Electric power points for e-vehicles

[Jdsk]

PHEVS are inelegant engineering, and I agree that they'll probably disappear from mass production cars.

But they're not pointless at the moment. A family member has a MINI PHEV. It's a second car and is mostly used for trips where the home-charged battery provides enough range. But it can run much further on fossil fuel when needed. And the battery-only MINI Electric has a real-world range of something like 120 miles: that rules it out for many users.

Jonathan

[kwackers]

PHEVS are inelegant engineering, and I agree that they'll probably disappear from mass production cars.

But they're not pointless at the moment. A family member has a MINI PHEV. It's a second car and is mostly used for trips where the home-charged battery provides enough range. But it can run much further on fossil fuel when needed. And the battery-only MINI Electric has a real-world range of something like 120 miles: that rules it out for many users.

Jonathan

A Mini isn't really a main car - although I've got one and used it as one for years.

I think the 120 mile range is fine for the EV version again few folk genuinely need more than that in one continuous drive.
Average speed these days on motorways struggles to be much above 60 mph so that's two hours driving, stop for a coffee and off you go again.

Having said all that the 120 mile range did put me off it...

[Jdsk]

I think the 120 mile range is fine for the EV version again few folk genuinely need more than that in one continuous drive.

But that range doesn't allow a real world journey of 120 miles. You'd have to start fully charged, have a suitable charger positioned exactly where you need it, know that you weren't going to be diverted etc.

Jonathan

PS: We live near the plant and went to an excellent IMechE lecture on how they persuaded HQ to assemble them in Cowley rather than anywhere else. Flexibility on the line was the crucial issue. But I now expect the whole plant to close.

PPS: Are your earlier descriptions of living with an EV about the MINI? Thanks.

[thirdcrank]

I think the range of electric vehicles got a terrible reputation when the sales chat in the early days was economical with the truth. Start from Beattock Summit or somewhere popular for RRA attempts and you'd be fine, at least on the downhill with a favourable wind. I've no idea if the current patter is any more accurate but once something like that becomes the accepted wisdom, it takes a lot of dispelling.

There's also something unnerving about feeling you may run out of fuel. Obviously, some people are not bothered or we'd not see those fatuous temporary signs in motorway roadworks saying how many people had run out of fuel in the last month, but some of us are. Over the last twenty years I've owned three Toyotas, ie two Yaris's and a Rav 4. The Yaris's both had the trendy arcade game dash display, including a fuel display with the diagram of a fuel tank. When it dropped to the last chunk it began flashing. The Rav 4 had the traditional needle but a warning light flashed to indicate low fuel. By refilling to full as soon as these warnings started, I established there was plenty of fuel left at that stage and I really do mean plenty. Even so, driving with the flashing warning was a worry. At least with petrol or diesel you can usually refuel quite quickly. I get the point that recharging stations are now numerous and their number is growing, but that's not the same as the speed of a fuel pump.

[Jdsk]

Agreed x2.

But experience is now building quickly. And once you know someone who lives happily with one...

However even that won't stop some people exploiting range anxiety as a concern when their real motivation is something else.

Jonathan

[thirdcrank]

Something else I forgot to mention is the gradual loss of storage capacity of batteries. Whatever the range at brand new, it's a bit like having a shrinking fuel tank. Bearing in mind I'm no car enthusiast, over the last few years I've heard various suggestions. I think at one point, Renault leased the batteries so you could swap from time-to-time. I've also seen the suggestion from Honest John that batteries which were no longer good enough to power a car might be used as storage for solar panels. Not everyone wants to be a pioneer.

[Jdsk]

I'm not concerned about that any more. The loss for the EV in which I'm most interested isn't very much. And I expect the batteries to outlast the car. And the EV to outlast current ICE equivalents.

Most (? all) offer extended guarantees on batteries.

And yes, they can be reused in less demanding applications. Nissan UK have done a lot of work on that.

Jonathan

[kwackers]

Agreed x2.

But experience is now building quickly. And once you know someone who lives happily with one...

However even that won't stop some people exploiting range anxiety as a concern when their real motivation is something else.

Jonathan

Every new EV owner suffers range anxiety - only got 100 miles left, will I make it 10 miles to work?

Like everything it goes away as experience shows it's a non-thing.
Plus like Jdsk says as you get to know more people with them who have no problems then that helps assuage the paranoia too.

My worst range anxiety occurrence was in my petrol mini. I was in Manc and the petrol station I'd hoped to use was shut so I drove the main roads looking for one and not finding any until I'd spent 10 miles driving with the remaining miles showing "---".
At least in my EV I could in theory find a spare 3 pin socket and just plug it in - or more easily these days look on PlugShare or similar to find a private charger who's owner has kindly made it available for use (mines on there).


