OT: How the electric car revolution could backfire

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One thing that never seems to get a mention, is the heating in these vehicles. Surely the need to heat winscreens and passengers for around six months in the year adds a considerable penalty to the battery life.

Or do we have a return to "Esso Blue", with a greenhouse heater :-)

On the plus point, I can see a ready market for all the fuel saving gimmicks that were on sale years back. The Fuel conditioners can have the piping replaced with cables so that they become power conditioners, a comeback for the 0.22uF capacitor masquerading as a wireless filter unit also, the blurb will be astounding "stop your miles being eaten away by stray RF interference, fit a miracle suppressor" Maybe the green felt marker used to draw a ring on the perimeter of CD's can be poshed into service aroung the charging socket.

Of course the dashboard chargers wil be pushed hard, no one will ever be at risk ofbeing helplessfrom the power dying again with a pc cell on the dashboard, the hundred or so uA will "soon" have them zooming into the distance.

Mind you the true power saving ideas will have been bought up and kept secret by the power companies........

Business will boom!

AB

Reply to
Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp

on nail hit head

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Bill Wright was thinking very hard :

Thanks, spot on!

Our local buses for a year or two, were hybrids. Diesel the main power source, it switched off it came to a stop, then electric pulled it away from the stops, with the diesel restarting as it switched to second gear. From a passenger point of view, they worked well, but....

For some reason, the entire fleet of hybrids, still quite modern, have been replaced by brand new none hybrids using engine stop start technology.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

The electric car will never work until things are standardised as follows....all cars work off a standard battery pack which can be exchanged at petrol stations on demand .......no plugging in ...no waiting to charge...simples ....

Reply to
Jim GM4DHJ ...

Many electric cars have heat pump technology.

Reply to
harry

Most electric cars are charged at home, at night.

Reply to
harry

That's because Matt Ridley knows his arse from a hole in the ground, unlike all Greenies.

Reply to
Tim Streater

Fine if you have a garage or driveway. But if you have to park at the kerb side away from your house, what then?

Reply to
charles

They may be at the moment. No doubt you charge yours at night from solar power, eh harry?

What's going to happen on most older housing estates without garages or driveways?

Reply to
Tim Streater

In message , Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp writes

Look on the bright side. A whole new market for Russ Andrews :-)

Reply to
Graeme

Jim GM4DHJ ... explained on 27/07/2017 :

Standardised battery packs mean standardised cars, or multiples of battery packs for different sized cars.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

Last night a bloke who bought a couple of Renault vans which were electric was complaining that the batteries are on lease and the company is supposed to replace them when the mileage shows they are wearing out, but he has found that in warm weather he gets twice the range than in cold weather even with no heating of any kind. Renault refuse to give home new batteries so he is going to go to law over it. Personally, I'd just sell the vans to a local delivery firm and buy some hybrids from Nissan. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

OK - some rounded calculations from:

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Car+taxi total road miles in 2016 est at 250billion

Ignore other vans and lorries for now.

A Hyundai Ioniq has an EPA rating of 124 miles on a 28 kWh charge so

0.23kWh per mile.

So we need an extra 57000GWh of electricity per year.

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Average demand from National Grid in 2016 was 27GW, so that means a total of 240000GWh of electrical energy was produced in 2016.

That's a 24% increase in total generating capacity.

No allowance made for anything other than a perfectly balanced demand, so you'll need more generation in reality. And a massive infrastructure upgrade.

Reply to
Tim Watts

Somewhat ironic in using the word backfire in article about replacing IC engines with electric.

G.Harman

Reply to
damduck-egg

No you just trade performance for range.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Instead of running cables overhead on pylons they could run them under motorways. The warmth from the conductors would be free de-icing in winter.

Owain

Reply to
spuorgelgoog

Bring back travel rugs and driving gloves!

Reply to
Max Demian

They still use hybrids (with a big lump behind the driver containing the batteries) in the Slough area. Usually (but not always) the engine stops when the bus stops, but restarts as soon as it gets going. I don't know whether it has regenerative braking.

A much better (and cheaper) idea.

Reply to
Max Demian

and dig up all the motorways to install them. I can't see cars wanting

275kV for charging - so a large numbe of Grid substaions would alkso be required.
Reply to
charles

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