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Going electric

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Going electric

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He did have good points, but I imagine a gentleman from a hydrogen invested company would disagree vehemently with his assessment of where things are going as may companies invested in ice. They can all produce a similar graph rubbishing the others for their short falls.

It's a good video but extremely one sided..I assume there's more to the "full talk" Rob Llewellyn mentions given another cracker on that diagram that went unmentioned is "Homes become net contributors to the national grid".

I reckon we'll be having an electric car in the next 10 years, just this particular video should have started with him introducing himself as a charging point salesman.
 
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I must admit, whilst I'll miss my nice engine and gearbox, I'm not against having an electric car in the future. However: for me personally, the infrastructure needs a lot of work, and the price of electric cars does need to come down a lot before I'd consider buying 1.
 
The devil is in the details. Overall cars will be a drain on the grid but can become important net contributors for key periods such as when everyone in the locality takes an electric shower....the national grid link to your village is less likely to be updated and more interestingly a local supply of electricity need not be rated for peak, and so on.....
 
puntofan01 said:
I must admit, whilst I'll miss my nice engine and gearbox, I'm not against having an electric car in the future. However: for me personally, the infrastructure needs a lot of work, and the price of electric cars does need to come down a lot before I'd consider buying 1.
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Seconded. They're still expensive. But look how much the RRP of the Nissan Leaf has fallen over the years and I don't think it will be too long before EV prices will look very attractive next to ICE equivalents. Coupled with much lower running costs and the potential for much greater reliability they could become the default choice before too long.
 
It's the battery cost which makes EV's so costly. They've been coming down in price, and still are. They'll be on par with ICE vehicles in 10-15 years I suspect.

Even if slight more however, still worth it for the fuel saving over the ownership of the vehicle - almost like the petrol vs diesel running costs debate. Only difference is this one is a much bigger saving per mile :)
 
JCarp16 said:
Seconded. They're still expensive. But look how much the RRP of the Nissan Leaf has fallen over the years and I don't think it will be too long before EV prices will look very attractive next to ICE equivalents. Coupled with much lower running costs and the potential for much greater reliability they could become the default choice before too long.
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Yep. When Fiat make a good looking, affordable EV, that's when I'll be most interested, lol!
 
puntofan01 said:
Yep. When Fiat make a good looking, affordable EV, that's when I'll be most interested, lol!
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This is not looking likely in the immediate future, Fiat hasn’t even touted any concept cars in the EV market, yeah they made the 500e for the California market to make sure they could sell other cars in the area, but they lost a ton of money o every one they sold, the tech they used was terrible and from what I understand they are not very reliable with poor battery deterioration.

JCarp16 said:
Can't say we've had any electrical issues with the Italian cars in our family stable. The Nissans and Renaults on the other hand...
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My silver punto had no end of engine earth problems had it replaced once and then made my own earth and fitted a second earth on the top of the engine.

Our red HGT punto always had some sort of warning light on the dash to say something wasn’t working, too much Alfa romeo electronics under a fiat badge.
 
I'm struggling to get my head around the 'net contributor' statement. I understand that the power held in EV batteries is a lot, and could be fed into a house to power it, but the car does not generate the power. At some time it will need charging, so a power supply TO it will be needed. It can't all come from regeneration while rolling downhill.

If I use an EV to power my house, it will fail to get me to work next day. ??

With batteries still quite heavy, an electric aeroplane seems a challenge. 'No luggage' flights perhaps? Or every passenger has to plug in their phone and laptop, not to charge it in-flight, but to power the plane. Only passengers with fully charged phones allowed past check-in.

Range for me is still an issue. As an example, I regularly visit friends almost 100 miles door-to-door. So a 200 mile range is a risk. There is nowhere at the friends' house to charge a car. Charging points at local car parks or motorway services are too far from the friends' house. Still lots to develop.
 
portland_bill said:
I'm struggling to get my head around the 'net contributor' statement. I understand that the power held in EV batteries is a lot, and could be fed into a house to power it, but the car does not generate the power. At some time it will need charging, so a power supply TO it will be needed. It can't all come from regeneration while rolling downhill.
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It’s more that you charge your car when you’re at work or asleep. You use most power when you get in from work, cookers, kettles lights etc. So you get home from work and the power in the car battery can be fed into the grid to power the peak demand. Once the demand fails off into the evening the car chargers on a cheaper tariff and in the morning you set off in a fully charged car.
 
AndyRKett said:
It’s more that you charge your car when you’re at work or asleep. You use most power when you get in from work, cookers, kettles lights etc. So you get home from work and the power in the car battery can be fed into the grid to power the peak demand. Once the demand fails off into the evening the car chargers on a cheaper tariff and in the morning you set off in a fully charged car.
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:yeahthat:

portland_bill said:
Range for me is still an issue. As an example, I regularly visit friends almost 100 miles door-to-door. So a 200 mile range is a risk. There is nowhere at the friends' house to charge a car. Charging points at local car parks or motorway services are too far from the friends' house. Still lots to develop.
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How often do you do this journey?

There will almost certainly be a rapid charger on route for you somewhere. A 10-15 min splash and dash on that would enable you to easily do a 200 mile journey with a 200 mile range car.
 
AndyRKett said:
This is not looking likely in the immediate future, Fiat hasn’t even touted any concept cars in the EV market, yeah they made the 500e for the California market to make sure they could sell other cars in the area, but they lost a ton of money o every one they sold, the tech they used was terrible and from what I understand they are not very reliable with poor battery deterioration.
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That's what happens when you spend very little on R&D. Marchionne seems to have an allergy to investing in new technology. He'll scratch his chin then launch another SUV and then moan that nobody's buying enough of them when his predictions said otherwise...
 
JCarp16 said:
That's what happens when you spend very little on R&D. Marchionne seems to have an allergy to investing in new technology. He'll scratch his chin then launch another SUV and then moan that nobody's buying enough of them when his predictions said otherwise...
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He was (or had been ..)convinced
That battery tech was too far from readiness..and therefore went down the hydrogen fuel cell route.
 
varesecrazy said:
Check out the hydrogen pandas of @2008

Dont forget FIAT have made electric city cars for @30 years. Just not for the UK.

Panda. Seicento etc
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I do remember seeing a hydrogen Panda concept - but I thought it stayed as a prototype and never made it into production. I have a little more faith in Fiat than some of the other fans on here as I feel with investment and a clear direction they are quite capable of producing competitive non-ICE cars (Fiat does have a number of notable innovations to its name - so I don't doubt they're capable of more). The sense I get is that there is a lack of commitment for any particular route - possibly because SMs main task has been ridding them off debt - pouring cash into projects that may never pay them back in the long term is obviously, a worry. Meanwhile, though, everyone else has seems to have stolen a march on them. Perhaps it's just my perception and there are things in the pipeline that will appear very soon. I do hope so!
 
Living in rural Cumbria electric is going to be a huge leap. I looked at buying an i3, but the one with the back up ICE. I do 60 miles a day round trip commute.

BMW didn't want to sell me one.

Their loss, I bought an Indian Hybrid.

D
 
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