Fully Electric Car available soon

[tony sayer]

Yes I suppose the electric car does it crapping elsewhere.. at the power station?....

[Derek ^]

It's not the same price because there aren't any to buy.

You can't buy one at any price.

HTH

DG

[mrcheerful]

not cheaper to run than the LOREMO then? (diesel 135mpg)

[mrcheerful]

60 mpg is uneconomic?

[<me9]

And the car driven by the future 'wonder fuel' hydrogen. Where on earth do they get hydrogen. *Dont* say water!

[The Natural Philosopher]

I think we've been down this route before:

Suffice to say that if large amounts of electricity are made from non fossil fuels, then there is no reason for a similarity of fuel costs to be a bar to electric cars. It is. e.g. more efficient to use wind power to generate electricity to stuff in batteries than to use it to make liquid fuel to be burnt at 40% efficiency.

On the battery costs, well there is nothing magic, or expansive, in a lithium battery. Apart from the development and tooling up. They are just bits of foil and plastic in a plastic bag with a secret witches brew of gels. I can foresee DRAMATIC price reductions in them if they go into large scale production.

If the Tesla gets things along to the stage where its ONLY a matter of battery cost, then I am all for it.

I personally think we ARE on the edge of a realistic and practical battery-electric car. Simply because lithium batteries are JUST good enough to get the range, and more than good enough to get the performance.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Indeed. it might.

Unless other than fossil fuel is used, the whole thing doesn';t make sense from any but a *local* pollution point of view.

Change over to other forms of electrical power generation that don't involve fossil fuels, and can't be used in cars, and the picture changes dramatically.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I think it is superheated steam over a bed of coal actually :-) Or is that ammonia..

By burning oil to make electricity and electrolysing water, obviously. you KNOW it makes sense ;-)

[The Natural Philosopher]

Depends on whether the diesel is taxed at the same rate as the electricity.

[Doctor Drivel]

The price has been set, deposits are being taken and the first delivered will be around September.

[Doctor Drivel]

Since when does a tractor do 135mpg?

[Doctor Drivel]

He is confused you know - the weather and all that takes its toll on them. Currently electric motors assist an IC engine in hybrids. In an EV, a Stirling would only be charging and doing ancillary electrical work. They use them in boilers and they only have a freewheeling piston. No crank either.

[Doctor Drivel]

75% of a car's tank of fuel is wasted. It is cheaper, and envormentally better, to pour the fuel in a turbine maximised for efficiency with the latest stack scrubbers, make electricity, send to homes or charging points, charge a battery in a car and run a car on an electric motor. Only 5% of the energy stored in a battery is wasted. It is not just shifting the pollution to another place, although any pollution produced is not in the way of human lungs.

Electric cars do not pollute at point of use, and the lungs of millions of people in cities will be spared (it is worth doing for that alone). Battery technology has come along way in the past 5 years and all is here now and feasible, with power management making a big impact now. Not only that there is the "just introduced" batteries that will make matters even better, and as time moves on battery technology will improve even further as competition takes hold.

Current cars are scrapped because they are uneconomic to repair. The body and suspension may be sound and management system may have gone, so scrapped they are. They are complex and highly inefficient. Electric cars have little to them and will last a hell of a time, about three times that of current cars. So, imbedded energy in making cars is far less too. All adds up. You know it make sense.

....and on and on.....

[Doctor Drivel]

As you can see the senile comments above were total and utter babble.

We haven't. This car is in the Porche category and outperforms it in every way; it is the "same" price in the USA.

See my post on this point.

The power management system has made it. And not having automotive people in the setup.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Try 35 or so on a motorway.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Sad, your total lack of engineering knowledge. You think you've invented perpetual motion.

They use them in boilers? Must be ideal for a road vehicle then. After all they're the same thing.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

It's not on sale. You're reading adverts again. One day you'll realise they are often fantasy.

[Slurp]

If I was in a hurry that would just about get me to the nearest Tesco's - but then I would have to catch a bus back.

[Slurp]

Anybody can set a price, take deposits/specify a delivery date for a fantasy widget.

[Tim S]

I don't know. They'd have to apply duty to all electricity then - it's not like you can stick a chemical marker on the electrons. I suspect duty on all electricity would be a real vote killer.

I was wondering about the 70A charging mentioned earlier too. 63A would be more convenient as there are plugs and sockets already available at this rating. In theory the RECs should love this, if the car could be charged on a timer overnight when other demands are low.

I've always suspected that an electric car could kick the nads off IC engined types. Motor and control technology is already pretty polished - problem has always been with storing enough electricity. Back in the 80's someone developed a sodium battery that was supposed to be the answer. Then there were batteries based on aluminium. This one does sound a bit more hopeful as it is using mainstream technology - the residual problem 1 now being cost - but we've seen many cases where that's sorted itself out (early mobile phones were not cheap for example).

Problem 2 is infrastructure - for this to really take off, you need to have top up points available, probably at roadside cafes or car parks. Not insoluble.

Cheers

Tim