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Post by Rickster on Jul 8, 2017 9:25:41 GMT
With Volvos recent announcement and news from France it seems that the electric car revolution is picking up a pace.
My wife is saying she quite fancies a Leaf!
One possible unintended but good consequence for us petrolheads will be the availability of good cheap used cars
We shall see! Interesting times
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Post by Dweenimus on Jul 8, 2017 9:40:51 GMT
My gfs dad has a plug-in hybrid prius. It gets 80-100mpg or simething. It charges the batteries when you brake and in general driving around town doesn't even touch the petrol engine.
I wouldn't have a prius, but if be open to another plugin hybrid or electric as a daily.
When my gf was looking for a work van we considered getting an electric one too, but the cost was a fair bit more than a normal van.
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Post by wannabe on Jul 8, 2017 11:11:47 GMT
They might end up cheaper to buy, but if fuel duty is increased, VED is increased, 'clean air zones' are brought in everywhere, insurance companies start jacking up premiums for vehicles driven by actual humans, and even just a small percentage of semi-autonomous vehicles start being used (missus' sister has some new SUV thing which reads the road signs and you can press a button to limit your speed to the limit  ) then it will get vastly more expensive to own them and run them and use them, and when you do, the roads will be full of Canoeing morons doing exactly the speed limit and paying Canoe all attention to what they're doing because the car does it all.  I was behind some new mid-spec Merc luxobarge this week on the motorway - brake lights were on and off like a Canoeing disco in traffic, I can only presume because the driver was using 'intelligent' cruise control that had no (human) capacity to just ease off the throttle and squeeze a following distance smaller for a few seconds then let it expand again... Wound me right up. I'm moving to the west coast of Scotland at this rate. |
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Post by jackyboy on Jul 8, 2017 12:45:27 GMT
I would have an electric car if it saves me lots of petrol money. More money for me to use my 5 on track.. but irrelevant to me really because i cant afford an wlectric car lol.
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Post by randomfactor on Jul 8, 2017 13:19:49 GMT
I daily a Golf GTE plug in hybrid, it's great as a company car due to the low bik tax rate, but I think you'd struggle to save the additional purchase cost (over a gti or gtd) in fuel to make it worthwhile as a private purchase.
Also although the initial acceleration is okay in electric mode, once you're moving it's like driving a very heavy small engined car. It does catch a few 'faster' cars out when in GTE mode though...
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Post by howardb66 on Jul 8, 2017 14:23:40 GMT
Look at the carbon footprint of the raw materials for the batteries & the pollution created in their manufacture/eventual disposure. Not so green now, huh?
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Post by Rickster on Jul 8, 2017 16:06:05 GMT
The biggest problem is the charging infrastructure, we currently don't have enough spare capacity so hybrids are probably the short term answer. Until we build more nuclear power stations (tree huggers don't like them either)
The other issue will be the revenue generated by fuel duty if that decreases then the government will need to find the money somehow- electricity could have duty on it! Certainly all the incentives to buy electric will be replaced by tax or duty
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Post by myothercarsa2cv on Jul 8, 2017 23:31:43 GMT
Electric cars are the future whether we like it or not. It's highly likely that we'll run out of oil in my lifetime at this rate. I went to an EV/ULEV conference last week. Like Howardb66 says above, I noted the lack of strategy around making the manufacturing process for vehicles green. Everyone is very much focused on tail pipe emissions (and to a lesser extent, emissions from the electricity generation for charging plug ins). Until someone properly redesigns the motor car to make it easier to make and fully recyclable (separation of different materials is key here) then it doesn't matter about tailpipe emissions as they won't have fixed the problem, just lessened it. The other elephant in the room is of course population and ridiculously high rates of car ownership... I mean, I have three. Who needs three cars?!  |
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Post by joeytalent on Jul 9, 2017 5:17:09 GMT
I had a Ford Fusion hybrid as a rental for a week over here - the acceleration was so terrifyingly slow that I disabled eco mode asap.
I think electric cars will work fine in places where the average speed is lower (cities, or commuting), but for highway stretches they're still a long way from being drivable. Until battery leasing and changing batteries is more widespread, I don't see them being an option for most of the US.
