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Going electric

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Going electric

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AndyRKett said:
Making assumptions again! 3Mw is a serious amount of power, as stated in the article you posted it’s enough to run 850 homes, I have no idea how much power these robots used but I know a ‘robot’ could be something huge or a small item that performs a small task maybe only using a few hundred watts.

Without knowing how much power that part of the factory uses you’re just making guesses, also when power use is low these systems feed the extra back into the grid then when the sun does go down they are buying back the electricity they already produced, their CO2 free power they fed in earlier in the day means that less fossil fuel gets burned in power stations else where. And as already discussed there have been long periods in the uk where no fossil fuel is used for electricity as there is adequate power being produced from other sources.
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The only assumption I made was that they use medium sized modern, high efficiency robots. In industrial terms 3MW is a tiny amount. The smallest standard industrial power socket is rated at 16A thats 3.5kW at single phase or 10kW 3 phase. Unlike a house (which can use over 10kW peak, not the 1.5kW average implied by 850) a factory uses almost constant power.
The 2.8 kW figure I used for a robot was conservative and easily verified.
Where did you get the "entirely off solar"? is this a quote (reference please) or an assumption?

Robert G8RPI.
 
To give some idea of industrial power consumption, the CNC router in front of me is rated at 111A, assuming a power factor of 0.6 (light load), that gives me 46kW and this is only a small machine with an 11kW main spindle, the new ones we're getting next year have 17kW spindles.

I just looked at one of our robots, a stacker/unstacker, 52A, assuming a power factor of 0.5, that gives me 18kW.

We're only a small factory (50 employees), but I still calculate our power draw to be minimum 500kW, more likely 1MW.

I don't know what the VW gearbox factory next door uses (600 employees), but I'd wager it's rather more.
 
Thinking about it, I suppose they could run the factory with a total power draw that never exceeded 3MW, even if the installed machinery exceeded that twice over.

It would require centralised control of the entire facility though and some pretty tight programming in order to ensure that there were never too many machines operating at any moment.

(Think "Apollo 13", when they're trying to find a way to restart the command module using only the very limited power left in the batteries)

The level of automation required would reduce the number of human employees to just one, to press the start button.


I'd love to have a go at programming that.
 
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Back on topic.

I've decided to make the jump

Picking one of these bad boys up next weekend :)

2015-Kia-Soul-EV-17.jpg
 
varesecrazy said:
Are your trips into Central London a thing of the past...?

Range is still the deal breaker for me.
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Nope, although my annual mileage has dropped to about 12k a year from 22-25k over the last year or two.

Range doesn't bother me, the infrastructure is improving massively weekly, can charge at the majority of motorway service stations etc.

StevenRB45 said:
Out of interest why that particular model over say, a Hyundai Ioniq or E golf or whatever? Just wondering as tbh don't know enough about any of them.
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A good question.

VW wasn't an option, I'm not a fan (sorry AndyRKett) and don't believe they're in a good enough position to know what they're doing for long term reliability and durability of EV's. The Golf GTE they've over complicated with an un-nessecary 6 speed gearbox for example - wouldn't surprise me if it turns out to be the next DSG box for reliability :rolleyes:

Ioniq has a large waiting list I believe, and I didn't want new - my Soul is 2 years old with 9k on the clock.

Spec won it over the leaf - Charging rates, the Soul has a 6.6kw charger as standard for domestic charging, this was a £1500 option new on the Leaf - meaning the Soul can be full charged from empty in 4.5-5 hours - which is doubled with a 3.3kw charger.

Should also has a larger batter than the standard 24kwh leaf (which has 21kwh useable battery). The Soul has a 30.5kwh battery with 27kwh useable.

The Soul also has battery thermal management, which the leaf doesn't, which in some climates leads to increased battery degradtion.

The other thing that sold it was the Kia 7year / 100k warranty - means I've still 5 years and 90k miles of no major expense motoring :)
 
Most Easterly Pandas said:
Nope, although my annual mileage has dropped to about 12k a year from 22-25k over the last year or two.

Range doesn't bother me, the infrastructure is improving massively weekly, can charge at the majority of motorway service stations etc.



A good question.

