Going Electric.. present small car options.. confusing

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Going Electric.. present small car options.. confusing

Exactly the more lightly it can be built the more naturally efficient it will be. If you can get away with a smaller battery, it spends less time charging.

Rather than just loading it up with more and more energy, use what you have efficiently which minimises the drag on the grid and the environmental costs associated with construction and disposal.

Motor technology is moving, battery technology is moving, as is the software. While I would be happy to run what is currently available I don't doubt if I wait a bit there will be some large strides made as everyone is putting money into advancing the tech now.

Hence my comment about the E-2008 or Mokka, that electric gear will be under around 10 different volume cars by the time they've released a new C3, C3 Aircross, whatever they do with Fiat (If you count the 3 badge engineered vans it's already nearly there) a result they can afford to lash money at it as the per unit cost will be quite low.
 
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The problem with a lot of current EV's is they are ICE derived cars, an electrified version of a car that was designed with the ICE option as the biggest seller. VW are starting to get away from this with the ID.3 being electric from the ground up rather than the eGolf.
Purpose built EVs can be more efficient than an adapted ICE vehicle, I agree for the majority it is too early for most EVs, the outright cost negates the fuel saving in many cases. With better battery technology emerging as demand increases over the next few years we'll see more affordable purpose built EVs with better range.
The biggest hurdle the UK needs to overcome is charging, many people do not have overnight charging as an option and to anyone buying an EV currently, without overnight charging it is a hard sell. You may see a fair amount of chargers being installed but you'll be surprised how often they don't work when you arrive at one with 8miles range... Not to mention the 10 different apps you'll need on your phone to use each of them, topping up credit to an account for just one brand of charger...
Its getting better... but its not there yet
 
The biggest hurdle the UK needs to overcome is charging

Many cars will charge rapidly to 80% then slow to a crawl for anything over that. The new Ford Mach-E is especially bad. The real range is 4/5 of what they say it is and considering the stress of going below 20% the usable range is actually 60% of what it's claimed to be.
 
Yep..
Doesnt LOOK too different

How come there are so many coloured plugs?

Who knows, maybe they ran out of brass plugs.

I think the big deal is that a.c. traction motors work fine on variable frequency power converters, but they can be noisy as the poles pulse one to the next.
I presume they've found a way to soften the poles thumping as the a.c. creates its rotating magnetic field.
They've been used on railway freight locos since the 1970s allowing continuous full power when nearly stalled. At very low speeds the motors can be heard thumping their way along. No worries at a power station coal bunker. Not so cool in High Street traffic.
 
They've been used on railway freight locos since the 1970s allowing continuous full power when nearly stalled. At very low speeds the motors can be heard thumping their way along. No worries at a power station coal bunker. Not so cool in High Street traffic.

Very few concepts are new..

https://avidtp.com/product-category/electric-motors/

It's just that markets change and backing becomes easier to find..
 
I read that the Polestar is a long established VOLVO project..

Could explain their 'brave' announcement several years ago about going ICE FREE

The Geely money seems to be pushing this forward

Volvo/Polestar are another where the gear appears under other cars. So in this case they are also under the current London taxi and the Van version and I think some other delivery vehicles.
 
I read that the Polestar is a long established VOLVO project..

Could explain their 'brave' announcement several years ago about going ICE FREE

The Geely money seems to be pushing this forward

Indeed Volvo have been working on Polestar for a few years now, I suspect the change of name is intentional as Volvo tends to be associated with old men and they wanted to attract a younger Electric car buying kind of customer.

Also Geely bought and own Lotus hence the stupidly powerful latest 2000bhp all Electric Lotus. Its companies like this that are really pushing the electric future.

I did hear a story today (not sure how true it is, given the time of year) that Volkwagen accidently released some paperwork suggesting a north American rebrand to "VoltsWagen" i'm not 100% sure on that but its not April the first yet.
 
I did hear a story today (not sure how true it is, given the time of year) that Volkwagen accidently released some paperwork suggesting a north American rebrand to "VoltsWagen" i'm not 100% sure on that but its not April the first yet.

Confirmed to be an April fools joke that got leaked ahead of time... whoops.
 
Quite an interesting video on fully charged.

https://youtu.be/C4nS_tSQiVQ

Highlights the point batteries have not got a lot heavier despite additional capacity..so there's no real reason for electricity cars to be creeping towards 2.5 tonnes other than manufacturer laziness.

Few interesting things in it for me, first of which a gen 1 Leaf 24kwh is currently about 5-6k probably less if you bought one with a ruined battery. Conversion at this stage to 62kwh is 13k so 18 grand for a 10 year old electric car with a usable range if you don't already own a leaf, but for 40kwh battery is about 5k cheaper. 13k for a 150 mile range car is slightly more palatable.

