Electric everything.

[[XAP]Bob]

At the moment if you're doing long journeys a plug in diesel hybrid may be a better choice than pure electric. We've an E300de on order, arriving in a couple of weeks. Interesting to see what it'll be like. Electric range is about 33 miles , enough for the daily commute it'll be used for and charge time about 5 hours from an ordinary 13amp socket. It'll be replaced in a couple of years time when we may go fully electric. By then there'll be more choice of decent electric cars and much better infrastructure.

Nah, only need it a few days a year - why lug about (and service) a diesel for that?

I’d far rather AlAir batteries or similar for the rare journeys

Well it's fine for you if you rarely do long journeys. We do them quite often. How does high speed cruising affect battery range?

Not too badly, I can get pretty close to 4m/kWh cruising at motorway speeds - and I’m in a particularly aerodynamically inefficient vehicle.
In winter, with a headwind, uphill both ways, then it drops a bit but I don’t think I’ve seen less than 3.5 over any significant journey.

Something like the MG5, I managed to trivially get over 5m/kWh on shorter A road journeys (it was a courtesy car so didn’t have it long) - my guess is that that efficiency boost would translate to the motorway as well. The MG5 LR lists 250miles wltp, so I’d expect 220-230 ish real world.


The reason I’d go for AlAir is that they become the replacement for the ICE range extender, but you can drop a couple in and still be completely electric, no complicated secondary drive system to shoe in.
They’d not be high power batteries, but if they can provide a decent base load then the LiIon can smooth that out.

Round trip efficiency is pretty poor, still better than ICE, a bit worse then hydrogen- but much simpler to store.

[[XAP]Bob]

Tailbacks out of a few petrol stations today…

Oh well, nothing like a bit of range anxiety is there

[Jdsk]

Tailbacks out of a few petrol stations today…

Oh well, nothing like a bit of range anxiety is there

That hadn't even occurred to me!

: - )

Jonathan

PS: A daughter turned up with her ID.3 yesterday. Started getting our minds round charging rates and the miles/energy factor: thanks for your illuminating observations on that.

[[XAP]Bob]

PS: A daughter turned up with her ID.3 yesterday. Started getting our minds round charging rates and the miles/energy factor: thanks for your illuminating observations on that.

's OK - glad they've helped someone wrap their heads around it

[Hellhound]

The range of current EVs is miles off being anywhere near viable.Or should I say years off.Until they can compete they will always be a non starter.I can do easily do 500 miles on a full tank and I'm 'heavy footed'.It takes me less than 5 mins to go from empty to full at a fuel station.When EVs can do this I might look at one.I doubt it will happen anytime soon so I'll be sticking to Diesel.

[[XAP]Bob]

So how often do you do more than 200 miles in a day?

As a note my EV goes from empty to full in about ten seconds of my time, and I don't have to go anywhere special to do that.


Besides petrol will never catch on, my horse runs on oats and is much cheaper.

[Elizabeth_S]

There was a very interesting article on lithium batteries in Chemistry World in July:
https://www.chemistryworld.com/features ... 38.article

[[XAP]Bob]

Interesting - particularly in that lithium seems to be well on the way to better extraction methods.

Cobalt is already not used in many batteries - Tesla completely abandoned it in 2020 IIRC

And second life and eventual recycling will be a viable business once we get some end of life battery packs (and we are starting to see them).

[Hellhound]

So how often do you do more than 200 miles in a day?
As a note my EV goes from empty to full in about ten seconds of my time, and I don't have to go anywhere special to do that.

Quite often as it happens When I do I want to be able to do it without having to recharge.
So which electric car can you fully charge in 10 seconds?

[Jdsk]

So how often do you do more than 200 miles in a day?
As a note my EV goes from empty to full in about ten seconds of my time, and I don't have to go anywhere special to do that.

Quite often as it happens. When I do I want to be able to do it without having to recharge.
So which electric car can you fully charge in 10 seconds?

I suspect that's how long it takes to plug it in at home...

Jonathan

[Stevek76]

I can't fully charge my relatively small 35L petrol tank in 10s either.


Re viability of EVs (as much as I frequently bridle at them being misused as an excuse to avoid tackling wider transport car dependency issues), surrey road cops have one as an unmarked patrol vehicle and seem to find it quite viable:

https://twitter.com/SurreyRoadCops/stat ... 5993465858

[[XAP]Bob]

So how often do you do more than 200 miles in a day?
As a note my EV goes from empty to full in about ten seconds of my time, and I don't have to go anywhere special to do that.

Quite often as it happens When I do I want to be able to do it without having to recharge.
So which electric car can you fully charge in 10 seconds?

Really? Most people who think that find that they don’t do nearly as many days like that as they think.
And driving several hundred miles is also the point at which you *do* want to take a proper break - road safety isn’t enhanced by people (and I used to be among them) who think nothing of driving for ten to fourteen hours straight.


And I said ten seconds of *my* time, not ten seconds to charge it. You have to babysit a pump for five minutes, I plug in as I go into my house and it’s done - full battery any morning I want.

[mjr]

Why must every electrification topic turn into a rehash of the electric vehicles one? I'd really like to hear more from people with electric heating or generation.

[[XAP]Bob]

Because I couldn’t see the electric car one and the gas set reminded me of the queues this morning.

I have some experience of solar generation, the ASHP has only recently been enstalled though, so don’t know much about that

[Hellhound]

So how often do you do more than 200 miles in a day?
As a note my EV goes from empty to full in about ten seconds of my time, and I don't have to go anywhere special to do that.

Quite often as it happens When I do I want to be able to do it without having to recharge.
So which electric car can you fully charge in 10 seconds?

Really? Most people who think that find that they don’t do nearly as many days like that as they think.
And driving several hundred miles is also the point at which you *do* want to take a proper break - road safety isn’t enhanced by people (and I used to be among them) who think nothing of driving for ten to fourteen hours straight.


And I said ten seconds of *my* time, not ten seconds to charge it. You have to babysit a pump for five minutes, I plug in as I go into my house and it’s done - full battery any morning I want.

Yes but when I've baby sat a pump for 5 mins I'm in my car and away again.If I'm driving to Cornwall or the NW Highlands I want to do it in the shortest time possible(as I do with any journey) having to stop and charge a car doesn't allow this.Driving to France/Spain/Italy would be a nightmare
Until the range of these cars at least doubles and the charge times are much quicker then they're just a non starter for me.
I wonder does higher speed driving drain the battery quicker?Are the distances quoted for town or motorway driving?