I mentioned Bilbo earlier.
He was a Mini Clubman Estate HOB 962W. Long since gone to the great scrappy in the sky.
Hob?
Hobbit?
Bilbo?
Geddit?

Happy days,
Mick.

And I have restored a 1927 Roesch Talbot.
It ended up being called Phoenix.
Risen from the ashes?
It's still only tin and wood, whatever ....

AndyRKett said:

Clearly your intention is to cause offence or just be obnoxious, what ever the case it's completley irrelevent what you think In this situation as it bares no relation whatsoever to the rest of the thread.
Let's move on shall we

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Took some time out for a few days as your post is out of order. Moderator has removed my latter posts as they were also out of order. Surprised to see your obnoxious post is still live. But, so what. Your post being live just lets everyone else see what an arrogant person you are.
Been a member since 2007. Never went out of my way to cause offence or be obnoxious. Not any more. Too many bully boys now on the forum. Pity is, they are so arrogant and lack insight that they do not know who they are. Goodbye.

bluejohn125 said:

There's even someone on the (500) Forum who bizarrely calls himself "Piccolo Nero e Bella) which makes no grammatic sense at all since it should either be "Piccolo Nero e Bello" if the thing he is describing is masculine, or "Piccola Nera e Bella" if it is feminine (and a "macchina" is indeed feminine).

By the way, all of the above is fact, and not just opinionated internet hypothesis...

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Thank you for the lesson in Italian grammar!

I never considered my 500 to be either feminine or masculine so, bizarre as it may sound, it really doesn't matter to me. And that's a fact (too).

jrkitching said:

I'm curious how this changes as the battery ages; I'm interested in finding out just how much more power is used by an older battery as opposed to a factory-fresh one.

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I rang Fiat Assist and got a new battery. Of course they didn't have S/S batteries in the van so he fitted a conventional one, but it's up from 63Ah to 110Ah

To my amazement S/S worked right away.

I gave it a good thrash in the hills much like I had on the last tank and so far I'm seeing 5.2-5.8l/100km vs the last tank's 7.0. I'd wager driving style is similar but I've got the A/C on now where as the last tank was in cooler weather. S/S isn't really in play here as it's all country miles so far.

On the plus side, with my solar charger and a 110ah battery, I've now got a Micro PHEV, the car can make it all the way to the shops without the alt. kicking in I haven't weighed it yet but it's the same physical size as the old one.

UFI said:

I rang Fiat Assist and got a new battery. Of course they didn't have S/S batteries in the van so he fitted a conventional one, but it's up from 63Ah to 110Ah

To my amazement S/S worked right away.

I gave it a good thrash in the hills much like I had on the last tank and so far I'm seeing 5.2-5.8l/100km vs the last tank's 7.0. I'd wager driving style is similar but I've got the A/C on now where as the last tank was in cooler weather. S/S isn't really in play here as it's all country miles so far.

On the plus side, with my solar charger and a 110ah battery, I've now got a Micro PHEV, the car can make it all the way to the shops without the alt. kicking in I haven't weighed it yet but it's the same physical size as the old one.

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What PHEV have you bought?

OK bare with me. Smart call their Stop start car with Smart Alt, a micro hybrid. So if a 500 with S/S is a micro hybrid, adding a bigger starting battery and plugging it in every day makes it a Micro PHEV (OK the EV bit is a bit sketchy, so maybe it's a Micro PH, but then that's an entirely new term).

I was able to do around 100km yesterday and the alternator only ever kicked in on decel (it will always ramp up on overrun) even with the A/C, DRL's and radio on.

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Does the battery charger at home running on mains electricity consume less energy than the alternator driven by petrol/diesel?

Maybe mains electricity is cheaper than petrol and that is the benefit of charging at home ....... but you have to buy a battery charger. Mine cost over £50.

Regards,
Mick.

But if you have the battery charger already.

We're currently looking to buy a new house, when we have somewhere with a driveway the 500 will probably get plugged in to charge at least once a week and I may even put a block heater and/or battery heating pad in.

Yes, if we had a garage, I'd be doing the same.

I'm sure it's good for the car as a whole, and reliability is always up the priority list.

It's just that the economics of it are a bit open to debate.

Thanks,
Mick.

It is faaar more efficient and cheap to get power out of a socket that get it from an alternator.

Mick F said:

Does the battery charger at home running on mains electricity consume less energy than the alternator driven by petrol/diesel?

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It costs much less, even with the sky high prices we pay for electricity here in the UK .

If it were not substantially cheaper to fuel a vehicle using mains electricity than fossil fuels (albeit most of the reason for that if fiscal), then the whole EV concept would be dead in the water.

306maxi said:

...when we have somewhere with a driveway the 500 will probably get plugged in to charge at least once a week and I may even put a block heater and/or battery heating pad in.

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You've been reading too many of my posts .

I reckon if you could find a way to run without the alternator you'd likely save 5-10% of the fuel you use.

And on journeys under 10 miles or so, fully preheating the car could get you as much as 20%.

UFI said he has a solar charger.
Is that a free lunch?

jrkitching said:

You've been reading too many of my posts .

I reckon if you could find a way to run without the alternator you'd likely save 5-10% of the fuel you use.

And on journeys under 10 miles or so, fully preheating the car could get you as much as 20%.

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Been saying it for ages Wonder what would be the best option, to heat the oil or the coolant? Obviously both would be best, but I suspect it would be overkill.

306maxi said:

Been saying it for ages Wonder what would be the best option, to heat the oil or the coolant? Obviously both would be best, but I suspect it would be overkill.

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The coolant.

There's more of it, the specific heat capacity of water is just about the highest of any known substance (only liquified anhydrous ammonia is higher and that's not much use in this application!), and the cooling system is specifically designed to transfer heat from the cylinder head & block.

Sweetsixteen said:

UFI said he has a solar charger.
Is that a free lunch?

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Not if you count the cost of the solar charger.

But it's free at the point of use.

I kind of thought as much, but then you do think heating the oil will help minimise wear on cold starts.

I quite fancy going a bit smart home, so would probably fit some smart sockets so I could turn schedule it to go on and off or turn it on/off remotely

To do it right, you would need to insulate the block - or at least make the air under the bonnet captive in some way to minimise heat loss, as well as calculate the optimum time any coolant heater needs to be on, and then fix a starting time for the heater. The starting time would, theoretically, need to be adjusted depending on ambient temperature day by day.
Bit like getting up in the night to feed the baby, huh?

Yup, if you know what the temperature is and which way it's going then that's a big help. We've got a weather station so that wouldn't be too hard

Hi guys again.
I know that electricity is cheaper than petrol, but that is because of taxation systems.

Electric vehicles only make sense if petrol is highly taxed and electricity is cheap. If everyone bought an EV, the governments worldwide would have to tax electric vehicles to compensate for the lack of tax receipts from petrol and diesel.

My question was if pugging in a battery charger used less energy than running the alternator.

I obviously know that without an alternator, the engine would have more power available at the wheels which converts to better fuel economy.

If we had a garage, I'd have a nice insulated cedarwood garage, install underfloor heating and plug in the car to a charging system and a heating system. I'd save a fortune in petrol ................ but at what cost?

Swings and roundabouts.
Mick.

Mick F said:

My question was if pugging in a battery charger used less energy than running the alternator.

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The final answer depends on how you generate the electricity, but in general terms the economies of scale mean that power stations are more efficient in percentage terms than small gasoline engines, so most likely the technically correct answer is plugging in a charger.

And you are right in saying that the relative economics of energy usage for most folks is based on fiscal policy, not inherent efficiency of different energy sources.