I really don't mind if they do ban my car from city centres. I don't tend to go into the city unless I'm out drinking with friends, in which case, I'm not driving anyways. It's still working out cheaper than petrol for me atm though the lease is up in July so might start having another look.

I've made the 700 mile run to my inlaws in France on a single tank a couple of times (usually do fill up again part way just to be on safe side). Same trip would take days in an electric car.

You are confusing PlugInHybrids with pure EV cars. A plug in hybrid would get you to France and back in the same time frame and do your local commutes on EV power alone.

Pure EV has a narrow by widening range of uses ...mostly those within 40 km of work ...longer range EVs like the Tesla and the Bolt are for the early adopters but this is coming in an unstoppable wave and legislation will hinder or hurry that wave.

Norway greatly underestimated the acceleration curve of EV adoption.

Keep your diesel til it dies or gets outlawed. As Uber gets integrated with public transit ride sharing gets easier and cheaper.
There is really no financial reason to own a car in an urban environment when you take all factors into account.

Macdoc wrote:
Keep your diesel til it dies or gets outlawed. As Uber gets integrated with public transit ride sharing gets easier and cheaper.
There is really no financial reason to own a car in an urban environment when you take all factors into account.

So how do I go out into the countryside because I just woke up and it looks like being a spectacular sunrise that I might want to photograph? What happens when I want to take the bikes out into the Dales or up to Dalby Forest (couple hrs away)? We like going camping. All the kit fits nicely into the roof box leaving room in the car for our stuff. How do we do that? Rent a car? Seems a bit of a false economy to me.

The other side of the car sharing idea is regardless of efficiency etc, I doubt anyone is going to be following the route I take to work from my house other than me. Either we're going to be going around the houses or I'm going to be swapping vehicles en route. Don't know if you've done 12hr night shifts but the idea of fannying around rather than heading straight home does not appeal at all. Can I just suddenly remember I need to buy something on the way home in a shared vehicle or does my life have to be uber organised to comply? Sorry, I like my independence, my spontanaeity and sometimes my own space in my car to listen to loud music and sing badly.

Then there's things like a simple trip to my barber. It's around 1.5 miles away. 5 mins in the car, 10 mins in the chair and 5 mins back again. Either that or call in on my way elsewhere. Piss about with other forms of transport and it's two bus rides away taking me around 5 miles out of my way or a 30 minute walk each way. More often than not, I wouldn't just go out to the barber, I'd combine it with trips to other shops etc. Are these Uber shared car things going to wait to see if there's a queue at each one or will they just drop you and go? If you're done in 5 mins, how long to wait for another to come pick you up? I don't live in a perfect world where every place I visit is at the end of a bus route or all neatly lined up next door to each other.

I don't anticipate using shared rides etc without having to compromise hugely on my independence.

Macdoc wrote:Prius is a hybrid so you have ZERO range issues.....the trick is getting the correct hybrid with a decent EV only range for your specific situation.

Ford jumped into the fray early with its plug-in hybrids, and the C-MAX Energi has remained one of the most economical options with 19 miles of electric range. EV mode gets drivers traveling at 88 miles per gallon, while hybrid mode means economy of 38 miles per gallon. Between a full charge and a tank of gas, C-MAX drivers can roam about 550 miles before filling up or finding a plug.

38mpg in hybrid mode seems a bit piss poor. Lots of ICE-only cars do better. I've got a similarly-sized 7-seat diesel Peugeot 308, and I average 45mpg. On a 60 litre tank, range is about 1150km/715 miles. It's 9 years old with 280,000k's on the clock - newer models do better.

LOL, people still think full electric vehicles can't make long journeys due to charging issues? There's a rapid roll-out going on of rapid charging stations (Tesla Superchargers as well as other companies) across Europe and other regions that allow full charging of your vehicle within 30 minutes or so. Already it's no big challenge to drive 1000km in 1 day.

Yep. I live in the middle of nowhere about 500km from Sydney and Brisbane, and if I had an EV I could easily access everywhere I've driven my ICE cars in the last decade. Five years ago, no way could I have done that, but it would be a piece of cake now.

monkeyboy wrote:I really don't mind if they do ban my car from city centres. I don't tend to go into the city unless I'm out drinking with friends, in which case, I'm not driving anyways. It's still working out cheaper than petrol for me atm though the lease is up in July so might start having another look.

