Any changes to such an embedded network will take time and will ultimately need legislation. Unfortunately at that point subsidy usually is required, massively more than now, and it will have to be for all of the charging facilities. We can argue details however my observations are these... Most of us commute the work or school run. If serous subsidy went into the last mile (by that I mean locally run, knowledgeable and flexible mini busses or the like) tailored to the local needs, with modest work fkexi time etc, very many won't need to move a car in the week. The commercial vehicles used would see a return on investment for any batteries and charging. Congestion of the most harmful kind (around schools, work areas) would disappear. I have never seen an electric bus, nevermind mini bus. If you wish to reduce overall noxious gases and CO2, for minimum cost, that's what you do. London and very big cities can micro manage different, I'm thinking of the rest of us around towns and villages.

Schumi2001 said:

Keep your focus on that 6 hour difference on a 2 day charge, though.

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Grrr... corrected!

Elon Musk has let it out that he wont be selling his electric cars for ever as he expects to make 10x as much money from autonomous taxi services. He's careful to not announce when that change will happen but its easy to see that he could take 50% of the car market. We certainly would not run 2 cars if we could hail a robot car when needed. I can't see the mileage rate being competitive for long journeys but as we've already said, most car mileage is local at peak times.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/08/elo...botaxis-could-make-teslas-more-expensive.html

Apple are aiming at the same market so they'd better get a move on.

andydiver said:

Any changes to such an embedded network will take time and will ultimately need legislation. Unfortunately at that point subsidy usually is required, massively more than now, and it will have to be for all of the charging facilities. We can argue details however my observations are these... Most of us commute the work or school run. If serous subsidy went into the last mile (by that I mean locally run, knowledgeable and flexible mini busses or the like) tailored to the local needs, with modest work fkexi time etc, very many won't need to move a car in the week. The commercial vehicles used would see a return on investment for any batteries and charging. Congestion of the most harmful kind (around schools, work areas) would disappear. I have never seen an electric bus, nevermind mini bus. If you wish to reduce overall noxious gases and CO2, for minimum cost, that's what you do. London and very big cities can micro manage different, I'm thinking of the rest of us around towns and villages.

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I agree, personal transport is never the most efficient way of mass transportation. You reduce the number of cars you reduce the infrastructure required to support them. You aren't burning a figurative tonne of fossil fuels to build a new network from scratch on the back of a network that was never designed for this.

Also fewer worn out tyres, fewer scrap vehicles, fewer new vehicles, less used oil and broken parts...everything associated with cars reduced.

At the moment this has a bit of the feel that lead to the diesel explosion and then implosion. Using punitive measures to push everyone into the "clean" way when in fact it didn't work for all. Hell I'm still paying the bill for that given my petrol 130 quid expensive to tax than the equivalent diesel.

Although I may have the last laugh on that as the equivalent diesel will cost 12.50 a day to go into the nearest town centre from next year whereas the petrol is ULEZ compliant..for now. Although as a port injected car..despite being euro V officially it's also euro VI compliant as the pm target for petrols only applied to DI engines and all other measures remained static.

Schumi2001 said:

Also remember that this isn't just about the UK, either - huge swathes of Europe don't have access to the kind of infrastructure we do. Go to the Southern European countries in particular and their domestic supplies are much weaker than ours - kettle, oven and heating will trip out the supply. Look at Germany, where most people in the big cities live in apartment blocks. How will this work for them?

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My sister lives in Portugal, out in the middle of nowhere. Even when she lived in the village electricity was unreliable.
When their supply was connected to their house, they had to specify the kwh max, out of three levels.
The minimum, which most go for, will not allow an electric fire while the oven is on, it trips out.
So they upped it to the middle level. (Sorry no idea what that is, but I think it is slightly less than our standard domestic supply of 100a) They have a well to supplement the poor water supply. They cannot run the pump while cooking dinner. If using power tools, dinner has to wait.
If they had an electric car, they'd starve to death, or only ever eat cold food.