The one thing that caught my eye is the corrosion on the battery packs, these are what max 10 year old? Looks surface but give it another 5 years would it actually rot through the battery box and give you water into the battery?

Not an immediate concern but given the amount of salt we get round here plastic rusts nevermind Japanese cars so I could guarantee if I had one it would be worse than average.
 
It was quite interesting, I think it’s probably a very niche set of customers who would want that service. Basically people who bought and owned a leaf all these years from 10 years ago and have no real drive to replace an otherwise perfectly good car.

They where quite expensive when new so perhaps the engineering is well above what a regular car would have and things don’t wear out so much, certainly they don’t need expensive work like cam belts or even regular servicing which a dealer might charge a couple of hundred quid for, so in the psyche of someone who owns one of those cars £8k for a new battery might seem like a bargain compared to what they’ve paid.

As you point out though on any car at 10years old rust is going to start showing it’s head and when a car is 20 years old the rot can be quite severe, so it will be interesting to see if these cars are still about in another 10 years, but then maybe again the costs of having rust proofing done and the car just plodding on with minimal input might make an expensive rust protection. Well with while.

Also maybe some of those batteries sitting about on those racks have been living near the sea, I know Cornwall was a popular place for first gen leaf owners, there was a taxi firm down that way that had a few very early on, so the rust on some might not be the rule
 
As you point out though on any car at 10years old rust is going to start showing it’s head and when a car is 20 years old the rot can be quite severe, so it will be interesting to see if these cars are still about in another 10 years, but then maybe again the costs of having rust proofing done and the car just plodding on with minimal input might make an expensive rust protection. Well with while.

Also maybe some of those batteries sitting about on those racks have been living near the sea, I know Cornwall was a popular place for first gen leaf owners, there was a taxi firm down that way that had a few very early on, so the rust on some might not be the rule

I suppose it entirely depends how the packs are built, I've got no idea and won't pretend I do. If it's a double thickness box with a waterproof membrane should be fine for years. If that's the only skin though it's not promising.

Given the build quality issues tesla had with rust wonder how the underside of a model S would look after 10 years on our roads.

The floor pan etc. looked immaculate but unfortunately the battery is a rather expensive piece to be hanging in the salt spray. It was no worse than the rear beam on the Mazda tbf...but I can get one of those for a few hundred quid.

Welding a battery box anyone?:eek:
 
I suppose it entirely depends how the packs are built, I've got no idea and won't pretend I do. If it's a double thickness box with a waterproof membrane should be fine for years. If that's the only skin though it's not promising.

Given the build quality issues tesla had with rust wonder how the underside of a model S would look after 10 years on our roads.

The floor pan etc. looked immaculate but unfortunately the battery is a rather expensive piece to be hanging in the salt spray. It was no worse than the rear beam on the Mazda tbf...but I can get one of those for a few hundred quid.

Welding a battery box anyone?:eek:


I'd imagine after the first few welds it would become self welding when the battery catch's fire ? ?
 
Sensible answers only please. 2 questions:

1: How comes manufacturers don't seem to be working on solid state battery packs yet, at least not that I'm aware of? From what I understand, they offer far better energy density than conventional lithium ion batteries.

2: I understand it would add cost and complexity, but how comes EVs don't have multiple ratio gearboxes, like an ICE vehicle? Again, from what I understand, at motorway speeds, EVs deplete their batteries far, far quicker than at town speeds, so wouldn't having at least 1 or 2 extra gears potentially help to extend the range?
 
Sensible answers only please. 2 questions:

1: How comes manufacturers don't seem to be working on solid state battery packs yet, at least not that I'm aware of? From what I understand, they offer far better energy density than conventional lithium ion batteries.

2: I understand it would add cost and complexity, but how comes EVs don't have multiple ratio gearboxes, like an ICE vehicle? Again, from what I understand, at motorway speeds, EVs deplete their batteries far, far quicker than at town speeds, so wouldn't having at least 1 or 2 extra gears potentially help to extend the range?
Because solid state battery are around yet they are still in the development stage they are not ready for mass production and use and probably still a few years away from the mass market
 
Because solid state battery are around yet they are still in the development stage they are not ready for mass production and use and probably still a few years away from the mass market
I thought the technology had been around for decades though? I'm sure I remember seeing an episode of Top Gear from around the mid 1980s on YouTube, which was a motorshow special, and I'm sure 1 of the exciting new inventions it mentioned was a solid state car battery.
 
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