VW wasn't an option, I'm not a fan (sorry AndyRKett) and don't believe they're in a good enough position to know what they're doing for long term reliability and durability of EV's. The Golf GTE they've over complicated with an un-nessecary 6 speed gearbox for example - wouldn't surprise me if it turns out to be the next DSG box for reliability :rolleyes:

Ioniq has a large waiting list I believe, and I didn't want new - my Soul is 2 years old with 9k on the clock.

Spec won it over the leaf - Charging rates, the Soul has a 6.6kw charger as standard for domestic charging, this was a £1500 option new on the Leaf - meaning the Soul can be full charged from empty in 4.5-5 hours - which is doubled with a 3.3kw charger.

Should also has a larger batter than the standard 24kwh leaf (which has 21kwh useable battery). The Soul has a 30.5kwh battery with 27kwh useable.

The Soul also has battery thermal management, which the leaf doesn't, which in some climates leads to increased battery degradtion.

The other thing that sold it was the Kia 7year / 100k warranty - means I've still 5 years and 90k miles of no major expense motoring :)
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Will watch with interest. In 4 years time, when I'm due to change my current car, electric will definitely be among the options I'll be exploring. The infrastructure where I live is currently poor - but I suspect that will have improved by then.
 
Most Easterly Pandas said:
VW wasn't an option, I'm not a fan (sorry AndyRKett) and don't believe they're in a good enough position to know what they're doing for long term reliability and durability of EV's. The Golf GTE they've over complicated with an un-nessecary 6 speed gearbox for example - wouldn't surprise me if it turns out to be the next DSG box for reliability :rolleyes:
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The GTE is a hybrid so you’d actually be worse off than with your Prius as the GTE being a sporty model is still a thirsty car, I believe the gear box is essentially the same troublesome DSG box fitted to other VAG cars.

There is. new E-Golf but is something in the region of £28k standard, which makes it more costly than my cabriolet was, but with the same boxy design of the standard hatch, the E-Golf is like all other EVs 1 speed gearbox which goes either forwards or backwards.
Personally I’m with you on the EV VW front, they’ve only recently come to market with their all electric cars and new to prove their longer term reliability before I would commit to spending the best part of £30k on one.

If you have that sort of money to spend, I’d be down the Tesla dealers and putting my name down for a model 3...... then wait a couple of years.
 
AndyRKett said:
If you have that sort of money to spend, I’d be down the Tesla dealers and putting my name down for a model 3...... then wait a couple of years.
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Thats the long term plan.

Still an estimated 18 months before the UK models hit land, then give it a further 2-3 years to iron out any issues, buy a used one with some of the depreciation taken out. I'll probably be ready to chop the Soul in by then :)
 
AndyRKett said:
There is. new E-Golf but is something in the region of £28k standard, which makes it more costly than my cabriolet was, but with the same boxy design of the standard hatch, the E-Golf is like all other EVs 1 speed gearbox which goes either forwards or backwards.
Personally I’m with you on the EV VW front, they’ve only recently come to market with their all electric cars and new to prove their longer term reliability before I would commit to spending the best part of £30k on one.

If you have that sort of money to spend, I’d be down the Tesla dealers and putting my name down for a model 3...... then wait a couple of years.
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I'd be happy enough renting one, with the rate the technology is moving at it would seem sensible not to commit to one long term.

Thankfully VW is ahead of the curve on this with EGolfs being available for less than my wife was paying for a 1.6d DS3 monthly. Although tbf I'd rather pay 5 quid less a month than the C3 is costing, pay a 10% deposit and get a GTI performance package instead..
 
JCarp16 said:
How long do the batteries last on these things? Is buying used a high risk?
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Going by Toyota Hybrid tech, 20+ years if used correctly.

Nissan are having issues in very hot climates, but the UK seems a sweet spot climate wise to be honest. The batteries in the phase 1 leaf haven't faired that well, but Nissan's big issue is not using thermal management, as such the batteries on the Leaf can get a tad warm with multiple rapid charges, accelerating their degradation significantly.

It appears its more age rather than mileage that takes its toll on Li-Ion units, there are a few taxi firms now with Leafs with 100-150k+ miles on the clock in 3-4 years with minimal degradation.

At the end of the day, buying anything used is a risk, but if the worst thats required is a £2.5k used battery, then I'm game. Gearbox repairs on some ICE cars can cost £1.5k a pop (been there and done that)!
 
