OT: How the electric car revolution could backfire

I drive London to Aberdeen quite often. Some 560 miles. I've only ever had one car that had that range. And never wanted to drive it without a stop for a meal anyway.

I usually leave London early morning before the worst of the rush hour, and stop for breakfast at the end of the M40. Then for fuel and a coffee late morning. Arrive mid afternoon.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)
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Quite. But do we actually know how long those car batteries last, or is it just speculation?

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Absolute total bollocks.

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RC modellers can flatten their batteries in 2 minutes perfectly safely

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(bit faster than a Mk I spitfire)

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

No they didn't, why do you think they called trolley buses,

Because the poles were called trolley poles, a name they inherited from the original systems where the collector was actually a wheeled trolley running on the wires and connected by a flex that was plugged into the buses and swapped when they met.

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Now theres an idea for charging electric cars on the move.

Pantographs are a completely different design and not capable of the deviation that a Trolley bus required. Trolley poles track a wire far better and the bus could be an adjoining lane and still be picking up power.

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No dispute that they did frequently get de wired and the system is only really suitable for relatively slow speeds especially over the cast bronze fittings in the overhead where wires branched of at junctions, this was where most dewirements took place. And it was usually a bamboo pole for lightness. Wife's cousin used to be a clippy on Bournemouth ones.

G.Harman

Reply to
damduck-egg

Are you saying you've used up all the range just driving there? And is there a filling station on that grass verge? A petrol car with no petrol is just as useless as an electric one with a flat battery.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

The first generation had piddling batteries and couldn't be charged from the mains. They are used because many authorities have stipulated hybrids, not because they are cheap to run or are even actually clean as the battery is knackered and they run on petrol all the time. Especially so in London where they avoid the congestion charge for some odd reason.

Reply to
dennis

If the vehicle is self driving you could cook a bacon butty on it.

G.Harman

Reply to
damduck-egg

That's polite. I'd call him an idiot.

And they are for a specific purpose. Not a primary energy source.

Eh? My parents had a Morris Minor in the 50s which averaged over 50 mpg during its entire life. My father sold trucks and travelled a great deal.

It was more the US who had incredibly inefficient cars. Due to the low cost petrol. Petrol has never been cheap in the UK.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

As do lorry sleeper cabs and some top end Diesel cars where there isn't enough waste engine heat to heat the cabin some circumstances.

If allowed an auxiliary heater may be a sensible solution though the powers that be will probably insist that it meets some emission standards as well so maybe LPG powered from a small tank . If they don't allow such things assuming a pure electric will have its range reduced considerably in some circumstances then people will DIY even if that is as dangerous as using a camping stove in a car. My A35 van I had as my first road legal vehicle didn't have a heater till I put an old paraffin stove in the back ,thoughthat was mainly used overnight to get it warmish. The fumes went out the little roof vent.

G.Harman G.Harman

Reply to
damduck-egg

No such specification in London. You can use any car you want as a mini-cab.

As do some other cars.

But the Prius I see being used as mini-cabs all work as intended. It would make no sense at all to run a knackered one.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

So to match throughput of a typical garage fuel fill up ~5 minutes you will need about an order of magnitude more real estate when charging an electric battery for a mere third of the range. So in practice you will need about 30x as many charge points as there are petrol pumps today.

(and heaven knows how many bespoke power plug shapes)

Reply to
Martin Brown

The more I read about this, the more I think flow batteries may be the solution;

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A battery you can refuel like an ICE car.

Reply to
Huge

Dave Plowman (News) explained on 28/07/2017 :

Have you any figures for life versus capacity?

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

They still work with a knackered battery... (and the battery was less than 1kWh in capacity anyway IIRC)

Reply to
John Rumm

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

I always do that journey stopping only for 'comfort breaks' i.e. a wee behind a bush in a layby. My car will do the journey on a full tank.

Interesting route. Presumably then up to Glasgow and across. I always use the A1.

Reply to
Graeme

many areas specify the allowed age of a vehicle for taxi use

so a knackered one would be barred on those grounds

tim

Reply to
tim...

as it only take 5 minutes it's not a disadvantage to "fill up" when only half full

the charge time makes that impractical for a BEV

tim

Reply to
tim...

I'm planning on asking my MP when I next get a chance to go to a husting why this isn't national policy

tim

Reply to
tim...

AIUI pre-heating is the stock approach in cold climates - ie get the car good and warm while it is still plugged in. And I think there is at the very least work in progress on "storage heaters" - phase change rather than the pile-of-bricks variety :)

Reply to
Robin

Or even a fuel cell. Any number of fuel cell vehicles have been produced in recent years, although they haven't caught on yet, probably because hydrogen re-fuelling stations are rather rare.

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Reply to
Chris Hogg

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