Electric Vehicles - Yes or No

[shagga66]

Just wondering if you guys would buy EV's if they were price right and the gov't supported the infrastructure to charge them.

Alot of noise has been made lately with Tesla setting the benchmark with performance and distance. These cars are awesome IMO..

Tesla P85D has been announced and the performance specs cant be ignored...



Looks hot as well...

[ol' boy]

I'd buy an electric road bike ;-)

[hoe]

I'd buy an electric road bike ;-)

Bah, I'm over bikes. Stuck at caiguna, big storm front went through.

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

[jok11n]

there's quite a few BYD electric taxis here in Shenzhen, obviously no Tesla but they seem to go well, heaps of torque, very smooth, the drivers seem to like them

[ol' boy]

Bah, I'm over bikes. Stuck at caiguna, big storm front went through.

I was thinking of you today, as i drove for 2 hours.... thinking you rode for 1000k's.
As for electric cars, they sound like a joke, the current cost of power is worse than petrol

[shagga66]

As for electric cars, they sound like a joke, the current cost of power is worse than petrol

Thats why we would need the gov't to get behind it, in california charging an electric car is free in most places. Tesla have free charge stations as well.

The model S is an amazing car to drive....

[LeroyPatrol]

We have a iMev and Phev at work. I've only driven the iMev and it has a bit of novelty value but it's purely a city car due to the range.

Leroy

[VroomVroom]

the Phevs seem to be popular , and NRMA did a good write up on them.

maybe they will be the next intermediate step towards full EVs ?

[DB44]

I wouldn't touch one and am amazed that anyone does, for so many reasons. The range is a joke for anyone needing to travel any sort of distance. The power and performance lag far behind conventional vehicles. The battery technology is simply not advanced enough yet and I understand batteries are very expensive to replace which may need to happen a number of times during the life of the vehicle. And even the so-called environmental benefits are garbage. There is damage to the environment in producing the electricity to charge the vehicle, let alone other factors like disposing of the batteries.

This is just one more "green" technology which shows promise but is not ready for prime time. The government already squanders huge amounts of taxpayer's money subsidising these technologies when they are not yet viable. I shudder at the thought of yet more thrown away on a project to provide infrastructure for electric vehicles. Because private enterprise will not do it until it does look like becoming a paying proposition.

I would love to drive an electfic vehicle one day when it as good as a petrol or diesel vehicle, but am not holding my breath.

[shred]

The range is a joke for anyone needing to travel any sort of distance. The power and performance lag far behind conventional vehicles.

I think you need to take a look at the specs for the Tesla Model S, which uses a Lithium Ion battery:

• Range: Up to 440km at 105km/h
• Acceleration: 0-100km/h in 3.4 seconds
• Cargo volume: 849 litres
• Curb weight: 2108kg

This is a game changer. It craps on my petrol driven car in every way. Even has lots of storage space, since there's an extra luggage compartment where a petrol driven engine would otherwise be and no space wasted by a transmission tunnel.

This I.T. guy has some interesting blog entries from time to time on the practicalities of living with a Tesla:


I find the his observations quite interesting. The blog reflects on a road trip of about 2000km in the Telsla, stopping at the free Tesla charging stations along the way. In practice, speeding did not make the trip take less time, because the car is less efficient at 130km/h versus cruising at 110-120km/h. Less efficiency => more battery use => more time wasted at the next charging station while the car recharges! The car supports quickly swapping the battery out for another one, although I don't think Tesla have the facilities in place to carry this out - yet.

[edit] Yes, the Lithium Ion battery is expensive, but Tesla are building a US$5 billion battery factory, which will surely drive the price down. I live in Tassie, where almost all our electricity comes from Hydro power. If I had one of these charging in my garage, it would simply make the water flow a bit faster through the power station that's about 600m from my home.

[admin]

There is definately some interesting hybrids about, such as this one which was reviewed in Cars Guide yesterday.

