Electric vehicles

[Nigel Burden]

Driving style does make quite a difference. I am more likely to accelerate briskly than my wife, and generally drive in a more spirited manner. Consequently she is getting better mpg than me.

When I bought my last car, a 1.4 Ford Fiesta, the salesman said to knock 10 mpg of the off the manufacturers combined fuel consumption figures. He was correct, and with learners driving, it was slightly more.

Nigel.

 

[MusicMan]

Regards 'mpg' It seems the manufacturers quote miles per kWh.
e.g. The E-Golf is quoted as 4miles per kWh. (and has a range of 120 miles.)
I assume that this is related to the battery capacity.

My electricity bills show I pay (lets say) 12p per kWh.
Is it as simple as 12p will get me 4 miles?
Surely the cost to fuel the car is how much electricity is used to charge the battery to full.
Does the transfer of energy (charging) work on a 1 to 1 basis? do I need to put 1 kWh worth of electricity into the battery to get 1 kWh out?

That’s about right. Check this:

https://pod-point.com/guides/driver/cos ... ectric-car

Yes. There are a number of very good charging rates out there for night time charging. Standard economy 7 is 8p/KWH, and some suppliers have rates as low as 4 - 5 p in off peak. For the Nissan Leaf, 40 KWH should give about 160 m range on moderate driving, which makes it an easy-to-remember 4m per KWH. Thus home charging costs are 1 - 2p per mile. Rapid chargers at motorway service stations etc are generally 25 - 40 p/KWH which is 6 - 10p per mile. If you have solar panels, even lower.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Regards 'mpg' It seems the manufacturers quote miles per kWh.
e.g. The E-Golf is quoted as 4miles per kWh. (and has a range of 120 miles.)
I assume that this is related to the battery capacity.

My electricity bills show I pay (lets say) 12p per kWh.
Is it as simple as 12p will get me 4 miles?
Surely the cost to fuel the car is how much electricity is used to charge the battery to full.
Does the transfer of energy (charging) work on a 1 to 1 basis? do I need to put 1 kWh worth of electricity into the battery to get 1 kWh out?

That’s about right. Check this:

https://pod-point.com/guides/driver/cos ... ectric-car

Yes. There are a number of very good charging rates out there for night time charging. Standard economy 7 is 8p/KWH, and some suppliers have rates as low as 4 - 5 p in off peak. For the Nissan Leaf, 40 KWH should give about 160 m range on moderate driving, which makes it an easy-to-remember 4m per KWH. Thus home charging costs are 1 - 2p per mile. Rapid chargers at motorway service stations etc are generally 25 - 40 p/KWH which is 6 - 10p per mile. If you have solar panels, even lower.

For perspective: I put €68 in my truck yesterday, and the odometer tells me I had driven 268 miles: €0.25 per mile. I always reset the odometer every time I fill up, and the numbers never get any better (usually I manage to get over 300 miles per tank, but this time I must have been off-road more than usual).

I really, really want an electric car. Sigh.

 

[beech1948]

Beech...good idea and I'd be interested to see your results. Aso just how much time you have to spend on your research. To be fair, at 230 mile range you're giving EVs a head start ![/quote]

RogerS,

Maybe but I can buy a Hyundai Kona Electric which will give me 230 or so miles today. I could not in all conscience compare to a Toy like Golf or Leaf or what have you. I thought a Kona would be a good choice as its sort of affordable by the richer middle classes possibly.

 

[Lons]

I have an inbuilt suspicion of economy figures churned out by manufacturers, just look at the history of conventionally aspirated vehicles, every manufacturer used lab tests, cooked the books and even now the stated figure are still not realistic to real world conditions.
I'm just as sceptical when it comes to EVs, with range being one of the major selling points who's going to believe everything the manufacturers say when they have a vested interest in stretching the facts?

Live in a hilly area, exposed with strong winds, need to detour to charge on route, like to drive quickly, it all means the results will be different for each individual imo although I have no personal experience.
I drove a round trip today only 160 miles for a days fishing, one filling station without charging point on route in fact none anywhere near my route into the hills, no possibility of charging so I'd be a bit uneasy with any of the quoted figures even over that not excessive distance. I could have taken a different route and passed two more filling stations but 18 miles each way further.

