up front capital!!!! but once build they will pay back quickly. they are a well established technology and are reliable. you cant use terms like value for money as the comparision is with fossil fuel technologies which have many many associated costs which are never shown..... transport of the fuel etc..... not to mention trying to quantify environmental costs.
Read the first bit, then blah, blah, blame BBC, blah, outrage, blah.
Anyway - to my point:
A weight limit of 195kg for the mini - so 90kg for me (it's the xmas lunch, honest), 90kg for my passenger (he's...errr....8ft 6")...leaves us only 15kg for luggage.
15kg for luggage? That's tiny! Oh wait this doesn't matter anyway - this particular car doesn't really have a boot to speak of. And you even have to throw out the rears seats in the bargain. Wot - you want to put the ISO FIX in, to take wife and kiddie to Sainsbury's to do the bulk shop? Good luck with that.
Yet another nail in the practicality coffin that is electric cars. No way would this weight limit or luggage restriction be acceptable in a normal, modern petrol motor. Good effort (and I'd genuinely *really* like to see a proper success - I'm the target buyer of these)....but it's still a fail.
Llewellyn would have been completely apoplectic if Jeremy Clarkson and Top Gear had done that kind of trip in the MINI-E, especially with a Jezza comment like, "This whole thing is rubbish!"
It would bracket nicely with their coverage of the Tesla a few seasons ago. Ah well, one can dream.
I've always wondered if it would be possible to supply electricity to cars moving on the motorways.
I suspect it would have to be overhead lines like a real bumper car, because a track system in the road would have to be resiliant to cars and trucks running over them but not decrease grip for single track vehicles like motorbikes.
It would solve the biggest problems with e-cars instantly, allowing cars to travel as far as they need and recharge the batteries on the go for when they go off the motorway near to their destinations. But it would be horrendously expensive capital project.
part of the whole 1960s 'break with the past' thinking. Nonsense then, nonsense now.
Go to Munich, Zurich, a hundred other European cities. Loads of trolleybusses. Mate of mine built a van with trollies so the city would pay his fuel costs, got him a year inside for theft and a 5 minute slot on the telly.
To test the practicality of the new BMW M3 I drove it across my local swimming baths. The journey from one side to the other was slowed somewhat by the need to repeatedly crane the vehicle out of the water and dry it out. The crane hire and the cost of first removing then replacing the roof of the swimming baths added £250,000 to the journey costs. I could easily swim across the width of the bath in a fraction of the time it took in the BMW and for a much lower cost proving once and for all that BMW M3 is not a practical vehicle.
Just for the hard of thinking: a hell of a lot of people commute by car and have a drive/garage. A product doesn't have to fulfil all needs of all people to be useful and a niche market is still a market.
However, if you look at the facts, no matter how you slice it electric cars are currently just a big white elephant.
The only place an electric car would be economical versus an internal combustion engined one is if you travel into the London congestion charge zone every workday and need to do so by personal rather than public transport.
Conversely Tesla's own website states that the electricity used to charge the cars is only half as environmentally polluting as burning fossil fuels in the car itself - and this is based primarily on US data where their cars are generally far less efficient than ours.
Now I agree some people will want to buy one of the new electric cars, some may do so in the mistaken belief that they are saving money, others in the belief that they are saving the planet, some because they want to display their green credentials to the world and even some because they want to help the technology advance.
Bring the cost of a n electric car down to comparable with the equivalent spec IC car, generate electricity through renewables & nuclear and sort out the obvious long term battery problems and then electric cars will be a clear winner - but that is a long time off.
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