More on electric cars.

[John Williamson]

Agreed, though they're pushing the mew ones as being capable of fast long distance travel, aided by charging points at motorway services. I could go from Stoke to London in a day now by electric car, pausing en route for large meals at Hopwood Park and Warwick services while the car's batteries got topped up on the way. There may be other charging points on the way, but they're the only ones I've noticed while walking from the coach park into the service areas.

Then again, £20,000 only buys about 150,000 miles worth of petrol in a car that size at motorway speed.

[AJH]

So what is the total cost of ownership of a typical small new car? My wife's has averaged 4400 miles per year from new and she seldom travels more than 20 miles in a day, if she did she could take another car. On the surface she is an ideal candidate for an electric vehicle. A lesser quadracycle is not acceptable and what about cabin heat in the winter?

This battery life is interesting, I thought it was a function of charge-discharge cycles AND time but I've never seen it stated as a simple equation. e.g. if the battery is maintained charged and not used (only self discharge being an issue) how long a life? As oppose to being through a charge cycle and then 25% of useable capacity used daily?

I imagine, leaving out any rate of return on investment, that this will depreciate 30% in the first year, say GBP9k, amortisation of battery, say GBP800, electricity on their figures and my wife's mileage is only about GBP55. Assuming tax and insurance costs are the same (no tax on electric or small cars?) that gives me a fixed cost of GBP2.20/mile and running cost of about 1.5p/mile for the Miev.

AJH

[Bill Taylor]

Which is inconsistent with the claim of a 16kWhr battery and a range of 93 miles. That's 172Whr/mile, or 193Whr/mile if you use the more credible 83 mile range.

My diesel (which is a larger and more practical car with a range of well over 800 miles) uses about 670Whr/mile at your 45kWhr/gallon, before taking account inefficiencies. If you add in all the electrical plant and transmission losses for the electric car the raw energy consumption works out about the samer.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I expect to do London to Aberdeen in a lot less than a day. Including one stop for refreshments. If it really takes a day to go by car from Stoke to London, I'd use the coach. ;-)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Depends how you work things out. With low mileage, the cost of the fuel becomes less important than other running costs like depreciation and routine replacements, etc. Assuming her car averages about 35 mpg - which should be perfectly possible with a good design, the petrol/diesel cost per year is well under 1000 quid. If the batteries last 5 years and cost

4000 - work it out.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Around four years seems to be what you can expect under those circumstances. There are improvements going on all the time with lithium chemistry, but shelf life seems to be fairly static. Iow, if I'm offered a brand new battery pack that's four years old and never been used, I'd want it for nothing so I can see if it's any good. There's no way I'd pay anything for it until I can see exactly how it's fared in storage.

I've been messing around for the past couple of years with leccy bikes and garnered some knowledge of battery packs, but the people who could really answer your question are on

[Jules Richardson]

Take it out for dinner once in a while.

[AJH]

Lithium must be worse than lead acid then, my Landrover still has the battery it came out of the MOD auction with in ~1995 and still starts plus it had regular use up till 4 years ago.

AJH

[AJH]

About 166000 miles for my 206 diesel which has now clocked 225000 miles. I wonder what it cost new in 2003.

The miev wouldn't get me to work and back without a charge in between.

AJH

[Steve Firth]

It would if that wasn't a ludicrously optimistic estimate. If you get

2/3rds of that you'll be lucky.

[The Natural Philosopher]

it can be worse yes.

[Tim+]

Smaller gallons you see. ;-)

Tim

[polygonum]

And longer miles. By something like an eighth of an inch.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

And if someone offered you an unused (and I don't mean dry-charged) LA battery that was four years old would you pay any money for it? I wouldn't.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

If it had not been allowed to go flat at any point, I'd buy it - at the right price. Obviously not full price since that would be pointless.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

I would pay nothing and only pay something once it'd been proven under load for a while. Even then I'd only pay a fiver.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I bought a Halfords 'calcium' for the central heating system backup some 6 years ago, and it's the correct one for my old Rover. It lived in a kitchen cupboard at a near constant temp and kept on a maintenance charge. Was never used in anger. It's now in the car after that battery died, and before installing it I checked it with my posh tester. Which showed it as perfect. If I test a 6 years old car battery which has been used in a car, it usually shows some degradation.

BTW, if it's a reasonably big car battery, the scrap value is more than a fiver. ;-) Got 7 quid for the old Rover one.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Natural gas - which provides most of our electricity - tends to track the price of crude. Or the other way round. And although there is currently no taxation on the fuel for an electric car, you can be sure this will change if they become common. Probably in the form of road use taxation.

[tony sayer]

In article , Dave Plowman (News) scribeth thus

Not quite Dave its still King Coal, nuclear a 8 GW base load and the rest filled in with Gas plus the of bit of Hydro and the ever fickle wind;!...

tends to track the

Indeed thats a bigger cert than electric cars becoming an everyday thing..

Which won't happen till they get the prime mover power sorted out..

[tony sayer]

Yes regen , been used on the tube railway since god knows when, isn't that much of a factor..