Jdsk.
Not my Mini. I was interested in them but I only have one car. My missus does the occasional 100-120 mile round trip with all her handiwork in the boot so 120 miles would be cutting it too fine.
As for range my car supposedly has a WLTP of 163 miles, typically in the warm weather I get 170-180 miles. In fact I put it on charge last night it'd done 158 miles and claimed it had 30 left (that's with the A/C running quite a bit too).
When the weather was cold, it was raining and the heating was on full I found it returned 130-140 miles.

[Jdsk]

Thanks... but you've left us guessing...

: - )

Jonathan

[Jdsk]

or more easily these days look on PlugShare or similar to find a private charger who's owner has kindly made it available for use (mines on there).

What a lovely idea. Hadn't heard of that. Now looking it up... that's "Share Home Charger"?
https://www.plugshare.com

Jonathan

[kwackers]

Something else I forgot to mention is the gradual loss of storage capacity of batteries. Whatever the range at brand new, it's a bit like having a shrinking fuel tank. Bearing in mind I'm no car enthusiast, over the last few years I've heard various suggestions. I think at one point, Renault leased the batteries so you could swap from time-to-time. I've also seen the suggestion from Honest John that batteries which were no longer good enough to power a car might be used as storage for solar panels. Not everyone wants to be a pioneer.

Most EV's now have a 7 or 8 year warranty on the batteries. There's a lot of clever tech in there to ensure the batteries are always optimally used. Water cooled/heated battery packs are the norm now. Intelligent chargers which automatically balance them and never fully charge or fully discharge them (full charge and discharge is the biggest killer of batteries bar none).

There are enough old EV's around now to be able to say with confidence how long the batteries are going to last and there are folk popping up who will rebuild battery packs if needed (the batteries are built from modules so it's also possible to swap a single module out).

I was watching a guy on YouTube who took an original Leaf - 10 years old with a tiddly 22(?) kwh battery and swapped it out for a 60Kwh battery - in the same space.
Suddenly a car that had a 60-100 mile range was now looking at nearly 3 times the range.
Given the moving parts in it consist of a few bearings, wear and tear is minimal so it's actually worth doing too.

There's another saving too - brakes. I barely ever need to touch the brakes in my car. There's very little crap on the wheels from the brake dust, I'd expect the pads and disks to outlast the car.

[kwackers]

or more easily these days look on PlugShare or similar to find a private charger who's owner has kindly made it available for use (mines on there).

What a lovely idea. Hadn't heard of that. Now looking it up... that's "Share Home Charger"?
https://www.plugshare.com

Jonathan

Yep. Nobody is going to bother with mine tbh, I'm only a few hundred yards from the new station and that's got 8 chargers on it anyway.
But I want to encourage it.

Guessing as to the car?
It's just an MG, built in China by SIAC which is a huge manufacturer and make lots of stuff for VW etc (which is why half the interior looks familiar to regular drivers of such marques).
My old Mini is 15 years old and has some rot due to having to have the roof cut off and refitted when it was new after some scally tap danced on it otherwise I'd have hung on but my missus needs a car and I was loathe to buy another IC.

The MG is a bit bigger than I wanted but the range and cost scraped in and it was available now.
What's weird is it's actually a smaller footprint than a leaf although it's about 100mm higher.

Having driven electric cars for a bit now I couldn't go back. I do occasionally drive the mini but it feels agricultural in comparison.
The EV is so refined and easy to drive and when you accelerate it feels and sounds like the future...

[Jdsk]

Thanks

Jonathan

[richtea99]

I occured to me that most of the weight of those Transit/Sprinter type parcel vans is the van's ICE engine and fuel load for all day running,as most of the payload is pretty lightweight parcels,so swapping ICE for elec motors and batteries might return far better economy especially if there more quick fire charging stations.

Electric vehicles tend to be heavier than their internal combustion equivalents, so I don't think there's a weight saving to be made. The electric motor is lighter than an ICE, but the batteries needed to reach the 200+ mile range a delivery van needs are blooming heavy (compared to a full petrol tank).

[Mick F]

Kwackers ........

Did you not have a (BMW) Cooper S?
I'm sure you and I have had a conversation about cars back in the past on here.

I've had many Minis over the years.
Two vans (one with a chimney!), two Clubman Estates, and half a dozen saloons of various vintages.
Last one was a 1992 Rover Mini Saloon J542 ODV

First Mini was a van (with the chimney) in 1972. JTB 63F ........ Lancashire!