[gordon_s1942]

Yesterday at 8.20am I headed to Orange some 100kms away to attend a relatives funeral at 10am only to have my wife took ill at Bathurst (45 kms from home) so we had to return home for her to change and left again to eventually arrive 45 minutes late but at least we got there.
I live around the 950 metre mark and at Ovens Range the mean altitude is 1035 metres and then drop down over 400 metres into Bathurst to again climb about 300 metres over Fitzgeralds Mount in about 2kms with the road undulating until you reach Orange.
Over all I did 254 kms with the speed limits varying from 40kph due to roadworks, a truck accident, schools etc to 100 kph maximum limit so I wonder how an electric vehicle would handle that?
The electric of course could regenerate power on down hill runs so that could perhaps even out the power used on the hill climbs to allow you to reach the proclaimed distance of the batteries.

[Guiseppe]

This is just one more "green" technology which shows promise but is not ready for prime time.

The point is the cars are not "green". The pollution is left in Yallourn or where ever the power is generated rather than following you down the road.

[admin]

The point is the cars are not "green".

Not necessarily true. It would depend on where your state sources power. Tasmania as an example dont have any coal powered generation. Even the states that do use coal also use a mixture of gas, gas turbine, hydroelectric and wind generation which is increasing.

I agree with shred, this particular car is a game changer as it is basically now capable of doing what a petrol powered car does. There are going to be major changes in cars coming soon, with fully automated driving estimated to be as soon as 10 years away. I would expect to see that those cars will be mostly electric, hybrid at worst.

[ssrattus]

Range: Up to 440km at 105km/h

How long to charge from empty?

[shred]

How long to charge from empty?

I think the answer is "it depends". You can option the car with battery packs of different capacity and chargers vary a bit. From the blog post I quoted above:
- 40-50 minutes using a Tesla "SuperCharger", but this isn't something you can have at home
- With a 240v / 50A outlet at home, it takes 8 hours.
- You can option the car with dual chargers and charge faster with an 80A outlet at home
-- I suspect this would be expensive and require a new lead-in from the street for most people, so $$$

[shagga66]

How long to charge from empty?

It's about 100klm per hour of charge i think, still have to ensure you plan a trip, but for daily use for commute you would just plug it in next to your mobile at night.

[shagga66]

I think the answer is "it depends". You can option the car with battery packs of different capacity and chargers vary a bit. From the blog post I quoted above:
- 40-50 minutes using a Telstra "SuperCharger", but this isn't something you can have at home
- With a 240v / 50A outlet at home, it takes 8 hours.
- You can option the car with dual chargers and charge faster with an 80A outlet at home
-- I suspect this would be expensive and require a new lead-in from the street for most people, so $$$

Yeah the chargers at the tesla studio are massive, they have people coming in all day sitting around and charging their cars for free.

[Uncle Fester]

The solution are servos with swappable batteries.

However I never drive more than 60-70km a day and I live in a rural residential area.
I think 70% of the people in cities would not either.
If I need to go long distance I take the train or plane or would even rent a petrol car. I only spend 1/10th of the cost of petrol for the electricity, so I can afford it.

For driver who require longer distance, vehicles with built in tiny diesel generators will work very efficient.
Keeping a vehicle running at constant speed requires only 5-10kW at the modest speed we are allowed to drive in Australia. The battery will have reserve for the hills and downhill they also get charged again.

Only 30% of the energy from a combustion engine is used to move the vehicle, the rest is wasted heat.
Electricity generated in power stations is far more efficient but the power bill is only so expensive because we are not using enough (well yeah the privatisation, shareholders, blah blah is also a major reason for high prices) but if we would all charge our vehicles overnight the energy companies would actually work more efficient and power prices could actually drop.

As for expensive batteries : the first flat screen telly I saw in the store costed $50,000, mass produced… do I have to say more?
The cars themselves can also be cheaper mass produced than conventional vehicles, far less moving parts that wear and tear, far less maintenance.
Even the regenerative brakes (which are actually the motors) will not wear out.

The Lithium batteries will of course be recycled as lithium would become a valuable resource, and guess what? Australia has heaps of it, we just have to scratch a little in the earth like we did so successfully in the past.
…if only we were smart enough not to sell all the mining rights to the Chinese, now officially the country with the largest economy, so I have heard.

Unfortunately the first mass produced and affordable EVs will have to come from China, there is no doubt about that, with Europe's dwindling economy and USA's lack of interest: they have killed the electric car many years ago. After that they have only produced "proof of concept cars". Proof of the concept that it is not economical to make them.

[LeroyPatrol]

this could be a game changer?? Not just for cars but households as well. Could change the entire power industry!



.......Leroy