Volvo reveals electric C30's specs With World+Dog whipping dust sheets off electric cars and concepts at the Frankfurt Motor Show, Volvo has stepped aside to shed more light on the technical features of its upcoming leccy C30. C30_BEV_01 Volvo's C30 BEV uses a 24kWh battery and one leccy motor The e-car didn’t have an official name back in July, but Volvo’s …
When they close down our nearest A&E next year, the range on this wouldn't get us to the next closest and back O_o.
Just because people live in towns/cities and only use their cars for commuting (I do under 3,000 a year in my 10 year old motor that gets over 350 to a tank), doesn't mean they want the faff of having to charge it up regularly or panic at the prospect of getting the AA to tow their dead car back home.
I like it. Doesn't look too over-pretentious like some attempts and 80mph is fast enough for the work commute (if I can find a road where I can actually get up to 80!!).
How much luggage space is there? Surely the removal of an i.c. engine and the replacement of a smaller(?) motor and battery pack will mean more storage space (at a cost to duration, I suppose).
Bring it on I say.
It's just another lashed together offering and is a waste of time.
Ten years from now anyone using these products will be feeling pretty aggrieved at being conned by the makers. That's if they last ten years before being stripped and recycled of course. To be fooled into having what is so obviously a car originally designed and styled for a combustion engine only demonstrates the timidity of the manufacturers and the gullible nature of consumers.
First price? £15,000 seems to be the going rate for the petrol version (and that's expensive enough).. won't pay more.
Second charging? There are no charging points I've ever seen in this city and I have to park away from my house.. and trailing cables across roads to the car isn't practical (or probably even legal), so charging needs to be a matter of minutes or have removable batteries.
A good share of the Reg readership would have been quite at home a couple of centuries ago pointing out that Mr. Trevithick of Cambourne's frighteningly novel 'steam locomotive' was clearly doomed to failure. After all his latest didn't have the range or speed of a good horse, couldn't fertilise the rhubarb and that no one had bothered to consider where all the coal and iron was going to come from.
It's getting there, but until they can come up with something for ~£20-25k that can do 100mph* , has a realistic range of ~200miles and takes less than 30 minutes to charge up, I'll not be remotely interested. Nothing else looks as good as the Tesla Model S at this at the moment. My bike does my 75mile daily round trip at realistic motorway speeds* getting ~80mpg, meaning about £6-7 quid a day on petrol, and it cost me £3k to buy.
*70mph is the speed limit, but you stand by the welsh approach to the Severn Bridge at 8:30am and count how many cars go by doing less than 80mph, it'll be 9:30 before you have to use your second hand.
That's just what I was thinking myself, a new e-car story a day on el Reg. While most of them are nothing to write home about, the sheer volume will create a competitive environment that should ensure usable-spec ecars in the next 2-3 years.
These things can only get better
If I can't go morwe than 90 miles without having to take at LEAST 30 minutes to fill up (they did not mention the use of SCiB batteries or Li-Tit, so it;s LiPo at best, and that means long charges), and that's assuming availability of a 3 phase charging station, it's not an option. I don't knowe too many people who do more than 45 miles each way to work, but that does not account for trips to the store, days shopping around town and running errands, bringing the kids to sporting events, and more. 90 miles is NOT enough, even for folks who commute less than 30 miles a day round trip.
Put a 2-3 cylender ICE in it that can generate at least 2/3rds of the cars battery draw with a high efficicny generator. What can that really add, $1500 to the car's cost? The battery then can be smaller, getting maybe 60-70 mile range, and shaving 20% of the packs, likely saving the same $1500. If I can go 250+ miles in it, then i don't have to have a SECOND car. On the rare occasins I'd use fuel (average likely 10 miles a day) even if the extra $1500 and saccrifice of a few cubic feet of cargo space was the result, that's less than the costs to own a second car, deal with having to swap cars, and keep in mind, the cost estimates to fill the battery up are based on home power; don;t think for a SECOND using a fast charger will cost the same, it will likely be double, close to the same cost as gas to drive the same distance.
Will somebody please do some maths ? No ? OK - let me do it for you :-
The battery is 24kWh storage capacity, so to charge this thing in say 8 hours will require 3kW mains power. To charge in 30 mins will require about 50kW !
Base domestic consumption is of the order of <1kW continuous. 2-3kW average.
The UK power grid/generation has about 5% spare capacity.
So, if we stick a load of these gimmick cars out there, where is the power to charge them going to come from ? Even using an efficient gas turbine power station to generate the power, by the time you consider all the inefficiencies in the chain, these cars are little better in terms of CO2 emission than petrol/diesel equivalents. With major drawbacks.
The same applies to hydrogen cars (CO2 emission for making the hydrogen is higher than conventional fuel car).
Back to the drawing board to design yet another bullshit gimmick to fad market without considering the practicalities.
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