StevenRB45 said:
Thankfully VW is ahead of the curve on this with EGolfs being available for less than my wife was paying for a 1.6d DS3 monthly. Although tbf I'd rather pay 5 quid less a month than the C3 is costing, pay a 10% deposit and get a GTI performance package instead..
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Technology isn’t really improving rapidly to be fair, it’s just more manufacturers are joining the electric vehicle band wagon.

New cars now do not have any major significant advancements over the 6year old leafs knocking about the country side.

I’m not sure if you got your maths wrong or if you were looking at the non electric version, but the E-Golf is £28k with the government money taken off for being a plug in, and with a £4K deposit, still tops over £430 a month with £11k to pay off at the end of 3 years, they don’t allow anything longer (or shorter) than a 3 year deal and that’s with a mileage of 10k a year.

I don’t think any DS3 would be anything like that expensive.
 
Most Easterly Pandas said:
Going by Toyota Hybrid tech, 20+ years if used correctly.

Nissan are having issues in very hot climates, but the UK seems a sweet spot climate wise to be honest. The batteries in the phase 1 leaf haven't faired that well, but Nissan's big issue is not using thermal management, as such the batteries on the Leaf can get a tad warm with multiple rapid charges, accelerating their degradation significantly.

It appears its more age rather than mileage that takes its toll on Li-Ion units, there are a few taxi firms now with Leafs with 100-150k+ miles on the clock in 3-4 years with minimal degradation.

At the end of the day, buying anything used is a risk, but if the worst thats required is a £2.5k used battery, then I'm game. Gearbox repairs on some ICE cars can cost £1.5k a pop (been there and done that)!
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Maybe - but surely only on high mileage or abused cars? In 30 years of motoring I've never needed gearbox repairs - I would hope that buying a secondhand car only 3 or 4 years old that the gearbox would last the time that I kept the car. I wouldn't be happy to shell out 2.5k of repairs on a car that was only 3 or 4 years old.
 
AndyRKett said:
Technology isn’t really improving rapidly to be fair, it’s just more manufacturers are joining the electric vehicle band wagon.

New cars now do not have any major significant advancements over the 6year old leafs knocking about the country side.

I’m not sure if you got your maths wrong or if you were looking at the non electric version, but the E-Golf is £28k with the government money taken off for being a plug in, and with a £4K deposit, still tops over £430 a month with £11k to pay off at the end of 3 years, they don’t allow anything longer (or shorter) than a 3 year deal and that’s with a mileage of 10k a year.

I don’t think any DS3 would be anything like that expensive.
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Tbf inland revenue did ensure we had the most expensive DS3 lease ever (salary sacrifice car + overtime = loosing 4k a year of tax allowance) . However:
Screenshot_20180101-190004.jpg
Based on the same 5k a year the DS3 was..it's the same though no initial payment on the DS3..or C3.
 
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A few years ago I had the option to lease a Leaf for half the normal rate. I did the sums and even if I charged it for free at work it would still be cheaper to pay for fuel and scrap my 1.9 16V Multijet Croma after 3 years. Infra structure may be improving, but even with a 1/2 hour charge every 100 miles or so it still adds a lot of time to a longer journey. It is a good idea to stop every couple of hours anyway but the range limits enforce it. There is also no quick fix if you do run out. I wonder how long before the AA and RAC start carrying some kind of charging sytem? A large car alternator will put out around 2kW so a modified system could be used.
Just Googled it and RAC have had one since 2014
http://www.raccorporate.co.uk/for-investors/investor-news/2014/24-04-2014

Robert G8RPI.
 
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JCarp16 said:
Maybe - but surely only on high mileage or abused cars? In 30 years of motoring I've never needed gearbox repairs - I would hope that buying a secondhand car only 3 or 4 years old that the gearbox would last the time that I kept the car. I wouldn't be happy to shell out 2.5k of repairs on a car that was only 3 or 4 years old.
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As with any used car you pays your money and take your risk.

As I say, been there done that with a Bravo I bought at 3.75 years old, a year later and major gearbox woes. Luck of the draw unfortunately. I wasn't happy but it was what it was and there is little else you can do when you're in the situation.
 
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