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Frank Hovis

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HOLA441
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HOLA442
6 minutes ago, Snafu said:

Just the cold itself has a 10 mile range impact on my battery despite heating being off. That's for the Zoe. 

6-10 degrees: 60-70 miles

2-5 degrees:  50-60 miles

That's significant! Part of the reason I am not a fan of hybrids - electric car with big a capacity battery as possible to get rid of the edge effects and provide as much electric only range possible.

Do you get range anxiety or in practice do you find those restricted ranges practical?

 

 

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HOLA443
1 hour ago, onlyme2 said:

That's significant! Part of the reason I am not a fan of hybrids - electric car with big a capacity battery as possible to get rid of the edge effects and provide as much electric only range possible.

Do you get range anxiety or in practice do you find those restricted ranges practical?

For me, it's practical. I use it for commutes to work which is a known entity. Work is 6 miles one way. I'd be OK driving to work when it's 32 mile left as I should come out at 18 miles when back home. I would not let it go below 10 :) 

For longer journeys we have a diesel estate. I want to switch that diesel estate to a plugin petrol hybrid estate (Kia Optima SW PHEV second half of the year, ideally). 

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HOLA444
4 minutes ago, Snafu said:

For me, it's practical. I use it for commutes to work which is a known entity. Work is 6 miles one way. I'd be OK driving to work when it's 32 mile left as I should come out at 18 miles when back home. I would not let it go below 10 :) 

For longer journeys we have a diesel estate. I want to switch that diesel estate to a plugin petrol hybrid estate (Kia Optima SW PHEV second half of the year, ideally). 

Deffo the right way to run your car. Lot of evidence out there that running lithium batteries between 20% and 80% full will maximise battery capacity/life over the longer term - depending on battery chemistry and whole car setup could be dramatic usable battery life extension. This is over and beyond what the car manufacturers inbuilt battery systems use as charging / driving bounds - they are looking at saleability, performance, range as buyer marketing points, not necessarily what will in the longer term affect durability of the battery! If the car is lease then maybe not so much of a concern, if owned though well worth following as far as possible.

 

 

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6 hours ago, onlyme2 said:

Oh they've gone hybrid, oh well, a start, and that's the charging issues out of the way - they'll end up doing a lot on fuel then. 70miles all electric may mean 40-50 real electric miles in practical use. Looking more like a vehicle to get round emissions zones which give hybrids a free pass.

Glad I'm not the only one surprised, the video only mentions electric, but a shot of the partially assembled vehicle in the factory seemed to show a big space at the back of the engine bay for a transmission tunnel which I thought was odd. Found another article which says about a hybrid power train. 

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HOLA446

Went for a test drive in a BMW i3 this week. 

Astonishing performance, the lack of noise (pretty much any noise apart from slight whirr now & then from the motor) made for a far more relaxing drive than an Ice car. Dash read out said 125 miles range on electric only, plus a further 80 miles from the 2 cylinder range extender petrol engine under the floor in the boot, so around 200miles in total. Auto box & all mod cons so little different to any other car. Auto gear lever on steering wheel block a little odd at first but I suspect you wouldn't notice after a few trips. 

Only disappointment inside was the 'low rent' look of much of the dash material. This is apparently because it's 100% recyclable, according to the salesman, made from recycled germans or something. Shame cause the rest of the interior was similar to any other 'prestige' car. 

Price however cannot be justified. £33k (including range extender) for what is basically a Golf sized car is £10k too much. What surprised me however is that I was completely won over by the drive, the performance & the technology. Once production is scaled up, charging points become ubiquitous & prices are more competitive, only a matter of time, sales will take off. The tech is ready to go today (actually several years ago). Diesel is dead. We're soon going to witness a step change. 100% guaranteed.

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8 minutes ago, Little Frank said:

Price however cannot be justified. £33k (including range extender) for what is basically a Golf sized car is £10k too much. What surprised me however is that I was completely won over by the drive, the performance & the technology.

The hybrid Golf GTE is pitched at roughly the same price point. Although it is actually rather bigger in point of fact. It has 5 seats rather than the 4 you get in an i3, and a slightly larger boot, and takes a roofrack. You also get substantially longer total range though only 31 miles on electric only.

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47 minutes ago, Little Frank said:

Price however cannot be justified. £33k (including range extender) for what is basically a Golf sized car is £10k too much. What surprised me however is that I was completely won over by the drive, the performance & the technology. Once production is scaled up, charging points become ubiquitous & prices are more competitive, only a matter of time, sales will take off. The tech is ready to go today (actually several years ago). Diesel is dead. We're soon going to witness a step change. 100% guaranteed.

The only thing really holding back people from electric is inertia -- they understand ICE and will stick with it.  Once there are enough electric cars to mean that everyone has some experience of one then sales will snowball.

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HOLA449
On 4/14/2017 at 2:37 PM, dgul said:

The only thing really holding back people from electric is inertia -- they understand ICE and will stick with it.  Once there are enough electric cars to mean that everyone has some experience of one then sales will snowball.

Actually, as I climbed out of the i3 my immediate thought was how the BMW main dealer forecourt was chock full of millions of £££s worth of completely obsolete technology that they have to shift. It was like gazing on an elephants' graveyard or several acres of CRT TVs. It's not the punters who are holding this back at all, it's the industry itself.