As for charging points, if there aren't enough now for the relatively low number of EVs on the road there needs to be an explosion of nuclear proportions in provision to cater for the anticipated increase in EV sales. Are they going to catch up? I doubt it so while my wife certainly could have an EV I think we'll sit on the fence a while longer and see how the land lies.

 

[AJB Temple]

Lons - the key point here is you always leave home with a full tank. This is a key difference from a petrol or diesel vehicle. If you top it up when you get home (on economy in the small hours) you always have maximum range in the morning. Unless you are doing round trips that are beyond the range of the car, then fuel station location is a non-issue.

I'm not sure why people are concerned about hills. I spend a lot of time in Switzerland. The UK is flat in comparison. Doesn't bother the EV and seems to make little difference to range.

 

[Jake]

I'm not sure why people are concerned about hills. I spend a lot of time in Switzerland. The UK is flat in comparison. Doesn't bother the EV and seems to make little difference to range.

Hills are great, but maybe regeneration is what helps range.

 

[Lons]

Lons - the key point here is you always leave home with a full tank. This is a key difference from a petrol or diesel vehicle. If you top it up when you get home (on economy in the small hours) you always have maximum range in the morning. Unless you are doing round trips that are beyond the range of the car, then fuel station location is a non-issue.

I'm not sure why people are concerned about hills. I spend a lot of time in Switzerland. The UK is flat in comparison. Doesn't bother the EV and seems to make little difference to range.

Yeah I get that, my point really was that being the cautious sceptic that I am I find it difficult to accept blanket range figures supplied by the manufacturers, we all drive differently which surely has to affect range and electricity consumption.
I could be easily persuaded to change to a hybrid at the minute, my best mate has has a Toyota Rav hybrid for over a year now and is happy with it and while my missus would have an electric car tomorrow I think there a way to go before we'll do it. I like to see the bugs ironed out first so let others be the guinea pigs during development.

That same mate owns a wholesale company and allowed his rep in Yorkshire to have a leased Prius 3 years ago, it was hopeless for a rep he said and he's just swapped her back to a diesel but it's reminded me that my wife's uncle had a Prius for 4 years before he died last year, living in Switzerland for 40 years he often said the hills adversely affected his car so maybe that's where I got it from and of course technology has moved on a pace since he bought his car. He never drove here from Switzerland as he said the support network here made it completely impractical.

As an aside, he used to drive over the border into Germany for a big grocery shop once a month because of the price difference.

As far as electricity at home we have oil c/h, no gas and cook via electricity. I always negotiate a fixed term contract and move suppliers when necessary but have never looked at overnight economy packages as currently of no use to us and that type of plan has not shown up as cheapest option overall for us so would need to look at that as part of the equation.

 

[Lons]

I've decided I want a hybrid, one exactly like Lewis Hamiltons F1 car. Wonder if I can afford his last year cast off?

 

[MusicMan]

Yeah I get that, my point really was that being the cautious sceptic that I am I find it difficult to accept blanket range figures supplied by the manufacturers, we all drive differently which surely has to affect range and electricity consumption.
I could be easily persuaded to change to a hybrid at the minute, my best mate has has a Toyota Rav hybrid for over a year now and is happy with it and while my missus would have an electric car tomorrow I think there a way to go before we'll do it. I like to see the bugs ironed out first so let others be the guinea pigs during development.

Yes we all drive differently and will get different range in an electric car and mileage with an ICE.

In the long term I don't think hybrids are very sensible, but they are a good solution for some at the moment (that's a plug-in hybrid, not what is lyingly called a self-charging hybrid). You get what you need to do your job and manage your life. My circumstances in retirement are different, with no commuting, mostly local trips, and occasional long journeys that are quite manageable with planning. (Indeed I am planning trips to Scotland and Switzerland later this year as a kind of experiment). Oh and my car insurance pays for towing to the nearest charge point if I am stranded! So I am quite happy to be a guinea pig and also to contribute a little to clean air and carbon reduction.