I regularly visit my brother in Bristol. 55 miles. So a current Leaf would not do the return journey. He lives on the 12th floor of a block of flats, at the rear of the block, so an extension lead from the window might be a challenge. He's a 10 minute walk from a supermarket, but no charging points there yet. If they did, I'd have to leave the car charging, walk to his place. After a cup of tea, walk back to remove the car from the charging point. Looking forward to that in the rain or cold. So a bit more infrastructure needed before that short trip works.

I'm off to Melksham tomorrow. 43 miles. So a Leaf might just do the return journey. I'll be going to a client house, so no chance of a plug-in, then training in their car. Lunchtime, back to Swindon, to a supermarket, so potentially a plug-in. But the training session is 3.5 hours, so someone else would have to be entrusted to move the car off the charging point, not to hog it all afternoon. Not ideal either.

I regularly do those sort of distances to jobs, so currently (sorry) an electric would not do, unless I spend a hige amount on a larger one with at least 150 miles range. Having stretched the budget with a 2015 Fabia, a large electric car is well out of reach.

I've driven a few electric cars, and loved most of them. (The Tesla P100 left me cold, the Leaf and e-Golf I'm quite taken by.) But a long way to go before I can use one. Until the need to learn to drive a manual gearbox disappears completely, I suppose I, and others like me will have to keep a manual car.

Caught sight of an article in Auto Express about fuel cells. Haven't read the article yet, but seems some car manufacturers are expecting that to take over from electric in the future.

portland_bill said:

I regularly visit my brother in Bristol. 55 miles. So a current Leaf would not do the return journey. He lives on the 12th floor of a block of flats, at the rear of the block, so an extension lead from the window might be a challenge. He's a 10 minute walk from a supermarket, but no charging points there yet. If they did, I'd have to leave the car charging, walk to his place. After a cup of tea, walk back to remove the car from the charging point. Looking forward to that in the rain or cold. So a bit more infrastructure needed before that short trip works.

I'm off to Melksham tomorrow. 43 miles. So a Leaf might just do the return journey. I'll be going to a client house, so no chance of a plug-in, then training in their car. Lunchtime, back to Swindon, to a supermarket, so potentially a plug-in. But the training session is 3.5 hours, so someone else would have to be entrusted to move the car off the charging point, not to hog it all afternoon. Not ideal either.

I regularly do those sort of distances to jobs, so currently (sorry) an electric would not do, unless I spend a hige amount on a larger one with at least 150 miles range. Having stretched the budget with a 2015 Fabia, a large electric car is well out of reach.

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The current Leaf has a range of 168 miles... or if that’s not enough you can get an extended range model that will do over 200 miles

The e-Golf has a range of 186 miles again plenty for the trips you describe.

The lower range Leaf has a 40Kw battery which on a domestic plug would take about 13 hours to fully charge. Or about 12 miles of charge per hour.

So you could drive to your brothers, drive home, plug it into a normal socket and it would be fully charged again in 10 hrs. If you had a home fast charger this would be less than 4 hours to fill the battery again.

There was a company down on the south coast ran a Leaf taxi rapid charging it something like 1700 times in 2 years and doing 100,000 miles. There is another company in North American that ran an early model s for over 100k Miles in a couple of years, where the only things he paid for where wheel bearings, the drive unit broke twice in this time but both time Tesla replaced it completely free of charge with in 24hrs, how many new cars can you do a complete engine replacement in under 24hrs.

I could in all honesty run a n electric car too and from work which for me can be as much as 100 miles a day or for my wife is a regular 60 miles every day the only thing stopping us is we don’t own this house and do not have the means to install a fast charger, also because of the way people park we can always be sure we can get next to the house.

The main problem at the moment with all electric cars is the price, they are not aimed at the bottom of the market or the mid point but somewhere just about that mid point with the e-Golf and the Leaf both being around the £30,000 price point. Which is a lot to most people.

AndyRKett said:

I could in all honesty run a n electric car too and from work which for me can be as much as 100 miles a day or for my wife is a regular 60 miles every day the only thing stopping us is we don’t own this house and do not have the means to install a fast charger, also because of the way people park we can always be sure we can get next to the house.

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Isn't it ironic! You just couldn't make this up.