I was thinking more of the resale value. But if you lease it, it doesn't matter anyway.

JoeB wrote:LOL, people still think full electric vehicles can't make long journeys due to charging issues? There's a rapid roll-out going on of rapid charging stations (Tesla Superchargers as well as other companies) across Europe and other regions that allow full charging of your vehicle within 30 minutes or so. Already it's no big challenge to drive 1000km in 1 day.

Other than Tesla and one or two others, most purely electric cars don't have a range of more than about 100 miles. So if you're driving 300 miles, that's an extra hour of charging time added to your journey. Although in reality, probably an hour and a half, because it's unlikely that the charge points are going to appear at the exact point that your range is about to finish. Tesla's are better, but they aren't exactly cheap. They start at £66k in the UK, which is £16k more than a BMW M3. I think the early adopters are generally people who can afford two cars anyway, so there's no reason at the moment to throw all of your eggs into the EV basket.

OlivierK wrote:
38mpg in hybrid mode seems a bit piss poor.

Indeed, I manage a steady 46-47mpg in my Auris hybrid.

I’d like to see a system whereby you have service stations for electric cars where an empty battery is taken out of the car and a fully charged one put in. You don’t even have to get out. Just drive over a service point and a machine replaces the battery. The empty battery is recharged at the station by a heavy duty installation which does it much faster than any individual recharging point would.

The catch is of course that all the constructors need to use the same universal replaceable battery system.

Sgt Kelly wrote:I’d like to see a system whereby you have service stations for electric cars where an empty battery is taken out of the car and a fully charged one put in. You don’t even have to get out. Just drive over a service point and a machine replaces the battery. The empty battery is recharged at the station by a heavy duty installation which does it much faster than any individual recharging point would.

The catch is of course that all the constructors need to use the same universal replaceable battery system.

It was tried in Israel actually and failed.


Better Place

Scot Dutchy wrote:It was tried in Israel actually and failed.


Better Place

A helpful and informative link but, all this teaches us is that the model Better Place used was unsuccessful. It doesn't highlight any inherent problems to the idea of a replaceable battery system.

Sendraks wrote:

Scot Dutchy wrote:It was tried in Israel actually and failed.


Better Place

A helpful and informative link but, all this teaches us is that the model Better Place used was unsuccessful. It doesn't highlight any inherent problems to the idea of a replaceable battery system.

Oh I agree and it was probably ahead of its time but just thinking about all vehicles using a standard size battery would be like like thinking about standard petrol tanks and changing them everytime you came in for petrol. Car design is so different being restricted by a standard battery would not be popular.

Scot Dutchy wrote:
Oh I agree and it was probably ahead of its time but just thinking about all vehicles using a standard size battery would be like like thinking about standard petrol tanks and changing them everytime you came in for petrol. Car design is so different being restricted by a standard battery would not be popular.

I concur, especially on this being ahead of its time and I do think you make a good point on a standard battery size being limiting for car designs. In order to have a standard battery that worked for all vehicles, you'd probably need something massively over-spec'd for most vehicle needs, which is just going drive up costs and make the idea not economically viable for a lot of people.

A modular battery that can have sections added or removed depending on the size of the car?

I haven't seen an EV pickup truck, nor an EV with 10,000+ lb towing capacity, nor a 4x4 EV. However, I could probably use one when we're in Sarasota, as my driving is pretty limited, basically to and from the stores. But we'd be up the creek without the pickup, even though it isn't necessary every day.

Is there anything in this range to suit, laklak? (The pickup looks a bit odd but, heigh ho...)
http://ev-fleet.com

It is a possibility Alan but still s restriction. Ever seen the shape modern petrol or diesel tanks? Some are quite exotic.
To avoid weight plenty would be a physical part of the vehicle.

I think we'd need a hybrid, because we do a bit of 500 mile+ road tripping. Ford is making noises about a 1/2 ton F150 hybrid, but I haven't seen any specs. We might get by with a 1/2 ton, if it had the right towing capacity, though the 3/4 we have now is honestly a bit anemic.

Scot Dutchy wrote:It is a possibility Alan but still s restriction. Ever seen the shape modern petrol or diesel tanks? Some are quite exotic.
To avoid weight plenty would be a physical part of the vehicle.

The battery will limit what a manufacturer can do with the car shape to allow easy removal and replacement. Petrol/diesel allows any shape tank (well, more or less).