I must say I am quite disturbed by the attitude of motorists who will not consider anything other than their own convenience, and also by the attitude of employers who will not consider any alternatives to their staff driving huge mileages to do their jobs.

 

[LarryS.]

Yes we all drive differently and will get different range in an electric car and mileage with an ICE.

I must say I am quite disturbed by the attitude of motorists who will not consider anything other than their own convenience.

Agreed. I think the fact stated a few times through this thread is that this is the infancy stage of electric cars, car chargers and price. So right now it's not all perfect so it works for some people but not everyone (distances, 4 wheel drive, price e.t.c.) so to keep reiterating that it may not work for x situation today seems a fairly fruitless task.

To illustrate the point, in the last couple of days some news has emerged concerning Tesla. Currently their batteries cost $165 per Kwh to produce. The price they need to get battery prices to to match ICE car prices is $100 - and they're on track to do it in the next 12 months.

 

[AES]

@Lons: FWIW, I agree with you 110% about not trusting the car manufacturers' figures - look no further than the VW scandal, AND if that's not enough, the fact that even today, neither I not my wife, nor anyone else we know, gets the claimed "mpg" (in our case it's the claimed Litres per 100 Km) figures for ICE vehicles.

You also wrote, QUOTE: As an aside, he used to drive over the border into Germany for a big grocery shop once a month because of the price difference. UNQUOTE. Yeah, so do we. "Normal grocery stuff" of all sorts costs on average half in Germany what it does here, and if it's meat we're talking, the difference is even bigger.

Anyway, nothing to do with electric cars, but what is, is the fact that we're getting more and more charging points here, especially at Motorway rest areas. BUT the prices charged are, according to our equivalent of "Which" magazine, MUCH higher than "ordinary" electricity. Personally, I dunno. Though I think the Tesla is a lovely looking car it's well out of the range I'm prepared to spend on a car so I've gone no further. And to back up Beech's earlier point, all ICE car prices here are at least 5,000 quid cheaper than their (broadly equivalent) electric cars - no matter if "city flitzer" or top of the range "performance machine" - which costs MUCH more than the 5,000 quid differential.

But something else that only been touched on a little so far - the cost (money and CO2, etc) of making batteries. I saw someone with a presentation on extracting, I think it was Lithium (but may not have been, I know here's a lot of different battery chemistries these days) who was saying that extracting said chemical/element in the desert was "trillions" of litres of water per "lump" of whatever it was.

Sorry to be vague, I wasn't paying a lot of attention, because I agree with some others here - "EVs? Fine in theory, but for us anyway, not yet. Perhaps in other 5 to 10 years, by which time most likely we won't be driving any more anyway".

But I do wonder if the independent experts (if there are such animals anywhere) have really added the all costs of extracting the special minerals and of transporting them and of making the whole battery into the total "environmental cost" of insisting on EVs-only in the future.

So far, most of what I've read is mainly about the costs and methods of generating all the extra electricity all these new EVs will need.

Still a very interesting thread though .

 

[MusicMan]

An interesting journal of a 6 month extended test of a Leaf by someone who averages 28,000 miles a year:

https://www.nextgreencar.com/review/857 ... term-test/

And concerning the lifetime greenhouse gas emissions of BEVs, there's a detailed report at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environme ... ectric_car

The conclusion is that the manufacturing of the BEV causes 15 - 60 % more emissions of greenhouse gases than ICE cars. This is offset within 6 - 18 months of use, resulting in roughly 50% lower emissions of BEV over the whole manufacturing to scrappage cycle.

There are concerns about the supply of some of the critical materials in batteries. There is plenty of availability in the globe but it tends to be concentrated (cobalt in the Congo, for example) and may be toxic. It is true that Lithium takes a lot of water to extract at the moment. These problems do need to be solved at scale. I'm in touch with some of the UK battery research, and it is going very fast, so I don't believe that these will be long-term problems. Lithium is abundant in seawater for example, but extraction takes much more energy than from the thick brines used at present. Renewable processes designed to counter such problems are being researched and funded very intensively.