I live in a rented house but have garage and driveway. Getting the landlord to allow fitment of car charging outlet would be no problem. I "could" DIY but I'm sure he would not be too happy about that idea.

I commute about 35 miles each way so a 100 miles range would do for me, but I do have longer runs from time to time and battery capacity degrades over time so 200 mile range would be great.

Schumi2001 said:

Isn't it ironic! You just couldn't make this up.

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I don’t see why ? I’ve clearly stated in the past I don’t drive an electric car.

It’s certainly no more ironic than a rep from a fuel company making up figures that paint electric cars in a bad light.

Apparently to be an electric car advocate you have to be made of money.

Schumi2001 said:

Isn't it ironic! You just couldn't make this up.

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Don't Kia do a lekky one of those?

Successfully replacing the bulb in an external security light.

Technically a piece of cake all you need is another bulb a screwdriver and a ladder.

Except security lights are usually made to the lowest chinese standards with screws that turn to chocolate over time.

Last time it broke I went up the ladder, immediately snapped the screw that holds the light together by attempting to turn it a quarter turn. Obviously there was nothing holding it closed then...except there was the front had oxidised to the back. Managed to crack open the casing, nearly breaking the severely rusty hinge in the process but finally I was in! Except of course the bulb had oxidised to contacts so badly I had to break it in half and attempt to remove the ends gently with pliers but still destroyed the contacts.

At that point I spat my dummy out and bought a new one which is what I changed the bulb on today..having coated the whole thing in wd40 and been super gentle..I only rounded 3 screws..but its together and works!

I have an LED flood light. Frankly don't care if the screws turn to cheese as it will never need to be opened up. To be fair I should have coated the screws all over with copper grease but that never happened.

I had a pair of mega cheap LED spotlights on the bike. They were the equivalent of 130 watts halogen but only used 18 watts each and gave a fantastic long range beam. I had them in use over two winters and while the machined aluminium casings did get grungy from the road salt, they still work fine. Not bad for £20 the pair.

LED wasn't as cheap as it is now when I put it up.

A new unit was plan b if it didn't come apart without a fight. If this bulb lasts 8 years like the last one the unit will look like it was found on the bottom of the ocean next time I need to open it.

AndyRKett said:

I don’t see why ? I’ve clearly stated in the past I don’t drive an electric car.

It’s certainly no more ironic than a rep from a fuel company making up figures that paint electric cars in a bad light.

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You’ll be amused to know that I’ve been appointed the e-mobility specialist in my team...

I will be ordering a BMW 330e in February, though...

Schumi2001 said:

I will be ordering a BMW 330e in February, though...

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Not a full electric, but I’ll look forward to seeing what you think about it.

Also if you’re able could you PM me some info on the oils you talked about in another thread..

“We use gas to liquid technology and have more or less eliminated evaporation, plus these oils are much more pure so tend to keep EGR systems and crank breathers cleaner.”

Specifically which ones they are, I’d be interested to learn more, thanks.

Only a few worth knowing about the 330e.

They're very fast. iPerformance mode gives you 296bhp.

BIK is £190 / month - compared with £410 for a 520d.

They charge very quickly on a 50kW charger, and although I'll have a 3kW charger fitted at home, I'll very rarely use it.

A 3KW charger over 8 hours will give you 24 KWH into the battery. Pretty slow by any standards but ok if the car is not in use everyday. 6KW (30 Amp) far more useful and the house wont be bumping against its overload/fuse.

The 330e is one of those cars that mainly exists to dodge BIK.

Hence a battery of 12KWH and a max of 4 hours to fully charged on a 3kw charger.

Actually, that's one thing the press have missed out - when reading comparisons between the 330e and Passat GTE, they all slate the Passat for being capped at 3.7kW charging... I'd heard BMW were going for higher charge rates with the 'new shape' 3-series, but it appears they've haven't!

So you're looking at 90 minutes for an 80% charge.

Probably good enough for my use, as I'm rarely at a site for less than 90 mins, but not great if only 50kW chargers are available!

Which means I may well end up with a Passat GTE Estate instead.