?Why did it take nine hours to go 130 miles in our new electric Porsche??

[polygonum_on_google]

Always looks to me that they are saying on the one hand a petrol engine, on the other, a battery. And they go on about being able to drive it on battery power 50% of the time.

[Theo]

I think the 'two sources of power' thing (which I haven't seen) is because, when you put your foot down, you get power from both petrol engine and battery. That means the car accelerates faster than with a petrol engine alone. The electric motor handles parts of the torque curve where the engine is lacking, providing better responsiveness overall.

Obviously at some point the battery runs out of puff and you're just on the petrol engine and, there being no other sources of energy, that engine has to recharge the battery (either while braking or gradually while driving along).

That's why I'd class non-plugin hybrids as just a different kind of automatic transmission. They're just petrol cars, but ones that deliver power differently across the driving range.

Theo

[Theo]

The people who charge electric cars at public charging points, yes. Just like the people who fill up petrol cars pay for petrol stations, calibration of fuel pumps, mitigating forecourt fuel spills, etc.

It needs people to change their mindset, along with a working charging infrastructure (which they have in other countries but not here, evidently).

Cite for when that happened?

Theo

[Theo]

The government seems to dump on LAs the responsibility for things it doesn't really care about.

Road pricing is coming...

Which will make not one jot of difference. We're hardly going to be fitting different charging sockets just because we can. Cars are not designed specifically for the UK market. It would be a nightmare for anyone who took their car on a ferry anyway, let alone people who have the temerity to drive across the Irish border.

I think some of them aren't very well connected. For example, a pub installs a charging point for their customers. It's just an EVSE hooked off the regular CU. It's either free to use, or a 'pay at the bar' type arrangement. Something trips, the bar staff don't know how to reset it, and of course you've already driven there.

I imagine the fast chargers are better in this respect. But it still doesn't cover the situation where you search for a working charger, start driving to it, and then it locks itself out before you get there.

There can also be issues where the charger can't successfully negotiate with your car. Charger thinks it's working, car thinks it's working, they just can't talk - which you only find out when you get there. It seems like some of the networks are not well engineered in that respect:

Theo

[Tim Streater]

No, we are out of the CU and SM. Were already out of the EU (not Europe).

Well quite. Just as petrol pump nozzles are standardised too.

[Theo]

But evidently not very well.

Car has a range of 250 miles. They charged it at home. They did 130 miles there. They did N miles doing whatever they did when they got there. They needed to do 130 miles to get home. Hence they needed to charge.

Which is what they tried to do on their return journey.

Theo

[Richard]

OK, my mistake. However, I would certainly make sure that there was somewhere to charge my electric vehicle if I were to embark on such an epic excursion. One has to be awestruck by the vast distances that can be traversed by electric cars available today. Certainly superior to horses.

[tim...]

but in the case of most uses,

that's electric from the battery that they have charged up from the ICE

So no improvement in emissions whatsoever

That's why they are also scheduled to be banned

[tim...]

but why are these things breaking in the first place

They aren't fundamentally difficult technology

and why are they out of use for the weeks reported in the article. It should be possible to diagnose errors remotely and schedule a man to fix them within a small number of days

[tim...]

at least you can still get home if your electric bike runs out of juice

[NY]

One has to be awestruck at how small the range of electric cars is (with a many-hours delay to recharge again) compared with the far superior range and rapid "recharge" time of a petrol or diesel car. And I don't see how the recharge time can be improved much, given the power needed to add the necessary range within a similar time to that taken to refuel a petrol car.

You have to change your lifestyle dramatically to factor in long recharge stops.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I do. but its a total infrastructure overhaul and a new generation of

0-full charge in 5 minutes batteries. It is feasible, but look at what is involved...even for a family car thats 12 times the capacity in terms of peak charge power. So an 80kwh battery needs a megawatt for 5 minutes. a big service station on a motorway probably needs 20 charging points so that is a peak capacity of 20MW.

Requiring a pretty hefty substation and overhead wires, which will be idle at 3 a m ...

It will happen, partially, I think· My early cars had 200 mile range - its a nuisance but not too bad. waiting an hour to fill the tank is not really on. And you still need just as much power in te service staion, but spread not over 20 charge points but over 200...

[Dave Liquorice]

Abuse? Weather? Just bad design?

This is true but if that wire breaks that allows the car to talk to the charger you're stuffed....

Maintenace costs money and eats into the profits from the subsidies...

[Andrew]

We are getting closer to "charger rage news" day by day as frustrated people arrive at a motorway service station only to find that all the fast chargers are 'in use' when in fact their charging is complete but the owners have buggered off for a lengthy meal.

They're going to have to incorporate an SMS messageing system to inform the (absent) owners that charging is complete (or 80%, which is OK) and other people are waiting and if necessary issue a fine like the ANPR parking system does.

Do EV chargers have interlocks to stop the cable being half-inched ?. If not, I can see EV cables being the next petrol-hybrid-cat-theft and no need to jack the car up either.

[Andrew]

This sort of problem has confronted online banking issues, mobile phone problems, etc etc for ages and people get by (eventually).

Buy shares in Whitbread who own Premier Inn because EV charging issues may boost their occupancy rates (and at immediate /short term rates too).

[Andrew]

Neighbour gets over 60mpg from his 1.8 Corolla hydrid, but he is a careful driver so gets the full benefit.

[Andrew]

Petrol cars produce the most emissions as they warm up so hybrid cars doing short trips are much more beneficial to the air quality than one that does a 20 mile each-way commute every day.

[alan_m]

Why it it assumed that if out of Europe the UK will not have the same standards? Even with standards in a few year's time technology will move on and the standard changes. Anyone purchased a TV with a SCART socket recently, anyone on the group purchased a cassette tape recently?

[Dave Liquorice]

But isn't the whole point to "take back control" and do what we want and not be dictated to by Europe. If we still follow Europe we ought to stay in so we have some control not none.

[Tim Streater]

Oh shut up Dave. Stop talking bollocks. And it's the EU, not Europe, which is a geographical entity.