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HOLA4410

Traveled on a hybrid bus for the first time on Sunday, double decker.  At the next stop the engine cut out and didn't start up again as the driver slowly crawled up to the traffic lights, which were red at the time. Lights turned to green and it was obviously electric power till about 10mph. Then the engine fired up and it felt like a regular bus changing from 1st to 2nd. 

 

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HOLA4411

I'm about the hand back the very cheap motoring vehicle we've had for two years - the Renault Zoe pure electric thingy. It was 125 quid a month in total per month. These cheap deals don't seem to exist anymore and not all types of vehicles exist in PHEV yet which is really annoying me. I know loads more are coming out in the next year. 

Wife hates the look of the Leaf and Prius - so unfortunately it's a non starter. Kia Niro Hybrid looks like it could be it. Also refuses the Kia Optima PHEV annoyingly. 

Golf GTE and Passat GTE - maybe - but no good deals/monthly payments. Meh.

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HOLA4412
1 hour ago, Snafu said:

I'm about the hand back the very cheap motoring vehicle we've had for two years - the Renault Zoe pure electric thingy. It was 125 quid a month in total per month. These cheap deals don't seem to exist anymore and not all types of vehicles exist in PHEV yet which is really annoying me. I know loads more are coming out in the next year. 

Wife hates the look of the Leaf and Prius - so unfortunately it's a non starter. Kia Niro Hybrid looks like it could be it. Also refuses the Kia Optima PHEV annoyingly. 

Golf GTE and Passat GTE - maybe - but no good deals/monthly payments. Meh.

Quite agree. Manufacturers appear to be playing some variation of game theory waiting for the first major player to go bust before ramping up production. My money is still on Tesla to be that fall guy/catalyst But we'll see......

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HOLA4415

I know someone who works for a company that converts diesel busses to all electric. The motor hardly takes up any room in the engine bay, so they cram it with batteries. They also fit regenerative braking to top up the batteries. It costs something like £100k to convert an existing bus vs £250k for a new off the peg leccy bus.

It turns out to be surprisingly practicable for city busses - they don't do many miles per shift, and use little power when stationary. And unlike diesel busses they're not belching toxic smoke into the locality when they're stationary and picking up passengers.

This is a good thing as the air in parts of Sheffield centre is virtually um-breathable in places. South Yorks Transport has some hybrid busses for longer runs though.

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1 hour ago, newbonic said:

I know someone who works for a company that converts diesel busses to all electric. The motor hardly takes up any room in the engine bay, so they cram it with batteries. They also fit regenerative braking to top up the batteries. It costs something like £100k to convert an existing bus vs £250k for a new off the peg leccy bus.

It turns out to be surprisingly practicable for city busses - they don't do many miles per shift, and use little power when stationary. And unlike diesel busses they're not belching toxic smoke into the locality when they're stationary and picking up passengers.

This is a good thing as the air in parts of Sheffield centre is virtually um-breathable in places. South Yorks Transport has some hybrid busses for longer runs though.

Another company is taking existing diesel buses and installing a replacement diesel electric hybrid unit. As an ex bus driver, I'd say the ability of an electric motor to generate torque at low speed makes a hybrid  bus very attractive for pulling out of bus stops rapidly in front of the rental dumpy trucks everyone seems to be buying nowadays. Rapid acceleration at low speeds is needed to keep the bus running to time.  As long as you don't do what they did with Boris buses, cheapest battery leads to having to drive on an inadequate diesel engine which makes the journey slower.

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HOLA4419
23 minutes ago, Saving For a Space Ship said:

 

 

I knew this was coming

ubitricity converts streetlamps to charge electric cars in london

http://www.designboom.com/technology/ubitricity-06-22-2017/

Interesing, although the requirement for a smartphone is a bit of a downside. Hope the infrastructure is up to it, even if LED lights mean lower power for the lights hence spare capacity in the wiring a lot of cars being charged might still put a strain on it.

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HOLA4421

Seriously?

Who gives a f**k what the evil vampire squid thinks. Usually Goldman Sucks says whatever is in their interest, i.e. they want to short the stock so they badmouth it to influence the markets.

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HOLA4422
On 05/07/2017 at 8:17 PM, Habeas Domus said:

Brutal News for Tesla: Goldman Predicts the Stock Will Get Slashed in Half

https://www.thestreet.com/story/14210708/1/bad-news-for-tesla-goldman-predicts-shares-will-get-slashed-in-half.html

Perhaps. The EV genie is out of the bottle and most is the world is incapable of supporting any large scale implementation of the technology. 

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HOLA4424

  Tesla Model S durability: cars with 250K and 300K miles still humming along happily

 http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1112465_tesla-model-s-durability-cars-with-250k-and-300k-miles-still-humming-along-happily

 

2018 Nissan Leaf debuts: 150 miles for $30,875, 200-plus miles in 2019  

 
 
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HOLA4425
On ‎03‎/‎05‎/‎2017 at 3:09 PM, Travisher said:

Another company is taking existing diesel buses and installing a replacement diesel electric hybrid unit. As an ex bus driver, I'd say the ability of an electric motor to generate torque at low speed makes a hybrid  bus very attractive for pulling out of bus stops rapidly in front of the rental dumpy trucks everyone seems to be buying nowadays. Rapid acceleration at low speeds is needed to keep the bus running to time.  As long as you don't do what they did with Boris buses, cheapest battery leads to having to drive on an inadequate diesel engine which makes the journey slower.

That's fine as long as no-one is allowed to stand and everyone has found their seat and sat down.

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