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Penny Outskirts
Joined: 18 Sep 2005
Posts: 23385
Location: Planet, not on the....
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dougal
Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent
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 Posted: Fri Nov 11, 05 12:18 am Post subject: |
 
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I'd love a practical electric car.
But I don't think such a thing really exists. At least not yet.
Energy storage is the problem.
Batteries hold much less energy than a tankful of fuel.
They are heavy, expensive, and don't last as long as one might hope.
And refuelling a battery takes hours, against a few minutes to refill a tank.
One design solution is to minimise the power requirement, making the vehicle, for example as light as possible. A simple means of making it light is to make it small.
New battery technologies are emerging. But to equip a car with batteries as good as those in a modern laptop computer is fabulously expensive.
Hence such technologies are restricted to "demonstration" or "concept" vehicles that are regularly shown by manufacturers - and regularly fail to go into production.
Ford recently 'pulled the plug' on their "Think" project. Puegeot have backed out of offering electric versions of their small vehicles.
Hopefully, new "nanotechnology" batteries, will in future change the viability of such vehicles.
The business of battery replacement is what leads to the financial arrangement of leasing. It spreads the battery cost predictably and relatively painlessly.
Batteries store electricity. That electricity might have been generated from renewable sources.
There is an alternative means of storing solar energy.
Biofuels.
IMHO running a fuel-efficient high-durability diesel engined car (like an Audi A2 for example) on 100% biodiesel is every bit as "green" as running one of todays electric vehicles. And a very much more practical solution.
A brief word about electric "hybrids" like the Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight and Civic. These are petrol-powered vehicles that use a (fairly small) battery to improve their efficiency. It depends on what the vehicle efficiency ends up like as to how "green" they might be considered. The Insight is really remarkably 'green' - but little of that is actually due to the hybrid system! The Lexus 4x4 hybrid is still a bit thirsty despite its hybrid.
Electric vehicles are valuable in cities (and in parts of California), where air quality is a major concern.
But generally electric vehicles are relatively low powered. For most purposes that isn't a problem. But it does lead to rather poor performance when going uphill.
So flat cities are where electric cars are most viable.
Gloucestershire, hmm.
If you want an all-electric car today, you could have a G-Wizz
https://www.goingreen.co.uk/?PageID=NewGWiz
on offer for �7,700...
or you could talk to these folk
https://www.avt.uk.com/page2.html
who will take an existing small car and do an electric conversion at a cost of something like �7,000 (plus the cost of the car...)
If you don't know about the Insight, check
https://www.insightcentral.net/
an american site (using us gallons!!!) but Insights do exist over here (although there are none on Autotrader this week). I can tell you that they are actually quite fun to drive, partly because the ride is 'lively', but they are ridiculously expensive to insure - Group 12.
You can buy 100% Biodiesel in Stroud, Glos
https://www.purebiodiesel.co.uk/stroudbio.htm
Personally, I can envisage getting something like this, once it becomes available (yes its another vapourware product!)
https://www.vectrix.co.uk/ |
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thos
Joined: 08 Mar 2005
Posts: 1139
Location: Jauche, Duchy of Brabant (Bourgogne-ci) and Charolles, Duchy of Burgundy (Bourgogne-�a)
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sean
Downsizer Moderator
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42219
Location: North Devon
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hardworkinghippy
Joined: 01 Jan 2005
Posts: 1110
Location: Bourrou South West France
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jema
Downsizer Moderator
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28234
Location: escaped from Swindon
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Penny Outskirts
Joined: 18 Sep 2005
Posts: 23385
Location: Planet, not on the....
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dougal
Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent
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Penny Outskirts
Joined: 18 Sep 2005
Posts: 23385
Location: Planet, not on the....
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dougal
Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent
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| Posted: Fri Nov 11, 05 3:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Penny wrote: |
I definately subscribe to the conspiracy theory that someone somewhere is suppressing the concept cars. How would governments keeps us paying billions in fuel tax if we could have cars which ran on electricity generated from solar or wind power? I do despair sometimes!!  |
Its the same conspiracy that stops people from flying when they flap their arms.
Just as technology *can* just about create a man-powered aircraft that can cross the Channel, it takes a super-fit pilot in a delicate one-off expensive machine... and it does not deliver a practical means of transport.
There are no batteries that can store enough energy, in little enough weight and volume, cheaply enough to make a practical 'normal' electric car.
Yet.
That is, sad but true, scientific fact. Not a conspiracy.
Big companies like Puegeot have offered electric versions of some of their cars - notably the 106. Car buyers have, rightly, seen them as crippled - and simply not bought them.
Here are some figures for the 106 (a rather small car)
Cost in 2001 �14,300 (but one could look for a �5,000 grant to reduce that)
That cost doesn't include the batteries.
These were leased at �100 per month. (No other option.)
And the car owner had to insure the batteries to a value of �7,500
Maximum range: 44 miles
Maximum speed: about 55mph
https://website.lineone.net/~simon.h.roberts/ev/peugeot106.htm
that is the semi-derilect site of an electric 106 owner
Honestly Biofuels represent a "better solar energy battery" than *anything* else available today.
And no electric vehicle can approach the practicality - or green cred - of an Audi A2 or a Citroen C1 running on 100% Biodiesel.
There is no conspiracy to stop you running such a vehicle! |
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jema
Downsizer Moderator
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28234
Location: escaped from Swindon
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Penny Outskirts
Joined: 18 Sep 2005
Posts: 23385
Location: Planet, not on the....
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dougal
Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent
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And we really don't really know enough about it yet ...but we're learning 
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