More on electric cars.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Wonder how the batteries fare in very cold weather?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Quite. I've talked to colleagues in the film business who have shot in very cold climes. They keep all the equipment batteries indoors - sometimes even in their sleeping bags. So we can look forward to lots of electric cars littering the roadways (if they ever become common) on the first really cold day of the year.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Carp mostly.

Its a chemical reaction. Most reactions get very poor and slow at low temps.

The bottom line is that we don't have a better way of storing and using energy in an oxygen rich atmosphere than carbon based fuel.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Actually POWER is reduced.

Generally the batteries soon get hot enough all by themselves..

[Tim Streater]

That's right. Energy density is all. A fact not appreciated by green-twerps who expect everything to be power-able by an AA battery.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Oh, there's an easy demonstration that shuts them right up. Ask them to pedal a bicycle-driven genny for a while, to power something like a humble laptop.

[The Natural Philosopher]

actually that works. Its when you want to boil a kettle...

[tony sayer]

In article , Grimly Curmudgeon scribeth thus

In the science museum theres a hand cranked genny to power a 30 watt light bulb. That'll make most sweat a bit for more then a minute or so;!..

[tony sayer]

Around 80 of them required to do that. There was a prog on the telly a few years ago demonstrating just how much power we used these days...

[Tim Streater]

Ah, now there's a thought! Well done that man.

[Doctor Drivel]

The car returns 60mpg when running on a genny alone. 50 miles is enough for most people in a day, some get 60 miles In overall annual mileage they reckon about 10% will be on the genny, so super cheap to run - charging from the grid is far cheaper. Some in the USA have never had the genny cut in. When the Lotus dedicated range extender genny is introduced (for general sale on any makers car), 80mpg is achievable.

No more than any other car. It is NOT a 4X4 off-roader.

[Doctor Drivel]

Prices will come down for sure as the competition hot up. What you save on petrol over a year will go a hell of lot towards the cost. It is NOT £30K to buy.

Ordinary cars are complex, and prone to breakdowns, while the Ampera is simple.

[Doctor Drivel]

I have been to hell and back - well Essex and Scotland - the same thing.

[Doctor Drivel]

Hi Maxie. How is the Paddy band going? Bought a new donkey jacket yet??

[Doctor Drivel]

What a knob.

[tony sayer]

In article , Doctor Drivel scribeth thus

Don't worry the guvvermint will soon find a way of taxing that power perhaps we'll see AC and DC "fuels" and differing rates of taxe on them;!..

Battle of the currents all over again..

If you say so .. that may have been true when Red Robbo lorded it at BL all those years ago, but these days?..

[John Williamson]

Slightly off the type of current topic, I was at Hopwood park serices today, and noticed three charging points at three bays. One 32 Amp for "Fast Charge", one 13 Amp for a "Standard Charge", and one branded by Nissan, with a hefty proprietary looking connector on bloomin' heavy cable rated at 400V, 3 phase, 110A, according to the plate on the side. That was the one with the audible cooling fan running even when not doing any work.

I suspect the two lower power ones use the same plug/ socket arrangements, but the other one couldn't connect to them.

[Andy Burns]

These look like they could be quite 'exciting' if anything untoward happened during charging ... the charge station has to handshake with the car's ECU before it will dish out the juice (500V DC @ 125A)

[John Williamson]

This one seems to be what I saw:-

allegedly takes a Nissan Leaf to 80% charge in 30 minutes.

Doesn't beat 5 minutes to put 500 miles worth of fuel in a normal car, though, which does, admittedly, cost a bit more.

[Steve Firth]

However, given that the Leaf is another car costing around £31,000 and providing the same comfort and space as diesel engined cars costing £11,000 and achieving 88 mpg you're not going to see a return on the Leaf until your driving exceeds 250,000 miles, assuming that you can charge it for free, which you can't.

Comparing it to my LPG powered Jeep, which is hardly economical on fuel, you are still going to need to exceed 100,000 miles in the Leaf to see a return on the price differential between what I paid for it and the price of the Leaf.

And I can use air con, heated seats, headlights and windscreen wipers without worrying that I'll never get to my destination. I can also cross Europe in just over a day - that will happen with the Leaf.