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Clem
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Post by Clem on Jul 9, 2017 9:34:01 GMT
I had a Ford Fusion hybrid as a rental for a week over here - the acceleration was so terrifyingly slow that I disabled eco mode asap. I think electric cars will work fine in places where the average speed is lower (cities, or commuting), but for highway stretches they're still a long way from being drivable. Until battery leasing and changing batteries is more widespread, I don't see them being an option for most of the US. No idea about the Fusion and how it works but that is not typical of EVs. Most of them display excellent acceleration. You should try an i3! |
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Clem
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Post by Clem on Jul 9, 2017 9:38:25 GMT
The biggest problem is the charging infrastructure, we currently don't have enough spare capacity so hybrids are probably the short term answer. Until we build more nuclear power stations (tree huggers don't like them either) The other issue will be the revenue generated by fuel duty if that decreases then the government will need to find the money somehow- electricity could have duty on it! Certainly all the incentives to buy electric will be replaced by tax or duty This is too damn true. I drove my i3 from London to Somerset and back yesterday. About 300 miles total at a guess. Should easily be do-able with 1 charge in each direction. On the way down I failed to charge twice, managed to get a slow charge to top me up just enough to arrive and get the car on a 3pin plug for the day. On the way back I was forced to take a long route and charge twice because there is huge black hole of functional chargers on the M5 and M4 (Gordano, Leigh Delamere (not a fast charger) and Membury are all marked as broken according to crowdsourced info). All this is far from ideal. Our chargers are too few and far between and massively unreliable. Whilst it makes every journey an adventure it just isnt good enough for the future. That said, its a chicken and egg scenario, the chargers are crap because there arent many users and vice versa. |
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Clem
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Post by Clem on Jul 9, 2017 9:41:29 GMT
Look at the carbon footprint of the raw materials for the batteries & the pollution created in their manufacture/eventual disposure. Not so green now, huh? True, but then if you look at the carbon footprint of getting petrol (or diesel) refined and to a petrol station its pretty bloody appalling too and thats before you've burned it driving through town depositing fumes just where people dont want them. Nobody is saying that EVs are perfect but they look MUCH better than the alternatives at the moment, if for no other reason than moving the emissions out of towns and cities and into centralised zones (be that power stations or battery factories) where its much easier to control them. |
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Post by myothercarsa2cv on Jul 9, 2017 9:44:09 GMT
Don't worry it's coming  I was speaking to a guy from the DfT the other day and he said they will be putting more infrastructure in regardless of take up. Now I take everything the government says with a pinch of salt but at least they get it. I'm more excited about vehicle to grid, e.g. using your EV like a Tesla powerwall. |
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Post by wannabe on Jul 9, 2017 12:18:08 GMT
The biggest problem is the charging infrastructure, we currently don't have enough spare capacity so hybrids are probably the short term answer. Until we build more nuclear power stations (tree huggers don't like them either) The other issue will be the revenue generated by fuel duty if that decreases then the government will need to find the money somehow- electricity could have duty on it! Certainly all the incentives to buy electric will be replaced by tax or duty
Big Brother 'pay as you drive' GPS-monitoring and charging back to the owner is the solution being put forward by the anti-car, pro-monitoring, pro-control EU on that front
There was a recent competition with £250k prize money to design a 'politically acceptable' scheme that would enable a change from fuel-based taxation.
policyexchange.org.uk/the-wolfson-economics-prize-2017/
I can't remember the proposed solutions off the top of my head now, but suffice to say, basically all of them involve increased monitoring of our every movement.
Enjoy going out for a drive on country roads anonymously and at your chosen speed while you can, the future really is not bright.
EDIT: Here you go: policyexchange.org.uk/news/finalists-for-wolfson-economics-prize-unveiled/
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Post by joeytalent on Jul 9, 2017 12:40:20 GMT
I had a Ford Fusion hybrid as a rental for a week over here - the acceleration was so terrifyingly slow that I disabled eco mode asap. I think electric cars will work fine in places where the average speed is lower (cities, or commuting), but for highway stretches they're still a long way from being drivable. Until battery leasing and changing batteries is more widespread, I don't see them being an option for most of the US. No idea about the Fusion and how it works but that is not typical of EVs. Most of them display excellent acceleration. You should try an i3! When you were at the point where the electric one was out of juice (which was all the time in the highway), you were reliant on the 4 cylinder engine for acceleration, which just wasn't big enough for the weight of the car. I probably have to adjust my driving style to really get the most out of a hybrid, but after a week and 1500 miles, I still hated it. And yes, I'd like a go in an i3! |
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) then it will get vastly more expensive to own them and run them and use them, and when you do, the roads will be full of Canoeing morons doing exactly the speed limit and paying Canoe all attention to what they're doing because the car does it all. 
I was speaking to a guy from the DfT the other day and he said they will be putting more infrastructure in regardless of take up. Now I take everything the government says with a pinch of salt but at least they get it.
le sigh