 

[RogerS]

An interesting journal of a 6 month extended test of a Leaf by someone who averages 28,000 miles a year:

https://www.nextgreencar.com/review/857 ... term-test/

...

Quotes from it :

The main run was more than 250 miles in the course of an afternoon, with only a lunch stop to break the journey up, other than rapid charges. The Leaf had to be topped up a little twice on rapids - around 40% added each time - plus an hour on a fast charger while I was meeting someone, and another 30% to 80% rapid charge at the end, since the venue I was heading for didn't have a dedicated charge point. This meant I had a decent amount of charge to start my journey back the following day, which required another couple of rapid charges to get me home.

...All told, the round trip would have taken about two and a half hours longer than in a petrol or diesel model, which is a fair amount. Factor in the fact that I would have needed a decent break in each leg regardless of having enough fuel or not - for comfort if nothing else - and that accounts for around half an hour of that time

250 miles is nothing to hit in one go. Who needs a 'decent break ' ? Anyway, the above extract sums up why I'll not be getting an EV anytime soon. I also note that he lives in the rich, lush, charging points-all-over-the-place South of England. I'll fill up the Q3 on the outbound journey and also before I hit the road to return North. I won't have to worry about broken chargers, finding a charger, chargers busy with other cars.

 

[AES]

Thanks MM, both are interesting reads, though I have to agree with RogerS that 250 miles in one go is not really a lot - at Motorway speeds I'll often do more than that in one go, though due to my back problems I'll usually stop for a rest/stroll around and a fag (Yup!) for about 10 mins every 2 hours or so.

 

[MusicMan]

An interesting journal of a 6 month extended test of a Leaf by someone who averages 28,000 miles a year:

https://www.nextgreencar.com/review/857 ... term-test/

...

Quotes from it :

250 miles is nothing to hit in one go. Who needs a 'decent break ' ? Anyway, the above extract sums up why I'll not be getting an EV anytime soon. I also note that he lives in the rich, lush, charging points-all-over-the-place South of England. I'll fill up the Q3 on the outbound journey and also before I hit the road to return North. I won't have to worry about broken chargers, finding a charger, chargers busy with other cars.

Monmouthshire is in Wales, actually, not the lush south. No, you won't have to worry about finding chargers, etc., but the rest of us will have to worry about your emissions.

 

[Bodgers]

But I do wonder if the independent experts (if there are such animals anywhere) have really added the all costs of extracting the special minerals and of transporting them and of making the whole battery into the total "environmental cost" of insisting on EVs-only in the future.
.

There's no need to wonder. They have - search around if you want the answers, Engineering Explained on YouTube has a good video on this subject. I made a comment earlier in the thread about the "whataboutisms"...all the questions and objections brought up in this thread have been thought and planned about for a long time.

 

[MusicMan]

And the Wikipedia reference I gave a few posts ago discusses and references this in detail. I even summarised the conclusions in that post.

A good rule when one is tempted to "whatabout" is to do a quick Google. It can save embarrassment.

 

[RogerS]

An interesting journal of a 6 month extended test of a Leaf by someone who averages 28,000 miles a year:

https://www.nextgreencar.com/review/857 ... term-test/

...

Quotes from it :

250 miles is nothing to hit in one go. Who needs a 'decent break ' ? Anyway, the above extract sums up why I'll not be getting an EV anytime soon. I also note that he lives in the rich, lush, charging points-all-over-the-place South of England. I'll fill up the Q3 on the outbound journey and also before I hit the road to return North. I won't have to worry about broken chargers, finding a charger, chargers busy with other cars.

Monmouthshire is in Wales, actually, not the lush south. No, you won't have to worry about finding chargers, etc., but the rest of us will have to worry about your emissions.

Very funny. Out of curiosity, how many children have you got or plan to have ?

 

[MusicMan]

One son of 46, well past the frequent emission stage.